His Pretend Fiancee. Victoria Pade
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don’t care! I need sleep!”
Pip ignored the landlord and continued to bark as Josie thought that if the man in the stairwell was dangerous she wasn’t likely to get much help from her irate landlord. But still she said, “But, Mr. Bartholomew, there’s some guy—”
“No buts. Either the two of you are gone by tomorrow or I’ll get the police to kick the whole lot of you out!”
“It’s just me, Josie,” her late-night visitor interjected as if he’d been trying to find the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.
She recognized the voice even before she looked from her landlord down the stairs again, and it was enough for her pulse to race and her mind to go blank. But not out of fear.
Pip continued to bark. Mr. Bartholomew went on ranting. But Josie merely stood there at the top of the steps, dumbfounded.
“It’s okay, boy, I’m harmless,” her midnight visitor said to Pip in a warm, friendly tone as he started up the steps.
Pip must have believed him because the bull mastiff stopped barking, tilted his big square head to one side, and quirked up an ear to stare curiously at him.
The landlord used the sudden silence to shout louder himself. “Do you hear me? I want you out!”
“Yes, Mr. Bartholomew. I heard you,” Josie finally managed to say.
“Tomorrow! Or the other three go, too!”
Josie’s visitor was halfway up the stairs and he held out a hand for the dog to sniff. A big hand with long, thick fingers. A big, adept hand. A talented hand that she’d felt all over her body…
Pip allowed their visitor to join them on the landing, sniffing him raptly as the man aimed his gaze up at the landlord and said, “This is my fault. The dog was barking at me. Don’t punish them for that.”
“They’re out,” the landlord insisted stubbornly. “She was supposed to be gone a week ago and I’ll make sure she goes now. One way or another.”
Down went the window with a slam and the landlord disappeared behind the curtains.
“Nice. Real nice,” the midnight visitor called after him.
Josie knew she’d have to try persuading the landlord not to enforce his edicts in the morning but since there was nothing she could do about that now, her attention was all on the man who stood only a few inches away, petting her dog.
“Michael Dunnigan,” she said as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“That’s me,” he responded. “I’m sorry for this—I didn’t come here to cause you trouble.”
“And yet here you are,” Josie said in a questioning tone she hoped might inspire an explanation.
“And yet here I am,” he countered instead.
“Not the answer I was looking for.”
“The answer to what?” he asked.
She thought he was only playing innocent and opted not to let him get away with it by bluntly demanding, “What are you doing here?”
Michael Dunnigan shrugged mile-wide shoulders negligently and smiled a small smile. “I had sort of a crazy thought tonight and acted on impulse.”
“Ah.” Josie didn’t know what else to say to that and so merely waited for more information.
But rather than getting it, Michael Dunnigan pointed a thumb at the window the landlord had abandoned. “But I don’t think we should talk out here.”
Josie glanced up at Mr. Bartholomew’s window again, as if she expected to find him glaring at them still.
“That is your place downstairs, isn’t it?” Michael Dunnigan said then. “I knocked but no one answered.”
“It’s Saturday night. All of my roommates are gone,” Josie responded before she realized she’d just negated her best excuse not to ask him in.
He proved the point by saying, “Then can we go inside?”
She was a little worried that this was nothing but a booty call. After all, she’d done something she’d never done in her life when she’d met him—two weeks ago she’d spent the entire Labor Day weekend with him. In bed.
She still couldn’t believe she’d done it. And she’d regretted it ever since. Certainly she had no intention of repeating it. If that’s why he was here.
But since she was fresh out of reasons not to let him into the apartment, she had to agree.
“I guess we can go in,” she said with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “To talk,” she added pointedly.
Apparently he got the message because he held up both hands, palms outward as if in surrender, and said, “Absolutely. Just to talk.”
Josie led the way down the stairs, with Pip right beside her and Michael Dunnigan bringing up the rear.
“We have to get that bulb changed,” she muttered to herself as she unlocked the door, referring to the light just above the doorway that offered no illumination because the bulb had burned out and not been replaced.
Then she opened the door.
But the moment she stepped inside she was even more sorry she was bringing company with her because she’d forgotten that she’d already unfolded the futon in the living room and made it up for herself for the night.
But what could she do? She couldn’t turn around and tell the man she’d just conceded to invite in that she’d changed her mind. She was just going to have to tough this through. And it would be tough because having Michael Dunnigan in the same vicinity as a bed was not an easy thing for her even now.
“I was about to call it a night,” she said both in explanation and as a hint that she didn’t want him to stay long.
Michael Dunnigan closed the door as Josie took off Pip’s collar, wishing as she did that she had on something better than her sweat suit over her nightshirt, that she hadn’t washed off all her makeup and that she’d at least run a brush through her short bobbed hair before she’d taken Pip on his walk.
But there was nothing to be done about it now. Except to smooth her hair behind her ears once she’d stashed the leash.
“Wow, this place really is small,” Michael Dunnigan said as he glanced around.
“There are two bedrooms—two of my roommates share one of them but the other one is really just an oversize closet so only Liz uses it. I lost the toss and ended up sleeping in the living room.” She didn’t know why she was giving him so many details but the words just seemed to tumble out.
“That’s right, I remember you telling me that there are four of you living here. Plus the dog?” Michael Dunnigan asked.
“Four of us and the dog,” Josie confirmed. It was one of the very few pieces of information they’d exchanged about themselves during the three-day lovemaking marathon that hadn’t left much time—or energy—for conversation.
Josie waited for him to say something else, preferably about why he’d shown up on her doorstep since he still hadn’t given her a clue.
But he wasn’t forthcoming. Instead he moved to the wall that separated the living room from the hallway-size kitchen.
Josie and her roommates used the wall as a gallery for a mélange of pictures of friends and family and events. As Michael Dunnigan looked at each photograph in turn he was in profile to her and Josie couldn’t help taking her own concentrated look at him.
He was still drop-dead gorgeous. More gorgeous than she’d even remembered. He had coal-black hair that he wore short all over. His nose was straight and not too long, and his chin was just pronounced enough. He had high cheekbones