Passion on Park Avenue (The Central Park Pact) by Layne Lauren

Author:Layne, Lauren [Layne, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781472265081
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2019-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12

You didn’t have to walk me home,” Naomi said, pulling the collar of her jacket up around her ears and shoving her hands into her pockets.

“Probably not,” Oliver said, tilting his head up slightly to look at the night sky.

She let out a startled laugh. “I guess we’re past the point of nice platitudes?”

“Naomi, you haven’t given me anything close to a nice platitude in the time I’ve known you.”

“Well, that’s true.” Her shoulders hunched slightly. “So why did you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Offer to walk with me.”

“Did I offer?” he mused. “Or did your friends point out eight hundred times that we were headed the same direction?”

Naomi laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. I thought it was just Audrey, but Claire seems to have joined her in the matchmaking efforts.”

“They care about you.”

“Yeah. Well, that and we sort of made a pact.”

“A pact?” He glanced down at her.

“So, you know that we were all . . . involved with Brayden?”

He nodded.

“We didn’t know it. Obviously. Not until the day of the funeral.”

Jesus. Oliver winced. “You met at his funeral?”

“Sort of. We all meant to go to the funeral, but instead we found ourselves in Central Park. We had the same shoes, and, well, whatever, that doesn’t matter. We were all a little adrift after realizing how thoroughly Brayden had used us, and we agreed to help each other avoid falling into the same trap.”

“That seems like an anti-matchmaking scheme. Claire and Audrey all but linked our hands before shoving us out the door.”

“Don’t flatter yourself—I suspect that’s more steering me away from Dylan than it is steering me toward you.”

That bugged him more than he cared to admit, but her friends were right. Dylan was no good for her. Oliver nearly told her as much, but she spoke first.

“Who’s with your father tonight?” Naomi asked.

Oliver inhaled as reality settled back down around him. As he realized he was in no position to enter a relationship. Not with Lilah. Not with Claire. Definitely not with Naomi.

He’d tried, once, to balance a woman and his father. It had worked for a while. His ex had been sweet, mild mannered . . . and completely uninterested in being with a man who had a sick father.

“Janice,” he replied, answering her question. “She usually takes weekends off, but every now and then I’ll pay her extra for a weekend night.”

“How often does that happen?”

He looked down at her as they walked, surprised at the question. “Why do you ask?”

Her shoulders lifted. “Just seems like it must be hard. Giving up all your nights and weekends.”

They were close to their building, and though not quite ready for the night to end, he was equally confident that she’d dart away from him the second she got close to the safety of her apartment, so Oliver slowed to a stop on the quiet sidewalk.

She stopped as well, giving him a questioning look.

Oliver shoved his hands into his pockets, matching her posture in a protective stance against the brisk fall wind.

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