Cara glanced at him quickly before walking inside and looking around. “Very nice,” she murmured.

“I can’t take the credit. My mother and sister insisted on helping.” With them taking over and helping him buy furniture, everything had a warm, homey feel, with a primarily brown and beige color scheme and navy accents. Pictures of his family were scattered around the main living room, also courtesy of the women in his life. The ones who mattered, anyway.

Cara turned to him, an unexpected smile on her face. “They have good taste.” She unzipped her jacket and he stepped forward to take it, still waiting for the fallout of his earlier stupidity.

“I didn’t realize you had an apartment here, though I guess I should have. New York is your home, after all.”

The tightness in his throat that he usually associated with visiting his parents’ house suddenly rose here. “Right now Serendipity is home. It just didn’t make sense to give up a low rental when—”

“You plan on returning as soon as you can. I know.” She looked away and headed for the windows to check out the view.

He came up behind her, standing close as she looked at the high-rise across the street. “Can we just get it over with?” he asked tightly, wanting to know what she was thinking.

“Get what over with?”

She spun around to face him, and he braced his hands on her hips…just because he wanted to touch her.

“Lauren,” he said.

“Your contact?” Cara asked innocently.

Too innocently, and he narrowed his gaze. “You’re mad I didn’t tell you about her?”

“That you didn’t tell me Lauren was a woman? It might have been nice to be prepared.” She tilted her head to one side, her blue eyes bright.

But he couldn’t read her. Damn that cop training.

“Or do you think I’m upset that you’re obviously involved with her and didn’t think to mention it? Yeah, that would have been good to know too.” She held herself tight but didn’t step out of his grasp.

No anger. Yet. Mike’s heart beat harder in his chest. Lauren had come close to slapping him when he told her he was involved with Cara and had shown up with her without giving his ex-lover a heads-up.

Mike glanced at Cara, whose level of anger he still couldn’t gauge. Perhaps he ought to put his hand over his groin. Just in case.

“Or maybe it was the fact that she was drop-dead gorgeous that I’d have liked to know?”

Mike winced, knowing that Lauren looked nothing like the computer geek she actually was. “I didn’t think about it ahead of time because we’re not currently involved.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. He was certain many suspects had shriveled under that steely gaze.

“Come on. Her greeting left no doubt. And I’m not that stupid.”

He couldn’t help but grin at that. “No, but I am. We had an understanding. That’s all it was. She scratched an itch.”

Cara shook her head and tried unsuccessfully not to groan. “You are such a man.”

“And yet you aren’t yelling, screaming, or pitching a fit. Why is that?” The woman confounded him.

And wasn’t that why he liked her so much?

“Because turnabout is fair play and while we’re together, you’re mine,” she said, repeating his words back to him.

He burst out laughing, but it wasn’t funny. She was one in a million and he wasn’t ready to let her go.

Apparently she agreed because she finally wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him flush against her. Those lush curves were a perfect cushion for the harder planes of his body and the even harder ridge of his aching erection.

“Do we have an understanding?” she asked.

“Seems only fair.”

Tags: Carly Phillips Serendipity's Finest Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net