Page 79 of Mended Hearts

He snickered, shaking his head as I snatched paper towels from the counter. “Jumpy tonight, Leigh?”

“Beforeyoutried to jumpstart my heart? No, I was not. Thank you very much.”

“What the hell are you doing in here, anyway?” He knelt beside me, helping wipe up the marinara splattered everywhere.

“Indoctrinating your children to restore the next generation’s musical taste. What does it look like?” Our hands collided as we both went to mop up the same puddle of sauce. I would not be acknowledging that the Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Discussed had not, in fact, purged Ollie from my system.

Apparently, it did the opposite. Because something as simple as a finger graze shouldn’t have the power to send heat flashing through me, but the pulse between my thighs begged to differ. One fucking night, and he had me trained like a Pavlovian dog.

Bad Leighton.This man did not—and could not—equate to the promise of pleasure in my brain.

We’d agreed—everything was simpler if we kept things the way they were.

But as I really looked at him tonight, my body didn’t care. He was fucking breathtaking. His jacket was gone, dark hair perfectly disheveled, tie loosened to expose the base of his throat, sleeves rolled up to the elbow in a way that made me salivate. It was bad enough he had a heart big enough to cast a protective umbrella over the city—he just had to look like that too?

“It looks like you’re cooking,” he observed, snapping me out of my panic-induced micro-sleep as I stared at his hand, tendons shifting over the now-red towels.

“Is this a trick question?”

Chuckling, he straightened and offered me a hand. “I told you. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Who says I’m worrying?”

“You know what I meant. Cooking dinner’s not on your shoulders.”

“Sure, sure, but Beau wanted to make his own pizza, and I thought it was a great idea.”

“And where isBeau?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

“Passed the hell out in the living room.”

“Fitting.”

“Very.”

“It smells like Nona’s in here.”

“As it should. Tillie insisted it was sacrilege to use store-bought sauce.” I dumped the tomato-soaked towels in the trash, sliding it back under the sink in his fancy retractable cabinet. After the shitshow Friday night, I’d decided to do whatever I could to make that little girl happy.

“As she should,” he said proudly.

“So I swiped the recipe from Alice, who swiped it from Emmaline, who made her vow it wouldn’t leave the family. Think she’ll kill me when she finds out I know?”

“You are family.”

“But not technically, right?” I flashed him my best doe eyes. Because contrary to our little spat on Thanksgiving, no, I did not want to categorize Oliver Hart as “family.” That made Halloween seem… icky. And it was anything but that.

Ollie turned to the fridge, grabbed some fizzy juice thing, and held one up in offering, smirking when I shook my head. “Eh. More likely she tries to marry you off to one of her innumerable grandchildren.”

“Forced marriage was always on my bucket list.”

“Of course it was.”

“I assumed it would be some mafia prince who whisked me away from my life as an indentured stepchild and then slayed all my enemies.”

“Naturally.”

“You got any appealing second cousins?”

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