Page 16 of Love is Fake (Love is Everything #1)

Chapter

Eight

“Do you know how many trips this is going to take?” Kiara turns in a circle in my apartment, surveying the boxes I’ve packed up full of books and a few trinkets to make the pool-house a little more homely.

She eyes my suitcases, smirking before turning her gaze back to me.

“And how long exactly are you leaving for?”

So, I may have overpacked a little. “Just a couple months, or maybe less if it doesn’t work out,” I shrug. “I just like to have my things around me.”

Kiara raises an eyebrow at me. I shake my head, telling her with my expression that I can do without the psychological assessment of what that means. I don’t need her to tell me how many issues I have.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she admits, poking at a box with her sandaled foot. “I can’t just drop by when you’re all the way out in the Hamptons.”

“I know, I’m really gonna miss those baked goods deliveries,” I joke.

“But you’re the one who stuck this job on me.

” There’s a small pause as we kinda just let the silence linger between us.

“You don’t think I’m doing the wrong thing, do you?

” I chew my bottom lip, voicing the anxiety which has kept me up most of the night before.

After another day of Lennox lobbying me over moving into his compound, it became harder and harder to come up with valid arguments. At face-value, it made complete sense, it was a win-win for all involved. So why do I still feel so damn nervous about it?

“I think you’re smart and I trust your decisions,” Kiara answers evasively. “As long as you’re doing it because it’s the best thing for you instead of for him .”

There’s no question who the him is she’s talking about. Kiara’s concern over me working with Lennox hasn’t eased since her croissant delivery a few days ago.

“ He is a big client. I thought you’d be happy I’m keeping him sweet.”

“You know he has a girlfriend,” Kiara drops breezily as if this were just a casual conversation.

“They broke up, didn’t they?” I frown over at her as she re-packs one of my boxes like the control freak she is.

Kiara shrugs. “Who knows? Celebrities are a breed all by themselves.”

“It doesn’t matter whether he’s single, married or has a harem full of women hidden in his mansion somewhere. I’m moving into the pool house, Ki, not the master suite.”

“Uh-huh.” It’s amazing how she manages to say so much in only two syllables.

“I know what I’m doing, Ki,” I tell her, projecting confidence, even though there’s a nagging voice in the back of my head asking if I really do.

Kiara gives me one last, searching look and then picks up one of the lighter – but still not light - boxes.

“Alright then, let’s start moving this stuff downstairs.”

I breathe a sigh of relief at her words, hoping to chart this conversation off as a win in my direction. We maneuver ourselves and as many boxes as we can into the tiny elevator, laughing as we’re plastered to the walls by so much cardboard.

Kiara looks up at the mountain we’ve created in this small space. “I never imagined I’d die from a box of anatomy books falling on top of me.”

” I roll my eyes. “The worst you’d get is a black eye.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Remind me never to help you move again.”

We give each other shit for the rest of the ride and we’re both cackling by the time we all but fall out of the elevator and then out onto the street, dumping the boxes hard enough I’m grateful there’s nothing breakable inside.

Kiara looks down distastefully at the dust on her hands. Her dress is somehow still immaculate and yet I’m covered in it, but of course, she’s too busy brushing herself off to notice just how much I look like an actual pigsty.

“Looks like I got here just in time.” Something inside me stirs at the voice behind me. I can tell from Kiara’s expression she’s as shocked as I am as she tracks my gaze to the man standing on the curb outside my apartment.

“What are you doing here?” The confusion in my tone hangs on till the very last word.

Lennox Gray shrugs, his broad shoulders rolling and in that way that makes it hard not to stare.

“It’s moving day,” he says. Something happens between that time and now, but I only realize that I’m staring, probably with my mouth hanging open when Lennox’s voice cuts through the air again. “Cat got your tongue, buttercup?”

Buttercup? Seriously.

“My moving day, not yours,” I manage.

“That’s all semantics, but whatever. Whether you’re expecting me or not, it definitely looks like you two could use some help.

” My gaze is on him again. And again, it takes me a good minute to process his words.

It’s impossible to search his eyes to get a better read on him, but something tells me they’d be full of amusement.

I’m about to tell him thanks, but no, when Kiara interrupts.

“That’d be great!” She sounds so enthusiastic that it almost makes my skin crawl. Kiara is a lot of things. Kiara can be many things. Feisty. Independent. But never…whatever this is.

I send her a look, telling her in no uncertain terms she’s a complete traitor. She doesn’t care, her eyes are on Lennox and I can’t blame her. It’s one thing to see the man on the screen or on billboards, but in the flesh he’s a whole different ballgame.

“You must be Kiara,” Lennox reaches past me to shake her hand, extending a courtesy he never offered me on the first day. “Declan told me you drive a hard bargain,” he adds, smiling.

I wonder if he sees the moment my best friend melts under that smile.

“If you want the best, like Izzy here, you’ve gotta be prepared for the price tag,” she fires back, making him chuckle.

“Okay, I get it now,” Kiara mutters to me under her breath and I hope like hell Lennox hasn’t heard her. Suddenly she seems much more amenable to the whole idea of me moving into Gray’s place. Who knew that all it would take was a few minutes in Lennox’s orbit?

“Here, let me take that,” Lennox reaches forward for my suitcase.

“It’s fine, you really don’t have to.” I try to pull it away from him and only succeed in hitting myself in the shin with it. “Mother-freakin’…Ouch!”

“See…I’m offering a hand, you really should take it. No way you’re gonna carry all those boxes when we’re here to help?” Lennox leans back against his Escalade, arms crossed in that faux casual way of his, which doesn’t make him look any less dangerous.

“We?” I ask, dumbly.

Lennox nods his head toward a truck parked a little ways down.

A truck which looks suspiciously like the one he loaned me and which I thought was safe in the parking garage of my building.

Kai hops out, dressed in his usual uniform of a t-shirt and board shorts, looking completely incongruous in the middle of New York City.

“Is there some hot guy convention in town today that I didn’t know about?” Kiara whispers in my ear. I would laugh if I weren’t still annoyed at being ambushed by Lennox.

“Iz-meister!” Kai envelops me in a hug like we’re old friends.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that he’s the touchy feely type.

I’m not complaining. After all, my friends know that I’m quite the hugger, too.

“So, cool you’re moving in, I’m getting hella bored just hanging out with this dude.

” Kai jerks his thumb at Lennox who just looks on with that impassive expression of his, but it feels like his eyes are zeroed in on me behind his designer aviators.

“Kai, you want to make yourself useful and grab a box instead of groping Isabella?” Lennox’s tone is light but there’s a sharpness to it that I don’t miss.

Kai on the other hand seems oblivious.

“Sure, Nox. You just stand there looking pretty while I do all the heavy lifting.”

Kai grabs the box closest to Kiara and stands up slowly, not making any secret of the appreciation in his gaze.

“You gonna introduce me to your friend, Iz?” he asks, as if Kiara weren’t right there in front of him and I can tell how much that pisses her off.

Kiara cocks her head and gives him one of her signature withering stares. “Her friend can introduce herself.”

Kai steps towards Kiara like a planet being drawn to the sun and the two of them start to get acquainted. From the sound of it, it mostly involves exchanging playful insults, which leaves me with Mr. Tall Dark and Intense.

“How’d you even know where I live?” I frown up at him.

“You’re listed,” he states simply, and I instantly feel stupid for asking such an obvious question.

He takes the suitcase from my limp hold and starts piling boxes into the trunk of his car, while I watch.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were planning on coming all the way out here yesterday?” It’s not as if we hadn’t spent more or less the whole day together and he hadn’t had a chance to mention it.

“Because you would have told me not to. Seemed easier to save the argument until it was too late for you to do anything about it.” Lennox lifts another box with ease and stacks it.

This maddeningly calm and practical version of Lennox is really hard to fight with.

“You didn’t need to drive all the way out here,” I insist. “I’m sure you had better things to do with your Sunday. And I could’ve done this on my own.”

Lennox stops what he’s doing and looks at me appraisingly. It makes me aware of how much of a mess I must seem with my clothes covered in dust, my hair pulled up in a makeshift bun high up on my head. It’s not my best look. But I’m not exactly heading out to a ball.

He frowns down at me and I really wish he’d take those damn sunglasses off, so I’d have more of an idea of what he’s thinking. “You don’t like to let people help you, do you?”

“I was never a fan of the whole Cinderella, damsel-in-distress thing. I’ve never wanted anyone to save me,” I shrug.

“Besides, I think my dad always wanted a boy, so he pretty much treated me like one. I learned how to take an engine apart and put it back together around the same time as I learned my times tables.”