He took a moment before emerging from behind her modest television. “This doesn’t have the inputs I need. I’ll bring you a new one.”
“A new what?”
“A new television.”
“You will not!”
He blinked at her. “This one won’t work with the CCTV gear.”
“I’m not accepting a gift like that from you to get you out of community service.”
His eyes narrowed. “Have I asked you to let me off the service order?”
“I’m sure you’re working up to it.” She lifted her chin and absorbed the tiny adrenaline rush that came with sparring with him.
“You really don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?”
Tori frowned. “I’ve been entrusted with … I feel like there’s an obligation there.”
“To do what?”
“To sign your attendance. Properly.”
“Like some kind of classroom roll call?” The stare he gave her went on forever. “And you wouldn’t consider just signing it off to be rid of me?”
Oh, how she’d love to be rid of him. Except someone had forgotten to tell her skin that. The way it tingled when she opened the door to him this afternoon. The way it prickled even now, under his glare.
She shrugged. “They’re trusting me.”
“You don’t know them.”
“It doesn’t matter. I would know.”
“Well if you want me to do this by the book you’re going to need to take the television, otherwise there can be no webcam.”
“I can’t accept a television.”
“Ms Morfitt—”
“Oh, for crying out loud, will you call me Viktoria? Or Tori. You make me feel like an aging spinster.” And that likelihood was something she tried very hard not to think about. Living it later was going to be hard enough …
She stood and moved toward the kitchen. Toward her ever-bubbling coffeepot.
“Viktoria …”
Nathan frowned, not liking the formal sound of it on his lips and tried again as she moved away from him. “Tori. I run an IT empire; we have monitors and televisions littering my office. Giving you one is about as meaningful to me as giving you corporate stationery.”
Her nostrils flared and he felt like a schmuck. She’d done the very best she could with the bare bones of this apartment but there was no disguising the absence of money in her world. Not surprising if she was living on a barter system. And here he was throwing around televisions as if they were nothing. Which—brutal truth be told—they were, in his world. But waving his worth around wasn’t usually his style. Money had come hard to him, but he wasn’t so far gone he forgot what it felt like to live the other way.
One minute back in this building and it was all too fresh. Uncomfortably so.
“Look. You’ll need it to monitor the web feed. I need it to get this community service order signed off.” She looked entirely unmoved. He searched around for inspiration.
It wasn’t hard for him to get into the trading spirit. That junior entrepreneur she spoke of living in the building twenty years ago had been him. He’d had a raft of creative schemes going to try and make something from the nothing of his youth. Not that he was going to tell her that. “I’ll trade you if I have to.”
Her gray eyes scanned his body critically and a tingle of honeyed warmth trailed everywhere she looked. He’d never been more grateful that he kept in good shape under the designer suits. Which was ludicrous—just because she was in perfect shape. The way she’d twisted in through that window—
His whole body twitched.
“You don’t look like someone who needs their ironing done,” she said, carefully. “What am I going to trade you for?”
The spark of defiance and pride in her expression touched him somewhere down deep. Enough to ask her seriously, “What can you offer me?”
She frowned. “Photography?”
As good as her images were, did she truly think she had nothing else to offer? He wanted to push her. To show her otherwise. A good brain ticked away beneath those tumbling auburn locks. Never mind the fact this was a great chance to learn a little more about her. “I don’t need it. I have a whole marketing department for that stuff.”
Her delicate brows dipped. “Well … if we’re talking something you need …”
Crap. He should have taken the photography.
“… how about I show you around your building?” she continued. “Introduce you to people. Show you the human face of this towering asset.”
Nate’s heart doubled in size and pressed hard against his lungs. Despite what he’d told Dean, getting to know his tenants was the last thing he wanted. Not when he was about to rip the building out from under them. But it did mean Tori would take the new television and that meant he’d get his life back ninety-five hours from now. And as a side bonus, he could get to know her better.
“Not that I can see how that actually benefits me, but I accept.” Whatever it took. He’d just stall her indefinitely on her part of the bargain.
“Of course it benefits you. I’m sure you know your tenants are an asset too. Some of them have lived here all their lives. You don’t get more loyal customers than that.”
… all their lives.
That meant some of them might have lived here back when he lived here. And when she lived here. His mother. Nate’s skin tingled. Meeting those tenants was definitely out of the question. And therefore getting chummy with the natives was categorically not on his radar.
Except maybe this one. Surly or not, Tori grabbed his attention in a way no other woman had. A two-handed grab.
“I’ll have the television delivered tomorrow,” he cut in, shaking the image free. “Will you be home?”
“Yep.”
“I haven’t given you a time yet.”
She shrugged. “I’ll be home. I have a date with a Battlestar Galactica marathon and Mr. B’s ironing, remember?”
For some reason, the thought of the same hands that took such artistic wildlife photos sweltering behind a steam iron all day made him uncomfortable. But what Viktoria Morfitt chose to do with her spare time was entirely her own business.
And her business was none of his business.
“Tori Morfitt, door!”
A man in a hemp beanie flung the front door wide and let Nate into the ground floor of his own building the next day, then hollered Tori’s name up the stairwell. Somewhere upstairs, someone else echoed the call. And then someone else as the message passed up the building frontier-style.
“Buzzer doesn’t work,” the man finally said by way of awkward conversation and then turned back to scanning his mail.
Nate’s smile was tight. What could he say? That was his buzzer doing such a bad job of providing security for his tenants. Fortunately, the neighbors had it covered—this guy wasn’t letting him go anywhere until Tori appeared and vouched for him.
Security by proxy.
“She’s jogging so she shouldn’t be long,” the guy eventually said, taking an exaggerated amount of time sorting through his post. Nate turned and looked outside, confused. He hadn’t passed her in the street … Then again,