I open my mouth to interject then snap it shut quickly. Was I seriously about to defend Penny? In a roomful of my peers, was I really about to pussy out and stick up for the set of perky tits that moved in next door? I don’t know her. These men, like me, are titans in their respective fields. I’m not about to go to war with them over a piece of ass—not even the perfect one Penny has.
Paul Winslow chimes in, crossing his legs and flashing his junk in my direction. If his father wasn’t a notorious criminal court judge with a reputation for taking it easy on his son’s friends, I’d already have punched him in the face a hundred times. I’m not a criminal, but I bend the law here and there. Winslow and I have an unspoken understanding. I don’t call him out for constantly being a douche, and he talks me up to his dad. “Brockton’s niece must be stopped. Before you know it, she’s going to have a nail salon in the lobby. They’ll probably open a gynecologist office on the top floor. This isn’t about equality. It’s about preserving the integrity and sanctity of this place. They can sell their tampons across the street. We need to come out strong and show women they don’t belong here by pushing this one out quickly.”
Yeah, he’s a dick even by my standards.
“I agree,” Luther replies through gritted teeth. “Brockton fucked up big time when he left the place to his niece. I say we go after her too. She probably doesn’t even want to own the building. She’s screwing with it because she’s got nothing better to do.”
“Yes, we should take down both of them,” Paul grunts as he pounds his fist into his palm. “Get me the lease she used, and my lawyers will find something to tie them up in court.”
“That’ll take time and more effort than we need to spend on this,” Luther says, and the other men around him nod their agreement. Something I’m sure he’s used to. “The woman living here is the weak link. We get her out before her sister returns, and then we deal with the niece. We’ll start small and take it as far as we have to.”
I don’t know what the fuck that means, but it doesn’t sound good.
“Yes,” Paul agrees, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I still want her lease agreement. Someone needs to get close enough to Penny to find out dirt on her and her sister. Dalton, you think you could handle that? Flash those pretty eyes at her?” Paul delivers the punch line, and like usual, he’s the only one laughing at his joke.
“No,” I say firmly. I’m not in this.
“You fuck anything. There’s a path worn in the carpet from the bar downstairs to your apartment door. Don’t pretend you have standards now. Go in there. Get the lease. Get out.” Paul looks at me with the serious expression he’d have if we were hashing out a business deal. It’s pathetic. I’m no fan of the building changing, but there are levels even I won’t sink to.
“No.”
“I’ve got a guy,” another man chimes in as he leans forward to join the conversation like we’re planning some secret mission. “He’s a hacker. I bet he can get the lease right off the server.”
“She’s your neighbor, right?” Paul asks me, clearly not ready to move on from the idea that I want in on this. “Someone said he saw you talking to her the other day.”
“Again. No. I’m not in on this.” I stand and adjust my towel as I head for the door. Someone’s on my heels, and I’m ready to tell them to back the fuck off before I realize it’s only Ben Simons.
“Those guys are freaked out,” Ben says, as the door closes behind us. He pushes his fogged-up glasses higher up his nose. I’m his only friend in the building, and I don’t even like him. Doesn’t say much for him. “You’d think this woman was carrying the plague. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Then you don’t know much about women.” I head into the locker room and grab my clothes. “If she stays, everything good about this place will change.”
Ben is a good kid. I glance at him briefly. Not a kid, he’s in his twenties, but God he’s young. He’s one of those guys you want to take out and show how to get laid. Rule number one: never look that eager—about anything.
“So you think they’ll break into her apartment and steal her lease?” Ben’s eyebrows are raised high as if he is challenging my ethics. He’s trying to figure out what kind of man I am, but I’ve got a poker face.
“They’re too smart for that.”
Ben shrugs and spins the combination on his locker. No one locks their shit up here. Just him. There’s no point in stealing each other’s stuff when we make the money we do. It’s one more reason I ask myself how the hell a guy like Ben made the cut and got an apartment in the first place.
“Go have a drink and forget what you heard.”
“Nah,” he says coolly. “That bar is not my scene.”
“You have a scene?” I shouldn’t have asked, because I opened the door to personal shit I really don’t give a fuck about. But he doesn’t belong here, and I’m mildly curious how he pulled it off.
“Not really. I work. A lot. At least I used to. My startup was bought by a major player in the music streaming industry, and I made a fortune. The apartment was thrown in to sweeten the deal. I hadn’t heard of this place but now that I’m here, I get the appeal.”
I’ve known guys who tried for ten years to get in. Some had to do despicable things to make the cut. Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t hang out in the bar and talk. They’d probably kick his ass or try to screw him out of his money. I almost tell him to be careful but stop myself.
This is why I don’t fucking talk to people. His problems aren’t mine.
I shower and dress in my usual suit and tie. When I finish and step into the hallway, he’s there in jeans and a shirt he’s probably had since high school. Shit, he waited for me. I’d walk past him, but he’s smiling at me like I’m not the total dick I am, and I feel sorry for him. An inconvenient feeling I stuff away. “I’m heading to the cigar lounge.”
“I don’t smoke,” he says, as if that were the point of going there. “Besides, I have a project I need to finish.”
I can’t help myself, I have to know. “What are you working on?”
“Just a new software program. I’ll build it, someone will swoop in and buy it, and then I’ll move on to the next thing. You?”
I can’t imagine he knows anything about the importing of commercial goods so I say, “The usual.” This isn’t the dick-measuring contest that often occurs here. How’s your portfolio surviving tanking oil prices? What are you driving? Saw your company’s stock price dropped two points today. Powerful men can be sharks sniffing for blood, but it doesn’t usually bother me. I don’t bleed because I don’t care. This however is different. Ben is making conversation like he actually wants to get to know me. Poor kid.
Ben pockets his hands in his jeans. “Hey, I respected what you said back in the steam room.”
“What?”
“No,” he replied simply. “You shot them right down. They needed to hear someone stand up for that woman.”
“I didn’t stand up for her.” I rub a hand over my eyes. Get me out of this conversation.
Ben ignores my protest and keeps trying to align our motives. “I told them I thought she was nice, but they don’t take me seriously.”
I can’t imagine why.
I start to walk away, and he trots to keep up with me. “But seriously, how far do you think they’ll go to get that woman out?”
“I have no idea.” I don’t want to think about it. I don’t owe anyone in the building a damn thing. The whole point of living here is, at least for me, not having to play nice. I’m no one’s hero. Women don’t belong here. Period. Done.
In true guy fashion, Ben and I don’t say another word as we part ways at the end of the hallway. Finally, some peace.
I head toward the bar. Maybe that blonde will be there. Rebecca? Rachel? Whatever her name is. She’s always downstairs. Last time I saw her she said she’d been practicing this spinning while fucking move, and she knew I’d be strong enough to pull it off.
That was far more enticing than the back and forth it would take to get Penny in my bed. Right?
Just that, the flashing thought of Penny in my bed is enough to have me gritting my teeth. I know when I go back to my apartment she’ll be one wall away. The pent-up lust in me is eating at my sanity.
If being with her before had felt like it might complicate things, the conversation I’d overheard in the steam room had driven that point home. I don’t do complicated.
Getting involved with Penny on any level is asking for trouble.
Why isn’t that enough to keep her from invading my thoughts throughout the day? It’s rare that I don’t know what to do, but I have to put an end to what is beginning to feel like an obsession.
That might involve fucking her.
No chance in hell sex with her will live up to what I’ve been imagining. We should just do it and move on.
Or I could avoid her.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Penny
I’m Zen. I pride myself on finding my center when things are going wrong. Perspective is everything. Sure my day might not be going perfectly, but then I think of all the reason I have to be grateful. I am healthy. I have amazing friends. I live in a city I love and have a job I actually enjoy. No one’s life is perfect, and expecting mine to be the exception is unrealistic. Of course there will be bumps. I knew coming into this it wasn’t going to be easy.
The men in this building are trying to mess with my head. It won’t work. I’m wise to the fact that they want me out. They don’t think I belong here, and I don’t. But Kylie does. She deserves a chance to network like she has a penis. I don’t see why men prefer to talk business while puffing on cancer sticks and dropping back Scotch like they really enjoy the taste of it. Wouldn’t everyone be more clear-headed to make important financial decisions if they did so over a tofu salad or after doing deep breathing exercises that increase oxygen to the brain?
I don’t get the appeal of what Brockton created, but the men in the building certainly do. It’s more like a fraternity than a co-op. I now see why Kylie wants in. So, no, it’s not where I would choose to live, but I understand why she thinks this would help her business-wise. And if it’s important to her, it’s important to me.
“Please release the car to my friend, Millie Stephens. She’ll be by to pick it up in about an hour. There’s no use bringing it back here because they’ll just have you and your buddies tow it again, even though I’m parked completely legally.”
The man on the other end of the line at the impound lot couldn’t care less about my side of the story. He just wants his money and my instructions in writing. “Make sure she’s here before five or you’ll get charged for another day,” he grunts and sounds ready to disconnect the line.
“Understood,” I say cheerfully. It’s not his fault someone keeps reporting my car as illegally parked. “If you speak to whoever it is who keeps reporting me, tell them it didn’t work. They didn’t upset me. I actually like to walk.”
The line went silent as the man disconnected the call. I tuck my cell phone away and start loading my grocery bags with fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmers’ market down the street. It strikes me as funny that all those men stay hidden behind the walls of that place like it’s a fortress and have likely never walked through the market here.
Although I’m still shopping, my thoughts have already wandered to the small café I’ll stop at on the way home. From the street it doesn’t look like much, but it serves some of the freshest-brewed, small-batch, uniquely blended coffee in Boston. The owners are first-generation citizens who came to the United States with only a passion for coffee and a dream. They put three children through college, sponsored countless family members, and love what they do so much that they have no plans for retiring.
And they greet me by name. I wonder if anyone in the Bachelor Tower even knows that place exists.
“Hey, you’re Penny,” a man with dark-framed glasses and a youthful haircut says as he grabs a couple lemons and tosses them into his bag.
“I am,” I say skeptically, sort of recognizing him.
“I’m Ben. Your neighbor. Well, one of your many new neighbors. I should thank you for moving in. I used to be the least liked person in the building, but I handed that title off to you.”
There’s a lightness to him that reminds me of Millie. As casually as possible, I say, “It’s like being the kid who shoots milk out of his nose in the cafeteria and is teased mercilessly about it until someone else pees their pants and suddenly nose milk is old news.”
He laughs.
I join in because suddenly the Bachelor Tower reminds me of an elementary school and the men there are the petulant little schoolboys. How would their overblown egos handle that comparison?
Ben is still smiling. I doubt he’d care.
“Exactly,” he says, snapping his fingers and grinning widely. “Not that I really care what those guys think, and you shouldn’t either. If your sister secured an apartment in the building, they need to get over it.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a sudden sense of relief. Tension I didn’t realize I had begins to melt away. “They won’t win. Their shenanigans are annoying, but I’m not the easy target they think I am.”
“That’s good to know,” Ben says, looking like he’s holding back more. “I heard about your car.”
I shrug. “I don’t mind walking. It’s actually healthier.”
“That’s a really good attitude.”
“Like I said—they won’t win.”
Ben shifts from one foot to another. “I wish I could say it’ll get better, but I don’t think it will. They really want you out.”
“I’ll be fine.” I shrug, then lift a bouquet of flowers and breathe in the refreshing fragrance. “It’s just a couple weeks. All I have to do is wait it out. They can mess with me, but if they try anything on Kylie, they won’t know what hit them.”
“Does she know they’re launching a campaign to get you out?”
“No.” My cheeks flush because I’m not entirely sure leaving Kylie in the dark is the right choice. I know exactly what is on the line for her in China. It’s a crucial deal she’s been working on for eighteen months. I don’t know the details because she stopped bothering trying to tell me about work years ago. But I do know if she’s there instead of here, it’s because she has no choice. If I call and show even a hint of weakness she’ll feel she has to fix the situation. She’s already wound so tight I wonder how she doesn’t snap. My goal is to help her, not be the reason she has a stroke. “She’s really busy, and I have it all under control.”
“Let me know if I can help. Don’t get me wrong, living in the Bachelor Tower is nice, but it’s outdated and smells like old men.”
“Yeah.” I laugh, because it does. “What do you think they’re afraid my sister will do if she lives there? Install air fresheners?”
Ben frowns. “They are afraid, and that doesn’t bring out the best in any of them.”
“Well, all I plan to do is keep my head down until Kylie gets back.”
With a nod, Ben says, “Just know that not everyone is out to get you. I think you add to the place.” That comment would have sounded sleazy coming from almost anyone else, but he looks too sincere for it to be a come-on. “It’s nice to have another normal person around.” He gestures at his groceries as if this is a barometer for how down-to-earth he is. I have to agree.
“I think we might be the only two people in the building who cook. Or shop for their own food.”
“Probably. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable snapping my fingers and barking for things to arrive without delay because I deserve everything I want exactly how I want it and exactly when I want it. Isn’t that exhausting?”
“I know. Hey, have you tried Barista Bungalow?” I tell everyone about that place, and now that Ben seems like a guy who enjoys the simpler things, I figure he should ch
eck it out.
“Yes, it’s amazing,” Ben says, lighting with recognition. “It’s such a hole in the wall. I can’t remember how I even found it the first time. I try to grab a cup there every Sunday when my schedule allows. You want to head over together and get something?”
The siren in my head begins to sound loudly. Ben is actually my type. He’s friendly. Charming. Social. This is the guy I should want to date—or take a wild risk on.
Not Dalton.
So why don’t I feel anything? Where are the sparks? The heated looks?
He has a nice smile, but it doesn’t send butterflies through me when he flashes it. I try to picture him naked, but all I see is Dalton’s face with a smug, arrogant expression as if he’s deliberately stopping me from being able to want another man.
I should take Ben up on the offer just to prove to myself—and to Dalton—that I’m looking for more than lust. Shared interests matter. Kindness matters.
Sadly, neither makes me wonder how Ben kisses.
Which is probably for the best. It’d be best if I write off men in general for a while. “I’m heading back to my place now before they change my key card again and lock me out. Thanks though.”
“Oh, you think I was asking you out,” Ben says, waving his hands. “I really was going to grab a cup. I hope I didn’t make things weird.”
No, I did. “Of course you didn’t,” I say gently. “See you around.”
He gracefully moves on to the next section of the market, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I try to center myself with some steady breathing and a few meditation techniques. It’s all about opening my mind, focusing on something that brings me joy. Peace. Pleasure . . . Pleasure?
My mind goes fuzzy, and there’s Dalton’s big fat face again—grinning like this is a game and he just won the first round. And I know right then—I’m in trouble.