CHAPTER 7
Caine’s refrigerator depressed me. It really, really depressed me. Mostly because it would be almost bare if it weren’t for a carton of milk, one of OJ, and three eggs.
And I’d just put the OJ and milk in there per his request.
I shut the door and looked around the beautiful kitchen. It was a Saturday and it was the fourth in a row Caine had ruined by asking me to run some errand he could run himself if he weren’t trying to deliberately exasperate me. In the past, if Caine was out of groceries he’d counted on his cleaner, Donna, to run out and get those. She visited twice a week and was paid handsomely for the bonus errands. However, since I’d come along I’d gotten the grocery run. He said it was so he could stop inconveniencing Donna, but I knew it was really just so he could start inconveniencing me.
I’d spent the better part of the afternoon running around dropping off dry cleaning, picking up dry cleaning, getting groceries, and choosing a gift for Mrs. Flanagan’s seventy-seventh birthday.
I got her this gorgeous emerald green and sapphire blue kimono I found in a little boutique on Charles Street, and I’d left it on his bed along with his dry cleaning. I’d also left him wrapping paper, ribbon, and Scotch tape. He was going to damn well wrap Mrs. Flanagan’s birthday present himself.
What got me through the fact that I was running around doing all this personal crap for my boss was that he was a busy guy and usually in the office. But when he’d called me today I could hear Henry in the background asking him when they were going to hit the gym. He wasn’t even busy and he was making me do his crap for him! It was official. Caine Carraway was a sadist.
Leaning against the counter, I took everything in. The penthouse was like something out of an interior design magazine—stunning, yes, but no personality had been injected into it yet. I was tempted to snoop and find photographs that I could buy frames for and then just stick ’em out on display and see what Caine did.
Maybe in a month’s time.
It still felt too soon to enforce nesting on him.
My focus was drawn to a spot of color on the coffee table at the TV area. Curious, I wandered over and raised an eyebrow at the DVD case Caine had left out. When I picked it up I saw it was a foreign movie based on the events that took place during eighties Berlin. Hmm. I glanced over at the cabinet beneath the television. Opening a cabinet wasn’t exactly snooping. Much.
I opened it and discovered something new about Caine. On one side he had a bunch of action movies, and on the other side were all foreign movies.
Action flicks and foreign movies.
Huh.
Smiling, I stood up, adding this new information to the inventory I’d unconsciously started compiling about my boss.
Okay, it was time to let myself out of his apartment while I was ahead of the game. There were still a few hours left of the afternoon. I was sure I could fit in some reading. I mean, it wasn’t like I had any other plans, as my social circle had diminished greatly since I lost my job with Benito.
Not that I cared.
Nope.
I let myself out of the apartment and locked up.
Okay, I cared.
Pouting a little, I strode toward the elevator and pressed the button to go down.
I jolted at a sound behind me and I glanced over my shoulder to find Mrs. Flanagan standing in her doorway wearing a diaphanous orange caftan. She was smiling brightly. “Alexa, I’m so glad I caught you. Come in for tea.”
“Uh …” Go home to an empty apartment or have a chat with a funny lady who seemed to know a heck of a lot about Caine? “Sure, sounds great.”
Mrs. Flanagan beamed and stepped aside to let me pass. I was immediately hit with how different her penthouse was in comparison to Caine’s. It was crammed with traditional, expensive furniture that would probably last for hundreds of years. Photographs cluttered every space, oil paintings every wall, and she had a thick Aubusson carpet taking up most of the floor space in the main room. The layout was like Caine’s except Mrs. Flanagan’s kitchen was more French country than sleek and modern, and there was a partition wall between the kitchen and the living space that gave an illusion of them being two separate rooms.
“Wow.” I grinned at her. “This is amazing.” And it was. I could see her whole life in the place. My attention was caught by a black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman staring off into the distance. It looked like a head shot for an Old Hollywood actress. “Is that you?”
Mrs. Flanagan nodded, smiling. “I was Maria in West Side Story on Broadway.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I moved from Boston to New York when I was fourteen to work on Broadway. Met my husband, Nicky, after a show one night. He was a wealthy industrialist from Boston. We married when I was twenty-three.” She gestured to a photograph of her in a beautiful wedding dress standing next to a handsome young man. “In love right up until he passed ten years ago. Still in love.” She smiled sadly. “Thankfully it was enough because unfortunately babies just weren’t in the stars for us.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Flanagan.”
“Don’t be, sweetheart. I’ve had a beautiful life. I still have.” She grinned and started waving me toward her dining table. “Sit, sit.”
Once she’d prepared tea she returned to sit at the table with me—a table now laden with biscuits and cakes. I helped myself to both.
“So.” Mrs. Flanagan poured tea into the gorgeous china cup she’d put in front of me. “Were you running errands for Caine again?”
I snorted. “When am I not?”
“Tsk. That boy.” She shook her head, eyes bright with humor and affection. “He’s certainly going out of his way to piss you off.”
I gave a huff of laughter. “And I bet you think that’s deserved.”
“Well, you did ambush him at a photo shoot and once again in his office.”
My suspicions were correct: Caine told the old bird everything! Intrigued, I leaned forward. “How did you and Caine become friends?”
“Caine, is it?” She threw me a cheeky smile.
“Mr. Carraway,” I corrected myself, holding her steady gaze and refusing to give anything away.
She chortled. “You can call him Caine, sweetheart. He’s not a god.”
“Do you think you could tell him that? Because I don’t think he knows.”
Mrs. Flanagan threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, Caine was right. You are a smart-ass.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I can’t help it. He brings it out in me.”