“I guess. Not really thought about it.”

“You close to them?”

He laughed. “You’re going to need a notepad and pen. Get in the shower and then we can get on with whatever you had planned for the day while we talk.”

I’d planned to spend the day cross-legged on my sofa, working on design ideas for his development, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He didn’t need to see my haphazard process.

“Okay, you can talk to me through the bathroom door. We don’t have time to waste,” I said, heading to my bedroom, my tea in hand.

“We’re going to be fine, you know.” He toed off his shoes and sat on my bed as if we’d known each other for years as I closed the bathroom door. It was weird, having a conversation with a stranger in my flat while I was getting naked. He could be an axe murderer or at the very least a pervert. Although I didn’t get a pervert vibe from him. He was too confident, too sure of himself.

“It’s not like we’re being quizzed by someone trying to catch you out,” he said.

“I told you, Karen smells a rat. She’ll absolutely be trying to catch us out.”

“But why? I thought you said you were friends.”

“We’ve drifted apart more recently,” I replied. “She’s said to Florence that she thinks something doesn’t add up between us.”

“Why does she care? Because your ex is the groom? Wasn’t it over between you years ago?”

I stepped into the shower, grateful Beck couldn’t see my expression and I could keep things breezy. “You know how gossipy people are,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear my answer and sidestepping the question. “We were together for a long time.” I wouldn’t tell a new boyfriend all the ins and outs of an old relationship right away, would I? If I had to go to that wedding, then I wanted it to be with the one person who didn’t think I was a fool—who didn’t know I’d spent years with a man who’d tossed me away and replaced me within weeks with my best friend.

I’d been humiliated enough. I needed a break from the shame, some kind of safe harbor.

“Were you engaged?” he asked, his deep voice carrying through the closed door.

I screwed my eyes shut, letting the water cascade over my face, hoping that dull ache in the pit of my stomach could be washed away. This was why I didn’t want to go to the wedding. Ninety-six-point-four percent of the time, I was entirely fine as long as I didn’t think about Matt and what he and Karen had done. But if I went to Scotland there’d be no escape from the two of them for an entire week. “Not officially,” I said. “But we’d talked about it. I assumed it would happen at some point.” I’d thought we were working toward our future together. I’d got that very wrong.

“You lived together?”

“Yeah. In this flat.”

Silence from the other side of the door. Good, the Matt conversation was over, and we could move on to more important stuff.

“Did you decorate this place?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I understand what you need in your development. I get the styles are different.” Most of this flat had been Matt’s choices, not mine. “What about you? Why do you think you’ve never lived with a woman?”

More silence but eventually he said, “I like my own space. Enjoy coming home, putting on the news, opening a beer, and sitting on my sofa in my boxers.”

That sounded like the boy equivalent of PJs, ice cream, and a re-watch of Bridget Jones’ Diary.

“And you can’t do that with a woman?” I finished rinsing out my hair and turned off the shower.

“I never have. I just like silence sometimes. I don’t want to have to talk all the time. I don’t want to have to hear about what happened in her day or remember that she took her cat to the vet or whatever.”

“Wow. Harsh,” I replied as I dried off and slipped on my favorite robe. It was white with pink flamingos all over it. I’d washed and worn it so often a small hole had appeared under the arm, but it was the most comfortable thing I owned, and I loved it.

Matt hated it.

“Harsh? That I like my own company?” he asked as I opened the door. He was laid back on my bed, one arm tucked behind his head, his long legs crossed at the ankle. My stomach tilted at the sight of him. He might drive a hard bargain, be overconfident, bordering on annoying, but there was no getting away from that sharp jaw and perfect body. The way his shirt fit him just perfectly, the way his trousers hinted at his clearly muscular thighs—it was almost obscene. I glanced away, trying to focus.

“I suppose it makes sense if you’ve never been in love, which you obviously haven’t.”

A grin spread over his face like a sunrise. “Obviously?”

I turned away and sat in front of my dressing table, looking at him in the mirror behind me. “Yes, it’s clear to me for two reasons. First, you wouldn’t think hearing about her day was a chore—you’d want to know about her cat.”

Tags: Louise Bay The Mister Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net