Bleeding Heart Read online

  Bleeding Heart

  A. M. HARTNETT

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

  the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

  entirely coincidental.

  Mischief

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London, SE1 9GF

  www.mischiefbooks.com

  An eBook Original 2015

  1

  Copyright © A. M. Hartnett 2015

  A. M. Hartnett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008148812

  Version 2015-09-23

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  More from Mischief

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  ‘I really wish you weren’t alone.’

  Seth Axworthy tried his best not to let his irritation show at Evie’s words. He rarely growled at his friend and soon-to-be-former neighbour as it was, and he didn’t plan to start on a day when she looked like she was going to burst into tears at any minute.

  Instead, he sighed inwardly and gave her a smile. Then he said the only thing he could think of that would be convincing. ‘Alone, not lonely.’

  What a piss-poor response, he realised as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It wasn’t true, not even a bit, and the feeling was made worse by knowing that she was moving away with her boyfriend.

  He’d miss her. He’d even miss Ryan. But the worst of it was the idea of sitting by himself in his apartment again, tossing treats at his cat while wondering what in the hell he was going to do with himself for another night.

  ‘Are you going to come visit us?’ she asked after a minute, brushing an errant corkscrew of her brown hair from in front of her eye. ‘Ryan’s getting a barbecue.’

  Again, he held his tongue. He hated the pity he heard under the cheerful invitation. Still, he told her what she wanted to hear. ‘You’re not even out of my face yet and you want to get back in it. Once you two are settled.’

  ‘God, I hate that word.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that’s what you’re doing. Another year, and then there’ll be a ring and maybe a –’

  ‘Don’t even think about saying what you’re about to say, unless you want Ryan to go totally over the top. Are you going to see us off?’

  ‘I don’t know if my little heart can take it.’

  He wasn’t exactly kidding. Their moving was so final. Even though he would miss them, he had no desire to drive to the suburbs to see them. There was no sultry invitation in her tone to indicate that this visit would be anything like the last few times he had been their guest, and the last thing he wanted to do was sit on a lawn chair and watch them be couplish in front of him while he pretended he didn’t mind.

  Still, he took her hand and walked with her to the elevator. ‘I am going to miss our teatime.’

  ‘You’ll have to make teatime with the new tenant.’

  Jesus Christ. Here we go. Not even out of the building and she was already well on her way to becoming one of those meddling matchmakers who aren’t happy until they have everyone in their social sphere tied up.

  ‘What was that?’ Evie asked.

  He didn’t realise he’d made a sound until she asked, and so he gave her another easy answer. ‘She’s barely out of her teens and just out of her parents’ house.’

  ‘So was I, remember? Not coming out of my teens, but still pretty sheltered.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’

  Well, nothing. He hadn’t gone for Evie back then because his heart wasn’t in it, and he wouldn’t go for the new neighbour for the same reason – even if she did look like a pinup girl with those long legs and round hips.

  Speak of the devil, there she was as he and Evie stepped outside. ‘Oh, look. Ryan found a stray.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous.’ He teased Evie with a poke.

  ‘Hell, yeah. Look at them. If they bred, they’d create a real-life Barbie.’

  No truer words spoken. They looked like they had been ripped out of an online advertisement selling beach-bum chic.

  ‘And that would be your apartment’s new owner,’ he said.

  April Kaye. Twenty years old and just out of a two-year business course with her first job. He’d almost refused to rent to her on account of her age and lack of any kind of credit, but she had been shrewd in her walkthrough. She brought a checklist, for Christ’s sake, and had grilled him mercilessly about the lack of an electrical outlet in the bathroom – so much so that when he’d agreed to rent to her she’d insisted that he have one installed.

  He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake. He’d rented to women in their early twenties before, and they always had selective hearing when it came to the rules. Evie had been an exception. Right away she’d struck him as just a sweet girl. That first night the sound of Rufus Wainwright coming down the fire escape was accompanied by humming and the smell of something mouthwatering cooking on the stove. When the weekend brought an invitation to come up for tea, he knew he had a good tenant.

  He wouldn’t go so far as to say she came off as vapid, but the new tenant looked typical. Iced coffee in one hand and cellphone in the other.

  And she was eye-fucking Ryan so hard, Seth didn’t blame Evie for her testiness, even if the young woman had a snowball’s chance in hell of competing with Evie in Ryan’s lovestruck eyes.

  Ryan glanced in their direction, then pointed. With the young woman’s wave came her gaze upon Seth, and a smile.

  ‘See? Teenager.’

  ‘She’s not that young. You’re just turning into a cranky old man,’ Evie countered. ‘Now go over there and get her away from Ryan before she offers him a blowjob.’

  ‘It’s kind of hard not to. Like I said, Ryan is the prettiest man in the building.’

  ‘Well, with Ryan gone, I guess that makes you the prettiest man in the building.’

  They stepped forward, and April thrust her hand out at Evie. ‘Hi, I’m April. I’m moving into your apartment.’

  ‘Lucky you, especially since Seth has been fixing it up the last few weeks,’ Evie replied with a pointed look at Ryan, who snorted.

  ‘Yeah, he even put in a dishwasher.’

  ‘New everything,’ Seth added.

  Evie pulled her keys from her pocket. ‘Who gets the honours?’

  Seth stepped back and smil
ed as April lit up as she took the keys to her first apartment. He remembered that feeling, even if the last time he experienced it was a lifetime ago. Even fresher was having the key to the lockbox for every apartment in the building, though it was his late wife who had gleefully snagged that key.

  April tucked the key into her pocket and grinned. ‘I guess I’d better start moving in now that you guys are taking off. It was great meeting you.’

  ‘You too – enjoy the shiny newness,’ Evie offered, and they all watched as she rushed up the walkway.

  Cute little thing, Seth thought. With a body like that, she’d be a hell of a lot of fun and a hell of a lot of trouble.

  ‘Nice ass.’

  Seth turned his frown on Ryan, and then on the nodding Evie as she agreed.

  ‘Very nice. I especially like how you can see her thong through the skirt.’

  ‘Maybe I should move into the nice house and you can stay here and build your den of sin.’ Embarrassed – which was ridiculous given his sordid history with the couple – he banged on the moving truck. ‘I ought to get up there and give her a walkthrough.’

  And that’s when Evie started crying.

  He’d seen enough of her tears in the last few weeks and, even though this time it wasn’t Ryan’s fault, Seth still had the urge to thump the other man in the neck.

  ‘Aw, Jesus, knock it off.’

  Still, he welcomed her hug. He expected it would be the last one for a while.

  ‘Text me some pictures of the new place when you get set up,’ Seth said, offering Ryan a hand.

  At the last moment, he grasped hard and pulled Ryan into a hug. Hell, he’d even miss this pain in the ass.

  It took a few seconds after their parting for Ryan to wipe the surprise off his face, and then he turned to his girlfriend. ‘Ready?’

  Evie didn’t look even close to ready as she looked at Seth, at the building behind them, and back at Ryan.

  ‘Ready.’

  Seth stayed on the curb as they got into the truck. Ryan shot him a grin. ‘Don’t go climbing up any fire escapes.’

  Once they were gone, Seth felt shittier than he had expected.

  It wasn’t that he was losing lovers in Ryan and Evie, with whom he had been screwing around for the last month before it all blew up. He could get laid any time he wanted to, as his foray into online dating sites – specifically sex sites – had taught him.

  He was losing his only friends.

  It came upon him with a sickening roll in his stomach before belching up and settling in his chest, hardening at the back of his throat.

  When the hell did this happen? he wondered as the moving van turned the corner and disappeared. Where the hell did everyone go? When his wife was alive, they’d been fairly reclusive but they still had their social circle.

  Christ, the last time everyone had been together was for Rita’s wake just over two years ago. They came in clusters after that, bringing food (‘just some leftovers, and I know you like…’) and taking discreet looks around his apartment like they thought its cleanliness was an illusion to mask the decay he’d created in the wake of Rita’s death. The conversation wasn’t the same. It wasn’t just the absence of Rita’s foul-mouthed chatter. He could tell that they didn’t want to be there, that they didn’t know what to say to him.

  Then came Evie and her little blue teapot. She knew about Rita and, while she always had apology in her eyes when she asked about his wife, she would still ask. He was going to miss their talks.

  He turned from the street and looked down the walkway to the foyer, where the newest tenant of Winsloe Court was setting up a small fort of boxes along the stairwell. She looked so funny, a tiny woman in a yellow sundress and scuffed sneakers running her little folding trolly down the walkway.

  He met her halfway. ‘Don’t you have movers?’

  April stopped and leaned forward on the handle. Her pale skin was painted with a flush that made a map over her cheeks, shoulders and chest, complete with shining lakes of sweat on her brow and neck.

  ‘I have a couple of friends. They’re bringing the furniture after they get off work – and then I have to unbox it and put it all together.’

  ‘Brand-new?’

  ‘Every bit of it. Like I said, it’s my first place.’

  ‘My first place was nothing but hand-me-downs.’

  She shook her head. ‘I had some money socked away. My place is going to look like an Ikea showroom, but it’ll look fabulous.’

  In his head, Seth was picturing white stuffed furniture with colour-coordinated throw pillows and curtains, like something you’d see on a television show about single girls striking out on their own in the city for the first time.

  He tried to hide his smile but failed, particularly with her beaming back at him. He grinned and gestured to the beat-up red hatchback overflowing with boxes and cloth shopping bags.

  ‘Need a hand? I can probably take twice what you’re taking.’

  A prickle went along his spine as she gave him a quick but thorough once-over. If he had blinked, he would have missed the hunger in her expression.

  ‘You don’t want to do that,’ she said, her cheerful voice softer now, and a little thick with the remnants of that look. His body responded in kind, blood quickening and beginning that ache in his groin, but he was quick to banish it as she had seemingly done. ‘I saw you out here helping your old tenants move. You must be about done for the day.’

  ‘That was nothing. I don’t have anything else to do today except stick a label on your mailbox. Come on. We’ll get the stuff in the foyer out of the way and then come back for the rest.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ She smiled, and along came another ravenous flash, followed by something else that made him uneasy: expectation.

  He cracked his knuckles and she led the way to the car. She was almost half his age. He didn’t want to go messing with that sort of trouble, even if that trouble did have a round ass beneath that dress he’d love to fill his hands with.

  I just need to get laid again, and soon, he thought as he took three boxes from the trunk of her car.

  Still, as April beamed at him he had the feeling that a hard screw wasn’t going to shake off the tingle in his chest.

  Chapter Two

  April had a plan when she went to bed the previous night.

  On her first Saturday in her new apartment, she’d sleep until noon, when the timer on her coffee-maker was set to start gurgling some of that expensive coffee she’d bought herself as a moving-in gift. She’d drink it in bed while reading the latest Sophie Clairmont book. After an hour of sword-wielding bad-assery soaked in sex and gore, she’d shower and grab groceries at that little market around the corner, make a second run to the liquor store so she’d be stocked for tonight, and she’d finish unpacking.

  The first hiccup came even before she opened her eyes. Snuggled beneath the duvet, she was roused by a repetitive sound.

  Squink!

  Squink!

  Squinksqui‌nksquinksquink!

  She pushed up onto her forearms and cocked her head to listen.

  ‘Look, right there. Get it.’ Squink! ‘My turn. I said, my turn. Ow–ow! No biting, you little fucker.’

  It took her a moment to recognise the deep voice.

  Hot landlord.

  Still, his hotness did not negate the fact that he had torn a hole in her perfect Saturday morning. She slipped from the bed and grabbed her robe from the footboard, then knelt on the bench beneath the window. She couldn’t see anything, so as quietly as she could she removed the screen and poked her head out.

  She could barely see him through all the iron of the fire escape, but through a crack she caught just enough. Sitting in his window with a slinky black cat between his legs, he held what looked like a small tablet computer between his big hands.

  Though the screen was fuzzy from so high above, April could see something scuttling across the surface. The cat leaped at it with both paws, then again and
again as Seth laughed.

  ‘You missed. My turn,’ he said, and held his hand over the screen. The cat pounced, and Seth hissed as he shook free. ‘Next time I’m going to bite you back.’

  April bit down to keep from laughing.

  So, her gorgeous and somewhat terrifying landlord liked to play iPad games with his cat. She supposed that, on a scale of weird, this wasn’t even midway – as long as she didn’t find out he dressed the cat in Renaissance garb on Saturday nights.

  The cat leaped as a trill rang out. So did Seth, and, as he cursed and tapped at the screen, April guessed that it wasn’t a tablet at all he held but a phone – one he had no idea how to use.

  ‘How the fuck – shit – how do I answer this goddamn thing?’

  She thought about calling down but didn’t want to give away that she had been spying. Instead she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep her giggles in as she watched him try and fail to answer the phone.

  ‘Damn it. Christ. How the –’ He held the phone to his ear, then hissed again as he looked back at it. ‘Where the hell did the numbers go? Jesus.’

  The fire escape rattled as he got up to go inside. April did the same. She remembered that, when they’d done the walkthrough, Seth had an old-school flip-phone holstered at his waist, and as he’d taken a call she wondered how those thick fingers could possibly navigate the number pad without mashing all the keys at once.

  It was a little surprising that he had gotten an upgrade. When she’d spoken to the previous tenant, Ryan, outside on moving day, he’d indicated that Seth was fairly set in his ways and owned the same brick-like laptop that had been his late wife’s.

  That’ll be me in ten years, she thought as she went to her counter. She was already known as the curmudgeonly one amongst their friends, nit-picking and price-checking, ordering the same thing off the menu each time and making sure she put her 10 per cent into a savings account on payday. She went shopping with a strict list, whether groceries or the cosmetics counter.