Thor blinked up at him.

“It’s true,” Finn said. “They get stuck right here—” He pointed to his throat.

Pru choked out a laugh. “Finn, that’s a horrible story!”

He smiled and tugged lightly on a strand of her hair. “But you laughed,” he said.

“I laughed because it was a horrible story,” she said, but was still smiling.

And because she was, he leaned in and kissed her. Softly. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she whispered back.

He wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but it’d only taken one look at her open, expressive face to know she’d somehow been devastated today.

And, given the cut on her cheekbone, also hurt.

Both infuriated him.

The elevator opened and he took Thor’s leash in one hand and used the other to guide Pru off. They were in the hallway in front of her door when Mrs. Winslow’s door opened.

“Another special delivery?” Pru asked her.

“Not for me,” Mrs. Winslow answered. “It’s for you.”

“Um, I don’t eat a lot of special brownies,” she said. “No offense.”

Mrs. Winslow smiled. “Oh, none taken, honey. I’m just passing the word that there’s a little something in the dumbwaiter for you.”

“For me? Why?”

“For your bad day,” Mrs. Winslow said.

Pru blinked. “How do you know I had a bad day?”

“Let’s just say a little birdie looks after all of us,” Mrs. Winslow said. “And he let me know to let you know that you’re not alone.”

“He who?” Pru asked.

But Mrs. Winslow had vanished back into her apartment.

Finn and Pru walked into hers. Finn crouched down and freed Thor from his leash and the dog immediately trotted to his food bowl.

Pru dumped a cup of dry food into it, patted the dog on his head and then went straight to the dumbwaiter.

Finn went to her freezer. He didn’t see an ice pack but she did have a small bag of frozen corn. Good enough.

At her gasp, Finn turned to her. She’d pulled out a basket of muffins from the coffee shop. Tina’s muffins, the best on the planet.

Finn wrapped the bag of corn in a kitchen towel and gently set the makeshift ice pack to her cheek and then brought her hand up to it. “Hold it here a few minutes,” he said.

While she did that, he carried the basket to the kitchen table and they dove into the muffins right then and there.

“Good to have friends in high places,” he said instead of asking her about her face, and when she visibly relaxed he knew he’d done the right thing.

Didn’t mean he didn’t want to kick someone’s ass, because he did. Badly.

“It’d be better to know who those friends are,” she said, clearly not reading his murderous thoughts. She met his gaze. “Do you know?”

He had an idea but didn’t know for certain so he shook his head.

She took another muffin, chocolate chip by the looks of it. “Sean’s toast at the pub upset you,” she said.

Sitting across from her at her table, with Thor in his lap while he worked his way through a most excellent blueberry/banana muffin, he didn’t want to get into Sean’s toast. He much preferred to get into whatever had happened to her. But he knew that she wasn’t going to open up.

Unless he did.

Problem was, he hated opening up. To anyone.

“I’m sorry your dad never got to see the bar and what a success you made of it,” she said quietly.

He put his muffin down. “My dad couldn’t have cared less what we did with ourselves when we were kids. He wouldn’t care what we do now either.”

“But Sean said—”

“Sean’s so full of shit that his eyes are brown,” he said. “My dad never had a pub. Hell, he never even acknowledged he was Irish. My brother perpetuates the lie because he thinks Irish pubs do well and he isn’t wrong. We have done well but it isn’t because we’re Irish, it’s because we work our asses off.”

“You mean you work your ass off,” she said.

He met her knowing gaze. “I just hate the fraud.”

“It’s not a fraud if it’s true, even a little bit.” Reaching across the table, she covered her hand with his. “Stop feeling guilty about something that isn’t your fault and isn’t hurting anyone. Let it go and enjoy the success you’ve made of the place, in spite of your father.”

He stared at her. “How is it that you’re cute, sexy as hell, and smarter than anyone I know?”