The One Night Stand Next Door Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE ONE NIGHT STAND NEXT DOOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The End… For now.

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

  CHAPTER ONE – IVY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY EMMA HART

  THE ONE NIGHT STAND NEXT DOOR

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR PREQUEL

  By Emma Hart

  Copyright © Emma Hart, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Emma Hart

  Editing by Ellie at My Brother’s Editor

  CHAPTER ONE

  I didn’t understand apartment building parties.

  In fact, until I moved into my new apartment eight months ago, my only experience of them was that episode of Friends where Ross pissed off all his neighbors.

  Now, I was getting ready for my third party.

  I was starting to think I’d moved into the wrong building.

  I wasn’t really a party person.

  Not that I didn’t go to parties. I did. Like, once a year, and usually only for half an hour before I made an excuse and left. I didn’t know if it was because I was an introvert by nature or because, when I was a child, my staunchly Catholic grandmother drilled into me that only hookers, pimps, and drug addicts went to parties.

  Probably a mix of both.

  She was a delightful woman, really.

  “Just don’t go,” my best friend, Victoria, said.

  I picked up my phone and looked at the screen. “I wish I could get out of it, Tori, but Vincent has knocked on my door four times in the last week to make sure I’m going.”

  She waved her hand. “Vincent is eighty-three. He’ll forget you never showed.”

  “It’s his party,” I reminded her, grabbing my hairbrush. “His birthday party. And his forgetting is why he came over four times.” I adjusted my phone so it was standing on my dresser so I could finish getting ready and still talk with her.

  “Oh, so it’s nothing to do with Kai, then?”

  My cheeks flushed at the mention of my hot neighbor. “Absolutely not. Kai is my neighbor, and I’m not even sure he’s interested in me like that.”

  “Seriously, Ivy? When we saw him last week, he practically undressed you with his eyes and fucked you on the stairs.”

  “Tori!”

  “It’s true!” She laughed, reaching up to twist her long, black hair into a messy bun. “He totally wants you.”

  “Okay, we’re not having this conversation. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend.”

  “No, he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him in the grocery store and asked him.”

  I sighed. “Of course you did.”

  She grinned. “You’re welcome, by the way. You know you won’t stay long at the party, so why don’t you just leave with him instead?”

  “Okay, goodbye.” I leaned forward and hung up before she could go any further.

  I wasn’t going to talk about Kai to her.

  Yes, I had a crush on my unfairly sexy neighbor. Yes, I kind of wanted to climb him like a tree and ride him like a bull. Yes, I’d had more than one dirty dream about him since I’d moved in.

  But that didn’t mean anything would happen, because despite what Tori said, I wasn’t sure Kai was interested at all.

  Also, sleeping with your neighbor was never going to end well. For anyone.

  My phone buzzed and I tapped the text message that came through.

  TORI: BOW CHICKA WOW WOW

  ME: Shut the fuck up.

  I tossed the phone onto my bed with a shake of my head. She didn’t know when to stop. I was not going to sleep with Kai, no matter how many times she brought it up.

  Even if he was interested, it wasn’t going to happen.

  Maybe.

  Probably.

  I put some mascara on my invisible eyelashes and gave my blonde hair one last comb-through with my fingers. If this party wasn’t Vincent’s eighty-third birthday, I would have found a way to get out of it, for sure.

  Have you ever told an old man you couldn’t go to his party? Have you seen those sad eyes that could give a rescue full of puppies a run for their money?

  Yeah.

  I tugged my jeans up and slipped my feet into some ankle boots, then picked up my phone and left my bedroom. I still had time and I hadn’t eaten yet, so I was going to run out and grab some takeout before I showed my face for half an hour at the party.

  I opened the door and almost walked right into Kai in the hallway.

  “Whoa. Where are you running off to in a hurry? You know Vincent will be pissed if you skip out on his party.”

  I pursed my lips at the tall, sexy, smiling man opposite me. “I’m not skipping out on his party. I’m hungry. I was going to get dinner.”

  “You know there’ll be food there, right?”

  “Yes, but I also know Vincent has a penchant for tequila, and I’m not playing his drinking games on an empty stomach.” I dragged my gaze away from his bright-blue one and locked my front door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back on time.”

  “Thank God. You’re the only person in this building who isn’t the other side of thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-five is hardly ancient.”

  “I know, but when you’re a divorced mother-of-two and you don’t get the message that I’m not interested, it’s inconvenient.” He unlocked his door with another grin, but I saw the trepidation flash in his eyes.

  Ah.

  “I see how it goes,” I replied, shoving my keys in my ass pocket. “You want me at the party so you can use me to keep Amanda away from you.”

  Amanda was a thirty-six-year-old divorced single mom who was even newer to the building than I was. She lived on the ground floor with her ten-year-old twin boys—a fact we were all grateful for, for obvious reasons—and she’d taken a big shine to Kai. He’d told her a thousand times he wasn’t interested because he was eight years younger than her and had no idea what to do with two children, but she was persistent.

  I also knew that her ex-husband had the boys this weekend, and she liked to let loose when it was his weekend. I’d seen her stumbling into the building after my shift at the bar more than once—hell, I’d put her in a cab more than once, too.

  But hey, more power to her.

  I’d probably get completely hammered if I were her and I knew I didn’t have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to two noisy boys the next day.

  Kai groaned and clasped his hands in front of him. His biceps tightened, and the phoenix tattoo on his left arm flexed with the movement. “Ivy, please. Help a guy out.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “And give Mrs. Valentino ideas about us again? I think not.”

  “Oh, come on. There are worse things than an elderly Italian lady thinking you’re my girlfriend just because we were doing laundry at the same time.”

  “Yes, like Amanda thinking I am.” I dropped my arms. “She doesn’t like me anyway, and the last thing I want is a childless Amanda going heavy on the Patron on the roof.”

  He paused. “Yeah, that’s problematic.”

  “You think?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Anyway, I’m going to pick up Chinese food before all hell breaks loo
se here.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Ye-ee-ess,” I said slowly.

  “I could go for Chinese.”

  “I don’t remember inviting you.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  It took me all of one second to change my answer. “Done. But you have exactly two minutes to get changed, because you’re not trampling all that dust in my car.”

  Kai looked down at himself. “Yeah, all right. Hold that thought.”

  ***

  Thankfully, he kept his word and did not trample construction site dust and dirt all over my clean car.

  Seriously. I paid a pretty penny to get this detailed last week—which was exactly why I was happy to let Kai buy me dinner.

  I really had to stop leaving trash in my car. Either that or I had to ask my dad to blast it with the hosepipe every now and then.

  “Okay, but have you ever actually told Amanda you’re not interested?” I leaned over the table and dipped a crispy beef strip into his spicy sauce.

  He glared at me for doing it, then swiped some of my beef from the container. We’d gotten takeout only to sit on the tables outside the only Chinese restaurant in town.

  “Yeah, I’ve told her. She doesn’t listen.”

  “But have you actually said, ‘Amanda, I’m not interested. Go away.’”

  He scooped some rice into his mouth with a spoon. “I don’t know.”

  I pointed my chopsticks at him. “And therein lies your problem. Women don’t like ambiguity, Kai. We’re not here for little hints or any of that shit. Just say it. We have better things to do than try to figure out the simple creatures that are men.”

  “Because you’re all not exceptionally complicated beings?”

  “And total bitches,” I agreed. “If you want Amanda to drop it, just tell her straight. And I mean straight.”

  Kai sighed. “I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

  “Okay, seriously? There is no way to tell someone you aren’t interested and not hurt their feelings.”

  “Do you have much experience with it?”

  “Yes. Haven’t you noticed the long line of gentlemen callers at my front door every day?” I drawled.

  “I didn’t want to say anything.”

  I stared at him. “Kai. Focus.” I snapped my fingers. “You have to be honest with her if you want her to leave you alone.”

  “Really?”

  “Especially if she’s a moral-less, tequila-loving mother of two just trying to let loose after a bad divorce,” I confirmed.

  “Ivy.”

  “I know. That wasn’t helpful at all.”

  “At least you’re aware that your advice is complete and utter shit.”

  “Hey, I told you I didn’t invite you to eat. It’s not my fault you insisted on tagging along.”

  “Actually, you agreed the moment I said I’d pay.”

  “What can I say? I like free stuff. I like food. If it’s free food, it’s pretty much the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that excite me.” I shrugged one shoulder and picked up my bottle of water.

  “Well, at least I know the way to your heart.” He winked and stole the last bit of beef from the container. “Free food.”

  I reached over and plucked the beer strip from his hand. “Actually, there’s a long and convoluted path to my heart that is only partially paved by the way of free food. Most of it involves the approval of my staunchly and traditionally Catholic grandmother who has the personality of a hungry shark on the set of Jaws.”

  He raised his eyebrows as I shoved the bit of beef in my mouth. “Really?”

  “Really. She’s a wild one. You can’t breathe at Sunday dinner without her judgment.” I hesitated. “Of course, she’s also a wino and total reality show addict which means she prays to God at least five times a day and eight times on Fridays, but I digress. And we won’t even go into her being taken to the ER in a huge rush two days ago for stomach pains that she swore was appendicitis.”

  “Was it?”

  “Appendicitis? No. Eight hours of tests later and we found out the damn woman hadn’t taken a shit for three days. She was constipated, not dying. She’ll still tell you she saw the light, though.”

  Kai’s lips twitched, but the laughter shone in his eyes. “She sounds like a hoot. We need her in our building.”

  “We most definitely do not,” I said firmly, wrapping up the last of my food to throw into the trash. “If she moves in, then I’m moving out, and then you’ll have nobody to keep Amanda under control.”

  “I don’t know. Does your grandmother like younger men? She sounds like she could help.”

  I tossed the trash in the can and glared at him. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  Kai laughed, gathering his own trash before throwing it out. “I was kidding. I’m not into women that are that much older than me—unless they want to pay my way, of course.”

  “Oh, my God. I can’t even talk to you.”

  “Come on.” He caught up to me and, after throwing his arm around my shoulders, squeezed me into his side. “Let’s go party like it’s nineteen-forty-four.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  This was a shitshow.

  I wasn’t surprised; not really. All the parties I’d been to since moving in here had ultimately ended up this way.

  There was nothing like a bunch of pensioners partying like they, well, weren’t pensioners.

  “Shots!”

  I froze at the call. Kai was doing nothing but encouraging them now. We were on the roof of an eight-story building, for the love of God. Sure, the fencing panels were ten-feet-tall, but one of these old people was probably a secret pole jumper person.

  Nothing would surprise me at this point.

  Six of our elderly residents, including Vincent, lined up in front of the table as eighty-one-year-old Isabella Valentino poured tequila into each shot glass. Seventy-three-year-old Kenneth Miller followed behind her, dishing out lime slices for each person to use with their saltshaker.

  I shook my head. This was going to end in tears. Old people weren’t made to drink tequila like this, but then again, our elderly residents partied hard.

  “I’ll take a sh-shot!” Amanda stumbled over to the table, only to be caught by Kenneth. “Is it my turn?”

  Isabella Valentino raised her eyebrows. “Yes, dear. Come with me. There are more at the bar.”

  It wasn’t a coincidence that both tequila and water were clear, I was sure.

  I perched on the edge of a bench that had planters at each end. They were bursting with flowers I couldn’t name, but they added a welcome burst of color to the otherwise dreary and drab roof garden. It was a communal area, but aside from the two benches like this, there were no other plants.

  I’d try my hand at gardening, but I was so skilled that I could kill a cactus.

  And by could, I meant I had.

  Three times.

  The desert was jealous of me at this point.

  The oldies all did their shots, and as the discarded lime skins were gathered up, Kai walked over to me. “Did Mrs. Valentino just take Amanda?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded toward the bar. “To get some water disguised as tequila.”

  “That’s probably a smart idea. And here you were concerned that it would be one of the oldies who were going to fall off the edge.”

  I shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that, Kai. You’ll tempt fate.”

  “Fate? Fate doesn’t exist.”

  “I’m not getting into a philosophical discussion over tequila on a roof,” I drawled. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who believes what I believe.”

  “Why don’t you try me?”

  “Try what? Your patience?”

  He swept his arm out at the company we were keeping. “You can’t try it any more than these.”

  “Okay, fine.” I downed the last of my Tequila Sunrise—we apparently had a mixologist in our mix—and put the glass on the bench next to me. “I believe in
karma and the Wiccan Rule of Three. I think astrology is real, and I believe in tarot readers. Ghosts exist, psychics are real, and voodoo is a dangerous power.”

  Without blinking, he said, “And crystals have healing powers, right?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t made it that far down my grandmother’s Hooey List of Rebellion yet.”

  “Hooey List of Rebellion?”

  “Yes. It’s basically a list made up entirely of the reasons why I’m going to Hell.”

  “Is there room on that train? If not, I’ll drive.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t believe in all those things.”

  “No.” He sipped his drink. “I think karma is real and that ghosts exist, but you lost me on everything else. Maybe there’s something to astrology, but I don’t care enough to give a shit, in all honesty.”

  “Your honesty is endearing,” I replied. “I think.”

  Laughing, he picked up my empty glass. “Another drink?”

  “Sure. If I’m going to stay the required two hours, I’m going to need to get drunk.”

  “And hopefully not fall over the fencing.”

  “Shut up.”

  Grinning, Kai headed toward the bar, only to be replaced by the birthday boy himself, Vincent, who took his seat and immediately launched into a story about his latest fishing trip with his grandsons.

  “And then,” Vincent said, leaning in, “The fish flopped out of my hands, back into the lake, and splashed us all!”

  I laughed. It really wasn’t that funny, but I had been raised to be particularly polite to my elders, so here I was.

  Laughing.

  “How are you, Ivy, dear?” Vincent asked, swirling the last of his tequila around the bottom of his glass. “Have you had a date recently?”

  “None approved by my grandmother,” I replied dryly.

  “I saw you having dinner with our Kai earlier.”

  “Huh? Oh, right, that was nothing.” I shook my head. “I was heading out to get food and he accosted me in the hall and decided to join me.”

  “I quite thought you’d make a lovely couple.”