Page 15 of Blitzing Emily

“That’s right. You’re just fine.” he scolded. “You’re going back to bed before you kill yourself. I’ll get whatever it is you were after.”

She climbed back into her pink paradise a few moments later. He brought the Coke she requested and a beer for himself. He also ditched her silk bathrobe in favor of his own clean clothes. He sat down in the chair across from her bed again.

“So, let’s talk about the woman who sent you all the stuff earlier.” Emily hoped she sounded chipper.

He groaned. “Let’s not.”

“It was a pretty nice valentine.”

The beer bottle dangled from his fingertips as he leaned forward.

“I can see that you aren’t going to let this go until we talk about it, so here are the facts. There is no girlfriend. She and I broke up a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t working. She seems to think that if she follows me around, sends me stuff, and pesters me enough, I’ll change my mind. I won’t. I’ve told her this. She’s not listening.” He blew out a breath, and took a long swig of beer. “Happy now?”

“She must make the big bucks. Just the candy cost a fortune.”

“She’s a model.”

Emily put her empty glass down on the nightstand and chewed her lower lip. She couldn’t even look at him.

“Do you ever date anyone, well,normal?”

“Please explain.”

“Non-models.”

“Not recently.”

This could not be the same guy that took care of her for the past several hours. Shallow, and well, shallow. Warning alarms went off in her head. Well, in the part of her head that wasn’t dazed because of his nearness, and the part that wasn’t still feeling woozy.

Emily saw him studying her from the corner of her eye. She revised her earlier impression—Brandon might have been a lot of things, but stupid didn’t seem to be one of them. He leaned back in the chair once more, and crossed his arms.

“Let’s talk about your love life.”

“Oh, let’s not.” She resisted the impulse to pull the blankets over her head till he was gone.

“Maybe I need to call your Valentine’s date, and tell him you’re unavoidably detained.”

Considering the fact that a boyfriend would have made his appearance long before now, Emily decided to go with the truth.

“No such luck.” She tried to make her voice light.

“I’m surprised at that, sugar.” Emily shrugged her shoulders, and he continued. “It seems to me there would be a line around the block.”

Speaking of lines, she wondered if that one had worked for him lately.

“I’m pretty busy. There isn’t a lot of time to date,” she pointed out.

He didn’t need to know she hadn’t had a date in a year, and that before James she had hardly dated at all. She was too busy with her career. There was also the added benefit that by not dating, nobody got close enough to hurt her again.

“I might have to take a page out of your playbook.”

The stretch and yawn she gave him was Oscar-worthy.

“Ah. You’re tired,” he said.

Emily wasn’t at the moment, but it would get her out of this conversation. She scooted down in the bed and pulled the blankets up to her nose.

“When you leave, please lock up after yourself.” He was watching her again. The look on his face was inscrutable. “Thank you so much for taking care of me. Goodnight.”

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