I eyed the line. Eight people with full carts ahead of us. “Sure.”
She didn’t respond before waltzing toward the garden area, attracting stares on the way. It was hard to say why people stared. It could’ve been the hot-pink hair, the outfit, the overlarge backpack, the way she walked, the wild expression on her face, or the fact she clapped and let out a cheer when she walked outside.
Nora Atwood was a little bit…different. Weird. A total entitled oddball. Rolling onto my heels, I waited as the line slowly made progress. She still hadn’t returned to the line, and while I could afford all her stuff, she needed to learn how to pay for her purchases. Her question about food being delivered still ate at me, and my irritation grew when it was our turn and I unloaded everything onto the belt.
I sent her a text.
No response.
The woman rang me up and smiled. “That’ll be two hundred dollars and forty-seven cents, sir.”
“Right.” I chewed on the side of my lip as I swiped my own credit card. “Thanks,” I mumbled and pushed the cart toward the greenhouse. She stood with about twenty different plants. “You owe me two hundred bucks,” I said, making her look up at me.
She parted her lips, and her breath quickened before she frowned. “What?”
“You left. I had to pay for all of this.”
“It doesn’t…just…automatically come out of an account?”
“Your account. It comes fromyouraccount.” My annoyance spiked. “Put the plants down, we’re leaving.”
“No, I need them.” She stomped her foot, fully erasing any sort of relatively positive thoughts about her. “Plants are—”
“I’m leaving. I’ve missed my plans because of this, spent two hundred bucks, and don’t feel like planting a garden. You can get plants another day.” I started walking toward the exit, double-checking to see if she followed. She pushed the carts of plants behind me, and when I went into the parking lot, she did the same. “Nora, stop. You can’t walk out with those.”
“But you did.”
“Because I paid for them.” My god. This couldn’t be real.
“Can’t they just charge our account? Put them on yours?”
“This isn’t your mansion. I’m not your parents. Push the cart back into the store, or pay for them.”
She blinked, and the same worried, out-of-place look crossed her face before she pressed her lips together. She pushed the cart back inside and hung her head as we walked to my car. She got into the front seat while I unloaded them in the back, and her silence proved that the girl who once saved my ass when I dented a thirty-million-dollar car was long gone. She was replaced with a naïve, entitled princess who talked to herself and pouted. The same girl who wanted to marrymeto get money.
It was best to stay far, far away from her.
Chapter Three
I bolted up in bed.The shrill noise of the fire alarm blared in my ears.
Fuck.I ran my hands over my eyes seeing it was five am and pushed the covers off to figure out. It wasn’t the full building alarm—that was so loud my teeth would rattle. This one was a unit alarm. My pulse raced, and I slipped on shorts as I yawned, hard.
God, I was tired. Sleeping on the ground for a week in a tent wasn’t the best rest, and now I’d lost an extra two hours because ofNora.Of fucking course. I exhaled, took a calming breath, and made my way from my door to hers and pounded on it with my fist. “Nora?”
I didn’t hear anything on the other side besides the blaring, and a prickle of worry had my gut tightening. She surely didn’t hurt herself. I frowned and hit the door harder. “Nora, open the door.”
Another five seconds went by, and I took a step back to my unit to grab my master keys when her door swung open and Nora stood there in a lacy,thinbra and her short black shorts.
“Fritz! My goodness! The kitchen…I don’t know what happened.” Worry lines marred her forehead.
I marched directly to the scene of the crime. Smoke billowed from the microwave. I turned on the ceiling fan, went to her patio door, slid it open, and grabbed a cushion from the couch to wave the smoky air around. Her petite and curvy body didn’t move a muscle, and her eyes went wide. “What…what are you doing?”
“Clearing the air to get this damn alarm to stop. Never had to do this in your castle, Atwood?” I grinned, the entire situation absolutely ridiculous. I had so many questions for her. Like why was she up this early? What did she try to make? Was thatfoilin the fucking microwave? Why was her bra so goddamn thin I could see the outline of her nipples? Why was she staring at me like I had three heads?
She blinked and crossed her arms over her chest, blocking the fantastic view of her breasts. Damn. Apparently, having a great bodyandbeing a headcase didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Batshit crazy or not, Nora Atwood was smokin’ hot.
Much like her microwave.
