Make Me Read online

  “Guess you’re Rebecca.”

  Rebecca folded her arms across her chest, lifting her chin to the lanky shirtless man extending his hand in front of her. “Yeah, well, who the hell are you?”

  “Manny. Manny Tescadero.”

  Rebecca recognized the name, or at least the last one. “I sublet this apartment from Jeannette Tescadero,” she said, as if the commonality could possibly be some kind of strange coincidence.

  “She passed away a little over a month ago,” Manny said with his hazel eyes casting downward. Then lifting them to meet hers, he continued. “She was my grandmother.”

  Rebecca’s heart sank. “Oh, I’m so sorry. She was…I mean I didn’t know her that well, but I thought she was so sweet.”

  “She was an amazing woman.”

  Rebecca nodded, a smile creeping onto her lips as she thought about the elderly woman she’d met in the European art history section of the New York Public Library. Jeanette had just finished taking a tai chi class and said she was balancing her Eastern exposure with something from the West. They’d struck up a conversation as Rebecca went about her analysis of the current cataloging locations in that area. Jeanette had commented on her blouse, a fifties-style, cream, peplum-collared number with delicate white dots and a smocked hem. It was one of Rebecca’s favorites. Rebecca had appreciated the beautiful Hermes scarf Jeanette wore in a stylish knot around her silver ponytail. They’d chatted about fashion and art—and eventually life.

  Rebecca had taken a seat across from the thin-but-sturdy woman, watching her slap her hand enthusiastically against the wooden table as she celebrated the punch line of a joke. Jeannette finally confided that she had to move out of the apartment she adored. It turned out her boyfriend wanted to move in together, but her place was just too small for both of them. Rebecca had marveled about this woman’s love for life. She’d been amazed by her free spirit. After years of living alone as a widow, Jeanette had found love and wasn’t afraid to follow it.

  She’d asked Rebecca if she was interested in a sublet arrangement. The rent would be cheap; just enough to help her with the maintenance on the co-op. Who wouldn’t want to live off Central Park West? It was a dream location. She would have been insane not to ditch the lease on her lower Eastside hole in the wall. They met for coffee the next day and sealed the deal over a dainty handshake and scones.

  “She rented this place to me last year.”

  “I know. I mean, I know now.” Manny chewed his lip. “Nana wasn’t the best at keeping records. I only had one phone number for you, and I tried it every day, but you never answered. She left me this place in her will. I tried to give you a month’s notice, but you never responded.” He sighed. “Eventually I had to put your things in storage and just wait until you showed up.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Rebecca said, looking around the two-hundred-and-fifty square foot apartment and all the places where her stuff should have been.

  “Really, I did try to contact you. I left like fifty messages.”

  “What number did you call?” Rebecca asked, tugging her phone out of her bag for a peek at the call log.

  Manny put down the magazine and pulled his phone from his cargo shorts. They hung just low enough on his waist to draw her attention to the soft trail of hairs forming a solicitous line down the center of his rippled abs.

  “Could you possibly put on a shirt?” Rebecca asked, her state of shock morphing back into anger. The last thing she needed was to add lust to the mix.

  Manny Tescadero smiled at her in a knowing way that made her want to prove him wrong.

  “I mean, I don’t even know you,” she went on. “It’s not…uh…it’s not civilized.” That was the best she could come up with.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Pretty sure it’s perfectly OK to be shirtless in my own place.” His grin widened. “Matter of fact, I think they passed a law in this city that says it’s OK for a woman to go topless too, if they want. Women’s liberation and all that.”

  She frowned at him. “Do you think you’re funny?”

  Manny shook his head and chuckled softly. “No, ma’am.” He swiped his thumb a few times over the screen of his phone and then tapped it. “Here you are. Isn’t this your number?”

  She leaned forward, peering at the display and catching a nice whiff of him. Cedar, sweat, and maybe even a slight hint of motor oil filed her nose. Manly smells, all of them. Manly Manny, she thought despite herself.

  The display read: Mystery Girl. Below, a phone number that was only mostly correct.

  “The last two numbers are supposed to be 78, not 16.” As much as she hated to admit it, this nightmare was real.

  “I told you my Nana wasn’t great with records,” he said quietly. “This number was scribbled on a tag attached to the key she had for the apartment. There wasn’t a name. Just the phone number and the initials R. S. She kept everything up here.” Manny tapped his index finger against his temple. “But that didn’t do me much good after she passed on.”

  Another sweep of sympathy flooded through Rebecca. “Were you close?”

  “Yeah, pretty close. Before I deployed, I used to visit her all the time in this apartment.”

  “Deployed? Were you in Afghanistan?”

  “Six years, on and off. Mostly on.”

  “Hmm. How long have you been back?”

  “About two months. I had a chance to see her happy again. Did you know she had a boyfriend she was living with?” He smiled. “The funny thing is, she told me that she had someone I should meet, someone who was keeping her apartment warm for her. I think Nana was cooking up a plan to introduce us.”

  “She really was a romantic.” Rebecca shook her head, musing over the memory of Jeanette and the impression the elderly woman left on her. But this wasn’t a time for musings or getting to know you chitchats. This was a full-on shit storm she’d been thrust into, and after twenty minutes of talking to the gorgeous, shirtless grandson of the woman she’d counted herself so lucky to have met, there was still no clear answer to what the hell she was going to be able to do about it.

  Chapter Two

  Manny watched Rebecca’s eyes twinkle when she said the word romantic and then cloud over again as her gaze left him and flitted around the apartment. He tried a tentative smile. “Listen, I had all of your things put into storage. Moved it myself. Everything is safe and sound and paid up for three months.” He sniffed. “Don’t worry.”

  Her eyes grew so big he thought they would pop out of her head. “Don't worry?” Her hands flew up above her head and fell down, palms first, to her thighs with a hard clap against the cotton twill of her pencil skirt.

  Manny lingered on the sight of those shapely thighs and silently thanked the genius who first designed that particular article of clothing.

  Rebecca’s eyes continued to blaze. “I come home from a month-long work assignment to find out that I have no place to live and you’re telling me to get over it?”

  “Wait, I didn't say that.”

  She continued to glare.

  “Hey, I really did try to get in touch with you.”

  “How long before you moved in?” she asked.

  Manny folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t like what her tone implied. “I stayed in a hotel for two weeks and blew through a chunk 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 hi
s 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 sweatshirts, then?” he said with a smirk. He couldn’t help himself.

  She shifted, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

  “You’re welcome.” He took a bite and watched her nibble at hers. “You know, my Nana wouldn’t be happy with me if I let you go without feeding you and making sure you had everything you needed.”

  “I told you not to worry.”

  “Well then, maybe you should let me invite you to stay here.” He took another bite. “Unless you can convince me that you have somewhere else to stay.”

  She huffed. “What? Do you want me to say that I don’t have any friends here in New York?” Rebecca paused, before continuing in a defensive tone. “Well, I don’t. I work like crazy, and this city isn’t the friendliest place to try to fit in.” She covered her mouth with one of the napkins, as though a bat had just flown out.

  Manny just stared and then finally blinked. He hadn’t seen that outburst coming. “You know you’re kind of making it hard to be the hero here.”

  “A sandwich and an offer to sleep on your futon and now I owe you something?”

  He shook his head, scratching absently at the back. “I don’t know what just happened, but you’re making my head hurt.”

  He watched her frown and then bite her lip as the flash of anger pinching her delicate features dissipated into something more like fear. Everything about her spelled pain-in-the-ass right down to the prissy, if not filthy, strappy high heels she wore. High maintenance wasn’t his first choice when it came to women—not normally—but something about this stubborn, pouting, knockout of a rain-drenched ex-tenant of his grandmother’s had him reconsidering.

  “OK, listen. If you’re worried about me being some kind of psycho killer, here’s the number to my probation officer. He’ll totally vouch for me.” He watched her closely, holding back the grin begging to break free on his lips. One side of his mouth curled, and he arched an eyebrow at her.

  “You could be a psycho killer,” she said, taking another careful bite of her sandwich.

  “I could have sniffed your panties too,” he said with a shrug. He lost it on the outraged look she flashed him, laughing hard enough to need to cover his mouth. “But I didn’t. I promise.”

  She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

  “Really,” he snorted. “I was only joking with you. Should have seen the look on your face.”

  “You’re an asshole,” she said, fighting her own grin and losing the battle.

  “Hey, at least get to know me before you come to that conclusion,” Manny said, winking at her. He stood up. “I bought some cookies at the bakery too. They make the best fudge-chocolate chip concoction.” He felt her following him with her eyes, and when he turned back to look, there they were, big and gray, with a clarity that made his hairs stand up. “What do you say? Are you in for cookies?”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.” She took a few from the plate he carried back with him. “Are these from that great little bakery on 83rd?”

  “You know that one?”

  “Of course. There’s practically a snare trap with my name on it waiting right outside that place. The awesome smell gets me every time.” She took a nice big bite of the cookie, a bit of chocolate fudge smearing on her bottom lip. He could have licked it right off. It would have been an act of charity, right? Just like the offer to put her up overnight. Pure and innocent, not an errant thought to be found of what that black lacey contraption he’d found in her drawer of unmentionables would look like on that gorgeous body of hers.

  “Hey, Manny?”

  “Huh?” He shook off the image of her just about naked and blinked.

  “I was asking if you ever tried their tarts.”

  “Mmmm, yeah. What haven’t I tried?”

  She seemed pleased somehow with that answer. “All right, if you like the baked goods at Petite Fours, then you can’t be a complete lunatic,” she said, taking another nibble and stealing a sideways glance at him.

  “See. Trust your instincts.” Manny winked again at her. “So do you have any other bags you’d like me to get for you?”

  “I have two more in my car, but it’s parked way over on 96th Street.” She raised her chin toward him. "You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the red Camaro parked in my garage space?”

  “You mean Holly?”

  “Oh, it’s your girlfriend’s car.” Her voice took a sharp dip in volume. “How’s she going to feel about me staying here? Wait, does she live here with you? You know what? I really think I should—”

  “Stop.”

  She had been right in the middle of tugging her purse strap onto her shoulder, but upon that one word she froze. As amusing as her little rant was, he wasn’t cruel enough
to let it continue. He leaned over and gently took hold of the strap, slowly moving it down her arm.

  “Holly is my red Camaro. She’s hot and fast, just how I like ’em.”

  “Your cars or your women?”

  “Come again?”

  She sighed and stared blankly over his shoulder, rubbing absently at a faint scar on her collarbone. “Because hot and fast is so much better than homely and slow, right?”

  He cast a cautious look at her, not really knowing what the right answer to that question was. “Cars. Women, I’m learning, aren’t so simple.”

  She nodded at him suspiciously and sighed. “Well, I think I have everything I’ll need for the night in the bag I brought with me. Tomorrow I’ll get to work on finding a new place to live. Thanks again for letting me crash here.”

  * * *

  Mission accomplished, she’d be safe tonight and hopefully not too out of sorts. So it turned out she’d been away on business in DC. That explained why there’d been no sign of her for a whole month. After so long, he’d started to worry that something bad had happened. Now, the guilt of uprooting her scraped at him and wouldn’t quit. This was the least he could do.

  He had good taste in music—she could say that about him. Rebecca found herself humming in the shower to Amy Winehouse’s famously ironic hit. She wiggled to the rhythm, while lathering up her strawberry-blond curls into a tizzy. She kind of remembered Jeanette mentioning something about a grandson who was an officer in the military. Warranted or not, she felt a little more safe knowing he’d been sworn to a code of honor. Rebecca danced under the spray with her eyes closed, feeling better by the minute.

  Suddenly, with an overenthusiastic whip of her head to the song’s hook, she felt her foot slip from under her on a blob of shampoo. She grabbed desperately for the vinyl shower curtain, only to feel the rod give way and come crashing down. The thud her body made against the side of the tub sealed her mortification. She hadn’t screamed out at least—somehow she’d managed to bite back the squeal—but it hadn’t mattered. Manny came busting through the door anyway.