Love Thy Neighbor Read online

  “Three. But I use one as an office.”

  “This place is huge. But if you don’t mind me saying, you’re not utilizing this space right at all.” She went over to one of the partitioned walls and gave it a thump. “Is there a stud in here?” she asked.

  “Not really sure.”

  “Hmmm…” She thumped it again. “We could move this wall back and it would open the space.”

  “You do that sort of thing?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m also an architect. Technically, an architectural interior designer.”

  “Really.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s impressive.”

  “What did you think, I just painted walls and threw pillows around?”

  He laughed. “Uh, actually, yes.”

  She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder.

  “Okay.” He raised his hands in surrender. “So what does an architectural designer do exactly?”

  “Well, I’m trained as an architect, so I can make structural changes. If we need to raise a ceiling, move walls, gut a kitchen or a bath. I work around all the compliance laws and secure the permits and I handle everything so my clients don’t have to work with another outside source. And I do schematics and all that stuff, too. Gives me an edge over the competition.”

  “That’s brilliant,” he said, nodding his approval.

  “I’d like to think so.”

  Dallas leaned against the kitchen island and drummed his thumb against the marble countertop. “So tell me honestly, is this place beyond all hope? Can you help me?”

  “Are you kidding me? Your place has great bones.”

  “Bones, huh? Is that what you people call it?”

  “We people.” she laughed. “Seriously though, this is a big job.”

  “I figured as much. Big space equals big job, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I know you’re busy and probably wouldn’t be able to get to this for a while but…”

  Was he kidding? If it were up to her she’d start that minute, but Nikki forced herself to play it cool. “This is an incredible space,” she said. “Do you have any idea what we could do with this? Look at your ceilings and those wood beams. Structurally you really wouldn’t have to do that much to make this place amazing.” Her adrenaline pumped as she roamed through the space. “Some new lighting… We could completely separate your studio from your living space… Give you some privacy.”

  “You just read my mind.” He smiled bigger than before. “That’s exactly what I’m after. I’m tired of living in my studio and bringing my studio home with me. If you could turn this place into a real home for me, I’d be forever in your debt.”

  “If that’s what you want, then we can make it happen.” For the first time in months, she felt a bit of her old self begin to surface. “Can I see the upstairs?” she asked, eager to keep exploring his magnificent loft.

  “By all means. After you.” He gestured toward the spiral staircase.

  “These must be a real challenge after a night of drinking,” she said, gingerly taking the stairs and gripping the banister.

  “They seemed like a good idea when I bought the place,” he said, trailing behind her.

  When she reached the second level, she stepped into a seating area that doubled as storage space and led into the master bedroom. The king-size bed was perfectly made, which told her that either Mr. Sexy was a neat freak, or he hadn’t slept there the night before. She was pretty sure it was the latter. What she didn’t have to guess about was his duvet cover. It was expensive. The man had good taste.

  “The deck’s this way.” He opened the French doors off his bedroom, and the view looked eastward, out at the city. He had a gas grill in the corner, but no table, no chairs.

  Nikki could picture the deck flooded with flowers and plants, an herb garden in the corner. She’d transform it into a piece of paradise.

  “This is spectacular,” she said.

  “You should see it at night. You get a view of the whole skyline.”

  They went back downstairs and he offered her a cup of coffee.

  “I see you’re into recycling,” she said, gesturing to the six blue recycling bins lined up beneath the counter. “Those are a bit of an eyesore—we could find a better solution for them.”

  “Just as long as I have ’em,” he said.

  “You’re very conscientious about Mother Earth, aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t you?” he asked.

  She thought about her trash bag filled with wine bottles, paper plates, plastic cups. “Ah, no,” she said with a sheepish smile, “I don’t recycle. I’m a bad person.”

  “Why don’t you?” He sounded more curious than accusatory.

  “You really do care about the environment.”

  “I’ve never understood how people can’t care about it. It sustains us, it helps us thrive in every possible way, and we take it for granted and suck its resources dry.” He stopped and shook his head. “Sorry, didn’t mean to lecture you there. I’ll get off my soapbox now.”

  She smiled to reassure him it was okay. She’d never really given the whole “save Mother Earth” thing much thought. She’d also never met anyone who was as passionate about the subject as Dallas.

  “So,” she said, trying to lighten the mood, “we should do a proper walk-through. I’ll take some measurements. We’ll go room by room and talk about exactly what you want, and after that I’ll work up some preliminary ideas and an estimate. And don’t worry—I’ll give you the friends and family discount.” Hell, his space was so spectacular she would have paid him to design it.

  “Sounds fantastic.” He handed her a cup of coffee.

  She looked at him and smiled. The more she got to know Dallas, the more she liked him. There was so much more to him than being a sexy package.

  “You know,” she said, leaning against his marble counter, “I think you made Matthew pretty jealous yesterday.”

  “Really? What makes you think so?”

  “He kept asking about you. Wanting to know how I knew you… Did you really live right across the hall from me… And oh God, he thought—” She set her coffee mug down and covered her mouth, laughing.

  “What? He thought what?”

  “No.” She shook her head and waved her hand in front of her face. “It’s too embarrassing. I can’t—”

  “Now you have to tell me.”

  She rolled her eyes and giggled some more. “Okay—” She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself. “Believe it or not, he thought you were hitting on me.” She burst out laughing again.

  “Why is that so funny?”

  “Oh, c’mon. You hitting on me?” She laughed so hard her eyes teared up.

  “It’s not absurd, you know, me hitting on you.” He smiled, cocked one eyebrow, and Nikki’s body instantly filled with a whoosh of heat.

  Trying to recover, she managed to say, “I still can’t believe Matthew got that jealous from meeting you. If he thought we were actually dating he’d probably come crawling back on his hands and knees, begging me to forgive him.” She was still laughing, only something about what she’d said rang true. She knew Matthew. Knew how competitive he was. She may have said it in jest, but she was absolutely spot-on about it.

  Dallas leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “How bad do you want him back?”

  “What do you mean?” Suddenly Nikki wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “If you want, we could make Matthew a whole lot more jealous.”

  She looked into his eyes and her stomach fluttered. That’s crazy. Isn’t it? In an effort to compose herself, she went for a nonchalant response. “Don’t even offer something like that unless you’re serious, because I’m liable to take you up on it.”

  “I am serious. Look, if that little exchange out in the hallway made him sit up and take notice, we could have that boy talking to himself in no time.”

  Was he really offering up h
is so-called services? “Dallas, you mean to say that if I asked you to pretend that you were into me, you know, just to make Matthew jealous, to make him appreciate what he had with me, you’d go along with it?”

  “Anything to help a lovely lady in need.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling up.

  God, everything about him made her think of sex. In her mind she was already running her hands over his hard body, kissing his neck, her tongue teasing his earlobe and— Stop it. She kept her eyes on him and her head out of the gutter. “You’re serious about making my ex jealous?”

  “If that would make you happy, I’d be happy to oblige.”

  She thought about Lori and Ned’s wedding coming up. If she walked in there with Dallas, Matthew’s jaw would hit the floor. It wouldn’t matter who his date was, he’d be completely focused on Nikki and Dallas. It was kind of perfect.

  “Well,” Nikki said, hesitantly, “if you’re really serious about helping, I do have something coming up. It’s a wedding. Two of our closest friends, and, well—”

  “Great. When is it?”

  She bit down on her lip. “Saturday night. I know it’s really short notice and you probably already have plans, but…”

  He placed two fingers over her lips to quiet her. Her entire body tingled at his touch.

  “Nikki, would you like me to be your date?”

  “Oh, would you?” Everything inside her filled with anticipation. “Matthew’s bringing someone and it’s killing me.”

  “Saturday night, huh?”

  “I know—I know, you probably have a date or something.”

  He held up a finger again and reached for his cell, punching in a set of numbers. “Hey, mate, yeah it’s me… Listen, I have to take a pass on Saturday. Yeah, everything’s cool. Something came up…” He looked at Nikki and winked. “No worries. We’re good. Catch you later.” He clicked off his phone and set it on the counter. “So Nikki Norris, it looks like I’m taking you to a wedding Saturday night.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dallas wrapped his shoot for the day and signed a slew of release forms for his crew and the models to take back to their agencies. One of the girls wanted to stay and hang out, but he told her he had plans. And he did. Nikki was coming by to do her walk-through with him. He was excited about the prospect of having a real home, where he could turn a corner and turn off all the work crap from the day. But in truth, he was more excited about seeing Nikki again. Ridiculously excited.

  There was something about her that put him at ease, made him feel comfortable. She wasn’t like the other women he knew. Those women were aggressive, always angling for their next gig, their next rescue, their next fuck. They saw what they wanted and they pounced. He could never quite get why they were so sure they wanted him when they didn’t even know him. Didn’t know a damn thing about him. Beyond a quick shag here and there, he wanted nothing to do with those types. They saw him as a means to boost their careers, boost their egos. Those types of women were a real turn-off.

  But not Nikki. She was refreshing, different. Reserved, even a little self-deprecating, which he didn’t fully understand. Why would a woman as accomplished and stunning as Nikki Norris be so consumed with self-doubt? All he could think was that her ex-fiancé was to blame, and that pissed him off. Made him want to reverse all the damage that little arse had done to her.

  Nikki was a nice, sweet girl, and despite what she said about wanting Matthew to realize what he gave up, Dallas knew she was helplessly in love with the little wanker, who didn’t deserve her in the first place. It was easy for him to say that she’d dodged a bullet by not marrying the guy, but still, he knew it would be hard for her to walk into a wedding and watch her friends get married while her ex-fiancé was there with another woman. Just the thought of that insensitive, inconsiderate fuck doing that to her made Dallas’s blood boil. So if Nikki wanted to make her ex jealous, he’d be only too glad to make that happen.

  It killed him that Matthew had actually made Nikki believe she was boring. Not only was she the furthest thing from being a boring woman, she had no idea how beautiful and sexy she was. How sensual she could be.

  Now that he’d met the great Matthew, he doubted Nikki had ever been with a man who knew how to satisfy her. If she weren’t so blindly in love with her ex, and if he thought she could handle it, he would love to be the man to show her what she was made of.

  When she came over the other morning, he noticed her eyes light up as she roamed from room to room, her head spinning with ideas and inspiration. She was passionate about her work. That was obvious. But he could also tell that there was a whole lot of untapped passion lodged inside her. She had no idea how much power she packed in that tight, curvy body of hers that she always kept covered up. Thinking about her like that got him going, his jeans growing tighter by the minute, his balls giving off that ache, that need.

  He knew he had to shake it off before she showed up, so he went into his office and tried to shift gears. He sorted through his emails, responded to a few clients, and ignored half a dozen notes from women he’d met here and there. There was a new email from his brother:

  Troy—Don’t know if you got my messages but I’ve been trying to reach you for the past two weeks. I really need to talk to you. It’s about mom. It’s important. Call me or email me back. Cliff.

  Dallas deleted the email and began studying some photographs of glaciers in McMurdo. Black-and-whites, taken in 1934. The ice shelf was massive back then, and sadly he knew that the majority of it was gone now.

  Glancing at the clock, he noted it was almost half past seven. Nikki had said she’d come by half an hour ago. He studied a few more photographs, made some notes, and finally at a quarter to eight, he went across the hall and knocked on her door to make sure she was okay.

  “Oh no,” she said, answering the door, “I’m so sorry. I lost all track of time.” She wore a sack-like dress that looked two sizes too big on her.

  “What’s going on? What’s the problem?”

  Nikki slapped her hands to her sides. “Jenna was supposed to come over and help me pick out something to wear to the wedding, only she has to work late and so I’ve been trying to find something—”

  “Whose dress is that?”

  “What do you mean whose dress? It’s mine.”

  “Yours? It’s huge on you. You can’t wear that.”

  She pushed her hair up off her forehead. “It is? Maybe if I belt it?” She gathered the excess fabric at her waist.

  “No. Not a good look.” He shook his head. “Listen, do you want to really knock this guy’s socks off Saturday night? You really want to show him what he’s missing?”

  She nodded earnestly, her big brown eyes pulling him in.

  He reached for his mobile and punched out a number. “Hey, babe, yeah it’s me… Listen, would you mind keeping the shop open a bit later tonight… Yeah, I’m coming by with a special customer… Thanks, Lana. I owe you one.” He turned off his phone and tucked it back in his pocket. “Put on some clothes that fit and come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shopping.”

  …

  Twenty minutes later, Nikki walked down Oak Street with Dallas at her side. She never shopped on Oak Street. All the designer shops and froufrou boutiques were too rich for her blood. Not that she wouldn’t spend that kind of money on linens and fluffy bath towels, or the right picture frame or throw pillow—now that was a different story. She suspected that they’d turn onto a side street soon, hitting one of the discount stores like Marshalls or T.J.Maxx.

  When she saw that Dallas was taking her into a chic boutique whose name she couldn’t quite pronounce, she stopped on the sidewalk, a ball of panic forming in her gut. “You don’t understand, Dallas. I can’t shop in there. I’m broke right now. I can’t afford clothes in a place like this.”

  He studied her for a moment, then his handsome mouth broke into a broad smile. “Don’t worry about it. If you�
�re good, I’ll let you work it off in trade.” He held the door for her and gestured her inside with a sweep of his arm.

  A rail-thin woman with bony cheeks and silver hair pulled back in a severe bun greeted them at the door. She threw her arms around Dallas, then turned to Nikki and held out her hand like she had water dripping off her fingertips.

  “Lana, this is Nikki Norris. Lana here has got impeccable taste.”

  “Oh, no. No,” Lana said pointing a lacquered finger at Dallas’s chest. “He’s the one. He has the impeccable taste here, not me.”

  Nikki stood there, unsure of what to do. But Dallas clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. “Okay, Lana, show us what you’ve got for a Saturday night wedding.” He turned and looked at Nikki, squinting one eye as if sizing her up. “We need something elegant, tasteful but still sexy. I’m thinking something along the lines of a classic little black dress.”

  Lana smiled. “What size are you, dear?”

  Nikki shook her head. “I don’t know if you’d even have anything in here to fit me. I’m a big girl.”

  “Trust me, you’re not a big girl.” Lana disappeared and came back out a few minutes later pushing a rack of black dresses. She held them up one at a time while Dallas assessed each one.

  “Too long… Too bulky… Too much beading…” He turned to Nikki and shrugged. “What can I tell you, I’m a fashion shooter. This is what I do. You know how to dress a room, I know how to dress a woman.”

  And no doubt undress them, too.

  He sorted through the rack and weeded out about six or seven dresses for Nikki to try on, and Lana showed her to a fitting room that was all chrome and mirrors.

  Nikki held one of the quilted-hangered dresses beneath her chin. There was no way this was going to fit her. She was certain of it. She sat in the chair with her elbows on her knees and gazed at herself in the three-way mirror through a splay of fingers until she heard a knock on the door.

  “Hey, what’s going on in there?” Dallas’s accent still caught in her chest, making her swoon each time he spoke. “Let’s have a look at you,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” She opened the door a crack. “These dresses, they’re gorgeous and you’re so sweet to bring me here, but these aren’t me.”