He shrugged, and for a tiny moment he looked slightly uncomfortable. It had cost him something to share this secret.
“To be utterly honest,” Courtney said, “I did kind of hope you might walk by while I was reading.” And then she took a wild and crazy leap off a very tall precipice. “Are you just getting home from work? If you haven’t eaten, I have a ton of homemade lasagna.”
“Homemade lasagna?”
“Yeah.” It struck her then that she was having her own balcony scene with a very handsome man, but instead of talking about the moon and the stars, they were talking about lasagna. “What if I bring you a plate?” She almost cringed. Was she going to become that neighbor? No. She would not.
“Okay. You can bring Doom back too.”
“His name isn’t Doom. It’s Aramis.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “The cat formerly named Aramis is still at my house. You’ve got Doom, the cat formerly named Porthos.”
“Does it matter which is which? And for the record, I’m trying to square the guy who quotes Shakespeare with the guy who names his cats after comic book villains instead of the Three Musketeers. The inconsistencies worry me.”
His eyes twinkled. “I guess that makes you like Juliet, then.”
Damn. He knew about Juliet’s comeback line. “You mean that line in the balcony scene where she talks about the moon being unreliable?”
“You don’t remember the specific words, do you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, but I’m not a player either.”
“O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
His voice was low and deep, but it carried up to the balcony and swept away her carefully placed barriers.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” she said, trying to keep her heart from racing away with her. She needed to stop this. Now. She’d take a plate over to him, tell him about his mother’s plans for his apartment, and turn right around and come back home.
Yes, she most definitely would do just that.
Matt shouldn’t have told her about Granny Artzen. Courtney was the kind of woman who might use that knowledge against him.
Why had he done it?
Easy answer: When he’d seen her sitting out on her balcony reading a book with her bare legs propped up against the railing, something eased inside him. He’d had a truly awful day at work. The Dogwood Estates case had ended in disaster. All those families would have to find new homes and Matt couldn’t do one thing about it. Instead, he spent the day following David around while he dealt with no less than four divorces. And then he’d had to sit in Dad’s office for a full forty-five minutes while he pontificated about the law.
The only good thing that had happened was Arwen’s news that her contact in the Jefferson County Building Permits Division wanted to meet with them. Arwen was excited about this. She thought she could find them a client.
This made him a little nervous. For one thing, Dad had practically prohibited this sort of thing. And for another, Matt didn’t have the skills to bring a property rights case. He’d have to win David and Dad’s approval. And that seemed remote.
Or barring that, he’d have to go to August Kopp, the managing partner, who would probably eat him for lunch.
So when Courtney knocked on his door for the second time in two days, he welcomed the diversion. She stood on his threshold like a voluptuous angel of mercy, holding a plate of lasagna that smelled deliciously of cheese and marinara. Her cutoffs exposed her shapely legs, and her tank top clung to her breasts.
Instant hard-on. Especially with her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun with tendrils falling down around her ears. His fingers itched to take that hair down one bobby pin at a time.
Damn. He should send her back across the hallway. He wanted her too much, and nothing good had ever come from wanting a woman too much. But the aroma of the lasagna did him in. He was starving. “That smells amazing,” he said.
She grinned like the proverbial casserole-bearing neighbor. “It’s my mother’s secret recipe. I used to make lasagna for my dad all the time.”
Wow, that seemed like an odd detail. But her reference to her father made him suddenly curious about her parents, a scary thought. He didn’t want to get in too deep.
“Enjoy,” she said, handing him the plate. She stood on the threshold, either waiting for an invitation or preparing to make a quick escape. He should send her back across the hall.
“Come on in,” he said, backing away from the door. Damn. He was not thinking with the head on his shoulders.
She hesitated a moment, as if considering her options. As if she was having second thoughts about the game they played. She understood the rules better than most.
That should ease his conscience, but it didn’t.
She didn’t move. “Um, I need to tell you something.”
Uh-oh, was she about to have some long-winded talk about last night? “Okay,” he said, bracing himself.
“I caught your mother and aunt coming out of your apartment this afternoon. They think you need a decorator. I got the impression they were going to redo your apartment behind your back.”
“Goddammit,” he said, turning to head toward his dining room table.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your problem. Thanks for warning me.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Are you coming in or not?”
She finally crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.
He placed the lasagna on the table and said, “I’ve got some silverware somewhere, in one of these shopping bags.”
“Let me help,” she said, as she started peeking into one bag after another.
Damn. His mother was meddling in his life, and now the girl next door was sticking her nose into all his stuff. He almost told her to stop,
