Page 7 of Playing With His Heart

That wasn’t fair to his assistant, because Jerry usually only called about work. Zayn didn’t want Jenna upset over the interruption when she was the one that came to see him. He definitely wanted the chance to talk to her more.

“Oh, right. Thanks. I’ll check my email in a little while, then. I’m glad you caught that one. I’ll be working on it later, just in case you hear from me again. Have a good night.”

Zayn said goodbye and laid his cell phone on the kitchen counter, then went to join Jenna in the living room.

“Sorry if I’m keeping you from something,” Jenna said and started to rise from the couch.

“Oh no, you’re fine. I’ll actually be working all night, but I don’t want to bore you with all that.”

“I can go if you need to get busy.”

“I wasn’t going to start ’til after dinner. Hey are you hungry? I need to order in tonight anyway, and I would actually like to talk to you a little more—it’s about the work I’m in the middle of.”

“You want my help with your work?”

“Well, kind of. It’s about your apartment building.”

Chapter Four

Why in the world would he want my help with his work? I’m an editor, not a business guru.

“What exactly do you need from me?”

“How about we order dinner first and then I’ll explain. Are you in? I’m buying.”

“I guess I can’t turn down free food.”

She still wanted to know how she could help him. She sat on the couch with her Coke while he ran off to the kitchen where she could hear cabinets and drawers slamming closed.

“Are you alright in there?”

“Yep, great. Just found what I was looking for. Are you allergic to anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

That’s a new one—a guy had never asked her that before. He should be careful, or she might think he cared. Since he was taking a while, she was tired of sitting, so she looked around a little while he ordered dinner. He had a fireplace with a mantel full of pictures, but none of the people looked like him. That was a bit puzzling. She’d also never asked about his marital status, but there were no photos of him with a woman. Well, there was one—but she was older, so Jenna assumed that was his mom.

He had great taste in decor for a guy. She would bet he’d hired an interior decorator because most guys didn’t have the skill to decorate a place to not look like a man cave. It could have come furnished—either way, she’d bet he didn’t have the time to pick out everything. She liked the earthen gray and coral color scheme a lot, though. The navy-blue sofa matched both and gave a nice splash of color in the living area. He even had some nice black and white framed nature art on the walls. Those were pictures she would choose for her own place.

She walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows and was taken aback by the view. She could see a few stars peeking through the veil of lights from the city and was instantly jealous. There were no fire escapes on a building this size and she would guess probably no fully opening windows, either. That would be one heck of a fall.

Zayn quietly appeared at her side and they stood in comfortable silence for several moments. Jenna liked the comfortable silence between them.

“Amazing view, isn’t it?”

“I was just thinking the same thing. I can even see some of the stars from here. Not like my apartment. There is no view from my window except for the alley and trash dumpsters. There’s also a horrible mystery stench that comes in with the wind.”

He smirked a little. She hoped he wouldn’t be offended when she boasted about the building’s ridiculous downfalls.

“Yeah. About that. I’m sorry. I never realized how bad that building had gotten and was shocked when I went in there this morning. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”

“About my building? Well, I guess technically it’s yours, but where I live.”

“Yeah, I found out some disturbing stuff when I was there this morning. Truthfully, I’m surprised it’s still standing.”

Jenna looked at him, concern stretched across her forehead.

“Oh, I did not want to hear that. Is it safe to even be living there?”

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