Page 96 of Strictly the Worst

She doesn’t need to be told twice. She practically runs across the room to it, pushing the door open.

Through the doorway I watch as she throws herself on the bed.

“Sorry about that,” I say.

Linc smiles at me. “Honestly, I like her enthusiasm. She’s the first person I’ve brought here who’s thrown themselves on the bed.”

And just like that I’m thinking about all the women he must have brought into his apartment. Beautiful ones. Not ones with teenage daughters and a bathroom that’s falling apart.

When I glance over at him, his eyes are trained on my face.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” he says. “It’s probably not true.”

“Am I that easy to read?” I ask him.

“Sometimes.” He finishes off the slice of pizza and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “You sure you don’t want some?”

“In a while.” I’m not hungry now.

“Where’s mom going to sleep?” Zoe asks, running out of the bedroom. “With me?” Her cheeks are tinged with pink. She looks so excited it’s not funny.

“There’s another guest room on the mezzanine,” Linc tells her. “Just up those stairs.”

I look over. They’re made of wood so highly polished you can see the ceiling reflected in them. The banister is made of glass. The three of us walk up them – well, two of us walk and Zoe runs. I try to ignore the guilty feeling that I’ve made her live in a house with holes in the floor for months, because she’s just so excited here.

“Here,” Linc murmurs, as we reach a thick wooden door with a brushed chrome handle. Zoe opens it and there’s a huge bed inside, made up with the kind of crisp white bed linen that makes you want to roll in the sheets. The floor is polished wood and on one wall there’s a line of mirrored doors, while the other is a floor to ceiling window overlooking the city.

“I’m thinking of renovating,” Linc says. “I hear mattresses on the floor are all the rage now.”

I widen my eyes at him, because if Zoe puts two and two together she’ll know he’s been in my bedroom. He just grins at me, sending a shiver down my back.

“If this is the guest bedroom, yours must be huge,” Zoe says.

Before Linc can say anything I shoot him a look.

“You can go see.” He shrugs. “It’s the next door over.”

Zoe’s speedy tour of Linc’s apartment continues with her rushing to his room.

“There better not be any sex toys in there,” I tell him.

“It’s okay, the housekeeper makes sure to hide them all.” He puts his hand lightly on my back as we follow Zoe to Linc’s bedroom. “Notice something?” he asks.

I look up at him quizzically. “No, what?”

“There are no holes in my floor. And the boards don’t creak.”

“And?”

He gives me a grin. “And if somebody was to tiptoe along here in the middle of the night, hypothetically, the person sleeping in the guest room downstairs would never know.”

“Holy shit, Mom, you should see the view in here,” Zoe calls out.

“I’m blaming you for her bad language,” I tell him, lifting a brow as we walk inside Linc’s bedroom.

My mouth drops open. It’s beautiful. Like downstairs, the whole wall is glass, with gauzy curtains on either side framing the perfect view. How did he afford this? Not on a PR director’s salary.

“It’s like having the biggest PC monitor in the world,” Zoe says, pressing her nose against the glass. Linc doesn’t seem bothered that her breath is misting the surface so I try not to be bothered either. “I bet you can see everything from here. A real life Grand Theft Auto.”

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