He barked out a short laugh. “He’s on leave for a month or so. You need him?”
She irritably tapped her fingers against the folder she was holding. “One of my advertisers is big into family values. They like to know what the racier articles in a particular issue are going to be before committing to ad space.”
“Well, then, guess I’m your guy.”
“I don’t think so.”
Because you said no.
Nick shrugged. “Fine. Feel free to tell Cassidy that you lost an account because you refused to talk to a temporary editor out of…well, I’m not sure. Why is it exactly you’ve been dodging me for an entire month?”
“I’ve had no reason to seek you out. Until now our job functions haven’t overlapped. Plus you’re only here half the time.”
“And the unanswered texts and phone calls?”
“You make it sound like there were dozens,” she said with an eye roll. “One phone call, no voicemail. Two texts, both vague. How’d you even get my number?”
“That’s what she wants to know,” he muttered under his breath. “How I got her phone number. Not why I was contacting her in the first place.”
Taylor wasn’t about to ask him what the phone call and texts to call him had been about. She was too afraid he’d been calling to check up on her, making sure she wasn’t drowning her sorrows in ice cream.
She wasn’t.
Her dinner date with Bradley had turned into lots of dinner dates, followed by lunch, brunch, and, well…everything else that went with a relationship.
A relationship.
She had a boyfriend.
The status still felt…odd.
Not wrong, per se. At least she didn’t think so. She really liked Bradley. He was quick to laugh, he was nice. He never picked on her the way Nick did, didn’t call her an ice princess.
He also never called her on her BS, and she was pretty sure she liked that, even if other times she wasn’t so sure….
“Do you know the lineup for next month’s issue or not?” she snapped at Nick, irritated by his existence. And the fact that some ridiculous part of her apparently had missed seeing him, because she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking how he was.
How his girlfriend was.
“Actually, you know what? Just email me,” Taylor said, then turned and marched to the door.
Taylor had assumed that Nick Ballantine was the sort of man who always ambled, never in a hurry for anything. But she was wrong. She wasn’t sure how he got across the office so quickly, but he beat her to the door, shutting it before she could escape.
His palm was braced against the wood, his forearm just inches from the side of her face.
Taylor’s breath felt a little choppy, but she didn’t dare turn and look at him. “Very mature, Ballantine. Your girlfriend may enjoy when you slam doors in her face to get your way, but I’m not loving it.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
She sucked in a breath at that. “Since when?”
“Couple of weeks.”
Taylor closed her eyes, just for a second. Crappy timing.
“You’re seeing Calloway?” Nick asked, his voice gruff.
She nodded.
“He’s not right for you.”
Taylor turned her head to give him an incredulous look, then regretted it, because he was too close. Too much…man.
“You’ve known me for what, four months? Most of which we’ve spent fighting or avoiding each other? You don’t get to decide who’s the right guy for me.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you seriously like him.”
Taylor didn’t look away. “I like him.”
His brown eyes flickered with something she couldn’t read. Then he dropped his arm from the door, shoved both hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I bet you do. He probably does whatever you tell him. Irons his underwear. Do you guys go get your manicures together?”
Taylor rolled her eyes and reached for the doorknob, but he caught her wrist.
“Answer something for me.”
She tried to jerk away, but he held her fast. “What?” she snapped, trying to tell herself that her increasing agitation stemmed from annoyance and not something more dangerous.
“If you weren’t dating him, would you have dinner with me?”
“I don’t like you,” she whispered.
He eased closer until his mouth was inches from her ear. “Liar.”
It was a whisper, and it sent shivers down her spine and then back up again. The good kind of shivers, the kind that made her want to lean into him and beg him to put his mouth all over her.
Taylor felt off balance and disoriented, and she didn’t like it. She never felt this way around Bradley. She knew what to expect from Bradley. He never surprised her, never demanded more than she wanted to give.
Bradley made her feel safe.
Nick Ballantine made her feel anything but.
She twisted her wrist free and opened the door before he could reach for her again.
Only when she was safely out of the office did she meet his eyes once more, although she kept her gaze deliberately cool. “Go find some other rebound, Ballantine. I’m not interested.”
EIGHT MONTHS AGO
Taylor dropped a pen into her desk drawer and slammed it. The drawer bounced open, and she slammed it again, just because it felt good.
Nick Ballantine was dating the temporary receptionist. Or at least pursuing her.
Taylor dropped into her chair and unlocked her computer. She didn’t care.
Not in the least.
Nick Ballantine could go straight to hell for all she cared.
And Taylor liked Daisy Sinclair. Come to think about it, the pretty temp receptionist could do a heck of a lot better than Nick. Taylor fully intended to tell her so.
Daisy was too sweet for someone so…so…
Aggravating.
And besides, it didn’t matter what Nick did with his love life.
Taylor and Bradley were doing great. Two months in, and they never fought. They had the same taste in movies and liked their Thai food with the same level of spiciness, and if that wasn’t perfect compatibility, she didn’t know what was.
She hoped Nick and Daisy would live happily ever after.
But she opened and slammed her desk drawer shut one more time. Just for good measure.
SIX MONTHS AGO
Nick Ballantine rolled his shoulders as he left Alex Cassidy’s office and said a quick prayer of gratitude that the bar where he worked was closed for the day so that the carpet could be replaced.
Tonight the only person Nick wanted to be making a cocktail for was himself.
Cassidy had just asked Nick if he wanted a job—again.
Nick had turned him down.
There was nobody he respected more than Cassidy, both as a boss and as a friend. And as far as the corporate rat race went, it didn’t get better than Oxford.
He just wasn’t cut out for nine-to-five. Not every day, anyway. The day Lincoln Mathis had gotten back from his leave a month earlier had been a good one for Nick. A chance for him to get back to his free-form lifestyle of writing when he felt like it, bartending when he felt like it…
Nick’s footsteps faltered.
What was that noise? Crying?