Once Upon an Earnest Nerd (Instalove in the City Book 2)

by Maggie Dallen

  Once Upon an Earnest Nerd

  Maggie Dallen

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  One

  Yvette’s glass was nearly empty.

  Oops, not anymore.

  Caleb, one of her best friends, splashed more wine into her glass before plunking down beside her on the loveseat in the corner.

  She’d staked out the best spot. Cozy, comfortable, and prime people-watching position.

  It was also tucked away in a corner and, while playing the part of a wallflower was not at all typical, tonight she found it suited her.

  Caleb threw an arm around her as she tipped her head back for another sip. “Can you believe this place?” he said, looking around at their other best friend Kat’s new digs. “It’s so… grown-up.”

  It was. The penthouse apartment was fully furnished—and not with Ikea stuff either. It had a swanky look about it, like an interior decorator had been involved. Kat had only been living here for a couple of weeks, ever since the wedding, so it was only a matter of time before she started putting her stamp on things. But her stamp, while cozy, was still grown up. Classy, even.

  Now if this was Yvette’s apartment, every piece of furniture would pop with color and those lovely, eggshell-colored walls would either be torn down or painted in a mural. She got so distracted by thinking about how she would redo the apartment that she nearly forgot about Caleb sitting beside her.

  But Caleb, hunky soap opera actor that he was, did not take kindly to being ignored. Snatching her glass from her hand, he held it just out of her reach until she stomped her foot on his toe making him yelp like a little girl. He handed it back with an accusatory wince, but she was not repentant. Take a girl’s wine, you get what’s coming.

  “Where is the woman of the hour, anyway? Have you seen her?” Caleb asked, looking around the crowded living room.

  Ostensibly, this was a holiday party. Also, a bit of a housewarming party for Kat’s friends because she and Bryce had just moved in together. But really, as far as Yvette and Caleb were concerned, this was a celebration for Kat.

  She’d just started up her new headhunting business and only one month in, it was already a success—as they’d known it would be. Kat would never settle for anything less.

  “Last time I saw her she was in a liplock with the sexy lumberjack.” Sure, the truth had come out fairly quickly that the guy Kat had kissed with on a work retreat was actually a big-time billionaire who bought the company she’d worked for. But, since Kat so rarely screwed up and they so often did, Yvette and Caleb had taken to referring to Bryce as the “sexy lumberjack” to drive her nuts.

  It totally worked.

  “My guess? They’re off in one of the eight hundred bedrooms in this palace, making out like teenagers while their guests are forced to listen to Christmas carols.” Caleb took a swig of his beer, a scowl firmly fixed on his too-handsome face.

  “Bitter much?” she asked.

  He let out a short laugh, and she completely understood. They were happy for Kat, they absolutely were.

  But they were also sorry for themselves.

  It was safe to say that Yvette and Caleb had cornered the market in dysfunctional relationships. Or, in her case, non-relationships.

  Caleb, the hottest of the hot, was as in demand with women as one could get. Seriously. As a soap opera star and as an all around sexy stud, he could have his pick of women. But the guy had decided eons ago that he was waiting to find his perfect woman who—in Yvette’s opinion, at least—was the perfect woman. Also known as a figment of man’s imagination, and therefore impossible to find.

  Because she didn’t exist.

  But try telling Caleb that. He might have been an actor but even that didn’t excuse him from his weirdly romantic fantasy.

  For her part, well… Yvette was the most messed up of them all. Which was one of the reasons she’d chosen to hide out on a corner couch and drown her miseries.

  Tonight, she needed it because tonight she’d been dumped.

  Well…maybe dumped was putting too fine a point on it. She’d been blown off. Again. For a second time by the same guy.

  She’d known it was coming. She always knew it was coming. That was what happened when you dated players, which Yvette did, almost exclusively. Actually, there was no ‘almost’ about it. At some point she’d become a magnet for men who were incapable of committing.

  No, that wasn’t quite right, because the attraction was two-sided. She was drawn to them just like they were drawn to her. What was that about? Why did she constantly do this to herself?

  She’d known James was just using her to get back at his ex. She’d known that he wasn’t serious when he’d said he’d wanted more with her, but she’d still gone and—

  “But seriously though.” Caleb’s incredulous tone cut into her internal diatribe. He turned to face her. “But seriously though,” he repeated. Oh no, her friend had imbibed one too many beers if he was starting conversations with, ‘but seriously though.’

  “But seriously though,” he said for a third time, his deep blue eyes piercing and devastatingly sexy even when he was tipsy. His fans would go nuts if they saw him like this, all smoldering and sexy…and hammered.

  He waved his hand around in a circle, beer sloshing over the edge of his bottle. “Isn’t this place just so grown-up?”

  She choked on a laugh at his drunken outrage. For some reason the grown-upness of Kat’s new home seemed to really irritate him. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she felt compelled to point out the obvious.

  “Sweetie, we’re all pushing thirty. I think it’s safe to say that we are grown-up.”

  He met her gaze and for a moment he looked struck by her wisdom. But then the corners of his lips started to tug up and he bent forward with a loud laugh that had half the room looking in their direction.

  She couldn’t hold it in any longer either and she giggled beside him. It had taken all her willpower to stay serious as she’d said it.

  They were pushing thirty—that hadn’t been a joke. The joke was that the two of them were grown-ups.

  Kat? Yeah, sure. But then, she’d always been a grown-up. She was the mom of the group, and always had been, ever since their college days when she’d been the responsible one making sure they all remembered their wallets and keys before leaving the bar.

  She sighed with a wave of nostalgia as she looked around for their friend who was, as Caleb rightly pointed out, most likely making out with her new fabulous husband. Yvette could use her responsible friend’s help on a night like tonight.

  Not only had she been ceremoniously dumped, but her financial situation was in crisis mode…again.

  Kat would help—or at the very least, she could help point her in the right direction of someone who could. Aside from Kat, who was something of a sales genius and up until a few months ago, a rising star in the corporate world, the rest of Yvette’s friends were all the artsy type.

  Which made sense, because she was an artist.

  But she didn’t have one friend who had the math skills she needed if she stood any chance of getting this grant. And this grant would be everything.

  “Uh oh,” Caleb said beside her. “How much have you had to d
rink? You’re getting that look.”

  She frowned at her friend. “I’m only on my second glass of wine.” But that didn’t answer the question and they both knew it. She wasn’t exactly a lightweight but she was dang close. At five-foot nothing and on the petite side, she definitely wasn’t a heavy-weight. Two glasses of wine tended to be two too many.

  “I am not getting that look,” she said, trying to sound haughty but probably failing. Because she probably did have that look.

  Yvette could be honest about the fact that she had a tendency to cry easily when she was tipsy and down. And right now? Yeah, this definitely qualified. Setting the glass down, she pouted at her friend. “Okay, fine. I’ll slow down.”

  He lifted one brow and she relented with a sigh. “Fine, big brother, I’ll stop. Happy?”

  Snagging her glass, he helped himself to the contents, apparently having finished his beer. “Extremely.”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “You’re a dweeb.”

  Neither of these were said with anything close to anger. It was more of a ritual than anything. If Yvette were to really analyze their tendency to call each other names and pick on one another, she’d say it was their way of firmly keeping their friendship just that…a friendship. Nothing more and nothing less.

  They’d had one date back during freshman year of college. While it had been fun, it had so clearly not been a love match. He was too nice, and she was too…not nice. Well, she was nice, but she wasn’t mythically nice like his imaginary dream girl.

  And he was too earnest about relationships, too sincere. She’d come to college fresh off a heartbreak, wanting nothing to do with serious or intense.

  Now, ten years had passed since her high school graduation and she could safely say she was nothing at all like that angsty, too-serious teen who’d lost her virginity and her heart in one foul swoop.

  Nope, now she was just a nearly-starving artist who’d been dumped two weeks before Christmas.

  She was totally winning.

  Yvette tried to reach for her wine glass but Caleb kept it out of reach and she gave up without much effort. He probably had a point. More drinks wouldn’t make her feel any better and the last thing she wanted was to embarrass Kat by bursting into tears at her holiday-housewarming-new business celebration party.

  She looked around the crowd, twirling one of her purple locks around her ring-clad finger. Aside from Caleb, she didn’t know anyone there. Well, no one within her sight, at least. And anything beyond her current view meant leaving her cozy spot on the couch, which was just not happening.

  In a nod to Kat’s fancy dress policy, she’d worn heels—she hated heels—but she’d worn these because they were silver and sparkly and went excessively well with her hot pink, sequined cocktail dress, which was both ironically eighties and sexy as sin with its high hemline and plunging V-neck.

  She loved this dress and she loved the heels, even though they made her toes feel like they’d been shoved into a mousetrap. She just hated the fact that the heels, dress, and her pretty curls were being wasted on Caleb in the corner.

  James was supposed to be here with her but, when she’d texted to see when he was going to meet her, he’d responded that it was over.

  A breakup text. Classy. She sure knew how to pick ‘em.

  “Are you going to sit here and mope all night or are you going to mingle?” Caleb asked.

  She pursed her lips and stared at the crowd of smiling guests with their boring black dresses and suits. The occasional red skirt or green tie mixed in with the bunch was the only thing that kept this festive holiday party from looking like a particularly jovial funeral.

  “I’ll stay here.”

  “You’ll be bored,” Caleb warned.

  She shrugged. Better bored by herself than bored while mingling. She eyed the wine glass he was taking away from her. Also, better bored than crying.

  Settling back into the cushions, she resigned herself to boredom.

  She lasted one hour. One hour in which she sobered up and grew so sleepy it was a chore to keep her eyes open.

  The cute and ironic dress was now starting to itch and pinch in the worst places and she’d long ago ditched the heels. She eyed them now where they were strewn by her feet looking like fallen victims of a glitter war.

  Oh, sexy kitten heels, your lifespan was short but glorious.

  Her phone was hidden in her clutch purse somewhere—she hadn’t wanted the temptation nearby. Even without wine’s influence, she still had an urge to start texting James with nasty comebacks or maybe send him a picture of herself in this sexy dress and let him see what he was missing.

  But sadly, getting dumped by self-absorbed jerkwads was old hat. It had sort of become her specialty, and she knew that texting him in any way, shape, or form would not help matters. If he said it was over, it was over. Texting, even in anger, would just make her look pathetic.

  Which she probably was.

  But she still had enough pride that she didn’t want him to know that.

  How long did she have to sit here looking pretty before it was okay to leave? She supposed no one would notice if she left. But then what? She’d go home and sit on her own couch? Somehow that seemed even less fun than sitting here, as well as significantly more pathetic. She couldn’t go home before midnight on Friday night without feeling like a sad loser. Maybe it was later than she thought…

  She snagged the arm of a guy standing near her who was wearing a watch.

  Who wore watches these days? She twisted his arm slightly to read the numbers, not bothering to glance up at his face. He was one of the many boring men in the room who looked like they were in mourning.

  She’d never understood why suits were considered sexy. The nameless, faceless man’s watch read nine o’clock. She groaned. Oh man, this night would never end.

  She had to do something to distract herself. There had to be some way to relieve this boredom and distract herself from her current woes. She looked around the gathering, viewing the party as if she was watching television.

  Dang it, if she was going to be all dressed up and at a party, at the very least she should get some action. James might not be here to revel in her sexy glory, but surely there was someone here who could make this night interesting. She took in the sea of dour black suits in front of her.

  Well, someone who’d temporarily take her mind off James, at least.

  The guy whose arm she was still absently holding tugged his wrist free from her grip. “Excuse me.” The man with the watch spoke and she realized belatedly that the deep voice was speaking to her.

  Glancing up, she found herself staring into warm brown eyes. The brown eyes were set in a handsome face with sharp features and just the hint of a smile. No, she couldn’t even call it a hint. He looked serious. Severe, almost. But there was something in his eyes that made her think he was smiling.

  There was a warmth there that belied the severity of his expression. Interesting.

  She tilted her head back a bit so she had a better view of the man who wore a watch and loomed over her, not in an intimidating way but in a I’m-standing-and-you’re-sitting way.

  She blinked up at him. What had he said? Oh yeah. Excuse me.

  Her head cocked to the side. “Yes?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and she watched in some fascination as his eyes narrowed as if in recognition. His gaze scanned her face and moved over her dress and legs, all the way down to her barefooted feet which were tucked up on the couch beside her.

  A slash of heat shot through her at the feel of his gaze on her body. Sure, he wasn’t her type, but at this party her options were severely limited.

  Besides, she wasn’t looking for much, just a distraction. And this guy? He would do nicely. Patting the sofa beside her, she gave him her best come-hither smile. “Care to join me?”

  Two

  Darren Pensky was in love.

  Well, to be fair, he’d had a crush on th
is woman before he’d even met her, so he supposed it made some kind of weird sense that he’d fall head over heels at the mere sight of her.

  Care to join me?

  He was helpless to resist even as the logical part of his brain screamed, “Insanity!” Clearly this woman was some kind of witch because this overwhelming pull she had on him could not be natural.

  He broke out in a sweat as he sank into the sofa cushion beside her. She was even more beautiful in person than he’d imagined, and he’d spent quite a bit of time imagining what she’d look like after he’d gone to see her art exhibit at a gallery in Chelsea three months ago.

  He wasn’t an art connoisseur, though he loved going to galleries and museums. There was just something peaceful about them. They were such a far cry from his work, which centered around crunching numbers—a skill he excelled at and enjoyed, but which didn’t exactly make his soul sing.

  Not that his soul was in the habit of singing.

  It wasn’t.

  That was probably why he’d been knocked off his feet when he’d stumbled upon Yvette Clark and her paintings. He’d first discovered her when his boss, and the owner of this apartment, Bryce Dalton, had bought one of her paintings when he’d gone to her gallery opening with his then-girlfriend Kat.

  Kat, he’d learned, was Yvette’s best friend.

  To say he’d been blown away would have been the understatement of the century. The painting Bryce bought was of a wooded scene, but it held so many layers. There was something ethereal yet elemental about it. The creatures hidden in the woods revealed themselves by hints and glimpses, never outright. He was no expert, but the brushstrokes evoked thoughts of windy days at his family’s lakeside cabin—the kind of exhilaration one felt out in the wild, not cooped up in an office.

  Yet the painting had been sitting in Bryce’s Manhattan office, waiting for him to send it off to his lodge in Montana, where it would better fit the environment. And it was in Bryce’s office that Darren’s solid, steady, some-might-say boring world was tipped on its head.