Page 38 of Mark my Words

BOSTON

Sam’s hand clasped mine tightly as I pulled him toward the entrance to my building, ignoring the stares from the other residents gathered in the small lobby area. The front desk clerk was long gone, and only a few people were seated on the plush couches just inside the building.

This place tended to attract young professionals as tenants, mostly arrogant fuckboi types that hit on me in the elevators at least once a week, whereas I only wanted one particular young professional to execute some very wanted advances on me in the confined space.

“No doorman?” Sam teased, tucking me into his side while we waited for the elevator to return to the lobby.

“No, Sam.” I rolled my eyes, toying with one of the buttons on the front of his dress shirt. “I’m not that pretentious.”

“Hmm,” he hummed as he leaned toward me, kissing the side of my head.

“What does that mean?” While I’ll admit that I did like nice things, I tried to live on my income, apart from letting my grandmother subsidize my apartment. She’d seen it as a way to keep me away from my father, understanding that I was suffocating under his thumb in New York. She’d been forced into marriage to a man she barely knew at nineteen to ensure the family fortune remained in the family, so she could empathize with my parents trying to push me into the same thing. They’d been allowed to marry for love—when they still loved each other—and they weren’t pressuring Gregory into getting married yet, but as soon as I had my degree in hand, my parents started matchmaking.

After a dozen horrendous dates with their wealthy friends’ sons, I knew I needed to get as far away from them as possible. I’d been set on finding a copy-editing position in California, but I’d met Isobel at a trade conference and knew I wanted to work with her. I’d still had to go through the complete hiring process and started in a lower position than desired, but I loved my job. Which was why I was so pissed off that the only role for me to move forward in my chosen genre would be to move closer to the family compound. I couldn’t call that place home anymore. It brought back too many memories of fighting with my intoxicated, narcissistic mother and hyper-controlling father. But I was refusing to dwell on them right now.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I’m just not used to people throwing money around, and I guess I never associated you with someone like...”

“Someone like my arrogant douche of a brother?”

“Yeah, like him...”

He hesitated like he wanted to say something else, and I hated to be that person, but I asked him anyway because I hated people who wouldn’t communicate. “Go ahead and finish the sentence, Sam.”

He glanced down at me, hesitating just long enough for the elevator to arrive, causing him to close his mouth again and urge me into the small metal box.

Once the doors closed, I turned toward him, leaning my hip against the wood railing. “You’re not getting off that easy, Langley.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was going to be easy, but we should at least get into your apartment first,” he joked.

Shaking my head, I arched an eyebrow. He was telling me what I wanted to know before he got off—that was for damn sure.

“Fine. Who the fuck is Trevor?”

Surprised laughter bubbled up my throat as he narrowed his eyes at me, not expecting that reaction. “Oh, come on, Sam. I never took you for the jealous type.”

“I’m...”

“Yeah, you hear me make one off-hand comment about an arranged marriage, and you get all alpha male on me. I’m not anyone’s property, Sam. We aren’t even dating.”

Anger—or maybe annoyance—flashed in his eyes, and I looked off to the side, watching the numbers go up, my floor rapidly approaching. I hadn’t wanted to start a fight. I just wanted to see if the second—well, I guess technically the fourth, or was it the fifth?—time would be as explosive as the first.

“That’s...ugh. Why do you do this?” Sam sighed, deflating from his momentary frustration.

“Do what, Sam? Not let myself be treated like someone’s property?” I knew I was pushing him away again, but I wouldn’t be some submissive girlfriend. That wasn’t what this was, and even though Trevor was just some rich asshole I never thought about, Sam would not be allowed to play the jealous boyfriend card with me.

“That’s not what this is, and you know it, Kristine. You’re pushing me away because I asked you a question you don’t want to answer. I’m not asking for your life story, but this guy must have been important to you if marriage was in the picture.”

My eyes widened as I looked at the frown pulled across his lips. It didn’t look like it belonged there. Sam wasn’t some taciturn guy. He was always smiling or smirking in that irritating way of his. “Fine,” he sighed, and I hated that he kept using that word. It was a filler word that conveyed nothing other than vague annoyance.

The doors to the elevator parted, and I stepped forward, watching as his hand clenched the railing and he remained rooted in his spot.

“Oh, come on, Sam. That isn’t what this is. Get out of the damn elevator,” I laughed as I stood in the hallway with my hand on the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.

“Maybe I should go home.”

Fuck. Come on. Play with me, Sam. I didn’t want him to go, but he was trying to blur the lines.

“Fine...“ I teased, turning toward the side of the hallway my apartment was on and taking a step forward. “Guess it’s just me and the silicone stud tonight. See you at work.”

---