More Than Neighbors Read Online Free

then put fresh water in Milo’s bowl. She stepped out of her apartment and rang the bell at her neighbor’s place, holding the picnic hamper she’d prepared. The door opened and Leopold, impeccably dressed in pale Bermudas and a thick blue turtleneck, invited her in. Cat curiously looked around. The apartment was elegantly decorated, and it was patently clear that a good interior designer had taken care of every last detail. Not a single book was out of place, and everything was immaculate. In her opinion, it was as cozy as a sterile hotel room.
    “What a fabulous home,” she said disingenuously.
    Leopold stared at her for a while with his inscrutable gray eyes, and in his politest tone he finally replied, “You don’t need to lie.”
    Biting her bottom lip, she gave him a half-embarrassed, half-cheerful look. “It’s beautifully decorated, it really is. Only, it feels a bit impersonal; I don’t know . . . it doesn’t seem like a home.”
    He showed no sign that the comment irritated him. It wasn’t that he’d brought many women to his home; generally, he preferred to go to their place or to a hotel. But the few who had been there had congratulated him on the elegant décor. Catalina’s blunt opinion was a unique case of bad manners, he decided, and he, Leopold Sinclair, believed firmly in courtesy as the cornerstone to a civilized society. “I’m sorry it’s not to your liking.”
    His veiled sarcasm did not go unnoticed by Cat. “Forgive me, Leo!” she pleaded, her hands pressed together theatrically. “As my mother would say: ‘Too much honesty is unforgiveable bad manners.’ I promise I won’t say anything else to upset you.”
    Seeing her contrite expression, Leopold felt an almost irrepressible urge to stretch out his hand and stroke her soft cheek. He managed to stop himself with great difficulty, and he again wondered how it was possible that this unpredictable creature had made his feelings swing from annoyance to affection in a split second. What he felt was an emotion he was very unfamiliar with. “We should get going or we’ll miss the tide.” His relaxed tone masked the confused fluttering in his chest.
     
    Leopold gave Catalina some rubber-soled shoes and a lifejacket, ordered her to sit at the stern, and assured her that he’d see to everything. Catalina readily obeyed, trying to be as helpful as possible. Out of her element aboard the boat, she was frightened of slipping and ending up in the rough and dirty waters of the Thames. She watched her neighbor with interest; he’d put on some more appropriate footwear, too, and was moving nimbly about the deck, tying and untying knots, and reeling in ropes using metal cranks. Before long, he was starting up the motor and casting off, and a few minutes later the boat slowly pulled away from the jetty.
    They motored out to a more peaceful part of the river. There Leopold instructed her to sit beside him, then he deployed the sails and they slid silently over the murky water on a course for Greenwich. Though she’d lived in London ever since her university days, Catalina had never boarded one of the tourist-stuffed crafts that traversed the river. It was the first time she’d seen the city from the Thames, and she thought the sight magnificent.
    At first, it scared Cat when the strong breeze filled the sails and tipped the boat to the side, and though she said nothing, she gripped the metal rail so hard that her knuckles whitened.
    “Don’t be scared, we won’t capsize, I promise,” Leo assured her with amusement as he skillfully used the tiller to harness every wisp of wind.
    “I’m not scared,” Catalina objected, though her eyes betrayed everything.
    “I can see that, Catalina,” he said mockingly.
    “Please, call me Cat; no one calls me Catalina, only my mother when she’s angry.”
    “In that case, we’re even. Nobody calls me Leo.”
    She shrugged, and realizing that although the sailboat was listing they weren’t