Free The Boss's Fake Fiancee by Inara Scott Page A

opera while he prepared dinner, and the resident in the apartment above her engaged in some kind of high-impact aerobics every night at eight—or at least that was what it sounded like. Not to mention that the only natural light entering her apartment came from two small windows in the combination living room/kitchen/study/dining area that represented 350 feet of her 600 square-foot apartment. Melissa could feel her shoulders dropping and some knot in her stomach untying as she eased through the beautiful space.
    “You have an incredible home,” she said, trying not to think about the final piece of their journey, and the woman at the other end of the hall. After meeting Jess, Melissa figured all bets were off. Garth’s grandmother could be a domineering matriarch or a flighty old heiress. At this point, nothing would surprise her.
    “Thank you,” Garth replied, sending her a quick look as if to gauge her sincerity. “I bought it about five years ago. We updated a few things, but mostly left it as it was. The main house is almost one hundred years old, though Nan’s rooms are a more recent addition.”
    “Has she always lived with you?”
    “No. She prefers to live on her own. Or, I suppose, she preferred to live on her own. Until the pneumonia. Even she couldn’t fight this one. They had her in the hospital for almost a week.”
    Melissa shot him a sideways glance. Though his expression had not changed, she was learning to identify the restrained emotion in his voice. The terse note spoke volumes about the pain the situation had caused. “She must have been glad to get out of there.”
    Garth paused to adjust a painting that, to Melissa’s eyes, appeared perfectly straight. “The doctors wanted to keep her, but being at the hospital was making her sicker than the pneumonia. Nurses and doctors always coming and going. Noise, bright lights. No view of anything green and beautiful. And of course, no dogs. I think she misses them more than anything else.”
    She nodded in understanding. “Before my niece was born, my sister-in-law Felicity had to spend a couple of weeks in the hospital with preeclampsia. She said the labor was easier than the hospital stay. She described it as a weird combination of being lonely and crowded, all at the same time.”
    Garth shot her a surprised look. “That’s exactly what Nan said. She said if I didn’t get her released, she was going to walk out of there herself. And damned if she wouldn’t have tried it, too.”
    “No place like home, I suppose.” Melissa stopped for a moment to admire a delicate Chinese vase. “My apartment isn’t much, but I must admit, I’ve grown pretty attached to it.”
    “How long have you been there?” Garth asked.
    “Just a year. It reminds me of our old house in Queens.” She smiled at the memory. “Everyone else in the family hated it because it was drafty and cold in the winter and hot and stuffy in the summer, but I loved that place. I liked to imagine the other kids who had lived there before me, and what their lives might have been like.”
    “Do your parents still live there?” Garth asked.
    “No, they sold the place when my dad retired. Now they have a little condo in SoHo. They like it because it’s close to museums and the art scene. But it’s not the same.”
    She remembered how she’d cried when her dad told her that he’d sold the house. It had been one of their few fights—she’d felt betrayed by her parents’ failure to warn her that he was selling. She was already out of the house at the time, finishing up graduate school, so it wasn’t like they needed her permission. But she’d have bought the place in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity. Knowing it was gone felt like losing a piece of her childhood.
    “You miss the old place,” Garth supplied.
    She nodded, blinking back an unexpected wave of melancholy. “I do. What about you? Do you miss the house you grew up in?
    “I moved a few times,” Garth said.