Chapter 1

TRICIA

The dress was a mistake.

I knew it the moment I stepped out of the Uber and the wind did something completely criminal to the hem, and the driver, bless him pretended not to notice while I pretended I wasn't one gust away from a full scandal on Granville Street.

This was already a disaster and I hadn't even knocked on the door yet.

"okay. Okay." I smoothed the dress down, squared my shoulders, and gave myself exactly four seconds of pep talk.

"You are cute. You are interesting. You once parallel parked on the first try. You can do this."

I found Apartment 11B, knocked twice, and launched my smile at full power the moment the door swung open.

"Hi! Oh my gosh .... okay, your pictures did NOT prepare me for..."

I stopped immediately.

Because the man in the doorway was looking at me the way you look at a package delivered to the wrong address. He looked confused. Slightly alarmed. But also, and this was the part that short-circuited my brain entirely...he was distractingly good-looking. Very tall, sharp jaw, blue eyes that were currently doing a full forensic analysis of my face, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up like he'd been in the middle of something important before I showed up and ruined it.

He blinked.

I blinked too.

My mouth said, "Wow." Out loud. Without my consent.

"...Can I help you?" he said.

Which — rude by the way. But also his voice was unfairly deep so I let it go.

"It's me!" I laughed, gesturing vaguely at myself like that explained everything. "Tricia? From the app?"

Something moved across his face. I couldn't name it. He opened his mouth, closed it, then ...inexplicably stepped aside and let me in.

The apartment hit me like a physical thing.

"Oh." Oh, this man had money. Not normal money. This kind of money where the furniture looked like it had feelings and the view from the window made you want to sit down and reevaluate your entire life.

I turned to face him. "So the app said you were in finance?"

"Something like that," he said calmly.

I set my wine bottle on his coffee table; a coffee table that I was now ninety percent sure cost more than my rent and sat down like I belonged there. Which I did not. But confidence was free so.

"I'm Tricia again," I said, extending my hand.

He took it. Warm and steady. The handshake of a man who had never been nervous about anything in his entire life.

"Christopher," he said.

"Love that name," I said.

And just like that .... we talked.

He asked questions and actually listened to the answers, which was already better than my last three dates combined. I told him about my job. He asked a follow-up. I told him about the wind incident downstairs and he made this face, his lips were pressed together, and his jaw was tight like a man duct-taping his own reaction shut.

"You're laughing," I said.

"I'm not."

"Your entire face is laughing. Your mouth is just being stubborn about it."

That got him. A short, quiet laugh escaped like it slipped out before he could catch it. And God help me, it was a good laugh.

We argued about pineapple on pizza. He said personal choice. I said moral failure and character flaw. He looked at me for a long moment after that, and I couldn't tell if he was offended or intrigued, and honestly both options were fine with me.

Two hours disappeared just like that.

I was mid-laugh, reaching for my wine glass, when my phone buzzed with a message.

From Daniel: Hey, I'm outside 11A but no one's answering? Did something come up?

I read it and read it again.

Daniel.

My blind date. My actual blind date. Apartment 11A.

My head turned to Christopher in slow motion.

He was watching me with this calm, unreadable expression. Perfectly still. That almost-smile ghosting his mouth like it had been living there for a while.

"What's your last name?" I asked quietly.

"Donovan."

I opened the app. Found the profile and read it.

"Daniel Ashworth. Apartment 11A."

The silence was enormous.

"I'm in the wrong apartment," I said.

"You are," he agreed pleasantly.

"I've been in the wrong apartment for—" I checked my phone. "...two hours."

"Two hours and eleven minutes," he corrected.

I stared at him. "You knew."

He said nothing. But that corner of his mouth moved, and I wanted to throw the wine bottle at him.

"You knew from the beginning," I said, my voice going very quiet the way it does right before it goes very loud. "And you just .... you sat there. For two hours and said nothing."

"You seemed comfortable," he offered.

"I seemed comfortable?"

"You brought wine."

"That is NOT...."

"Good wine, actually."

I stood up so fast I nearly knocked the glass over. "You are unbelievable. You know that? You are a rich, spoilt brat who thought it would be fun to let a woman embarrass herself in your living room for two hours because you had nothing better to do..."

Something happened to his face.

The almost-smile? Was gone. His jaw tightened. And his eyes sharpening in a way that was less amused and more ....something else entirely. He stood up slowly, and slowly was worse somehow, like punctuation.

"Spoilt," he repeated. Very carefully.

"Yes," I said, lifting my chin.

"You walked into my apartment."

"Your door was unlocked!"

"That doesn't mean..."

"Normal people lock their doors, Christopher!"

"Normal people check the apartment number, don't you agree Teesha?"

"It's Tricia! urhhh!". It's no use arguing with you.

We stood there, two feet apart, both breathing slightly harder than the situation strictly required.

Then his phone rang.

He glanced at it and set it face-down on the table. "You should go meet Daniel."

"I was already leaving."

"The door is that way."

"I know where the door is!"

I grabbed my bag, picked up my wine bottle, he didn't deserve it and walked out with my head high and my heart doing something I absolutely refused to acknowledge.

In the hallway, I

stopped. Pressed my back against the wall. Stared at the ceiling.

"Spoilt brat" had landed. I'd seen it on his face. Good.!

I pushed off the wall, smoothed my dress, and walked toward 11A.

"Can this day get any worse?"