Page 10 of Just The Way You Aren't

I blink at her, incredulous. “I don’t want that filthy cat in my Mercedes.”

“It’s not a cat. It’s a kitten. Look at that little face.” She pushes the scraggly gray kitten through my window.

The kitten looks about as excited to see me as I am to see it. In fact, after a quick once-over, the kitten hisses at me.

“Aw, baby, be nice to the nice man,” the woman coos, bringing the kitten back to her ample bosom.

I must be staring at her ample bosom and not the kitten when I think about Alfred’s words and my drowning public image, and then I proceed to lose my mind. “All right. Fine. Let’s get that bike parked and locked somewhere, and then we can take the cat to the shelter.”

The way she beams at me, like the sun rising in the east on a spring morning after a long winter, makes it all worth it. “Turn onto that alley right there. The bodega at the corner has a chain-link fence in the alley I can lock my bike to,” she says, then hurries off to retrieve her bicycle.

So, she’s a local. That’s a sad turn of events. It’s like watching a dandelion poking up through the crack in an unforgiving cement sidewalk. She just doesn’t belong… here.

I could put her in a palace of an apartment.

I shake my head vigorously to clear it. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the alley,” I promise. I’ve already committed to this nonsense so I have to see it through. Somehow, she’s gotten me to squeeze her into my schedule.

This is unprecedented.

Still, shaking my head at myself, I creep forward and turn off the main road. By the time I get parked—praying myMercedes still has tires by the time I get out of it—the woman is struggling with a massive lock she’s put on a heavy chain, threaded through the fence.

I walk over and see the lock has recently been greased. I think of my suit and grimace.

“I just oiled this thing, too,” she mutters, still fighting the lock. One-handed, because of the kitten.

The minutes tick by. I’m going to be late.

“Here, I’ve got it.” I lean over her, smelling a lovely strawberry scent, and wrangle the lock closed. When it clicks, she looks up at me and smiles. It reaches all the way to her beautiful hazel eyes.

“Thanks,” she says softly.

You’d think I was Superman the way she looks at me. I find myself smiling back at her and don’t even mind too much when I have to pull out a handkerchief. I’m about to wipe my own hands when I see hers, and gallantly hand over my Hermès silk handkerchief.

“Aw, you’re sweet.” She hands me the kitten.

It hisses immediately and digs its tiny dagger claws into my very expensive Armani suit jacket.

Fuck. Now I’m late for my meeting and my jacket is snagged. I frown at the woman, but she’s still bright and sunny and radiating cheerfulness. So I swallow my grumpiness and, reluctantly, cup my hands around the dirty furball.

It stops hissing at me and looks up with very blue eyes. His expression says I’ve lost my mind.

He’s not wrong.

“Ohh, he likes you!” The woman sighs, petting the kitten’s head and stroking my hand a bit by proxy. The current of heat that travels through me at even that brief contact takes me aback.

The kitten purrs. I’m surprised I don’t as well. I sure as hell want to.

“Let’s go.” She gently takes the kitten from me and settles him against her chest once more.

The kitten gives me a smug look as he snuggles into her bosom. Lucky asshole.

I quickly remember my manners and go to open the passenger door for the woman. She gives me another sunny smile. I close my door on her skirt. Wincing, I open the door again.

Her laughter is even more infectious than her smile and I find myself chuckling as well. Like an idiot.

“Here.” She tucks her skirt into the car. “That should help.”

“Thanks.” I run around to the other side of the Mercedes and get in the driver’s seat, grateful the car hasn’t been messed with at all. “So,” I say. “Where to?”

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