Mister Moneybags(37)

Bianca was dusting off tiny, grey dog hairs from her black skirt, and I noticed her deep green blouse had a circle of wet over her left breast. “My dog seems to have left his mark on you.” My turn.

She looked down and laughed. “He’s a slobberer.”

“Tell me about it. I can’t get him to sleep anywhere but on my bed. Some mornings, I worry my housekeeper is going to think I’ve developed a bed-wetting problem.”

“I think it’s really sweet you’re allowing him to sleep in the bed with you. But it’s a hard habit to break, and dogs can become territorial when…you know…you have company.”

“Perhaps he needs to get used to it right away. Are you available to stay this evening?”

Bianca rolled her eyes at me. “Are you giving me a tour, or what?”

Joel was busy taking test shots of different places in the living room to test out the natural light streaming in from the windows, so I put my hand at Bianca’s back. “Of course. What do you say I show you the bedroom first?”

“What a shocker you’d suggest that?”

I gave Bianca the grand tour; she seemed curious as we walked around. Although I noticed she stayed in the doorway of my bedroom. She was trying to keep her distance, and as much as I understood that, my need to push closer was equally as strong as hers was to push me away. I got the feeling our standoff might be a test of endurance. What she didn’t realize was that we’d had our first battle, and due to my own asinine self, I lost that one. But this was a war—one I planned to win.

When we got to my office, I opened the door and then quickly shut it. Coming to my apartment wasn’t something I’d originally planned, and I’d forgotten the mess I’d left on my desk.

“It’s a mess in there,” I offered, and began to walk toward the next door. But Bianca didn’t budge.

“What are you hiding in there?”

“Nothing.”

She squinted. “More secrets?”

“It’s not like that.”

“So show me the room. What are you hiding from me now, Dex? Or should I call you Jay when you lie?” She folded her arms over her chest.

There was no way out of this one unscathed. I took a deep breath. “Fine.”





I didn’t know what to say. I just stood and stared. The oversized desk was a cluttered mess. There were piles of wood shavings, various wooden blocks that were carved and disregarded, an instruction book that was held open by a desk phone and all sorts of wooden-handled tools scattered around the long desk. But that wasn’t what got to me. It was the open first aid kit, along with an assortment of crumpled up, bloodied paper towels and at least half a dozen Band-Aid wrappers.

Dex was standing behind me. Neither of us had said a word since he’d flicked on the light. I turned to face him.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you tell me you whittled?”

“You want the truth?”

“Of course, I do.”

He raked a hand through his dark hair. “I have no fucking idea. I wanted to sound like a regular guy, I guess.”

My lip twitched. “You have no idea what regular guys do for hobbies, do you?”

“I was raised privileged, Bianca. If I’d told you that I fenced competitively in high school and spent my weekends at sailing regattas, what would you have thought?”

He had a point. One lie can easily snowball into so many. “For the record, I’ve dated mostly regular guys and none of them whittled, Dex.”

“So noted.”

“Pretty sure most of them didn’t say things like ‘so noted,’ either.”

He smiled half-heartedly. I could see he felt bad for what he’d done. In fact, I was certain he had been beating himself up over it on a regular basis even while he was lying to me daily. I stopped at the doorway when Dex flicked off the light. “I’ll give you this much. You committed to the character.”

He grumbled. “Or I should be committed.”

After my tour was over, Joel was all ready to take photos. He did a series of Dex standing at his window with the view of Central Park, followed by some of him standing in front of the massive fireplace that was the center of the living room. But it was the ones that he took of Dex sitting on the couch that I liked best.

Joel had just taken a break from shooting when Dex’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and went to sit on the couch to talk to what I assumed from the side of the conversation that I’d heard, was his secretary. As Dex was talking, Bandit slunk up on the couch and lay next to him, resting his long face on his master’s lap. He mindlessly stroked the dog’s head while he went about the conversation with Josephine. From the other side of the room, Joel lifted his camera and started taking photos of what we both saw. I could only imagine how intimate the photos were going to come out.