“Not really,” he replied, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He shoved a hand in his pocket and extracted a black Bic lighter. The lighter hissed as he flicked it, the tip of his cigarette glowing as he brought it to the flame.
Miranda didn’t lecture him. She wasn’t a smoker herself, but she believed in letting other people make their own mistakes. Besides, who was she to reprimand anyone about bad choices? She’d made quite a few of those in her own life.
“So what did your landlord say?” Seth sat down, exhaling a cloud of smoke in the direction opposite her.
She joined him at the table and quickly filled him in, finishing with a glum, “He said it’ll be three or four days before we can move back in.”
“You’ll stay here until then,” Seth said without delay.
She suppressed a sigh. “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’ll check into a hotel. Probably after I pick up the twins from school.”
“Why would you pay money to stay in a hotel when I have a perfectly good room you can use for free?” He sounded incredibly annoyed.
“Because…I don’t want to put you out,” she said feebly.
“Bullshit.”
She lifted her chin in defiance. “Fine, you want to know the real reason? I’m tired of the way you keep trying to get me into bed when I’m clearly not interested.”
A low laughed rumbled out of his chest. “You seemed pretty interested last night when we were making out on the couch.”
“It was a moment of weakness,” she admitted. “But it can’t happen again. There’s too much on my plate right now to get involved with anyone, even if it’s just a casual fling. I’m getting this dance school off the ground, getting used to a new city, trying to make a new life for me and my kids. And now our apartment got flooded and my stress levels are even higher.” She shook her head. “So if you’re offering us a place to stay in exchange for me going to bed with—”
“The offer isn’t conditional, for chrissake. I’m not asking you to screw me in exchange for room and board.” Seth’s gray eyes flashed. “Fuck, Miranda, what kind of ass**le do you think I am?”
Guilt splashed around in her belly when she realized the wounded expression on his face was genuine. God, she’d actually hurt him.
“Seth…damn it, I’m sorry.” She suddenly wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. “I don’t think you’re an ass**le, and I appreciate the offer, okay? But if my kids and I are going to stay, we need to set a few ground rules.”
His hard expression relaxed, but she noticed he took an extra-long drag on his cigarette. “Let’s hear it then.”
“No sex.” When he didn’t respond, she hurried on. “I mean it. An affair between us is a bad idea.”
“Whatever you say.”
His noncommittal tone brought a spark of irritation. “It is,” she insisted. “And not just because I don’t have the time or energy for it at the moment. I’m not cut out for casual flings. I can’t separate emotions from sex, no matter how hard I try, and I don’t want to get hurt.”
He grimaced. “Why must women always complicate the simplest things?”
She burst out laughing. “Sex is not simple. It’s the biggest complication of all, and if you don’t believe me, just look at my kids. They’re living proof of exactly how complicated sex can be.”
Seth didn’t answer.
“I won’t deny that I’m attracted to you—you know I am. But I can’t act on it. I don’t want a fling, and if you can’t promise to be a gentleman and stop trying to seduce me every other minute, I’m staying in a hotel.”
He took another pull off his cigarette, then leaned forward to snuff it out in the glass ashtray on the table. His mouth was set in a tired line as he rose from his chair, the muscles of his broad chest rippling beneath his T-shirt. The bottom of his tattoo poked out from beneath his sleeve, and the intriguing black design distracted her for a moment. She’d have pegged him as the skull-and-bones type, but she much preferred the ink he had.
Forcing herself to focus on the topic at hand, she shot him a firm look. “Can you promise me, Seth?”
Dragging a hand through his hair, he locked his gaze with hers and said, “For as long as you’re here, I’ll be a perfect gentleman, Miranda. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lie down for a while.” He took a step to the door, then halted. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you get hungry. Dylan’s out shopping for groceries, so don’t worry, you and the rugrats will be well fed.”
As she watched him go, a tornado of conflicting emotions swirled through her body, making her feel exhausted. It drove her nuts that she could never quite get a handle on Seth. One minute he was the consummate badass, trying to lure her to the dark side with his mocking words and wicked kisses. The next, he was making sure there was enough food in the fridge to feed her and her children.
Who was he, really? Was his whole rebel thing an act? No, she doubted that—Seth was too rough around the edges to be faking it. But he must have a softer side, right? He couldn’t be all thorn and no rose, could he?
Biting her bottom lip, she fixed her gaze on the tall fence separating Seth’s yard from his neighbor’s. Did it even matter whether Seth possessed a warm and gooey center beneath that crunchy exterior of his? She’d made it clear that she wouldn’t be getting involved with him, so there was no point in searching for the “real” Seth or prying into his psyche.