Reaching out slowly, Kiki opened the door.
Three
This is new,Nikos thought with wry amusement.
He’d just been dismissed. Not politely. Not playfully. Flat-out rejected.
Kiki Reese had slammed the door so fast, it had practically hit his nose.
Who did that to him?
More importantly—why the hell did it bother him this much?
Nikos leaned back against the wall outside apartment 4B with his arms crossed. He was barely listening to Harvey as he tried to smooth things over. Overhead, a single light buzzed faintly, casting a sickly yellow hue that flickered, as if even the light questioned why Nikos was still standing there.
The answer, he realized with a bemused smile, wasn’t anything that Harvey was saying. It wasn’t even his original promise to go on a date with Kiki that was keeping him here. Kiki Reese was just as strange as Jim and Harvey had warned him—though somehow that didn’t strike him as a bad thing.
It was simply that he never could resist a challenge—and Kiki Reese might as well have just thrown a gauntlet at his feet.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have other options available if he were interested. He knew at least a dozen women who would fall over themselves to wipe the sting of this humiliation away. The Contessa twins were probably already waiting atThe Rocks, their long legs and fake laughs ready to distract him.
He was surprised when a shudder of distaste swept through him at the thought.
God help him if whatever had gotten into Alexandros and Theo was contagious.
He grimaced at the thought of his two friends’ cynical views of life and boredom with the variety of women that had flowed through their lives before they met the intriguing women who were now their wives.
With a stab of dismay, he realized it had been months since he’d last been with a woman. While he had pandered to the Contessa twins because they were good for business, he just wasn’t physically attracted—at least not anymore.
Which is why,he thought with dismay,I’m standing in a dingy corridor, fascinated by a rude sprite, and mentally gearing up like a man on a mission.
“She’s not usually this bad,” Harvey murmured, his voice a cross between exasperation and fondness as he knocked on the door. “Kiki, please just open the door. Let him say hello.”
A few moments passed in silence—and then the door jerked open. Nikos straightened, surprised that she actually answered.
Kiki pursed her lips and glared at Nikos—which, confusingly, lit him up inside. Reeling, he barely paid any attention when she turned and spoke only to Harvey.
“I said I’d do it, and I will, but he shouldn’t have come here,” she ground out, her eyes flashing with warning. Amusingly, her cat glared fiercely as well and gave a short, stern meow that emphasized Kiki’s point.
“Yeah, I guess. I’m glad you’re still…” Harvey’s voice died and he sighed before he shook his head at Kiki and cast another apologetic look at Nikos. “I’ll let Jim know. He’ll be thrilled. We’re watching a movie later—you’re welcome to join us.”
“Not tonight. I have things I need to take care of,” Kiki said, stroking the calico cat in her arms who was watching the two men warily.
“Okay. Maybe we’ll just watch a couple of episodes of that show Jim likes and save the movie for another time. See you later, love,” Harvey said.
Nikos listened to their exchange, but his mind was elsewhere, namely on trying to decipher what in the hell was going on inside him. From the second Kiki Reese had opened the door and he got his first proper look at her, it was like everything inside him had short-circuited.
Memories of Theo’s reaction to Rose and Alexandros’s description of what he had felt when he first saw Dani echoed like a haunting melody from a horror story through his mind. Theo had said it felt like a lightning bolt had struck him in the chest.
He guessed he should be thankful Kiki hadn’t greeted him the way Dani had greeted Alexandros—with a punch to the groin.
He shook his head and blinked as if he were coming out of a fog. Kiki hadn’t even looked at him earlier, but now—now that she had—something had shifted inside him. Something he didn’t like. There was a low, tightening sensation in his chest. His gut. And lower.
His physical reaction to her was so powerful, he almost reached down to make sure she couldn’t see the bulge in his dress slacks. She shot him an annoyed expression, and he gave her a crooked smile.
He studied her while they waited for Harvey to disappear back into his apartment across the hall and close the door.
She was… petite. Compact. Her curves were swallowed beneath a sloppy white hoodie with a threadbare hem and black jeans that had clearly seen better days. Her wild curls framed a face that could’ve stopped traffic in Midtown: heart-shaped, stubborn, and flushed with indignation. Her eyes met his with a spark that nearly scorched the air between them.
