Page 118 of Manhattan State of Mind

His sigh drifts through the phone. “Do you want the damn offer or not, sweetheart?”

“Yes! Yes!” I can barely get the words out. I just don’t want them to change their minds. “Have they actually seen the apartment?”

“Doesn’t matter. If they’re stupid or rich enough to buy it without seeing it, we accept it.”

I slam the end call button and burst out of the bathroom with a primal scream that wouldn’t be out of place in Jurassic Park.

I break into a victory dance around the living room, all flailing limbs.

Spider pokes his head out of his room. “What’s the party for?” he asks, deciding to join my dance despite the confusion, nearly taking out the coffee table.

In a fit of sheer exuberance, I find myself lunging at him, wrapping my arms around his neck.

“What’s the party for?” he repeats, sounding somewhat muffled from my embrace.

“The place is sold!”

“What?”

I freeze. “Sorry, Spider. I’m selling the apartment.”

“You sold… wait, WHAT?”

The penny drops and his face crumples. “Ah, shit,” he hisses, storming back to his room.

???

Half an hour later, I’m still blinking at Dave’s email, my eyes darting over the zeros again and again like some paranoid accountant. No matter how many times I read it, it still says full asking price.

I’ve already tried, and failed, to cyber-stalk this mysterious company intending to purchase my apartment for no good reason. Now all that’s left to do is pray to the gods of real estate that this deal goes through quickly and without any snags.

Because with all the recent madness swarming around my life, it feels as though I’m a mere puppet in the hands of some higher power orchestrating my good days and bad ones for their own shits and giggles.

My phone springs to life, an unknown number setting my heart pounding against my ribs.

Because I already know who it is. Women’s intuition.

“Lucy.” JP’s voice seeps like aural Viagra down the phone.

“H-hi,” I squeak, realizing too late that I sound more like a schoolgirl than a woman of the world. I cough delicately, hoping to scrape together some scrap of sultry sophistication.

“I’m curious to know what you’re up to.”

I’d been knee-deep in bathroom grime; a task I’d abandoned midway when Dave called. But that’s not exactly sexy banter material.

“Just unwinding a bit,” I lie smoothly, getting to my feet to pace the kitchen. “What about you?"

“Thinking about you.”

Oh, sweet mother of all… My pulse stutters, then picks up speed like an out-of-control vibrator. Pull yourself together, woman. Surely, you can manage some semblance of flirtation?

“I’d expect a billionaire casino mogul to have better things to do on Saturday,” I quip playfully.

“Not this one.”

“You might want to consider taking up a hobby. Knitting or something.”

He chuckles huskily. “No need. I already know what I enjoy,” he drawls, the hint of sexual undertones enough to stir my ovaries into a frenzy.