Read Paris Rose for Free Online Page A

the kitchen floor, rubbed sticky finger marks off the patio door, and wiped down the counter tops.
    Lucy had brought nothing but mayhem into his life since she moved in next door. She was actually wrecking his life, he thought, remembering Olivia’s departure. Then he sighed deeply, knowing he wasn’t being honest with himself.
    He and Olivia had been going nowhere.
    His only motivation for being with her in the first place was Lucy. Every time Olivia moved, every time she opened her mouth, he’d compared her to his ex, and he’d fully deserved to be dumped this afternoon.
    But Lucy had no right to put him on a guilt trip. What the hell was he supposed to do, leave the nursery how it looked two years ago, as a tribute to a baby that would never be born? He went still, a hard lump forming in his throat. Okay—so he’d run from his pain, tried to obliterate it. Failed to “address his feelings” as Mark had so eloquently put it. But surely that was a damn sight better than deciding to cheat on Lucy.
    He marched out into the yard to dismantle the trampoline, welcoming the anger invading his body as if it were an old friend. Anger was a hell of a lot simpler to deal with than pain. Hearing him, Dexter exploded, racing across the lawn to bark furiously and claw at the fence.
    “If you can’t control that idiot dog, I’m reporting you to Animal Control!” Nick yelled.
    “Go right ahead, you asshole!” Lucy screamed.
    A reddish haze of fury descended before his eyes. No man should have to deal with this. It was downright intolerable, and he wasn’t going to take it a moment longer. Forgetting the trampoline, he strode next door, making his way between their homes and through the wooden arch that led into Lucy’s yard. Adrenaline pumped through his body.
    She was reclining on a sun lounger in a pair of tiny shorts and a bikini top, and Nick abruptly forgot everything he’d been planning to say. His mouth turned dry as he was transfixed by the sight of her full breasts filling the scarlet bikini and her firm, golden belly. Scowling, she scrambled to her feet. “Can I help you?”
    “This has got to stop,” he said.
    Dexter started barking again, and Lucy scooped him up and bundled him into the house, then turned back to Nick.
    “Why’d you move in next door, Lucy?” he demanded.
    She looked at him through narrowed eyes filled with dislike. “I actually wanted you back. What a fool I was.”
    He hadn’t expected such honesty, and had never seen her looking so contemptuous, and for a moment was lost for words. “That’s never going to happen.”
    “Hallelujah,” she sneered. “I don’t want a man like you. I want a man with feelings, a man who can love me and listen to me and appreciate me.”
    Her words were so unfair his fists clenched. “I was all of those things and you know it. And maybe I wanted a woman who didn’t screw around.”
    She shook her head pityingly. “I didn’t screw around, and you know it. But you know what? I wish I had slept with Jean-Luc. At least he cared about me enough to listen to how I felt—he didn’t just look bored and turn away when I needed to talk.”
    Nick closed his eyes for a second, acknowledging to himself there was more than a grain of truth in her words. She’d needed to talk, to express her feelings and grief; she’d wanted them to see a therapist. That just wasn’t his way. Their baby died. All the talking in the world couldn’t change that.
    Lucy gave a long, shuddering sigh and when she spoke again, the anger had left her voice. “How could you? How could you just paint over the mural I made for the baby?”
    She gazed at him, not accusingly, but as if she genuinely needed to understand.
    Nick realized he’d taken a step toward her as he began to speak, searching for the right words, desperately needing them to come out right. “It hurt,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “I would go in there and look at everything, and it hurt so