Free How to Get Over Your Ex by Nikki Logan Page B

apartment. Some undefined deficiency. Was she too
geeky? Too dull? Was she so left-of-normal that even a man whose connection to
her was only professional felt the need to run for the hills? If so, he was in
for a disappointing year.
    There was only so much that reinvention was going to fix.
    * * *
    Zander tossed his keys and wallet into the
shallow dish by his bed and then took himself off for a shower. As hot as he
could stand it. Desperate to scald himself clean of the sudden tingle of
awareness he’d experienced standing in Georgia’s apartment just half an hour
before. He’d learned to live with the perpetual hum of sensual responsiveness
that resonated whenever she was around, but this was different, this was...
    Interest.
    The prickle of intrigue and the glow of connection. So much
more than just sexual. Unexpected, unwanted, and unacceptable. And the slither
of empathy, that his words made her doubt herself, made her so defensive.
    He stood under the hot, thumping water and let it stream over
his head.
    The crazy cat-lady of trailing
ferns .
    Of all the things to suddenly bring this burbling inside him to the surface...that little touch of
self-deprecation, her modesty about her lived-in, loved-in apartment, her raw
defence of a place that was clearly special to her. That was clearly her . She defended her property and herself with a
gentle kind of resignation. As though she knew full well that she didn’t fit the
conventional moulds and was reconciled with that.
    And he was there telling her that her mould wasn’t interesting
enough for his listeners.
    Then showering himself raw just half an hour later because of
how interesting it was to him.
    Hypocrite.
    His life was so laden with false, socially aggressive people,
all hungry to climb ladders that they had to jostle for. So full of noise and
gloss and professional veneer. He did his best to limit his exposure to it to
his working hours, running from it—literally—on weekends, but when you worked as
much as he did it had a way of just dominating your consciousness.
    Until you stood in the middle of someone’s small, packed
greenhouse of an apartment and felt as if you’d just walked into some kind of
emotional resort. Far from everything and everyone.
    Until you breathed in for the first time in fifteen years.
    Zander shut off the water, towelled off, and stepped out into
his bedroom. Carefully styled by the owner before him, all beige and tones of
brown and harmless neutrals he’d never bothered to change. Then he walked out of
the hall, into every room one by one, growing increasingly incredulous.
    Not one single plant, anywhere? Seriously?
    He kept looking, kept not finding one. Until he did. A small
cactus in a pot that Casey had given him before she’d twigged to the fact that
gifts between them weren’t going to do anything but make their relationship more
awkward. He’d plonked it on his kitchen window sill and never given it another
thought. It survived only on the steam issued by his coffee maker. And maybe the
dishwasher.
    But it survived.
    The similarity to his thorny, parched heart was ironic.
    He flicked a switch and lit up the entire length of his
rambling back garden. Did it even count if you paid someone to tend it for you?
If the most you did was cut roses to take to your aging mother and the only time
you walked through it was on a shortcut back from the local coffee house?
    The fun Georgia would have if let loose in there...
    He killed the lights, plunging the whole garden and that train
of thought back to darkness.
    There would be no letting loose. There’d be no more curious
visits to her apartment. He’d only gone to assure himself that her home would
have been as lacking in personality on the inside as the exterior. As some kind
of ward against finding her interesting.
    Well, that had bitten him well and truly in the arse.
    He couldn’t blame his complicated mess of interest and
appreciation and affection on her botched