Page 90 of A Smile Full of Lies
Ros turned back toward the stove like she hadn’t just slayed me with something as simple as homemade minestrone. I stepped back, and took the bowl over to the island, then settled myself there. I saw a little of the tension leave her, as I gave her that bit of space. I watched her from where I sat, still half in my work clothes, Armani jacket discarded over the back of the stool, sleeves rolled up, collar undone.
She hadn’t said much when I walked in, just blinked at me like I’d walked in shirtless again. But this time, it wasn’t my favorite pair of sweatpants doing damage.
“You okay?” I asked, watching her stir something that didn’t need stirring.
“Fine,” she said too fast. “You just… look good in a suit.”
I arched a brow.
“Too good,” she added under her breath.
I smiled slowly.
“Mmm. And here I thought my sweatpants were the problem.”
“They are,” she muttered, then turned and leaned against the counter, arms crossed over her chest. “You’re ruining me. You do realize that, right?”
My pulse kicked into overdrive.
“Am I?”
She didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she stared at me like I was a character in a story she was writing – the kind who’s supposed to be the villain, but somehow ends up being more desirable than the hero… and maybe I was. Maybe I liked being that for her. Complicated. Dangerous. Unspeakably hers.
“You keep testing my self-control like this,” she said finally, “and I might start thinking about things I shouldn’t.”
“Like what?”
She didn’t blink.
“Like us being neighbors with benefits.”
I froze. The world tilted on its axis.
She said it so casually, so confidently, but I could see the heat blooming beneath her skin. The careful control in her expression. The way her fingers flexed against the counter behind her.
Rosalind Cooper had just thrown the first punch in a fight she didn’t know she couldn’t win.
I dropped my spoon, my appetite shifting in an instant. It wasn’t food I wanted anymore, it was her. The spoon hit the edge of the bowl with a soft clink, but the sound felt deafening in the thick silence that had followed her words.
Neighbors with benefits.
She’d said it so fucking recklessly.
Ros stood there like she hadn’t just cracked the fault line I’d been carefully stepping over since she moved in… since long before that, if I was being honest. Her chin lifted, but her fingers betrayed her, tightening just a little too hard around the counter’s edge.
My gaze dragged down her body — messy hair, faded sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder, shorts that showed off her legs and left nothing to my imagination.
She shifted under my stare.
“What?” she said, defensive now. “You’ve been walking around shirtless in gray sweatpants or in delicious, expensive suits all week. I’m only human.”
I leaned back slowly on my stool, resting one arm on the counter, the other over the back of the chair.
“So this is my fault?”
Her eyes narrowed.
