TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Naomi was somehow unsurprised to see Oliver Cunningham outside her peephole. She was surprised by the jump in her stomach at the mere sight of him. Like a schoolgirl with a crush.
Suddenly she was glad she’d taken the time to put on makeup and real clothes today, instead of the sweatpants and messy bun she’d been rocking for the past couple of days of working at home.
Naomi opened the door and for a long moment, neither of them said a thing.
“I’ll pay you,” he said, ending the charged silence.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“To watch my father. I’ll pay you. He can’t stand his new caretaker, and that’s too damn bad because I’ll need her to stay with him at night, but during the day . . . does your offer still stand?”
She should say no. She should end this thing with the Cunninghams before it got any more complicated.
Instead, she stepped aside, wordlessly inviting him in.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, gesturing at the stove. “I was just making . . . well, making’s a strong word. I’m heating up a jar of tomato sauce and boiling water for pasta.”
He gave her a surprised look. “Did you just invite me to dinner?”
“Apparently,” she muttered, lifting the lid off the boiling water on the stove and adding a generous handful of salt as she’d seen on the Food Network, not the tiny pinch of salt her mom had added on the rare occasions she’d tried to cook.
“I don’t have to stay. I was just . . . my dad’s decided he likes you.”
“That surprises you?” she asked, taking a sip of the red wine she’d poured herself.
“Well, like I said, he doesn’t like many people.”
“Because of the illness?”
Oliver shrugged. “Because it’s him.”
She watched him for a moment, noticing the shadows under his eyes, the tired set of his shoulders.
“So,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Does your offer to watch my dad during the day still stand? Just until Janice gets back. And seriously, let me pay you.”
“I don’t need your money.”
Her voice was sharp, and he gave her a puzzled look. “I’m aware of that. But I’m also aware I can’t take advantage of your time.”
She sipped the wine and considered this.
“But there’s another part of the deal,” he said quietly.
“Aha.” She pointed at him in accusation.
He gave a faint smile. “I need you to decide.”
She gave him a startled look. “Decide what? What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, coming around the counter to stand beside her, “that you can’t be swiping at me one moment and asking me to stay for dinner the next.”
“Are you telling me how to behave, Mr. Cunningham?” Naomi meant for her voice to be brisk and businesslike and was appalled to hear it come out a little breathy.
He was so close.
Oliver smiled slightly, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m not sure anyone would dare tell you how to behave. I’m simply warning you.”
“Warning me about what?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth before slowly lifting to her eyes once more. “That next time you look at me like you want me to kiss you, I will.”
She scoffed, although she was afraid it came off more hot and bothered than anything. “When did I look at you like I wanted you to kiss me?”
“Friday night. Before you got scared and ran away.”
Her cheeks flooded with heat, and she wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment that he might be right.
She decided on anger. It was safer. “Am I the only woman who’s never fallen at your feet? Is that why you keep sniffing around?”
“Sniffing around?” he asked incredulously before giving a quick shake of his head. “Damn, my game is worse than I thought.”
“We’re not playing a game,” she said, taking the opportunity to move away. “Weren’t you the one who told me on move-in day that I should try to be neighborly? That’s what I’m doing, asking to help you out. Don’t read into it.”
Oliver closed his eyes and inhaled, looking so exhausted that she had the strangest urge to press her hand to his cheek, to offer . . . comfort. If she were honest, it was a bit of a foreign feeling. She rarely felt warm toward people. That had changed, slightly, with Claire and Audrey. Even more so with him.
Finally he opened his eyes, and he looked more determined than ever as he fixed her with a steady look.
“You have to decide, Naomi. Decide what we’re going to be to each other. I can’t entrust my father’s care to someone so mercurial. So decide how you feel about me. About my father. No more games.”
She wanted to argue that she wasn’t playing games, but . . . he was right. To say that she was inconsistent in her behavior toward him would be an understatement, and that wasn’t like her. Naomi had always been an all-in person. She decided how she felt about something and stuck to it.
Which was the tricky thing with the Cunninghams. She had decided her feelings: Hate. Resentment. A few revenge fantasies mixed in.
Only they hadn’t been what they were supposed to be. Walter hadn’t been the cold, heartless patriarch deserving of a scathing set down. And Oliver hadn’t been a petulant dirtbag throwing soccer balls at little girls’ faces and breaking their glasses.
They’d changed, forcing her feelings about them to change, and she was no good at that. A hard admission to make, even to herself, but it was the brutal truth. But maybe she could be better. Maybe she had to be.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her gaze on his Adam’s apple instead of his eyes because she wasn’t that brave.
“For?”
“The mixed signals,” she said. “I don’t blame you for being frustrated.”
Oliver nodded in acknowledgment of her apology. “So what’s it to be? Barely civil neighbors or . . .”
That or was intriguing.
What would happen if she leaned into him right now? If she were to lift onto her toes and brush her lips over his?
Without warning, an image of her mother flashed through Naomi’s mind.
She could be civil to Oliver and Walter Cunningham, but she wouldn’t fall for the man who’d helped set her mother down a path of self-destruction. She wouldn’t.
But neither could she continue to let the hate consume her. Perhaps . . .
Naomi lifted her eyes. “Or we could try to be friends.”
His head inclined slightly. “Friends.”
She nodded. “It makes sense, right? We live next door to each other. Friends and neighbors who lend each other a cup of sugar when the need arises.”
Oliver smiled slightly. “You bake?”
“Wine,” she amended quickly. “We could lend each other wine.”
“Friends,” he said slowly. “I can try that. In fact, how about we try that wine thing now?”
“I think that can be arranged,” she said, stepping back to retrieve a glass. She poured, and handed him a glass of the zinfandel.
He accepted it with a grin. “You know, I once knew this woman who disliked me so much she’d only serve me drinks in coffee mugs.”
“Is that so?” Naomi said, lifting her wooden spoon and stirring the sauce. “She sounds delightfully charming.”
“That’s one word for her.”
“What word would you use?” Naomi asked.
He leaned his hip against the counter, watching her stir. “Complicated,” he said finally. “I’d say she’s the most complicated woman I’ve ever met.”
“A little short on those corner pieces, are you?”
“I am. Getting closer though.”
“You’re not exactly an easy puzzle yourself,” Naomi murmured, dropping a handful of spaghetti into the boiling water, and then adding a bit more for good measure, not sure how much a man like Oliver ate.
Oliver. She was making dinner for Oliver Cunningham.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
“Hmm? Oh, I guess I am,” she said. “I just never imagined that the first meal I’d cook for a man would be for you.” He blinked in surprise, and she fixed him with a look. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked. Do I look like the domesticated type?”
Oliver gestured with his wineglass to the stove, and Naomi swore at the boiling water threatening to bubble over as she fumbled for the knob to turn down the heat.
“Very domesticated.”
She breathed out a laugh. “I don’t suppose you cook?”
“I used to. Not a lot, but in my midtwenties I got it in my head that I could be a pretty hot commodity on the dating market if I knew my way around the kitchen.”
“You’d be right,” she said. “So what happened?”
“Hmm?” He picked up the spoon and stirred the pasta sauce.
“You said you used to cook. You don’t anymore?”
A shadow passed over his face. “My mom got sick, and all my attention went to that. Then she passed. Then my dad got sick . . .” He gave a rueful shrug. “Pity party, I know.”
“A justified one,” Naomi said, turning to face him. “So did it work?” she asked. “Your grand plan of setting yourself apart on the dating scene by cooking?”
“Eventually. I made a couple of judgment errors early on.”
“Such as?”
“Such as shrimp scampi, while delicious, has copious amounts of garlic, which doesn’t necessarily make for the most amorous scenario. Also, I spent a hell of a lot of time perfecting a ragu with fettuccine before realizing that it’s damn hard to look sexy with noodles hanging from one’s mouth.”
“Well then, prepare to be thoroughly unseduced,” Naomi said, nodding toward the pot of boiling spaghetti.
For a moment Oliver’s eyes seemed to heat as they drifted over her, and foolishly Naomi wished she’d made something sexier for dinner. Something fancy and easy to eat, like seared scallops, or a cheese plate, or any sort of pasta that didn’t have to be twirled, or . . .
Nope. No. She was not going to start thinking about Oliver and sexy in the same sentence. Okay fine. She wasn’t going to continue thinking about him that way.
“Plates,” she blurted out, pointing at her cupboard. “If you can get plates, this will be ready in just a minute.”
Oliver gave her a knowing smirk as he set his wineglass aside. “Doesn’t get more friend-zoned than being ordered to set the table.”
“What if I added please?” Naomi asked. “Then it’s a request, not an order.”
“True,” he said, pulling down two plates. “But still friend-zone.”
“Better than enemy-zone, Ollie,” she said, dropping his childhood nickname she distinctly remembered him hating.
He went still, his eyes flickering as though with a memory, and for a second she froze, wondering if this would be it. The moment when Oliver reconciled nine-year-old Naomi Fields with twenty-nine-year-old Naomi Powell.
Instead he gave her a vaguely menacing stare. “I’m not answering to that.”
“What, Ollie?” she asked innocently. “It suits you.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll have to think of a nickname for you,” he said, setting the plates on the table.
You already have. Carrots.
“Did you ever watch Anne of Green Gables?” she blurted, and lifted out a strand of spaghetti to test the doneness.
“Sure, all the time. I used to have the guys over to my dorm room in college, and we’d just watch the hell out of it.”
Naomi gave a choked laugh at his sarcasm, even as she fanned her mouth at the too-hot pasta. “So that’s a no, then.”
“That’s a definite no. Never heard of it. Why?”
Naomi set a colander into the sink to drain the pasta. It’s a book, turned into a movie, about a redheaded girl and a little twerp of a boy named Gilbert Blythe, who used to torment her with the nickname Carrots.
“Nothing. Never mind,” she said, mixing the pasta with the sauce and bringing the serving dish to the table.
She looked up in surprise as he pulled out her chair for her. “Pretty manners, Ollie.”
“Had to do something to make up for the loss of my cooking skills. Figured I might as well learn how to be a gentleman.”
“You really never cook anymore?” she asked as he sat, reaching for the pasta bowl.
“No time,” he said, setting the napkin in his lap and taking a sip of wine.
Naomi reached over and dumped pasta on his plate. “To cook, or to date?”
She looked up at him when he didn’t reply, and he gave her a crooked smile, sitting back in his chair. “Is that your subtle way of asking if I’m seeing anyone?”
“Whatever gave you the impression that I’m subtle?”
He laughed. “Good point. But to answer your question, I date about as often as I cook these days, which is . . . well, let’s just say it’s been a while.”
Naomi sprinkled a liberal amount of cheese on her plate and pushed the container toward him. “Intentional? Or just the result of circumstances?”
“The latter. Alzheimer’s is sort of a twenty-four-seven situation. Janice already watches Dad nine to five and during any after-hours work functions. I can’t ask her to do it for social engagements as well—the woman would never get any time off.”
Naomi started to reply, then thought better of it, eating a mouthful of pasta instead. Oliver was giving her a knowing look. “Self-censoring looks physically painful for you. Spit it out.”
She set her fork aside and picked up her wine. “All right then. I was going to say that I understand. Really I do. But are you sure that’s sustainable?”
He shrugged. “What are my options? He’s my dad.”
“Yes, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want you putting your life on hold for him.”
“Really?” Oliver asked, a rare caustic note entering his usually carefully unreadable voice. “I think that’s exactly what the bastard would have wanted.”
She fiddled with her fork, careful not to give away her agreement that the Walter Cunningham she remembered was the sort of selfish bastard who expected others’ lives to revolve around him.
“So he and Serena didn’t mesh, huh?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Oliver said, after swallowing. “It’s why I came down here in the first place. For whatever reason, he seems attached to you.”
“For whatever reason?” she asked with a smile.
“Yeah, well. He doesn’t know you like I do.”
Oliver winked as he said it, and it caused a warm churn in her stomach that had nothing to do with the pasta.
“I’m happy to stay with him during the day until Janice gets back, but I’m not accepting your money.”
He set his fork aside. “Naomi, I can’t ask you to watch him in exchange for nothing.”
“I won’t be the hired help,” she snapped, her own fork clattering noisily to her plate.
“Whoa,” he said slowly, leaning back in his chair.
She took a deep breath to calm herself and reached for her glass. “If I do this, I do this as your equal.”
Oliver frowned. “Whatever gave you the thought I didn’t think of you as an equal?”
Tell him! Just tell him who you are!
And the fact that she couldn’t told Naomi the real problem. She was afraid that if she did tell him, if she revealed her past and why she was living in the building in the first place, then she really wouldn’t be his equal.
He’d stop seeing her as confident Naomi Powell, and start seeing her as the daughter of the whore housekeeper who’d seduced his dad.
“Never mind,” she said irritably, picking up her fork again.
“Naomi.”
“What.”
He waited until she looked at him, then smiled slightly. “Will you please watch my father while I’m at work tomorrow? I promise not to try to insult you with money, but I’m going to insist you let me at least feed you after. Final offer.”
She studied him, looking for a catch, but saw only . . . kindness.
His smile grew wider, and he resumed eating. “Good.”
After a moment, he said, “Question.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“Are you as prickly with female friends as you are with male friends?” He put the slightest emphasis on the last word.
She shrugged. “Hard to say. I don’t have a ton of them.”
“What about Claire and Audrey?”
“They’re friends,” she admitted. “But we’ve only known each other a few months.”
“You don’t think it’ll last?”
She fiddled with her fork, thinking this over. “Honestly? I don’t know. On one hand, we clicked. Almost immediately. On the other hand, the circumstances of our friendship are . . . unusual.”
“Maybe you clicked because of the circumstances. The same man was interested in all three of you. You must have something in common.”
“I don’t know what,” she grumbled. “Claire is kind and responsible. Audrey’s sweet and fun.”
“And you are . . . ?”
She smiled. “Ambitious and prickly?”
“Driven and guarded,” he countered.
“The first one I take as a compliment. The second I can’t help. Wouldn’t you be if you learned that the person you were sleeping with was married?”
“Perhaps. But I also suspect you kept people at a distance long before that.”
She pushed her plate away. “The pasta’s really not good, huh?”
“No,” he said, looking like he wanted to press her for an answer on his last question but decided to let her dodge it. “Got any ice cream?”
“Now you’re talking, Ollie,” she said, standing and going to the freezer. Then she turned back. “Do you need to get back to Walter?”
He hesitated, and she saw the internal battle raging within. The compulsive need to do his duty by his father. His desire to stay.
“I’ll double-check with Serena,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and waggling it at her. “Last call to back out of your offer.”
Naomi pulled the lid off the Ben & Jerry’s carton and looked across her kitchen at the man who’d once made her life utterly miserable. And who also made her feel the most alive she had in years.
“Let’s do it,” she blurted out before she could rethink the fact that she was willingly entangling herself with a family she’d spent a lifetime resenting.
“Good,” he said, turning his attention to his phone. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Hmm?” She dug a spoon into the carton and plopped a bite of cookie dough ice cream in her mouth.
“You still dating Dylan with a Y?”
The question caught her off guard, and a chunk of chocolate chip lodged in her throat.
“Not sure that’s your business.”
Oliver stood and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Maybe not yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked, as he headed to the front door.
He gave her an enigmatic smile over his shoulder, opening her front door. But he said nothing.
“What’s that supposed to mean!” It was a near shout now.
The front door clicked close, and she opened her mouth to tell him he forgot his ice cream.
Damn it. Just as well. If she and Oliver Cunningham were going to continue being in the same orbit, she was going to need the entire carton to herself.