Page 30 of A Billionaire After Dark

She bumped the refrigerator door closed with her hip. “Just a friend.”

“How many times have you been with him?”

She paused in the process of handing him a bottle of water, and her eyebrows lifted. “Does it matter?”

It shouldn’t matter, but damned if it did. And what did he expect? She was an escort. He ignored the water and grabbed his jacket from the barstool. “Look, I’ve got to go.”

She set the bottles down on the counter. “This was my first date with Mike.”

“Dates? Is that what you call them?”

She picked up a bottle of water and unscrewed the lid. “What do you call them? Midnight rendezvous? A walk on the wild side?”

“Therapy.” The word just popped out, but once it was there, he refused to take it back. It was a form of therapy to him. One he thought would work. Now he had to wonder if he hadn’t jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Looking into Eden’s hazel eyes, he felt like he was burning from the inside out. He waited for her to ask more questions, but instead she did a one-eighty.

“Do you like spaghetti?” She took a drink of water and then screwed the lid back on the bottle. “I’ve got some leftover from a couple nights ago, and if you don’t help me finish it tonight, I’ll be stuck eating it tomorrow. Which will probably result in food poisoning.”

“Or you could throw it away.”

She shook her head. “My mother taught me to not be wasteful.”

Some of the tension in Nash’s shoulders eased. “Funny, my mother taught me the same thing.” He started to put on his jacket. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea if I stay.”

“Would you feel more comfortable if I turn off the lights and take off all my clothes?”

He paused with one arm in the sleeve of his jacket. “So you’re a smartass along with being a hand talker.”

She sent him a sassy look that had him smiling. “Pretty much. Come on, stay. I promise to keep my distance.”

Her keeping her distance wasn’t the problem. The problem was him keeping his. And still, he couldn’t seem to refuse her. He placed his jacket back on the barstool. “Fine, but only because spaghetti happens to be my favorite.”

“Now I wouldn’t have guessed that.” Eden moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic container. After opening the lid, she took a sniff before dumping the contents into a saucepan and placing it on the stove. “I would’ve guessed something Southern fried.” She turned the gas burner on high. “This shouldn’t take long.” At that high heat, it wouldn’t take long to burn. She sent him a sheepish look. “Would you mind keeping an eye on it while I jump in the shower?”

The visual of Eden standing in a shower with a spray of water running over her naked body almost had Nash grabbing his jacket and heading for the door again. Instead, he reined in his desires and nodded. He waited for her to disappear inside the bathroom before he got up and walked into the kitchen.

The leftover spaghetti was a lost cause. There wasn’t enough sauce, and the pasta noodles were overcooked. He dumped the entire pan in the trash and then looked through the cupboards until he found a package of pasta and a can of crushed tomatoes. After putting on a pot of water to boil for the pasta, he put together a marinara sauce using the tomatoes. He spiced it with salt, pepper, and some minced garlic from the jar he found in the refrigerator, then let it simmer as he looked around.

He wasn’t surprised by the small size of her apartment—real estate in San Francisco wasn’t cheap or available—but he would’ve thought that an escort could afford something a little nicer. The neighborhood was seedy at best. There was a crack in the window over the sink. The appliances were ancient. And the faucet leaked. Of course, how could she afford to fix those things when she kept forgetting to get her night’s wages? The envelope of money was still in his coat pocket. And he wondered why he hadn’t given it to her right away. Probably because that would end their relationship. And for some reason, he wasn’t ready for that to happen.

He was reading what appeared to be a running schedule thumbtacked to the wall when Eden stepped out of the bathroom. Her damp hair was clipped up on her head in a haphazard way that was sexy as hell, and her face was so squeaky clean that he could see the freckles on the bridge of her nose and the flush of her cheeks. A blue scarf similar to the one she’d been wearing earlier was tied around her neck. Come to think of it, she had been wearing one the night they’d had dinner with her grandparents. Obviously, Eden liked scarves. Although it didn’t exactly go with her baggy T-shirt and sweatpants. He recognized the sweats immediately. They were from the coed collection that French Kiss had put out the previous fall. His brow knotted. Romeo’s collection.

“You really need to stop spoiling me with all your smiles.”

He glanced up to find Eden watching him with a teasing sparkle in her eyes. “You really are a smartass,” he said before he walked into the kitchen to stir the marinara. “So why the running schedule?”

“I’m running in the Bay City Marathon.” She peeked over his shoulder, and he caught a whiff of herbal shampoo. “What happened to my spaghetti?”

“I tossed it out.”

“Control freak.”

He bit back a grin as he added salt and the pasta to the boiling water. “So you’re a runner.”

“Not really, which is why I needed to set some running goals. I figure if I run one extra mile a day, I’ll be able to finish the marathon.”

He turned to her. “You mean an extra mile a week, right? How many miles do you run now?”

She fidgeted with her scarf. “Three.”

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