.
her ears after so many days. He’d hit the nail on the head. She was boring. Why else had her ex walked away? He’d all but said those same words. Oh sure, he’d phrased it in nicer, more flowery language, but the message had been the same.
She wasn’t exciting enough. Their life together was too comfortable, he wasn’t being challenged, blah, blah, blah. At least the asshole hadn’t beaten around the bush.
Moving on to the rest of the apartment, she made a concerted effort to stop thinking. Swiping the last of her yarn stash into an oversized bag at the end of the couch, she vowed that she would not think about the jerkface and his rude comments anymore. She had work to do. Ben, the guy who was subletting her extra bedroom for the next month, was due at any moment and she wanted to make her cluttered two-bedroom apartment at least somewhat presentable.
Her buzzer squawked like a dying pigeon and reminded her that she really should have the super take a look at that. She plastered a pleasant smile on her face and threw open the door. The air rushed out of her lungs in a whoosh and blood drained from her head, leaving her dizzy.
“You,” she sputtered to the man who was grinning at her on her doorstep.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the darning spinster from the other night,” he said in that same sexy British accent she’d been hearing in her head all week. He gestured toward her living room. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“What are you doing here?” Her mind was spinning with possibilities. How had he found her address? Wasn’t that information supposed to be private? Had she even given the dating Web site her home address? No, definitely not. Which meant…what? This guy was a stalker?
She took a wary step back so she could shut the door, but her date from hell was blocking the door’s path with a giant duffel bag. She blinked at it for a moment, and the reality of the situation set in with a dawning sense of horror.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
“Which way to my bed, roomie?”
The bottom of her stomach gave way as a rising tide of nausea swept over her. “But you’re not—my new roommate’s name is Ben, not Matthew.”
He looked at her like she was insane. “My real name’s Ben.”
“But your profile said Matthew,” she argued.
He gave a small shrug. “Everyone lies in online dating.”
“I didn’t.”
His eyes widened. “Seriously? Caitlyn’s your real name?” And then, as if it bore repeating, “You actually used your real name?”
Why did he make it sound like she was the crazy one? Surely she wasn’t the only honest person to ever create an online profile.
She shook her head. That was not the issue here. What mattered was the jerk who’d been haunting her thoughts for the past week was standing on her doorstep, waiting to move into her apartment. This could not be happening. Her mind was struggling to keep up with this turn of events. Why hadn’t she requested a picture? She’d checked references, and they’d exchanged some e-mails….
“How did you not recognize my name?” she asked.
He outright laughed at that. “My assistant set this up. Besides, I figured Caitlyn was a made up name for you anyway.”
“It wasn’t.” She would have thought they’d covered that already, but it was all she could think to say as her brain struggled to make sense of this scenario.
She had to be the unluckiest woman on the face of the planet. Either that or she’d been a horrible person in her past life and karma was out for revenge. Those were the only explanations she could think of. Because, really—what were the odds that in a city of eight million, her date from hell and her new subletter were the same man?
And what were the odds that man was a bastard?
Chapter 3
There were worse fates than finding oneself the temporary roommate of a beautiful, if prickly, former date. It certainly beat Ben’s last temporary living arrangement with his best friend and his psychotic, man-hating, verbally abusive girlfriend. Poor Gregory.
Besides, the shocked look on Caitlyn’s face when she’d opened the door was well worth the discomfort of running into a woman he’d failed to call.
He didn’t think he’d ever actually seen someone’s mouth drop open in surprise. And if her eyes had widened any more they would have popped right out of her skull. It was actually rather adorable. She was gorgeous with those cupid bow lips, delicate features, and wide pale brown eyes. She looked like a doll—a fragile, perfect china doll. Had she been this pretty on their date? His memory of that night was embarrassingly fuzzy, but he seemed to remember a slouchy hat and an oversized coat. He was certain she hadn’t been this attractive.
This he would have remembered.
After several moments of staring at one another, Ben broke the silence. “Are you going to let me in?”
Caitlyn’s mouth snapped shut as he moved toward her, attempting to get himself and his bag off of the frigid front stoop and into the warm, lovely smelling apartment she was guarding.
“You can’t come in,” she said.
Now it was Ben’s turn to stare at her in surprise. Everything about this woman screamed sweetness and light, from her big brown eyes to her angelic little mouth. To hear an unpleasant remark coming from her was like hearing Santa Claus curse like a sailor.
“I beg your pardon?”
She started to push the door closed. “You can’t come in here.” She sounded panicked, and he realized for the first time that her look of surprise was rather more like a look of horror.
Oh no.
He scratched his head and considered the woman before him. “Look, about the other week…”
Her eyebrows lifted and her lips set in a grim line.
“I’m really sorry I never called.”
Her cheeks turned a rosy pink. Ah hell, now he’d gone and embarrassed her. His brain scrambled to think of a version of the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech that wouldn’t get him into even more trouble.
“I just don’t think I was ready to start dating. I thought I was but then—”
“I’m not mad that you didn’t call,” she interrupted. Her look of annoyance belied her statement.
“Okay then,” he said, gesturing toward the apartment. “So can I come in?”
She was still watching him expectantly, as though waiting for him to say something. He wished he knew the magic words because it was goddamn freezing out there.
“Look, I know this is a bit uncomfortable for both of us.” Mainly for him as he was the one freezing his ass off. “But if we could be adults about this—”
“You were…rude.” Caitlyn spit the word out and Ben looked at her in surprise.
“I’m sorry?”
“You should be sorry, you were a…a…” He watched her with more than a little amusement as she struggled to come up with a curse word to describe him. The amusement was tempered by a vague, and unfamiliar, sense of guilt.
Why couldn’t he remember that night? Well, he knew why he couldn’t remember that night, but it was frustrating as hell. He would kill to know what he said to make this gorgeous woman spitting mad. Unless it wasn’t something he’d said. The vague guilt erupted into a horrible fear. “If I did anything inappropriate”—he waved his hands vaguely, at a loss for words, which was an even more uncommon sensation—“if I kissed you or touched you in a way that—”
“You