She stared at him.
“Football team?”
Violet shrugged.
Cain just shook his head and went to the fridge. He shut it again, seeing it was empty, save the beer and leftovers.
She’d been counting on this and launched her initiative. “I was thinking we could go to breakfast. Discuss our game plan for this makeover mess we’ve found ourselves in.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Changing our tack, are we? Pretending we’re in this together?”
Aren’t we, though?
“It’s just breakfast,” Violet pointed out with what she thought was admirable patience.
He lifted the dog to eye level, then looked back at her, shaking his head. “Toto and I say no.”
“Coco.”
“You basically carried her in here in a basket. We’re going with Toto. Can you even take her into restaurants?”
“No,” Violet admitted. “We’ll have to drop her back at my place. I shouldn’t have brought her at all, but she looked so forlorn when I was leaving the house without her.”
“That’s one idea. Or”—he held up a finger—“you and Toto could both go to your house and stay there.”
She pretended she didn’t hear the suggestion. “What have you been eating since you’ve been here?”
“There’s a bagel place around the corner. It works.”
“Bagels aren’t a bad way to warm up to New York, but you’re never going to learn the city if you only stick within this block.”
“So?”
She sighed. “If you’re going to take over the business, you’ll have to make peace with the city. It wouldn’t kill you to at least try to learn your way around.”
He crossed his arms. “It might.”
Violet blew out her cheeks, reminding herself that he was trying to irritate her. It just came naturally. “If you’re this recalcitrant about breakfast, you’re going to hate shopping, aren’t you?”
“Shopping?” He looked appalled.
“Yep, as I thought,” she said. Then she tilted her head, trying yet another tack: bribery.
“The restaurant has bacon.”
Both Coco’s and Cain’s ears seemed to perk up, though he quickly pasted his sarcastic mask back on. “Yeah, because that’s all it takes to get a man to do what you want. The promise of bacon.”
She merely checked her watch. Waited.
He hesitated. “How far is this place?”
“Walking distance. If you’ll just go get dressed…”
He looked down. “I am dressed.”
“You’re clothed, yes. I mean dressed. For the day.
“To go out,” she clarified when he continued to stare at her.
Nothing.
Suspicion mingled with alarm that things were more dire than she realized. To confirm the worst of her fears, Violet stepped around him and began heading up the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” he called after her, setting the dog on the floor and following her.
“Assessing your wardrobe options,” she called.
The master bedroom was at the top of the hall, but a quick glance told Violet it hadn’t been touched.
She paused in the doorway, tensing slightly when she felt Cain come up behind her, too close. Too large. Too male.
“I’m not sleeping in a dead man’s bed,” he said by way of quiet explanation as Coco danced around their ankles.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” she said softly. Downstairs, it had been easy to forget that the home once belonged to Adam Rhodes. Here, though, despite the fact that it had clearly been cleaned, all personal items removed, it seemed as though he could walk in at any time.
Violet instinctively stepped back, bumping into Cain’s chest. For the second time that day, Cain steadied her, only this time his hand went to her waist, not her arms.
And lingered, thumb stroking in a caress.
She refused to react, knowing he was only trying to get a rise out of her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, even if her heart did seem to be beating a touch too fast.
“Are you done handling me?” she asked in a cool tone, her word choice a deliberate reference to their showdown in Edith’s parlor a couple days earlier.
He laughed softly, his breath ruffling her hair. “Still thinking about that, are you, Duchess?”
Cain stepped back, clearly intending to go back down the stairs, but Violet continued down the hall, looking into the first door. Bathroom. The one he was using, judging by the toothbrush on the sink and the beat-up toiletry bag balanced on the narrow counter.
She went to the next room, noting the duffel bag on the chair and the rumpled bed, and forced herself not to linger too long thinking about that last one.
Violet opened the closet door, prepared to assess options for his nicer clothing items, but there was nothing but a few empty hangers.
She went to the duffel bag, hesitating only slightly before rifling through it.
“Yes, you’re definitely the right person to teach me appropriate behavior,” he drawled from the doorway, where he leaned, arms crossed as usual. “Breaking and entering. Stealing coffee. Rummaging through people’s things…”
“I made you coffee,” she said, pulling out a couple of wrinkled T-shirts and another pair of jeans, just as worn as the ones he was wearing. A pair of sweatpants. A lone blue sweater that had seen better days. Better years.