Make Me Read Free Page A

of cash I hadn’t planned on, hoping to get in touch with you.”
    “I’ll pay you back,” she said, her tone raking his nerves even more. “Just tell me where to find my stuff.”
    Manny had a sudden urge to show her the fastest way to the curb. He glanced at the open magazine he’d left on the table by the door. New York Life & Style wasn’t his usual thing—he was more of a Guns & Ammo kind of guy—but the cover had caught his eye on the way out of the bakery and he’d raced home to read it. So yeah, Rebecca could go, and he could get back to brooding over the article on Kyle Hunter, Manhattan’s Bachelor of the Month. Three pages of pure torture waited for him, starting with a full shot of Kyle in his US Marine dress blues, with those intense eyes looking straight at the camera and a joke ready to sneak from his slightly curled lips. Manny wondered if the joke was on him.
    Rebecca wrung her hands, and he cursed inwardly. His conscience wasn’t about to let him put her out on the street. “Slow down. Do you have some place to stay?”
    He watched her wring her hands some more and open her mouth only to close it again. Then she straightened her back and extended her elegant neck. Manny wondered just how prissy she could look.
    “Don’t you worry. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as you give me the key to the storage facility.”
    He cocked his head to the side. Ms. Fancy-pants had a pretty face—pink, full lips that didn’t need any goop to be kissable as hell, high pronounced cheekbones, and gorgeous gray eyes that looked like they just might tear up any second.
    “As you can see, I have no hair.” Manny ran his palm over the neat, stiff bristle of his near-nothing cut. “Besides, it’s pouring outside. At least wait out the rain some. I was just going to make myself a sandwich. Do you like turkey and Swiss?”
    She nodded stiffly, and he smiled at her.
    “Good. Sit down.” He motioned to the navy blue futon placed opposite his new sixty-inch flat-screen TV. “It doesn’t come close to that ridiculously heavy couch you have, but—”
    “It’s fine,” Rebecca said with a tight mouth.
    Manny shook his head and started to try to reassure her again, but remembered what an epic fail that had been the first time.
    She sat with her delicate hands in her lap and looked around the apartment. “How did you know which items were your grandmother’s and which were mine?”
    He pulled out two ciabatta rolls from the bag he’d brought back with him on his bike. “I kept the things I was sure of. There might be some newer things of hers mixed in by accident with your stuff, though.”
    Rebecca was silent for a minute. “No, she only left a few pieces of hers behind when she moved out, and they’re all here.” Another beat of silence and she continued. “I suppose you packed up all of my underwear.”
    He laughed. “There wasn’t much left. Except for the good bits that I guess weren’t necessary for your business trip.” And the stack of erotic photographs at the bottom. He had to admit, he wished he could catch the blush no doubt blazing across her cheeks, but a peek around the bend separating the living area from the kitchen would have been way too obvious. He’d admired the tint of rose on her cheeks once before when she’d asked him to put on a shirt.
    At that moment, he realized he still hadn’t actually done it. When the sandwiches were fixed, he grabbed a hoodie from the doorknob and put it on. Entering with the two plates and two cans of soda, he couldn’t help feeling a bit of déjà-vu as he set it all down on the cloverleaf marble cocktail table.
    “My grandmother served me plenty of these here,” he said, kind of mindlessly, and noticed a flicker of disappointment flash in her eyes as she dropped her gaze to his sweatshirt.
    “Marines, huh?”
    “You don’t like Marines?”
    “Hmm? Oh, no. I have the utmost respect for anyone who serves their country.”
    “Don’t like