The Man Who Has No Heart - Victoria Quinn Page 0,2
without blinking.
I was so distraught, I didn’t know what to say, how to be confident when I didn’t feel it.
When the silence stretched long enough, he spoke. “I went by your office, but you weren’t there. Matt told me you went home early.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, discreetly trying to fix it even though I didn’t have a mirror.
“Is this a bad time?”
If he asked a question like that, I knew I must be behaving strangely. “No…I just wasn’t expecting company. Sorry.”
He looked at me like he didn’t notice anything was wrong, like he didn’t care about the sweatpants sagging around my hips, the fact that my blouse was wrinkled, or that my hair was all over the place. “I know this is nothing compared to what you’ve done for me, but…” He looked down at the flowers, an arrangement which had been made by a professional florist, filled with pink roses, thick stems of eucalyptus, white lilies, and other subtle splashes of color.
I took the vase from his hands and brought the flowers close to my nose, smelling the scent that was present in every residence I stepped into. It was fresh, floral, bringing beauty into a place where the sun didn’t shine. For a second, I forgot about how terrible I looked and just appreciated the gesture. “That was very thoughtful, Deacon. Thank you.” I placed them on the table beside the door so I wouldn’t have to walk away.
He continued to stand there.
“I’d invite you inside, but my place is…a bit messy right now.”
Instead of saying goodbye and leaving, he lingered. “I don’t care what your place looks like.”
I didn’t want to be rude to him when he’d come all the way over here to bring me flowers, so I stepped back and let him enter my apartment. “Alright.”
He stepped inside, took a look around, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m just so busy, I don’t have a lot of time to clean…”
He faced me, his hands in his pockets. “I came here to see you. Your apartment doesn’t matter to me.”
I smiled slightly and shut the door. “Well, you didn’t have to come all the way over here…but thank you.” I grabbed the vase of flowers and put it on my coffee table, quickly gathering all the paper plates with old burrito wrappers and shoving them into the garbage can. I came back to him, my arms crossed over my chest.
“I also wanted to know if I could take you to a nice dinner, even though that still doesn’t come close to what you did for me.”
“Deacon, you don’t owe me anything. I was happy to do it.”
He ignored what I said. “Have you eaten?”
“Oh, you want to go right now?”
“If you’re hungry.”
A knock sounded on the door.
His eyes moved to the entryway. “Are you expecting company?”
“Yes.” I grabbed my wallet, opened the door, and paid the pizza guy for the cardboard box. “Thanks. Keep the change.” To make my humiliation worse, Deacon had now seen me order a whole pizza just for myself. “I already ordered dinner.” I set it on the table.
He stared at me, the sexiest man to ever be in my apartment. With jeans low on his hips and his shirt tight on his chest and arms, he was strong and slender, his jawline tight and chiseled. His dark hair matched his shirt, which brought out the color of his eyes.
Since we weren’t in our usual element, I didn’t know how to behave around him. I didn’t know how to read him. I was just so uncomfortable with the way he caught me off guard. I wished he’d texted me first, given me a five-minute head start.
He didn’t leave. He continued to stare at me.
“Take a seat. I just need a minute to change.” I headed to my bedroom.
“You don’t need to change for me.” He lowered himself to the sofa, his back perfectly straight.
I wasn’t going to sit beside him looking like a troll. “It’ll just be a minute. Help yourself to the pizza if you want some.” I made it to my bedroom and quickly changed, pulling on a purple dress with a jean jacket. When I got to the mirror in my bathroom, I almost screamed in horror.
I looked like hell.
My makeup was smeared, my hair was frizzy, and I had a smear of chocolate in the corner of my mouth from when I’d stopped at the bakery on the way home.