Page 70 of Just This Once

I tossed my purse onto a side chair and marched through the living room toward the table. “He justletyou in? I don’t think so.”

“I mean…” Parker lifted his hands as if claiming innocence. “I had to buy the building first, but he eventually came around and handed the keys over.”

“Youboughtmy fucking building?”

He sent me a smirk. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I won’t be that harsh of a landlord.”

“No,” I agreed sarcastically. “You’ll just stroll into my home whenever you damn well please, apparently.” Setting my hands on my hips, I scowled. “Why the hell are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you. Obviously.”

I barked out a harsh laugh, dismayed. “Have you considered picking up a phone? Might be cheaper than buying an entire apartment complex.”

“But way more boring,” he countered with a quick lift of his brows.

I sighed and pulled out a chair so I could sit across from him. I was too tired to stand for this shit.

He picked up one of the bottles and studied the label. “What’s this one for? For-oh-say-mide?”

“It’s a diuretic,” I answered, plopping my hands on the table impatiently because he was stalling, and it was irritating. No way had he bought my building just to ask me something he could look up online. “It helps me pee and keeps me flushed to fight off the swelling that my failing liver is causing with all the fluids I’m retaining.”

Slipping his thumb over the label, he murmured, “All prescribed by one Dr. Selma Paul.”

“She’s my hepatologist,” I explained.

His gaze slid my way. “Andshe’sthe Paul whose calls you’ve been avoiding.”

“Obviously.”

“Why were you avoiding her?” he asked, remaining emotionless as he watched me.

I huffed out a breath and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “None of your business.”

“Hope,” he bit out in a hard voice as he narrowed his eyes.

For some reason that made me cave. With a sigh, I mumbled, “I didn’t much care for the last diagnosis she gave me. Alright?”

“That you’re dying?” he pressed. And God. He said it so calmly. As if it were nothing.

Scoffing, I snarked, “How’d you guess?”

Parker set the bottle down and looked over at me with displeasure. “And you’re on a list? To get a new liver?”

Oh my God. Really?

“I told you I was.”

He fell back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “So you’ll get a transplant from a donor before it’s too late,” he said as if it were a statement of fact, not a question.

I hitched up one shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Narrowing his eyes as if annoyed by my answer, he demanded, “And you haven’t told Alecanyof this?”

“No.” Gnashing my teeth because, apparently, he hadn’t listened to me atallyesterday, I ground out, “Like I said, if I tell him, he’ll just try to give me a part of his again.”

Parker threw up his hands in disgust. “Then let him. Jesus, Trouble. You’re fuckingdying.”

“First of all,”—I lifted a stern finger—“no transplant doctor would agree to that surgery. Alec’s liver might’ve regrown and be fully functioning forhimagain, but it didn’t truly regenerate.”

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