Sweet Little Lies Read online

  to face him.

  He’d caught her.

  “I’m all wet,” she whispered inanely.

  His eyes never left her face. “I see that.”

  “I’m—” A mess, she nearly said but the ball of emotion blocked her throat, preventing her from talking. Horrified to feel her eyes well up, she shook her head and tried to pull free.

  “Pru,” he said softly, his hand at the nape of her neck, threading through her drenched hair. There were tangles in it but he was apparently undeterred by the rat’s nest. Pulling her in slowly but inexorably, his lips brushed her forehead. She could feel his mouth at her hairline as he whispered soothing words she couldn’t quite make out.

  She melted against him. No other words for it really. He was real. He was solid and whole. He was everything she wanted and couldn’t have, no matter how badly she ached for him. She’d already wandered way off the track she’d set for herself, a fact that was now coming back to bite her hard because . . .

  Because she was falling for him.

  And what made it even worse; her day, her life, this situation . . . was that she not only wanted him in her life, she was desperately afraid and increasingly certain that she needed him as well.

  She almost cracked at that. Almost but not quite.

  But God, she couldn’t seem to let him go.

  Finn tightened his arms on her, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”

  But it wasn’t. And she didn’t know if she’d ever feel okay again so she pressed her face into his throat and let herself take another minute. Or two.

  Or whatever he’d give.

  Chapter 20

  #HowYouDoin

  Finn cuddled Pru into him, alarmed by her pallor, by the way she trembled in his arms, the tiny little quivers that said she was fighting her emotions and losing. Her dress had plastered itself to her delicious curves, her long damp hair was clinging to her face and shoulders.

  Pulling back, he took her hand and led her to the bar so he could grab a fresh towel. He started to dry off her wet face and realized it was tears, not rain. “Pru.”

  “No, it’s nothing, really,” she said quietly, head down, his fearless fun whisperer . . .

  “It’s not nothing,” he said.

  “I just . . . I need to go.”

  Yeah, not going to happen. At least not alone. Finn turned and jerked his chin at Sean, wordlessly telling him he was in charge of the bar.

  Sean nodded and Fin took Pru’s hand, leading her down the hallway, not in the least bit sorry for leaving Sean in the lurch. After that stunt toast Sean had just given, Finn was saving his brother’s life by leaving now.

  “Finn, really,” Pru said. “Really, I’m fine. Really.”

  “And maybe if you say really one more time, I’ll believe you.”

  She sighed. “But I am fine.”

  She wasn’t but she would be. He’d damn well see to it. He took her to his office.

  Thor leapt off the couch where he’d been snoozing, immediately launching into his imitation of a bunny. Bounce, bounce, bounce while bark, bark, barking at a pitch designed to shatter eardrums. “Thor,” he said. “Shut it.”

  Thor promptly shut it and sat on his little butt, which shook back and forth with every tail wag that was faster than the speed of light. The result was that he looked like a battery-operated toy dog.

  On steroids.

  Pru choked out a laugh and scooped him up. “Why are you here, baby?”

  “He got done at the beauty salon and Willa had to go before Jake could pick him up, so I said I’d take him for you.”

  “It’s not a beauty salon,” she said, face pressed into Thor’s fur, doing a bang-up job at keeping up the pretense of being fine.

  “Babe, it’s totally a beauty salon,” he said. “When I walked in to pick him up, Willa was presiding over a wedding between two giant poodles, one white, one black. The black one was wearing a wedding dress made of silk and crystals.”

  She slid him a look. No more tears, thank God, but her eyes were haunted even though she did her best to smile. “Wow,” she said.

  “Impressed by the lengths Willa’s shop goes to make money?” he asked.

  “No, I’m impressed that you can recognize silk and crystals.”

  “Hey, I’m secure in my manhood.” He took Thor from her and tucked the dog under an arm. The other he slipped around her waist. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m taking you home. You look about done in.”

  “I passed done in about an hour ago,” she admitted.

  They didn’t speak again as they crossed the courtyard. But Thor did. He started barking at a pair of pigeons and when Finn gave him a long look, the dog switched to a low-in-the-throat growl.

  “They outweigh you,” Finn told him. “Pick your battles, man.”

  The dog was silent in the elevator but that was only because Max, who worked on the second floor in Archer’s office, was in it. With his Doberman pinscher Carl.

  When Max and Carl got off the elevator, Thor let out a long sigh that sounded like relief, which under better circumstances would’ve made Finn laugh. “You know your particular breed of mutt was bred to kill Dobermans, right?” he asked the dog.

  Thor blinked up at him.

  “It’s true,” Finn said. “They get stuck right here—” He pointed to his throat.

  Pru choked out a laugh. “Finn, that’s a horrible story!”

  He smiled and tugged lightly on a strand of her hair. “But you laughed,” he said.

  “I laughed because it was a horrible story,” she said, but was still smiling.

  And because she was, he leaned in and kissed her. Softly. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she whispered back.

  He wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but it’d only taken one look at her open, expressive face to know she’d somehow been devastated today.

  And, given the cut on her cheekbone, also hurt.

  Both infuriated him.

  The elevator opened and he took Thor’s leash in one hand and used the other to guide Pru off. They were in the hallway in front of her door when Mrs. Winslow’s door opened.

  “Another special delivery?” Pru asked her.

  “Not for me,” Mrs. Winslow answered. “It’s for you.”

  “Um, I don’t eat a lot of special brownies,” she said. “No offense.”

  Mrs. Winslow smiled. “Oh, none taken, honey. I’m just passing the word that there’s a little something in the dumbwaiter for you.”

  “For me? Why?”

  “For your bad day,” Mrs. Winslow said.

  Pru blinked. “How do you know I had a bad day?”

  “Let’s just say a little birdie looks after all of us,” Mrs. Winslow said. “And he let me know to let you know that you’re not alone.”

  “He who?” Pru asked.

  But Mrs. Winslow had vanished back into her apartment.

  Finn and Pru walked into hers. Finn crouched down and freed Thor from his leash and the dog immediately trotted to his food bowl.

  Pru dumped a cup of dry food into it, patted the dog on his head and then went straight to the dumbwaiter.

  Finn went to her freezer. He didn’t see an ice pack but she did have a small bag of frozen corn. Good enough.

  At her gasp, Finn turned to her. She’d pulled out a basket of muffins from the coffee shop. Tina’s muffins, the best on the planet.

  Finn wrapped the bag of corn in a kitchen towel and gently set the makeshift ice pack to her cheek and then brought her hand up to it. “Hold it here a few minutes,” he said.

  While she did that, he carried the basket to the kitchen table and they dove into the muffins right then and there.

  “Good to have friends in high places,” he said instead of asking her about her face, and when she visibly relaxed he knew he’d done the right thing.

  Did