Nata

Phillip rolls his lips between his teeth. "You really care to know?" His puzzled glance suggests he thinks I'm just toying with him. As if I can't possibly care about his problems.

I pull my hands from under my butt before they lose all feeling. "Part of the deal is for us to get to know each other." I drain the rest of my coffee and rotate the cup as if that'll materialize a fresh, properly done espresso.

Phillip catches my wrist. "Do you need a refill?"

My hand tingles. I'd like another dose of caffeine, but if that means getting up and moving, then the crappy drip isn't worth it. "Maybe later."

"I was going to invite you to have breakfast. It's in the fridge now, but I both own and know how to operate a microwave." Phillip jokingly pats himself on the back. "That comes with coffee."

I hold my face still even though I could smile at his attempt to get me out of this chair. "Maybe another time."

He puts his palm to the side of his mouth. "From a proper espresso machine," he delivers in a stage whisper.

An espresso machine. I screw my lips to the side. He knows coffee is my weakness. If he has a good espresso machine, my next cup of coffee will have to be better than what I've been drinking today. Plus, I get a chance to snoop and see what his side of the duplex looks like, especially after all the commotion over the last two weeks. "Only if you let me make it the way I like it. Do you have a milk frother?"

"I think so? I haven't actually used it. Mrs. Buckingham is the one who's an expert."

"Does she live with you?"

"No, she lives with Dad." Phillip's fingers settle on the armrest of my chair. "She'll be coming a couple of times a week to deal with the place and the food."

"Must be nice."

"It is. She can help you as well."

"No, thank you." I'm not a weakling. "I can feed myself. I'm self-sufficient."

"I think the fact that we are in this deal means you can't do quite everything." Phillip's eyes crackle with laughter, but something else as well. An extra layer of heat blooms between us. "You'll have to let me take care of you." His gaze rakes my body.

"This is a rare exception." The heat that calmed after our sex conversation is traveling down my throat and into my chest. He's kidding and flirting the way he always does with everyone. Why do his words feel different than any flirting he did with me before? I lift my chin. "Otherwise, I've managed to take care of my life for the last twenty years."

"It doesn't mean you have to keep doing it." His flirty vibe disappears. "Accepting help doesn't mean something is wrong with you." Phillip folds his arms behind his head and looks up at the underside of the umbrella above us. His chest rises and falls with a deep sigh. "I promise."

I don't need him to tell me about accepting help. He grew up with help surrounding him. I push my empty mug his way. "You also promised me coffee."

Phillip unfolds himself. "I deliver on my promises." My core tightens as he tugs me up and out of the protective red hue of the umbrella. I need to cool down.

We retrace his earlier steps to his patio. The only difference on his side is an ashtray with a cigarette butt in the center of the wooden table. He must've smoked it last night or I would've smelled the smoke this morning. I'm not looking forward to smelling smoke in my own backyard. The thought of Phillip smoking tampers the heat in my gut. Phillip slides the door open. "Welcome to my humble abode."

His kitchen is the same configuration as mine, but that's where our similarities end. His stone countertops and upgraded appliances gleam against the cabinets I suspect have been refaced. The doors and the open shelving are in the same locations but of much better quality. There are no personal touches or knick-knacks I have already accumulated on my counter.

Bright and calm, the room re-launches a cascade of swirls beneath my ribs. The spot where I have a stackable washer and dryer has a small beverage fridge with a built-in bar stocked with alcohol and cubicles lined with wine. This is where he'll be getting ready for work every day. Unwinding every night.

"Oat or cashew?" Phillip's naked torso dominates the one-butt space between the cabinets. Is that how he walks around here when he's alone?

With my hand on my stomach, I walk away from him and to the coffee machine. Lightheaded, I steady myself. I should've eaten when I got up. "Is that the highly touted breakfast?"

"No. Milk," Phillip says from behind the fridge door.

"How about the regular cow one?"

"I'm lactose intolerant, so Mrs. Buckingham doesn't stock anything with dairy." He glances at me. "What would you like?"

His gaze lingers on me long enough for my body to resume the battle in my gut between the desire to place my hand on his stomach instead of mine and see where that takes us and the need to turn and run to my side of the house.

Fuck or flight.

The reaction I thought I left in the past. One I remember too well from sitting next to him during our college days: me-flustered; him-unaware. I've always chosen flight. Now I get to choose the former but not because he finally wants me: because it's part of the deal.

I curl my fingers into my palm. I can manage that. We have a plan. We'll schedule the sex. I'll take it for what it is: procreation. No feelings. I can separate fantasy from reality. I'm not an impressionable child anymore. I shake my head.

"Those don't froth well. I'll go with black." I inspect the gleaming chrome beauty that puts the machine Samson got me to shame. A Bugatti of coffee machines versus the Toyota I used to have. "You never told me what's the internship thing that got you so worried."

"I promised Dean Kaas to set up an internship program with VdH." He pulls a glass Tupperware with a plastic lid out. "Bacon?"

"Sure." The container that grinds the beans in the machine is empty. "Where is your coffee?"

Cutting the space I so carefully put between us, Phillip opens a cabinet over the machine and hands me a bag of coffee I recognize as some of the best organic small-batch roasted options on the market. Figures.

The beans go into the built-in coffee grinder. The noise fills the kitchen and pauses our conversation.

Phillip takes out four more containers. Even though I'm telling myself I'm focusing on figuring out the new-to-me machine, my eyes stray to Phillip's skin. I'll have to touch it. We will have to be close. My lower stomach aches. I grip the countertop and inhale the familiar freshly ground coffee smell. Saliva pools in my mouth. Why am I so mixed up inside? I should probably go outside and sit down. Stop torturing myself. This is not hunger for food that has my stomach in a knot. What am I doing? What have I agreed to? I've never had sex with someone I didn't love.

"I've never done this before," says Phillip.

I flinch as if he read the words scrolling through my mind. He can't know. "Never done what before?" I spoon the ground coffee into a metal container and stamp it down, my voice falsely steady and calm.

"Set up an internship with a University for VdH."

My shoulders lower. I put the coffee into the machine, set a small, white porcelain cup that probably came from Europe, and start the brewing. Internships are something I can talk about without blushing. "I've set up several internships myself. Both to staff the labs and to provide experience to the students. They're tedious but worth it." The safety of the topic calms the waves of desire, and my breaths reach my belly. "I'm sure you have several PIs who have. Delegate."

His eyebrows knit together. "I want to take care of this one myself."

That's not something I imagine the interim CEO of one of the largest lab equipment companies would be doing. "Why?"

He stands still with one of the lids he popped off the square box and drills his gaze into mine, no trace of the grin that tends to make me forget what we're talking about. "Because the professor I'll be working with knew Mom. And I don't want to upset Dad and make him sad. He needs all his strength now. His focus should be on feeling better, not worrying about the past. Promise you won't tell him about this."

"How exactly will I tell your dad about this? Whatever the 'this"—I roll my eyes—"is."

Phillip scrunches his nose and one of his eyes-his frustrated incomplete assignment scowl. "That's another thing I meant to talk to you about." He pops one of the glass containers with what looks like pancakes into the microwave. "Dad wants to meet you."

My heart stutters. A lump forms beneath my throat. Parents are not my thing under simple, easily explained circumstances. Philip and my agreement is neither simple nor easily explained.

"Meet me? Why?" I tilt my head and furrow my brow. "What did you tell him?"

He winces.

We agreed we don't discuss this with anyone. He told me not to mention it to Kate and leave her in the dark but he told his dad? Panic sends a shiver down my spine.