The Trouble with Love
Page 28

All Alex wanted was a glass of the French Malbec he’d opened the night before and the spy thriller he’d been trying to finish for weeks but just couldn’t quite find the time for.
Alex caught the elevator at his apartment building just as it was closing, running a hand through his wet hair, only to glance up sheepishly when he realized he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry,” he muttered at a guy he didn’t recognize.
“No worries,” the man said in a British accent. “Coming down rather hard out there, isn’t it?”
Alex glanced at the man, whose reddish-brown hair was perfectly styled and not the least bit wet. Neither was the bottom of his gray suit pants water-marked like Alex’s, and his Burberry jacket didn’t show so much as a drop. Even the umbrella in the man’s hand was dry.
Clearly he’d taken a cab. Or had a personal driver.
“Sure is,” Alex said grumpily.
Belatedly he realized he hadn’t pushed the button for his floor, but the man was also going to twenty-four.
“Just move in, or visiting someone?” Alex asked.
The man smiled politely. “Visiting someone.”
“Ah.”
“An ex-girlfriend, actually,” the man muttered, as though a little disbelieving.
“Ouch,” Alex said in sympathy. “Picking up a box of forgotten items, or having one last ‘talk’?”
“Neither. I haven’t even seen her in a year or so, but she’s a journalist and doing a story on ex-boyfriends, and since she’s one of the noncrazy ones, I figured…why not help her out?”
Alex closed his eyes.
Incredible.
He should be putting his shitty day behind him with a good book and a glass of wine, but here he was, all but escorting his ex-fiancée’s ex up to her apartment so that she could write a story that Alex himself had pushed on her.
He’d barely seen Emma since the dinner party at Julie and Mitchell’s, but when he had, the mood had been downright glacial.
Their chilly relationship, which he had thought was beginning to thaw, had taken a turn toward the next ice age thanks to the spontaneous dinner conversation about their ill-fated wedding day.
But Alex was not inclined to share the blame for that little development. If it had been up to him, they’d have kept dodging their friends’ questions about their past.
Instead Emma had green-lighted everyone else’s curiosity and gotten answers—or a lack of answers—that she hadn’t liked one bit.
Well, too damn bad, Em. I didn’t like your answers much, either.
He was the bad guy. He got that.
Preferred it, even. Because being cast as the villain was a hell of a lot better than everyone knowing that you’d spent your wedding day half-drunk, feeling like there was a crater where your heart should have been.
Alex suspected that was the real reason for the coldness of his and Emma’s current relationship. There was something numbing in all of those icy exchanges.
And numbness was better than pain.
Most of the time.
But today?
Today he wasn’t numb. He was mad. Mad at the world. Mad at this British chump who’d somehow dodged the rain. Mad at himself for caring that another man was headed up to Emma’s apartment.
Mad at Emma…just for being Emma.
He forced a smile at the guy. “Oh, you’re going to see Emma Sinclair?”
The guy smiled in response. “Yes. You know her?”
“Sure.” Alex smiled and extended a hand. “Alex Cassidy. Emma’s neighbor and boss.”
“Jason Grint,” the other man said, accepting the handshake. “Neighbor and boss, huh. Poor Emmy.”
Emmy.
Alex pulled his hand back before his grip tightened in response to the stupid nickname.
“Yeah, it’s a long story,” he said, as he held the elevator open for Jason. “Say, you mind if I tag along for your interview? Emma and I keep having to reschedule our usual meeting, and I’m dying to see how she’s coming along with the story.”
“Um, sure,” Jason said, looking a little unsure for the first time as he followed Alex down the hall. “So, you work for…what’s the magazine’s name? The girly one.”
“Stiletto,” Alex said, pausing in front of Emma’s door. “And I’m actually just the interim editor in chief while the real boss is on vacation.”
“Huh.” Jason said. “That must be—”
“Surreal? Trust me, it is,” Alex said.
Then he knocked on Emma’s door.
Her reaction when she saw him standing next to Jason was everything he’d hoped for. Disbelief. Annoyance. Alarm.
“Look who I found in the elevator,” Alex said, resting an arm on her doorjamb and leaning in just slightly.
Her eyes narrowed. “How delightful.”
“Very,” Cassidy said. “We had lots to talk about. Lots in common, actually.”
Emma stepped aside so a puzzled-looking Jason could enter.
She started to close the door on Alex without another word, but he stopped it with his palm. “I thought I’d sit in on this one.”
“Nope,” she said, trying to shut the door again. “There is literally no chance of that.”
“Emma,” he said, his voice cajoling and maybe a little condescending. “I haven’t been getting progress reports on your stories like I have from everyone else.”