Page 35 of Just Say (Hell) No
“I told you,” Nyree said. She was starting to pick up the coffee table now, like she was going to carry something almost as tall as she was, and twice as wide, up the stairs. “She’s a Burmese. More like a dog, really. Take the other end of this.”
He said, “No. I’ve got it. Take something else. Here. Take my kitten.”
She ignored that and started removing drawers from the tallboy, and he said, “Notthat.Some… bags, or something. Stop it.”
“You do realize,” she said, “that I’m a fully grown woman.”
“Not grown much,” he said, and Victoria sucked in a breath and said, “Ooh.”
Nyree turned to face him. Slowly. And said, “Try again, boy.”
“Oh?” Marko said. “Was that too authoritative for you? Could be that’s the way I am. Or could be I’m narky because somebody gave theHeralda photo of me with a kitten on my head.”
She smiled, and he stood and watched her do it. That smile was choice. That smile was the sun coming out and every dirty dream he’d ever had, all rolled into one. “Yeh,” she said, drawing the word out while the smile got a little sweeter. A little hotter. “Didn’t it come out great? You looked so good. I heard that calls to the shelter were up by twenty-one percent the past two days. What’s wrong? Did the other fellas take the piss?” She must have interpreted his expression correctly, because she started to laugh. That bedroom laugh of hers, dark and heady as whisky. “Aw. Poor baby. They did. What happened?”
“Little matter of some stuffed cats. I’ll get over it sometime, I’m sure. I may need to carry heavy things for you, though. Part of the recovery process.” He handed her the kitten and picked up the coffee table. “I’ll see you upstairs. And if you’re carrying drawers when I do, I’ll have stern words for you.”
He went inside the house without looking back, carrying the heavy coffee table as if it were a box of matches, and Nyree stuck the kitten in a carrier bag full of bedding and reached for an armful of clothes on hangers.
Victoria had a hand over her chest and was patting it. “Sorry,” she said, and used the hand to fan her face. “Can’t… breathe. Much… hotness.”
“That’s because you aren’t used to them.” Nyree may have been having a few issues with her own heart rate, but she wasn’t admitting it. “The muscles are standard equipment. Just another rugby boy.”
“That’s no boy,” Victoria said. “That is aman.”
Nyree didn’t answer that, because she’d have to acknowledge that it was true. The kitten was making some noise at being separated from the love of her life, and she needed to get the cars unloaded anyway.
“If you actually want him, and you’re protesting for the sake of your principles,” Victoria said, “tell me now. Because it’s not just the muscles, and I want it.”
The kitten was still meowing, but Nyree stood still. “What about Seb?”
“When we went to that lunch yesterday,” Victoria said, pulling out her own armload of clothes on hangers, “he said I’d dominated the conversation. Because I talked about my case.”
“All right. That’s it.” Nyree’s arms were aching. She set the bag down, juggled the clothes, and then had to grab for the kitten, who’d got tired of waiting for her prince and was trying to escape. Which caused half the clothes to slip from their stack and spill onto the driveway. “Bugger. Right. I know you’re not supposed to bash the boyfriend because if you get back together again, blah blah, awkwardness ensues, but I don’t care. Seb is a gold-plated, purebred, eyeless, slimy pink worm. Break up with him.”
Victoria sighed and shifted her own armful of clothes. “Never become a lawyer. You’re temperamentally unsuited. And yeh, that’s the plan. Which would be why…” She inclined her head toward the house.
“No,” Nyree said. Wait. Where hadthatcome from?
“Oh.” Victoria digested that. “All right. Girl Code’s a thing. Next question. When are you telling him who you are?”
Nyree started picking up the clothes she’d dropped. Not easy with one hand, so she put Cat, still loudly protesting the tortures of separation, back into the carrier bag. “Not now, anyway. It would only complicate things.”
“How?”
“How about ‘in every way possible?’ Besides, I really will be helping here, because Marko’s going to be gone too much, and Ella’s going to need somebody. As long as I’m not sleeping with him, what does it matter? My family won’t know, because I still have the same address,Markowon’t know, because I’m here for Ella, not for him, and it’ll be fine. He’ll be focused on other things. I’ve lived with rugby players before, remember? They care about rugby, cricket, possibly fishing, and sex in its more recreational forms. With women not like me. And that’s generally all.”
“Huh. What about the ones who are married? And how do you know about the sex? Never tell me your brothers shared that with you. Or did they?” She peered at Nyree more intently. “Somethingyouhaven’t shared?”
“Could be I’m psychic. And all right, the married ones are married. Granted. Marko’s not. He’s never even lived with anybody, and he’s thirty-two. Proof positive.”
“Uh-huh. And you know this how? Oh, right. You picked it up during all that time when you had no interest in him.”
“Look,” Nyree said. “It’s a business arrangement, and a caring-for-Ella arrangement, which is fine. But he doesn’t like anything I like, and vice versa. His house may be—all right, pretty bloody spectacular—but it’s not me. You’ll see when you go in. Also, he hated my Pookie painting.”
“Well,” Victoria pointed out reasonably, “you hate it, too, a bit.”
“We don’t match,” Nyree said. “And if I slept with him, Iwouldhave to tell him who I was, and it would all blow up. It would create a whole big pile of awkward, which neither of us needs, and neither does Ella. And—yes, I need the money. I do. I wish I didn’t, but I do. It’s business. It’s Ella. It’s mylife.”
