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I laughed. “Me neither.”
She slapped my shoulder. “Pervert.”
“I was only agreeing with you.” I’d missed the crimson in her cheeks earlier.
“You should have tipped him,” she said, shifting the subject.
“We don’t tip in this building.”
“What a quaint custom.” Her words dripped with sarcasm. “The rich people stay rich by keeping their money to themselves and not sharing any with the little people who clean their toilets. Or carry their luggage.”
“It’s not like that.” I sighed.
Her expression chastised me without words.
“Stay right here.” I left to chase after Sylvester and caught him by the elevator. Pulling out a Benjamin, I offered it. “Thanks for the help.”
“I’m not allowed,” his mouth said. His eyes, however, never left the big bill.
I stuffed it in his vest pocket. “I won’t tell Becka if you don’t.”
“Thank you, Mr. McAllister. Let me know if you need anything else.”
The elevator arrived, and he pressed a button inside and added. “Anything at all.”
That was more words than he’d spoken to me in the last year.
I walked back to my condo lighter on my feet. Alexa had reminded me how good it felt to follow Gramps’s advice:you can’t help everyone, but you can help someone. I remembered how I felt when I heard she got into Columbia.
I paused at the door to get control of my feelings.Oh Allie, what are you doing to me?I’d almost kissed her for real rather than show. With her tits pressed up against me and her shirt blown open, my mind had gone to all the wrong places, dangerous places. “This needs to stay platonic,” I said under my breath. My history with women was quite a few shades worse than terrible, and she deserved better than Manhattan’s worst bachelor.
* * *
Alexa
“Stay right here.”Evan had said it like a command.
So what if I’d been a complete klutz and almost killed myself? So what if he’d basically saved me? I didn’t do commands, edicts, or rules.
My heart pounded and blood rushed in my ears.
Evan had almost kissed me, because I’d almost invited him to. The idea of standing out here now, waiting for him to return so we could start up where we’d left off, terrified me even more than it excited me.
Years ago I’d yearned for Evan to be my first kiss. It hadn’t worked out that way. Today was not the day to find out how it would between us after a real kiss. I wouldn’t survive being one of his one-night or two-week flings. I wasn’t built that way.
As soon as I heard the door to the hallway close, I rushed back inside the condo, penthouse, palace, whatever this was. Down the hallway, I turned at the first door, the one Evan had pointed Sylvester to.
This situation called for full cover-up. I closed the door and opened my suitcase. Not finding a sweatshirt in there, I tried two garbage bags before I located my old Columbia sweatshirt. It would do.
“Allie?” I heard Evan call.
I turned the lock on the door, more to keep me in than him out. “In here,” I yelled.
He was closer now. “This room is—”
“The room is fine,” I assured him. “I just need…” King bed, attached bath—what was not to like about this room? Even if the walls were bare, save a single landscape painting. What I needed was some alone time to decompress. “To clean up.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
