Cute Neighbour

POV: Vita

I sat down slowly on the edge of my new sofa, the one I'd chosen specifically because it was the opposite of anything that had ever existed in Dominic's house. "And Elena?"

"Still playing the victim everywhere she can. Still got your parents eating out of her hand." Sofia's voice gentled. "You don't have to ask about her, you know. You're allowed to just not know."

"I know." I didn't, not really, but I appreciated her for saying it anyway. "Anything else?"

"Just the usual. The business is fine. Better than fine, actually. You should be proud of yourself for walking away and somehow making everyone richer in the process." A beat. "Nothing from Costello's side, if that's what you were about to ask next."

I hadn't been about to ask. I'd been about to pretend I wasn't going to ask, which Sofia, infuriatingly, always saw straight through anyway.

"I wasn't," I said.

"Sure you weren't." I could hear the smile in her voice. "Go finish your article, Vita. I'll handle the rest."

After we hung up, I sat for a long moment with the phone still warm in my hand, thinking about silence, Julian's particular silence, three months deep now, and what it meant that I still noticed it the way you notice a missing tooth with your tongue.

Then I made myself finish the review. I was fair to the restaurant in the end, generous even, noting the lovely plating and the expensive china, but I didn't pretend the soy sauce wasn't doing far too much work, or that three different waiters hadn't smiled at me like I was a problem to be managed rather than a customer to be served. I filed it just before midnight, Collective Soul blasting faintly through the wall the entire time, because apparently Xavier Kane had never once considered that he had neighbours.

---

The next day I had lunch with the only two people in this city I'd let get close enough to call friends.

Theo worked two buildings over and kept hours flexible enough to meet most days. Lacey wrote the magazine's gossip column and had somehow decided, within a week of my arrival, that we were destined to be inseparable.

"So," Lacey said, stirring her coffee with more drama than the action required, "I saw Xavier Kane in the lobby this morning. Still haven't managed to get the man to actually look at me."

"Maybe try removing the enormous sunglasses from between you," I said. "Does he even take them off indoors?"

Theo laughed. Lacey glared at him. "There's nothing more to the story, I was simply informing the table."

"He's not even that mysterious," Theo said, waving a hand. "Rich, broody, allergic to commitment. You've met one, you've met them all."

"How would you know? You've never dated him," Lacey shot back.

"I didn't need to date him to know the type. Dates a different model or socialite every two weeks, vanishes for a month, then does it all over again. Classic unavailable rich man behaviour." Theo turned to me with a grin. "You're new here. Fresh eyes. What's your read on him?"

I thought about the way he'd stood on that balcony, utterly alone even with his friends laughing around him, like some part of him had already left the room before his body did.

"Maybe he's not avoiding commitment because he doesn't want it," I said slowly, turning the idea over as I spoke. "Maybe he can't have it. There's a difference."

"Ooh. Tragic backstory theory," Lacey said approvingly. "I like it. Go on."

"What if he's already spoken for," Theo offered, clearly enjoying himself now. "You know how the obscenely rich are. Arranged things, old family deals, merging empires instead of hearts."

The words landed somewhere I wasn't prepared for, and I had to look down at my plate for a moment to keep my face from giving anything away.

I'd been quietly writing a novel in the hours I wasn't working, something that had started as a way to pour out everything I couldn't say out loud and had slowly become the only part of my day I actually looked forward to. A dark-haired rebel of a hero, dangerous and watchful, bound by a marriage his family had arranged before he was old enough to object, waiting for an empire and a bride he'd never once laid eyes on.

I hadn't let myself notice, until this exact moment, sitting across from two people who had no idea what they were actually describing, how closely that story had started to resemble my own.

"That's good," I said quietly, once I trusted my voice again. "That's really good, actually."

"What is?" Lacey asked.

"Nothing. Just thinking out loud." I smiled and changed the subject before either of them could press, though Theo gave me a long, curious look over the rim of his cup that told me he'd noticed something shift.

I went home that night and wrote for three hours straight.

---

Back at the office a few days later, I stood up from my desk to stretch, my eyes tired from staring too long at my screen, when a figure crossed the corridor just beyond my cubicle.

Xavier. Sunglasses on indoors, as always, leather jacket over a crisp white shirt. He turned his head towards me for half a second, one brow lifting slightly, the corner of his mouth following a beat later.

Then he was gone.

Did he just smile at me?

I looked around, half convinced I'd imagined the whole thing. No one else sat near enough to have caused it. I sat back down, told myself it meant nothing, and failed almost immediately to believe it.

That night, I went home later than planned. The lift doors had already begun to close when they opened again, and Xavier stepped in beside me, smelling of cedar and something warmer underneath it, wearing a pair of tinted glasses even at this hour, as though his eyes were a secret he intended to keep from the entire world.

He didn't look at me once. Didn't acknowledge me at all, the whole ride up, until the doors opened on our floor, when he held them back and gestured for me to go ahead of him, silent and perfectly, infuriatingly polite.

I walked past him quickly and didn't look back, and told myself the whole way to my door that it meant nothing either.

---

Two weeks passed in something close to a rhythm. I learned that Xavier slept until noon on weekends and left before I was fully awake on weekdays, that he had friends over for cards more often than not, that he showered, by my count, an unreasonable number of times a day. I told myself I wasn't keeping track. I was clearly lying to myself about that too.

My novel had grown past the halfway mark, which felt like its own kind of miracle given how little of myself I had left over most evenings.

Then Veronica summoned me.

Veronica Hale ran the magazine the way a general runs a siege, and when her assistant told me she wanted to see me, I assumed I'd finally pushed one review too far. Instead, she slid a glossy card across her desk the moment I sat down.

*Lumen. A Grand Opening. Exclusive Gathering.*

"What's this?"

"A new club opening on the waterfront," Veronica said, looking at me as though I'd asked her to explain what a door was.

"And you want me to...?"

"You cover features and events, don't you? Or have I had the wrong person writing my events column this whole time?"

"Do I look like someone who goes to clubs?"

Veronica's gaze moved slowly over my blouse and skirt, the kind of outfit that had never once been mistaken for fun. "No, darling. You look like someone who'd be turned away at the door."

I bit back the response that wanted out. There was no winning an argument with Veronica once her mind was made up.

"There's only one ticket," I said, glancing down at the card. "I'm meant to go alone?"

"I expect you to write something about the lighting, the crowd, the music, the general atmosphere of the place," she said. "If you can manage that from beside the bouncer, be my guest."

"So you want an honest, detailed review of a club, written by someone standing alone near the entrance because you only gave me one ticket."

"There it is. I always said you were one of the sharper ones." Veronica waved a hand towards the door. "Off you go."

"Veronica."

"Mm?"

"If I show up dressed like this, I'll spend the whole night being asked which caterer I'm with."

She looked me over once more, slower this time, and something that might have been sympathy flickered across her face before she buried it. "I'll have Marcus send something over for you to wear. Trust his eye. You'll thank me."

"That's really not necessary."

"Vita." Her voice sharpened just enough to end the conversation. "I don't want you walking in there looking like you're there to write about them. I want you to look like you belong."

I rolled my eyes where she couldn't see them and left her office before she could add anything else, still half-laughing under my breath at the sheer theatre of it, and walked straight into something solid, warm, and smelling faintly of cedar and smoke.

"Easy there," a low voice said, and a pair of hands caught my waist before I could stumble backward.

I looked up into a face I'd only ever seen from a floor above or through tinted glass, and for one long, unguarded second, neither of us moved. His brow lifted, slow and familiar, the corner of his mouth following half a beat later into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Sorry," I managed, stepping back out of his hands far too quickly, and walked to my desk without looking behind me, grateful my legs still remembered how to carry me in a straight line.

My pulse hadn't settled by the time I sat down. I told myself it was simply the surprise of the collision.

I didn't entirely believe that either.

Something, infuriatingly, had come alive in me the moment his hands touched my waist, and I had no idea yet how much trouble that small, stubborn spark was going to cause me.