Page 64 of The Tryst

“Like you and me?”

I growl. “Better not be like you and me.”

She laughs, leaning back into the sofa. “Relax. He went to Carlisle Academy too. A few years ahead of me. His mother is friends with my mom and your…” There’s a pause, like she’s debating whether to say the next words, then she does. “Your ex-wife.”

Which means Kip is close to her age.

Which means Kip can likely date her.

Which means he can…

I need to stop. This is not friendly terrain at all. I have to try to be friends with her. I have to get a handle on these reckless emotions.

Besides, falling harder for this woman would be a repeat of my past. I fell hard for the rich girl more than twenty years ago. Then I knocked her up, pissed off her family, and nearly derailed her life.

I should stay far away from the Park Avenue elite.

Sure, I can compete with all those rich fuckers now in the wallet department, but I’ll always be the guy from the other side of the tracks. Guys who went to community college, then state school, aren’t part of the Carlisle Academy crowd.

But I picture Layla—Lola then—working her ass off in Miami, making contacts, building her app on a new name.

Not a family name.

Goddammit, she’s hardly part of that scene either. Why does she have to be so alluring?

I need a distraction. I glance over at the ticking clock by the kitchen. Cooking always calms me. The rhythm, the focus, the creativity. “Want dinner?”

“Sure,” she says, perhaps as eager for a change of subject and scenery as I am. “I can order from someplace?”

“Or I can cook,” I offer.

That gets her attention. “You can cook?”

I laugh, gesturing to the open-plan kitchen. “Why do you think I have all those pots and pans in the kitchen?”

“For show?” she asks, serious.

I roll my eyes. “For real, beautiful. For real,” I say, before I can catch my mistake. But fuck it, she is beautiful. Maybe I don’t want to correct my error—not with the Kips of the world trying to get the woman I can’t have. “Want a veggie stir-fry?”

Her smile is utterly charmed, and fuck Kip. I put that smile there. I bet Kip can’t cook. “That sounds great,” she says.

A few minutes later, I’m in the kitchen, chopping red and orange peppers on a cutting board while Layla grabs broccoli from the veggie drawer.

“Can you grab the tofu too?” I ask. “Wait. I didn’t ask if you like tofu.”

“I like tofu if it’s cooked well.”

“I can cook it well,” I say, with a confident grin. “Second shelf.”

She finds it and sets it next to me. “Have you always cooked?”

“Always. My dad taught me when I was seven,” I tell her as I cut the orange pepper into thin slices. “He likes to go out once a week to a restaurant, but the rest of the time he makes dinner at home. Finn and I took him when I first came to town.He lives in Queens with my mom.”

“You can see him regularly,” she says, sounding a little wistful. Maybe even amazed. “Is he retired?”

“He was a firefighter for forty years. Retired at sixty-five.”

“Did your mom work?”

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