After touring the floor, I was reenergized, focused enough to return to my office and have my lunch before putting in a full day of work.I waited in front of the elevator, already planning to set up a lunch meeting with Eric tomorrow before reaching out again to Nova.Little Miss Oxford University.Full of herself, too busy looking down her nose at the rest of the world to bother with common courtesy.The girl I had stupidly, drunkenly married.
That same girl with long, inky black hair was standing directly in front of me when the doors opened, revealing her in the center of the elevator car.
I blinked rapidly, almost sure I was seeing things, but her image didn’t budge.That was not a bad thing, considering how devastating she looked in a pale yellow sundress with a wide leather belt that accentuated her tiny waist.She was softer than she’d been on Sunday, at least on the outside—lighter makeup with layered tendrils framing her face that made her look even younger than twenty-four.
She was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her, falling back half a step before catching herself and gliding out of the car.“Oh.There you are,” she said, her look of surprise shifting to one of impatience that etched itself across her forehead.
So much for warm greetings.“Here I am.Congratulations.You found me.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to get out of a meeting for the past thirty minutes.”Checking her phone, she amended, “Actually, thirty-five.”
“Wait a second.You’re blaming me for being at work?Did you call in advance?Set up an appointment?”
Thick lashes fluttered over her dark eyes before a flush painted her cheeks.“You know what?I thought I did.”I watched as she opened her message app and pulled up the thread of texts I’d sent.“Something I do sometimes.I’ve been distracted,” she mumbled.
Sure enough, she had typed out a message that still sat, waiting to be sent.
I have time Wednesday, late morning.I’ll stop in.
Leaning in to read it meant being dangerously close, so close I could have counted the faint freckles that lightly dotted her nose if I wasn’t so enthralled by the floral scent of her hair.
While I clenched my fists to keep my hands to myself, she explained, “When you didn’t get back to me, I figured that was your way of agreeing.”Her head lifted, and with it, her gaze, dark eyes grazing my face, her lips parting to release a long, soft breath.How easy it would have been to kiss her, especially when she swayed a little closer.Inviting me.
“So long as we can agree you’re at fault,” I murmured, staring at her tempting mouth.
It was supposed to be a joke—a way of lightening the mood.Either her sense of humor sucked, or she wouldn’t be so easily won over.“Anyway, I wanted to drop by so we could discuss how to proceed,” she explained in a dry, flat voice while inching away from me.“I’m not sure of the first steps we need to take.”
“Neither am I,” I admitted, making sure there was no one standing too close before adding, “This is my first drunken wedding too.”Her face barely twitched in response.The woman was bound and determined to freeze me to death with that attitude of hers.What a shame since I could imagine enjoying our time together otherwise.She was very nice to look at, and the sweet scent of vanilla and some familiar-yet-unidentified flower hovered around her in a faint, enticing cloud.I had to fight the desire to lean down and figure out which flower clung to her hair.
A pair of happy roulette players stole my attention, drawing my focus away from Nova momentarily.“I’m always glad when I can see something like that,” I admitted as I turned back toward her while their triumphant shouts rang in my ears.“Not like they’re going to bankrupt us.”
What the hell is she so stressed about?Her attention was on anything but me, her eyes darting over the almost hectic casino floor, both hands gripping the strap of her satchel bag tightly for her knuckles to stand out bone-white against her skin.“Earth to Oxford,” I prompted.“What’s wrong?What, are you afraid somebody followed you here?”
I snickered, but she did not respond.If anything, she gripped the strap tighter than before, her chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythm.
It took positioning myself directly in front of her to draw her attention, and even then, it took a second or two for her to meet my gaze.It was as if she went away for a minute, forgetting where she was and who she was with.
That was officially the last straw.“Who are you afraid of?”I demanded because fuck it, I was tired of beating around the bush.Pretending there was nothing wrong when there so obviously was.“Because you’re looking around here like you expect the Grim Reaper to pop out from under a blackjack table.What is your problem?Is somebody after you?”
After everything I had witnessed, including the bruises on her arm, now covered by a thin cardigan, she had the nerve to scoff.“Do you always obsess over strangers like this, or is it only the ones you marry in a drunken stupor?Or maybe you had a grandma who exposed you to too many episodes of murder mystery shows when she babysat.”
“That would be a no on all counts,” I fired back as loudly and sharply as I dared, with people passing in a constant stream.“And I hope you never decide to take up playing poker for a living since you suck at bluffing.I’m standing here, watching you, and you still have the audacity to lie to me.You’re in trouble.At least tell me about it, so I don’t have to worry about some thug coming in here and causing trouble,Nova Mancini,” I concluded, enunciating her name and then noting how her face fell.
It took no time for her to recover.“Congratulations.You know my last name.Do you think that means something?”
If anything, her reaction told me how close I’d come to the heart of this disaster.“Did your father send you here, then?If you aren’t running away from someone, that’s the only other explanation for the guilty way you’re acting.Does he want a good look at how business is going?I haven’t forgotten how he tried to buy my father out more than once.”
She looked me up and down, her perfect little button nose wrinkling in disdain.“Now that is truly pathetic.Is that what you think this is about?So much for giving you the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting.”
“Don’t do me any favors, Oxford.I’m sure we would get along much better over text messages.”
“No,” she nearly barked, losing some of her composure before getting a grip.“No.Phone calls only.No texts.”
I paused for a beat, convinced she was attempting a joke.That was supposed to convince me I was wrong about her being in trouble?“Uh, okay.We’ll do it your way.Remind me again how wrong I am about you being in trouble.”
“You know what?I’m wasting my time,” she announced, her troubled gaze sweeping the area around us.“I’d say it was nice seeing you, but you’d know I was lying.”
“Wait.”Before she could get away, I reached out and took hold of her arm.One of those things a person does purely out of reflex—acting before thinking.
