Brynn narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t look the least bit surprised. He looked…smug.

Her jaw dropped open. “You knew? You hate me that much that you can’t let me live in peace?”

“Now who said anything about hate?” he said in a low voice.

It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn his eyes drifted down and lingered. Not on the cookies. Or rather, not those cookies.

Her mouth went dry.

“Are those for me?” he asked.

She jerked. “Are what for you?”

“The cookies you’re about ready to drop all over my front porch.”

My front porch. It had a terrible ring to it. Good Lord, the man was really planning to live here.

“Brynn?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “The cookies?”

“What? Oh. No. They’re not for you,” she said.

“What, are you selling them or something? A grown-up Girl Scout? Because your outfit needs some work.”

“They’re my cookies. And they’re excellent. They’re too good for you.”

Will rolled his eyes and without warning hooked a hand around her upper arm and yanked her inside. “You’re being ridiculous. Don’t even try to convince me that you’d actually eat one of those cookies.”

“Why wouldn’t I eat a cookie?” she asked, weaving around moving boxes as she followed him into the kitchen.

“Please. You look like you haven’t indulged in sugar since the tenth grade.”

“Tenth grade,” she mused. “Now which year was that, the year you ran my bra up the flagpole or the year you told the entire football team that I didn’t wear underwear under my cheerleading skirt? Which was a total lie, by the way.”

Actually, both of those things had happened in ninth grade. But she wasn’t about to let on how well she remembered those moments.

Or how much they had hurt.

“Honey, I don’t think anyone believed for a second that you went without underwear. I doubt you take your panties off to shower.”

You’ve seen me without panties.

She pushed the thought aside. Immediately.

Since he didn’t yet have any chairs, they squared off on either side of the kitchen island. Will’s fingers toyed with the edge of the platter’s plastic wrap and she jerked the cookies away, the juvenile action giving her a strange surge of satisfaction. Why did it feel so good to be impolite?

“Come on, Brynny. I haven’t eaten all day and the cookies will just go to waste otherwise.”

Her eyes locked purposefully on his sulky gaze and she edged the plate out of his reach, very carefully pulled one cookie from the plate. Keeping the eye contact she very slowly took a bite, making a big show of enjoying the way the bittersweet chocolate rolled over her tongue.

She’d just add an extra mile onto her run tomorrow. It was worth it to prove him wrong.

The cookie turned to sawdust as she saw the satisfied expression on his face.

He’d known she would eat the cookie. She’d played right into his hand.

Crap. Annoyed, she handed the cookie over to him. Perhaps she’d get lucky and he’d have a recently developed chocolate allergy.

“So,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “Care to explain what game you’re playing?”

He helped himself to a second cookie. “Game?”

Brynn gave him her best withering glare. “Yes, game. There’s no way you just happened to move next door to me. You’re up to something.”

“Maybe I just liked the neighborhood.”

“You’re a thirtysomething man-whore. The suburbs are the worst possible place for you.”

Will rested his elbows on the counter and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I’m here for the same reason you are.”

Brynn leaned on her own arms to mimic his posture. “Which is…?”

“Convincing your boy-puppet that he should marry you and have little mannequin babies.”

Brynn stood up straight, all traces of playfulness gone. The sting from James’s nonproposal was still raw, and Will’s jab hit a little too close to home.

“You know nothing about James,” she snapped.

His eyes went serious for a moment. “I know you got those earrings the size of a small dog instead of a ring for your birthday.”

Brynn carefully kept her expression blank. “I’m surprised you stayed that long. I’d have thought you’d be exploring the thong of some underage model.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “Sophie filled me in on what I missed. I hope you ripped Jimmy a new one when you got home.”

“His name is James. And I had no reason to be upset with him,” she said softly, fiddling with a cookie crumb.

To her surprise, Will dropped the subject entirely. “Want to help me furniture shop?”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding, right? You honestly think I’d put myself willingly in your company?”

“Well, you are lingering here in my kitchen instead of setting my lawn on fire, so I thought it was worth a shot.”

Brynn tapped manicured fingernails on the marble counter. What was she still doing here? “I’m leaving,” she retorted. “Just tell me how long you plan to draw out this little joke.”

“What joke?”

“This next-door-neighbor crap. You don’t belong here.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, for starters, your car only seats two people. That’s about a quarter as many seats as you need to belong in this neighborhood.”

“Maybe I’m on the hunt for a family.”

“Everyone here already has a family. There’s no possible reason you could want to live here other than to annoy me. Just come clean already.”

Will stood up straight. “I hate to break it to you, Princess, but you’re going to have to get used to me. I’m sorry I don’t fit into the box you’re trying to stuff me into, but I’m not going to apologize because I wanted a break from the swanky-high-rise-condo scene.”

“Fine,” she said, trying to keep her tone as cool as his. “You want your fill of minivans and Bed Bath & Beyond, have at it. But why this neighborhood? You can’t tell me it was just a coincidence.”

His face betrayed nothing as he lifted a shoulder. “Okay, fine, it wasn’t a coincidence. As much as you’d like to think we don’t have anything in common, there is one area where we’re very much alike…we like the best. When Sophie said you’d moved to Foxgrove, I thought it was worth checking out. I knew you lived close, but I didn’t know you lived right next door. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”

Brynn pursed her lips and studied him, looking for all possible signs of a lie. There were none.

“You really want to live next door to me?” she asked.

“Not particularly,” he said, grabbing a third cookie. “But neither do I feel like reentering the real estate market just to get away from you.”

She licked her lips nervously and asked the question that had been on her mind since he opened the door. “So this isn’t about…you know…”

He leaned forward as though waiting for her to finish the sentence. “You’ll have to forgive me, but it’s pretty hard to read you beneath all that snooty pretension.”

That snooty pretension is the only thing that keeps me safe from lechers like you, she thought.

“Well?” he prompted.

“You’re being here has nothing to do with that night?”

“What night?” he asked, blue eyes all innocence.

“That night. The one, where we, you know…”

“Fucked like rabbits?”

Brynn winced. “God, Will.”

“Yes, I do believe you called me ‘God’ a few times.”

“You’re appalling,” she spat.

“Maybe. But you certainly didn’t think so on that night,” he said, reaching out a hand to toy with the end of her hair.

She backed up into a pile of moving boxes. “Don’t touch me.”

His eyes went flat. “No problem. I don’t need the frostbite.”