Page 25 of Fake It 'til You Make It

And he just stole another piece of my calzone!

Mike scowls at Andrew. ‘Your idiocy is my gain.’ Then he turns to me. ‘Come on, babes, let’s go to bed.’

He finishes with a cocksure wink. It’s vulgar. He is so far from my type.

But right now, he’s the lesser of evils, and so I allow him to take the box ofmychocolate dessert and I follow him into the elevator.

‘Why did you do that?’ I ask when we are alone and rising.

He presses the button for the eighth floor, then steps back so that we’re in line with each other, me holding the now partial calzone and him with his hands in his pockets. He side eyes me. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

I look up to him. ‘Is it?’

Reaching over, he lifts the lid on my pizza box and tears off another strip of the contents. ‘Sweet tooth.’

My eyes narrow on him. ‘Well, thank you. I’ve had one of the worst nights imaginable and without your help, it could have been worse.’

The doors open to the eighth floor. Mike gestures for me to step out ahead of him.

‘Don’t mention it,’ he says, blasé. Entirely opposite to his actions downstairs, yet entirely in keeping with the version of him I have met on every previous occasion. ‘After you.’

‘After me? I’m on the seventh floor.’

‘Not if you want to keep up the pretense of me being your boyfriend,babes.’ He’s enjoying this, the ratbag. ‘Your ex and the replacement you are waiting for this elevator, which means we need to get out on the same floor. And why not really rub it in his face by going to the penthouse?’

The second last thing on earth I want to do is hang out with an arrogant guy in his swanky penthouse apartment, giving up my comfort food, but theworstthing on earth I can think to do right now is to still be in the foyer with Andrew and Sasha. So like it or not, the jock is right; we need to get out on the same floor, and I want my dessert, even if I am now sharing it.

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ I ask begrudgingly, stomping past him.

‘Sure am,’ he says, and I know he’s grinning as he walks behind me to the door of his apartment.

I’m happy to report that the eighth floor looks much like the seventh – vanilla walls with a few oil paintings (mostly abstract smatterings of colorful paint), a couple of stone-colored side tables with fancy fresh flowers on top of them.

Mike holds his fob against the door lock and pushes it open for me.

Before I step inside, I set something straight: ‘don’t ever call me babe or baby or any other massively misogynistic term.’ Facing him, I take one backward step into his apartment. ‘And for your information, your breed is well on its way to becoming extinct.’

I turn on my painful heels and into the expanse of an absolutely vast penthouse apartment.

The place really is enormous. Not even in the same league as my little 7B. The view I’m familiar with seems much bolder and brighter thanks to the entire wall of windows. The sky is dark now, as dark as it gets in Brooklyn, and against the nothingness of the sky, the everythingness of Manhattan is twinkling.

The downstairs is fully open plan – a lounge with a large L-shaped sofa and a couple of swish chairs, dining area with a twelve-seat table, massive black unit kitchen with a six-stool island. I step further inside, turning on the spot, my head leaning back, and see a mezzanine glass balcony overhanging the lounge to one side of the sizeable turning staircase. To the other side is a hallway and, I suspect, the bedrooms.

The thought of the sleeping space brings the relentless banging every night to the forefront of my mind and I feel theskin of my neck heat, then I sense Mike close to me, right before I feel his arm reach around me from behind.

He grabs the pizza box from my hands and takes it to the kitchen.

‘Hey!’

He opens the box on the kitchen island and takes two plates down from a rack shelf. He cuts the pizza in what would have been the original middle, before he started eating it downstairs, then places the unscathed half on one plate and hands it to me, taking the other piece for himself.

‘Drink?’ he asks, already opening the double-door refrigerator to reveal more bottles of beer than a bar might stock.

After the night I’ve had…

‘Sure, thanks.’ I give in and take a seat on a stool.

‘Beer or beer?’

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