Page 16 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tuesday, November 6

P aige listened to the manager list the property rules as she looked around the two-bedroom apartment. It was bland but clean, and in a good neighborhood. Since it wasn’t anything special, she didn’t really need to tour it, but she walked through the bedrooms and checked out the bathroom anyway to show the manager she was interested.

She hadn’t planned to look at apartments today. Everything with Blake was going really well. But after she’d shown one of her own clients a few properties, she’d gotten a text from Blake about dinner. He said he had a hankering for tacos—she’d laughed when she’d read it. The word hankering had been surprising, but when he said he’d pick up the fixings and they could show Emmie how to make tacos, followed by two lines of taco emojis, she felt her heart squeeze a little.

Blake had always been thoughtful. Whether they’d been studying or on a date, he’d always taken her thoughts and feelings into account. The only time she had ever felt neglected was when he’d been up to his neck in school while running the company. She was the one who should have been more thoughtful and done more to make his life easier. It was easy to see that now, but like she always said, she couldn’t regret the path her life had taken since it had led to having Emmie.

Her daughter was one of the reasons she was looking at the apartment. Emmie was becoming so attached to Blake that she asked him to play dress up with her every day. She loved him reading her bedtime stories as well. He could make different voices for the characters, something Paige couldn’t do even if her life had depended on it. Paige worried that Emmie would fall in love with him and start to expect him to always be there.

Like daughter, like mother. No matter how often Paige told herself to be careful and keep her independence, she was falling a little in love with Blake. Maybe even more than a little.

She still didn’t trust him completely, but she was trending that way. Blake wasn’t anything like Craig, and she’d begun to think that maybe it wasn’t Blake she had to worry about, but herself. If she got in deep with him, would she fall back into old patterns? Let Blake make all the decisions until she was dependent on him? She’d readily agreed to go along with his plans for tacos. But maybe that was different, because, well… tacos.

Paige had just said goodbye to a client when she’d gotten the text from Blake. At first she’d laughed, and then all her worries swarmed to the surface like a bunch of angry bees. Their stings were a reminder she and Emmie could get in too deep and end up hurt.

She sent a text back saying yes to tacos, because… tacos… and pulled out onto the road, debating whether to drive back to the office or go pick Emmie up a bit early. Passing a newer apartment building, its large rental sign out front caught her attention, as if to say, this is a sign.

Making a spur-of-the-moment decision, she turned at the next street and doubled back to the building to see if any of the apartments fit her budget and needs.

“What do you think?” the manager asked when she walked back into the main room.

“I like it. You said you had four units like this available?”

He puffed out his chest. “Not anymore. I’ve only got this one and one other left. I’m sure they’ll be snatched up soon. I run a tight ship and I had to evict two units for constantly violating our noise rules. My units never stay empty for long because my tenants appreciate how I manage and take care of everything.”

Paige felt like rolling her eyes. The guy definitely didn’t have a self-esteem problem. “Yes, the apartment is very clean. I’ve got a few other places to check before I make a decision.”

She said she would be in touch and left him to lock up. Back in her car, she turned it on to warm up, but didn’t pull out of the lot right away.

The apartment had been nice enough, but she wasn’t so sure about the manager, as he seemed a little scary. And just the thought of moving again, and away from Blake, made her sad. She loved living with him. At times, it felt like the years that existed between their dating and now had vanished. They’d become more than just comfortable together. They’d become a family.

It was everything she wanted and everything she feared.

* * *

Thursday, November 7

“Ha! I beat you!” Paige jumped from her chair and did a little dance.

“Yes, you did,” Blake said, grinning, glad she didn’t notice he’d helped her along a little by not capturing some of her pieces when she left them wide open. “But you still don’t have any rhythm.”

Paige stuck her tongue out at him and plopped back in her chair. “I don’t need rhythm when I beat you.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “How’d you figure?”

“I don’t know, but it sounded good.”

“Sure, you go with that.” They both reached for their pieces and set them back up again. Paige really wasn’t good at the game, and a few times Blake had considered suggesting a different one, but changed his mind each time. She seemed to love the challenge, even if strategy wasn’t her strong suit.

She lifted a piece to make a move and then changed her mind. The first move would have been better. He met her gaze and smirked.

For a few moves, Blake paid a bit more attention to where she placed her pieces on the board. Several times she almost put a piece down and then switched pieces. Perhaps she was more strategic than he realized. He was beginning to think she was purposefully throwing a lot of the games. If that was the case, there was a good chance she was doing it for the same reason he made sure she won now and then—they both wanted to enjoy the game so they would continue playing.

Blake loved everything about having Paige and Emmie in his house. He backpeddled in his mind. Maybe he didn’t love everything . The basement bedroom was fine, but he missed his bedroom, and on the nights he didn’t sleep with Paige, he missed her too.

Since it was only Thursday, he had another two nights before he’d have Paige in his arms and in his bed. Saturday was becoming his favorite day of the week, but he started wondering if Friday could be.

The Saturday before, after Paige had opened up to him, had been amazing. His ego had taken a boost when Paige had climaxed—more than once—but she was helping more than just his ego.

His eighth curse episode had struck the following day. With each episode, the days in between them had quickly decreased until there were only two days separating his most recent one and the one before it. But now he was on day four since he’d had one.

Paige must be the reason. He had wracked his brain to think of another reason and he’d come up with nothing. Maybe he and Paige caring for each other was enough—they didn’t have to fall in love to break the curse.

He didn’t have a reason to believe the episodes would go away completely, but if they grew further apart, he might be able to live with them without going crazy. It was possible they could also grow so far apart that they eventually stopped.

There were days when he was working in his office and his mind wandered to the scenarios that had played out before him. At moments like that, the sadness and desperation he felt from the people in the episodes clung to him like the fog that had surrounded Christopher and Elizabeth on the dock in London so long ago.

The more episodes he got sucked into and the more he witnessed lost love, the more the emotions settled upon him, taking longer and longer for him to shake them off. He could only hope that the episodes were growing further apart.

“Hey.” Paige squeezed his hand. “You okay?”

Blake blinked to focus his vision. He realized his hand hovered in mid-air, a game piece held in his fingers. “Sorry, got lost in my thoughts for a moment.”

“Care to share?”

“It’s nothing,” he said as he clenched the game piece in his hand.

When Paige dropped her gaze, he knew he’d hurt her. She’d shared so much of herself last week, and he hadn’t opened up at all. He couldn’t tell her about the curse because Paige would think he was gaslighting her.

But he could bring up something else. Over the last two days—since their amazing weekend—a way to tweak his original plan had been brewing in his mind. He gave her a sly smile. “On second thought… Sure. I do have something I’d like to run by you.”

Her face brightened with a smile. “Oh?”

“I’d like you and Emmie to consider staying permanently.”

Paige choked. “What?”

“You and me can stay friends with benefits and roommates. I can help out with Emmie more and you won’t have a cloud of worry hanging over you, wondering when you should leave.”

Paige didn’t look convinced, and he worried he should have started with a more subtle pitch. Too late now, so he forged ahead.

“It’s the perfect situation since neither of us want to fall in love again. Money isn’t an issue for me—” When Paige frowned, he worried he was fucking things up even more. “I mean, I own the house and Akerman’s is doing well. So, it’s not about money. We were both lonely and now we’re not. And we get along really well.”

She gave a single nod, but her pursed lips said maybe she wasn’t completely committed to the idea.

He needed to seal the deal before he brought up the next part of the plan he wanted to tweak. “Why don’t we try it for six months? That way you can make a big dent in the debt Craig left you with and not worry about a roof over your head. It will give you some breathing room.”

“You really think this will work long term? Just being roommates with benefits?”

“Sure, why not?” Blake let the game piece slide back and forth through his fingers so he wasn’t tempted to cross them in hope.

Paige smiled and held out her hand. “Let’s give it a go.”

He dropped the game piece and grasped her hand. He kept it in his as he stood and moved to her side of the table. Standing in front of her, he hauled her up and placed his hands on her hips, keeping a foot of space between them.

“There’s one more thing I want to run by you.”

Paige chuckled. “Does this have anything to do with the benefits part of the roommate agreement?”

He gave her his best salacious smile. “As a matter of fact, it does.”

“Hmmm… why am I not surprised.” She smiled up at him. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“I think we were remiss when in what we defined as the weekend,” he said, almost failing at keeping a straight face.

“How’s that?”

“Friday nights are technically part of the weekend, so benefits should start on Fridays.”

She tilted her head as if mulling it over. “And end on Sunday mornings?”

“Ha! No way. Monday mornings start the work week, so they’ll end on Monday mornings.”

“At midnight?” she teased, looking up at him through her lashes coyly.

With his hands still anchored on her hips, he pulled her closer until their bodies were flush against each other. “No.” He leaned down and nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. “Not at midnight.”

He ran his tongue along her lip, soothing where he’d bitten her, and felt her gasp. “We start the night in bed, we finish the night in bed.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding breathless.

“And you know what?” he asked when he kissed her lips and then trailed his own to the sensitive spot near her ear.

“Wh… What?”

“Tomorrow is Friday.” He ended the teasing and kissed her like he meant it.

She wound her arms around his neck, and he moved one of his hands to the small of her back, flattening her against him.

Several minutes later, when the seam on his jeans threatened to cut into him, he pulled back. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated.

They packed up the game, and Blake watched Paige head upstairs before checking that the doors were locked and turning off the lights. If caring for and being friends with Paige—but without the risk of being hurt—was enough to hold off the curse, he’d be the happiest man alive.