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The worry lines that had so recently tugged at her mouth had vanished as her lips quirked upward. “Do you think we can maybe order some lunch while we’re at it?”
“I’ll give you a better option. Let’s go get lunch first.”
He wasn’t sure how she did it, but just as he’d observed yesterday, Nova had an amazing ability to move seamlessly between things that were very difficult and things that were surprisingly easy. It was enticing, he acknowledged to himself.
And wildly attractive.
Most women of his acquaintance were all too happy to hold a grudge, or even in best-case scenarios, simply pout. She did neither of those things. And he got the feeling that when she said she wanted to put the unpleasantness of the afternoon behind them, she meant it.
He got out of the car and came around to the passenger side to help her out. He reached for her hand, clasping his fingers around her much smaller one, as a zing of electricity shot up his arm and on into his chest.
Yep, there was no doubt about it. For all his protective feelings and all of his ready desire to help her, Nikolas also couldn’t deny the fact that he saw her as a woman.
And as he helped her out of the car, he remembered something else.
She was alone and vulnerable. Which meant he was just going to have to keep those feelings to himself.
* * *
Nova fought the urge to rub her palm as they walked back toward Nikolas’s office. She found him attractive and had from the very first moment. But something had shifted between them in the car.
Something that had nothing to do with her case or her problems and everything to do with being a woman.
A
s she imagined herself leaning forward, pressing her lips to the lush fullness of his, her fingers flexed over that hard, beard-shadowed jaw, Nova slammed smack into reality.
Was she that desperate for any sense of connection after her experience with Ferdy?
Even as she thought it, Nova recognized just how unfair she was being to herself. Yes, she had made a horrible decision when it came to Ferdinand Adler but it didn’t mean she’d lost her ability to make good decisions.
What about the last five months? She’d done okay and she’d be damned if she was going to let herself forget that.
But Nikolas...
Would it be so bad to imagine something developing between the two of them? Oh, sure, now wasn’t the ideal time. And what man really wanted to take on a woman and another man’s baby? Not one she’d ever met, no matter how sweet and caring.
But maybe, somewhere down the road. After she was settled and had gotten into the rhythm of motherhood.
Maybe...
“You want that burger we talked about yesterday?”
She might be fighting an attraction to Nikolas, but she had no such compunction about beef. “Um, yeah.”
“Then let’s go. We’ll grab some lunch and we can talk about what we’re going to do.”
What we’re going to do.
Nova had already been hurt once and it would do her good to keep her heart in check and not allow those words to sing in her mind, propping her up and making her feel as if someway, somehow things would work out.
She was still jobless, homeless and, based on the news that morning, Colton-less. No matter how well-intentioned Marlowe was, nothing could change the fact that Nova wasn’t a blood relation to these people she’d come so far to find.
But neither was she alone. And it was helpful to remember that, too.
An hour later, Nova had to admit what a good plan lunch was. Still full from her double cheeseburger and feeling slightly self-righteous that she’d ordered salad instead of French fries, she laid her napkin on the table. “You haven’t said much, but I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
“I’m thinking about a few things.”
