AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, God, she felt like a fool. She’d ruined this, he probably thought she had been pitying him or something. “Dean, I really didn’t mean anything…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I just wasn’t sure what you meant at first. It’s good to know the company’s doing so well,” he said, still sounding distracted. “Thanks again for meeting me. I’m glad we got the chance to get to know each other better, since we’ll be working together.”
Bridget managed to suck her trembling lip into her mouth, recognizing a brush-off when she heard one. Either he’d never intended this as a get-to-know-you date at all, or he had and she’d blown it. But whatever the case, it was finished now. He was not interested in seeing her again.
WWID…Izzie wouldn’t cry. So she blinked. Hard.
“Bye, Bridget,” he said as he escorted her outside.
She somehow managed to sound perfectly normal when she said goodbye too. But deep inside, she felt anything but normal.
In fact, Bridget felt a little bit broken.
5
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Nick went out of his way to change Izzie’s mind about going out with him. He stopped by the bakery, phoned in orders for stuff he didn’t really want and made sure he was the one to sign for any deliveries at the restaurant, just in case she happened to be the delivery person.
She never was.
But he wasn’t giving up. While at first she’d been a sexy stranger who’d caught his eye, she’d now become something of a challenge to him. He wanted to work his way around her protective wall and see if the smiling, funny girl was still there behind that to-die-for woman exterior.
Maybe it was just as well that Izzie consumed his thoughts by day. Because it made it easier to resist temptation by night. It definitely had on Saturday and Sunday night.
He’d worked at Leather and Lace for a second weekend. This time, knowing what he was in for, he’d been careful to avoid being alone with Rose, the club’s sultry star performer, and hadn’t even exchanged a word with her. Even still, it had been impossible to keep his eyes off her.
Especially when she danced.
Especially when she watched him while she danced.
If she’d made another move on him, he honestly didn’t know that he’d have been able to refuse. So ensuring he was never alone with her was probably a good thing.
Hell, he honestly wasn’t sure why he was resisting. As long as he kept the woman safe, he didn’t see Harry Black being the kind of man who’d have a problem with it. After all, he was married to one of his own former star performers.
And letting off a little sexual steam didn’t have to have anything to do with Nick’s normal, daytime life. In fact, nobody in his family ever needed to know about it. There was no law that said an unattached man couldn’t have sex with a willing woman, just because he was interested in another woman.
One who wasn’t interested in him.
Damn. That’s why he hadn’t done it. Because it was driving him crazy that Izzie wasn’t interested in him.
Frankly, he’d never worked so hard to get a woman’s attention in his life. The fact that Izzie was the woman in question made the whole situation that much more challenging.
She’d been crazy about him once. He’d get her to see him that way again if it was the last thing he did. Even if it meant doing stupid, sappy shit like showing up at her bakery with a handful of flowers.
Like he was right now.
God, how the guys in his unit would laugh to see him, standing on a street corner on a hot August day, holding a brightly colored bouquet he’d bought off a guy on the corner.
“What are you doing?” she mouthed through the glass late Thursday afternoon when he knocked on the locked front door.
“I’m bringing you flowers,” he yelled back. “Open up.”
“Don’t bring me flowers.”
Shrugging, he flashed her a grin. “Too late.”
“I mean it.”
“Like I said, too late. Come on, let me in. They’re thirsty.”
She glared at him. Seeing pedestrians stopping to watch the show, she went a step further and bared her teeth.
Man the woman was hot when she was hot.
“Go away!”
Tsking, he shook his head. Then he looked at the closest woman who’d paused mid-step to see what was going on. “Can you believe she doesn’t want my flowers?”
A teenager and her girlfriend, who’d also stopped nearby, piped in together, “We’ll take them!”
The older woman, an iron-gray haired grandmother, frowned. “What did you do?”
Good question. He wasn’t entirely sure. “I didn’t recognize her after not having seen her for ten years.”
