“I hope we’re not working you too hard.” Michael frowns at the death grip I’ve got on the manuscript.

I unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Just a little catch-up. Trying to get ahead for next week.” Lies, lies, all of it lies. You are one big fat liar. I wonder if his hair is as soft as it looks?

“Jolly good! I love to see initiative.”

His eyes—the blue of summer skies over an undiscovered tropical paradise—smile along with the rest of his face. He has little crinkle lines around them, which somehow only add to his beauty. Unlike mine, which make me look haggard.

“Well, I do love to take the initiative.”

As soon as the words are out, I want to stuff my fist into my mouth so I won’t say anything else, because I somehow managed to take an innocent expression and make it sound like I was propositioning him for sex. Which is proven beyond a doubt when Michael’s perfectly sculpted brows lift.

“Do you now?” he murmurs, sounding amused.

Why am I like this? I silently beg the universe. Why can’t I be a normal person? When are you going to drop a piano on my head and put me out of my misery?

After an excruciating moment wherein Michael watches my face burn and my hands act like big pale moths fluttering helplessly around the manuscript, he takes pity on me.

“I’ll let you get back to it, then. Can I get you a cup of coffee? I’m just on my way to the kitchen for a refill.”

I shake my head, too embarrassed to speak or even look at him.

“All right. Cheers.” He lifts his mug in farewell, then heads off toward the kitchen.

As soon as he’s out of sight, I slump facedown on my desk and groan.

I shouldn’t be allowed out in public.

I don’t see Michael again for the rest of the day. He might’ve thrown himself out a window to avoid having to speak to me again for all I know. Not that I’d blame him. I’m such a loser, it’s probably hard for someone like him to breathe the same air as me.

When I leave, it’s dark and cold, like the inside of my heart. And a few other places in my body. I’m so deep in self-recrimination mode when I get off the elevator on my floor that I walk right past Mrs. Dinwiddle standing in her open doorway.

“Ducky! Ducky!” she calls in an excited voice.

I turn around and blink at her. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Dinwiddle. Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m a little spaced out today.”

She makes a sweeping gesture with the hand she’s holding her martini in, causing gin to slosh out and spray the wood floor. “I’ve got news!”

Penelope Dinwiddle is a retired stage actress from Yorkshire, England, who found her fame and fortune in a Shakespeare troupe that toured Europe during the fifties and sixties. Now somewhere north of eighty, she hasn’t lost a bit of her theatrical nature. She stands in her doorway wearing red lipstick and false eyelashes, a flowing lavender chiffon robe and matching negligee, a white feather boa, and all her jewelry, including the diamond tiara given to her by some minor prince of the Saudi royal family.

She’s been married eight times. Kellen and I call her the Elizabeth Taylor of SoHo.

Giddy with excitement, she waves me over. Somewhere in the apartment, her Filipino caretaker, Blessica, shushes the yipping trio of Pomeranians named Fee, Fi, and Fo.

“So you know Kellen went to Scotland for the holidays.” Mrs. Dinwiddle adds emphasis every few words because there’s nothing she loathes more than a dull delivery.

“No, I didn’t know that. I haven’t talked to him in a few—”

“And his cousin the rugby player is staying in his apartment! They traded off, you see?” She tries to clap but only manages to spill more of her martini.

I ponder this information. So the Mountain is a rugby player. And he and Kellen have switched apartments for the holidays.

Wonderful. Judging by last night’s performance, I’m in for weeks of hell.

“Blessica ran into him this morning when she went to walk the dogs, and he told her the whole story! You know how she can get anyone to talk. She told me he was this big handsome fellow, but her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, bless the poor dear. Then I saw him just moments ago, and my word! He isn’t simply big—he’s gargantuan!”

From a pocket of her robe, she produces a Chinese silk fan. She snaps it open with a flourish and begins to fan her face, rolling her eyes in ecstasy at the thought of a large, good-looking athlete living on our floor.

“Yes, he’s huge. And noisy. I could hardly sleep with all that commotion last night.”

The fanning ceases. She peers at me, perplexed. “Commotion?”

This is when I remember that Mrs. Dinwiddle starts drinking at one o’clock in the afternoon every day because that’s cocktail hour in London. Her entire life is still run on London time. By nine p.m., she’s anesthetized in a snoring dog pile with Fee, Fi, and Fo on her pink satin bed.

“Never mind. Anyway, I was thinking of making lasagna for dinner tonight.”

Mrs. Dinwiddle crinkles her nose. “Italian?”

I resist the urge to sigh. Because I’m pathetic and have zero social life, I always cook dinner for Mrs. Dinwiddle on Saturday nights, but unfortunately my first few suggestions are usually met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Divas are notoriously picky eaters.

“How about shepherd’s pie?”

“Oh, lovely!” She brightens, batting me coyly with the fan. “I haven’t had that in ages. It reminds me of the time I played Lady Macbeth at the Piccadilly and I met this strapping stagehand who was studying to be a chef—”

“I’ll see you in an hour,” I interrupt before she can wax poetic about one of her boy toys of yore.

“All right, Ducky! Ta!”

“Ta,” I mutter, stomping down the hall, irrationally angered that an eighty-year-old woman has better memories than anything I could possibly conjure in my most prurient fantasies.

My sexual dry spell has been going on so long it’s less of a drought and more of a biblical pestilence.

I open the door to find the cat sprawled in the middle of the living room floor like he’s been shot by a game hunter. “Hi, Mr. Bingley.”

He doesn’t lift his head until the door slams shut behind me, then he leaps to his feet like someone poked him with a hot iron and looks wildly around. Spotting me, he then pretends nonchalance and starts to groom his tail.

“You don’t fool me, kitty. You’re not that cool. C’mon, help me make dinner.”

He follows me into the kitchen, but not too quickly, making sure I know it was his idea and not mine.

I feed him, open a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips to snack on while I make dinner, then get all the ingredients ready for the shepherd’s pie. I preheat the oven, dice the vegetables, and put a pot of salted water to boil on the stove for the potatoes. I’m in the middle of browning lamb, garlic, carrots, and onions when the music starts up across the hall.

It comes on full blast abruptly, like someone’s been listening to earphones and yanked the plug out of the receiver—all hard, squealing guitar riffs and thundering drums, loud enough to rattle my windows. Then the chorus kicks in, sung by a man who sounds as if his hobbies are smoking crack and swallowing razor blades.

Got yo BACK, muthafucka

I be WITH ya, muthafucka

We be gangstas, muthafucka, for LIFE!

“He’s got to be kidding me,” I say to the cat, who blandly slow blinks in response, like, He’s obviously not.