Page 93 of Manhattan State of Mind

“Hey,” she mutters half-heartedly. “I was just grabbing some ice.”

I move toward her, my gaze fixed on those captivating blue eyes that I woke up this morning thinking about. Her back hits the fridge as her arms fold defensively.

“Feels like there’s some tension brewing between us,” I say, my voice low and quiet. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s a million bucks,” she snaps, sarcasm dripping from each word.

She’s pissed. Why? I search her face. Have memories returned?

“Do you regret what happened between us?” I ask with calculated smoothness.

“Obviously,” she fires back straightaway.

Her response is a kick in the teeth.

“That’s not who I am,” she goes on, eyes blazing. “Maybe I gave you the wrong impression. I don’t normally… get involved with the boss.”

I’m aware. You’re exclusively mine.

I rake a hand through my hair. “Lucy, I understand you more than you give me credit for.”

She squirms, her discomfort palpable. Clearly, she’d prefer the ground to swallow her whole than be in my company.

Panic swells inside me, tightening around my throat like a vice. The past two nights, ever since our kiss, I went to sleep with a smile for the first time in weeks. I thought she did too. I was so sure this was the beginning of something real between us again. It’s painstakingly hard to be around her without crowding her.

Now, she glares at me as if she’d prefer dealing with the devil himself.

I draw a deep breath, scrutinizing her face. Did I misinterpret the signals? The kiss—it wasn’t one-sided.

“If I misread the situation, I apologize. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable. But for full disclosure—I’ve been replaying that kiss, every damned second of it, since it happened.”

She flinches, as though I’ve slapped her across the face, and then I realize I’ve been harboring a fool’s hope.The kind of hope that our kiss might be a kind of revelation for her, a cinematic moment where she awakens to the truth of us.

“Look, JP, I’m not like that,” she says firmly. “I don’t screw around. And frankly, there’s nothing you’re after that I can offer.”

She steps back, putting some distance between us, as she reaches for her forgotten lemonade on the counter.

Her inference irks me, and a frown tugs at my brows. “And what is it, exactly, that you think I’m after?”

“Isn’t it glaringly obvious?”

“Humor me.”

“A fling for the week.” Her words are clipped, her chin lifting slightly in defiance. She’s slotting me into the archetype of a playboy without a second thought. “Some light entertainment.”

I blink. “Where the hell did that come from?”

She huffs out a breath, avoiding a response.

“Seems we’re on different pages then,” I say in a low voice, but she’s already edging away, ready to bolt.

“Lucy,” I call, my voice hard as she moves to leave the kitchen.

She stops, shoulders tensing. “Yes?”

“You forgot your ice,” I shoot back.

With that, I stride past her, exiting the room, my throat choked with words unsaid and emotions unresolved, feeling uncharacteristically powerless.