“Mindy,” she corrected him automatically.
He dipped his head forward to acknowledge that he had heard her but he still continued, “Miss Harmon. I suppose I should have phrased my offer a little differently.”
“Yeah, I’ll say,” Seth remarked, still chuckling. “Oh, that’s a good one. Reed having a kept woman in his apartment. Why ‘keep’ one when there are plenty pounding on the door to get in and take advantage of him? Hey, I can name a half dozen nurses right now who’d like to keep him in their apartments. Man, oh, man, I think this is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Reed wished he could share Seth’s point of view, but frankly, what Mindy had said was the most humiliating thing he’d ever heard in his life. She thought he intended to set her up at his place and take advantage of her sexually? Her? A pregnant woman? A pregnant woman on the rebound? Just how lonely and desperate did she think he was?
As quickly as the question formed in his head, Reed shoved it aside. He wasn’t lonely or desperate, he assured himself, no matter what she seemed to think. Nor was he the kind of sicko creep who would use a woman in Mindy’s situation and condition to satisfy his own longings. She was right, he thought. No good deed went unpunished.
“What I meant, Miss Harmon,” he began again, “is that, even though I live just outside Philadelphia myself—west of Philadelphia, I might add—I have a condo here in Cherry Hill that I keep for those occasions when I work late or get snowed in or what have you. Ninety percent of the time it’s empty. Donna gave us the impression that you don’t have any other family you might be able to stay with—”
“No, I don’t. But that’s really none of your—”
“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of my condo. Until you find a new apartment of your own, 1 mean. This time of year, it’s got to be difficult to find a place to live, and you might very well wind up having to put your things in storage, so—”
“I rent a furnished apartment,” she interrupted him. “I have very few things to store. That’s not likely to be a problem.”
“Okay,” he went on, “but it still must be difficult looking for a place this time of year.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It has been. Frankly, I’m not sure I will find a place by the time I need to be out of my apartment. But something will turn up,” she assured him halfheartedly. “It always does.”
He hesitated only a moment before asking, “What if it doesn’t?”
Mindy glanced down at the backs of her hands, unable to meet his gaze. “I’ll worry about that when…if…it happens.”
“It won’t happen if you take advantage of my condo,” he pointed out. “And there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t.”
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