“All right, Jess. Are you ready?” Nick came out from the back and I jumped at the sound of his voice, even though I’d been expecting him.
“Erm… yes. Sure.”
“Good luck!” whispered Justin as I got my purse. He grinned when I glared at him. “Jess and Nick, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S…”
“Is there something you needed to say, Justin?” Nick asked pointedly.
“Just telling Jess that she’s lucky to be going out to lunch on such a beautiful day,” Justin replied smoothly. “I wouldn’t mind spending some time in the sunshine myself when you’re back.”
“Not a problem. Are you sure Matt and you will be able to cope while we’re gone?”
“We’ll be fine. I’ve always got your cell if there are any problems,” Justin replied as Nick opened the door for me, gesturing for me to go out first.
“Then let’s get going.”
A few doors up from Tulips there was a nice little Italian place and I was expecting Nick to take me there, so I was surprised when he ignored it, gazing out at the street for a cab.
“Aren’t we eating at Giuliani’s?” I asked, pointing back in confusion.
“I thought we’d go somewhere a little more interesting,” Nick explained, reaching out to hail a cab as soon as he saw one. “Get out of the area so we can talk without worrying about being interrupted.”
“So where are we going?” I asked as he opened the door for me.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” he grinned, leaning forward to say something to the cab driver that I couldn’t hear.
I gazed out of the window, trying to guess where we might be going, so I didn’t hear what Nick said to me at first.
“Sorry, what?” I turned to face him when I realized that he’d been trying to get my attention.
“Nothing important,” he laughed. “I was just asking you how you started working at Tulips.”
“It was a bit weird, to be honest,” I replied. “I was walking down the street and I saw Shelby struggling with a huge bundle of flowers going into the store. It hadn’t opened yet and I stopped to help her unload her car. We got talking and by the time we finished our conversation, she’d offered me a job. It worked out really well because I’d been wondering how I was going to be able to stay at college after mom-” I caught myself just before I told Nick about mom losing her job. That was our private business and nothing to do with him.
“Your mom what?” prompted Nick.
“Oh, just that mom had said that it might be a good idea if I got a job,” I replied breezily. “Jobs are always a good thing, right? And I’ve learned so much from Shelby that if psychotherapy doesn’t work out, I’ve always got floristry to fall back on.”
“You want to be a psychotherapist?”
I nodded. “Ideally an educational psychologist,” I told him. “I’d like to work with kids with special needs. My nephew is on the autism spectrum and I’ve seen the difference his ed psych has made. I’d like to do something that will have a positive impact on children’s lives.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Nick remarked. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you want to do something to help others?”
I shrugged, self-consciously tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I wasn’t used to Nick being nice to me and it felt strange for him to say something positive instead of finding fault like he usually did.
“Here we are,” Nick announced as the cab pulled up outside Sage and Marjoram, a restaurant in the Presidio.
“Oh wow,” I breathed as I stepped out of the cab while he paid the driver. “I’ve always wanted to eat here.”
“You’ve never been?”
I shook my head, not wanting to tell him that there was no way I could ever have afforded to dine out somewhere like this. For the price of an entrée, mom could feed the three of us for a week.
“Then I’m doubly glad I booked us a table,” Nick smiled as he led the way towards the restaurant.
I tried not to feel like some uneducated hick as I gazed around the reception, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt completely out of place. I’d never been in a restaurant as swanky as this one. The few boys I’d dated thought that a burrito was the height of fine dining.
“Reservation for Nick Ford,” he said to the maître d’, who smiled as he put a tick by the name in his book.
“Right this way, sir.” He took us over to a quiet table in a private corner of the room, pulling out a chair for me next to a window with stunning views over the park.
I couldn’t contain my awe as I tried to take in everything, from the gleaming silverware to the original paintings hanging on the walls. This was a world apart from what I was used to.
“Is everything all right?” smiled Nick, making me jump.
“What?” I fiddled with the cutlery on the table. “Oh, yes. Yes, everything’s fine.”
“Can I get you anything to drink?” A waiter materialized by our table to hand us each a menu.
“I’ll have a cranberry and orange,” I asked, mindful that we still had work to do this afternoon and wanting to make a good impression.
“Really?” Nick looked at me in surprise. “I thought we’d share a bottle of wine to toast a better working relationship. Do you prefer white or red?”
It was my turn to look surprised. “Do you really think it’s a good idea for us to be drinking when we have a store to get back to?”
“I figured we’d take a long lunch,” Nick shrugged. “Call it a boss’ prerogative. After all, you and Shelby managed perfectly fine when it was just the two of you and Matt and Justin know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll survive without us.”
“All right then. If you’re sure.” I looked at the wine list, but the prices were far too scary for me to make a decision. “You’re the boss. You choose.”
Nick ordered a bottle of red and when the waiter returned, he started to pour it out for Nick to try.
“No, no.” Nick waved him away, gesturing for me to be the one to taste it.
The waiter poured a small amount and picked up my glass, swirling it around to release the aroma as I’d seen in movies, pretending that I knew was doing before taking a sip.
“It’s good,” I nodded, although good was an understatement. I didn’t drink wine very often, but you didn’t have to be a connoisseur to know that this was an expensive wine that was far too easy to drink.
The waiter poured a full glass out for both of us and we gave him our food orders before he retreated, leaving us alone again.
“So…” I said, searching for something to say.
“So…” responded Nick before we both burst into laughter, releasing the tension that had been building up between us.
“Do you come here often?” I asked, inwardly groaning that I’d come out with such a dumb question, but it was all I could think to ask.
“This is my first time here,” Nick replied. “As I said to Shelby, I have a chain of restaurants back in San Diego and I’m looking to expand. I must confess to having something of an ulterior motive to bringing you here. I’ve been scoping out possible areas and San Francisco is top of my list. I came here because I wanted to check out the competition.”
“Of course you did.” Why had I thought it might be anything else? It wasn’t as though he’d need to impress me. I was just a humble sales assistant working my way through college.
Before Nick could explain further, the waiter returned with our appetizers. I picked up a spoon and tried my soup.
“Oh my goodness, I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven!” I exclaimed as it hit my taste buds.
“Good?” Nick beamed at my delight.
“The best,” I reassured him, as I wolfed it down, not caring about my table manners. If this were a date, I’d try to behave with a little more decorum, but as Nick had just reminded me, this wasn’t a date. It was a business trip. I was out with Nick, a man who clearly was never going to hire me given what he thought of my
work, so there was no point in trying to impress him.
“So tell me more about what it’s like to be a shifter,” I asked, the wine giving me the courage to ask questions I’d never usually dare. “Were you bitten or something?”
“Or something,” laughed Nick. “It runs in the family. My seventeenth birthday coincided with a full moon and I was given the unforgettable gift of fur and claws.”
“But I thought the full moon thing was a myth?”
“It is,” Nick nodded, “but sometimes it can make the change a little more forceful – or bring on your powers early. In my family, we don’t usually turn until our early twenties, but there was something about that moon that brought out the bear in me.”
“And you really can control every aspect of your body?”
Nick smiled, lifting up his hand to give me a thumbs up, as I watched, the thumb transforming into a bear claw.
“That’s incredible!” I breathed.
“It goes with the territory,” shrugged Nick. “It has its advantages, I suppose.”
The suggestive look he gave me made me blush.
“You know, under different circumstances…”
Whatever it was Nick was about to say was cut off by the waiter coming to collect up our plates in preparation for the entrée.
“Under different circumstances what?” I prompted.
“It doesn’t matter.” Nick shook his head. “Anyway, tell me more about your family. You mentioned your mom earlier. What does she do?”
“She’s between jobs right now,” I replied, not wanting to talk about the hours she spent trawling Craigslist and the wanted ads looking for any way of bringing in some money. “But she has to look after me and my brother, Tate, so it’s hard for her to find something with hours that she can do.”
“You have a brother?” Nick was doing a remarkably good impression of someone who was interested in my life. I could almost believe his act.
“Yeah, Tate’s almost ten. Mom and dad hadn’t planned on having more than one kid, but Tate had different ideas.”
“What does your dad do?”
“He died when Tate was little.”
Nick put his hand over mine. “I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been hard on you to lose him so young.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is. It was a long time ago. But that’s enough about me. What about your family? Do you have any siblings?”
“Two brothers and three sisters,” Nick told me.
“Seriously?” I couldn’t imagine having so many siblings. One was plenty. “Are they all shifters too?”
“Not all of them.” Nick shook his head. “Mark and Shannon are, but the other three missed out.”
“Is that how you see it? That those of us who aren’t shifters are missing out?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Not exactly.” Nick struggled to explain what he meant. “It’s just that there’s a whole other world out there that I’d be completely unaware of if I didn’t have my heightened senses thanks to my shifting. I can’t imagine not being able to identify someone through their scent alone.” He looked round the room. “Take that guy over there.”
I followed his gaze to see a man sitting on his own at a table, newspaper open in front of him.
“He had a cup of coffee around 10 this morning followed by a cigarette. He uses cologne because he thinks it masks his bad body odor, but all it does it make it worse and he works behind a desk surrounded by paperwork.”
“You can tell all that from this distance just from the way he smells?”
“Yep. You wait. Any second now, he’s going to go outside because he can’t wait for his next nicotine fix.”
Sure enough, as we watched, a couple of minutes later, the man stood up, left his newspaper on the table and went outside. When he returned five minutes later, even I could catch the scent of cigarettes clinging to his clothes.
“Color me impressed,” I told Nick as the waiter arrived with our entrees. “What other magic tricks can you do?”
“I can pull a rabbit out of a hat,” he said.
“Really?” I looked around for a hat so he could demonstrate.
“No, not really,” he grinned. “I’m not a stage magician. I’m a shifter. There is a difference.”
“Sorry.” I pretended to concentrate on cutting my steak to cover my embarrassment.
“It’s okay. People have thought stranger things about shifters. It goes with the territory.”
“So is that how you and Caleb met?” I asked.
“Yes. Our shifter radar made us magnetically attracted to each other,” Nick deadpanned.
I glared at him, daring him to make fun of me one more time.
“All right, all right.” Nick held up his hands in surrender. “That was mean of me. No, Caleb and I met in college. He then invited me to come and stay on his clan’s estate to help out with security and our friendship grew from there.”
“Security?”
“Sadly, although we’re supposed to live in enlightened times, there are still those out there who are afraid of shifters or worse.”
“What do you mean, worse?”
“Shifter body parts are supposed to be able to help with magic spells. They’re alleged to be able to help with everything from healing to infertility. Certain shifter body parts ground up with random herbs are supposed to be better than Viagra with none of the side effects.”
“And is it?”
Nick shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Would you want your body parts chopped up just so some old guy could get it up one more time?”
“I suppose not.”
We ate in awkward silence, the easy camaraderie we’d built up shattered in an instant.
“How’s your steak?” Nick said at last.
“The best,” I nodded, finishing my last mouthful. “Yours?”
“Meh.” He shrugged. “My chef does them better.”
“I’ll bet. Well, when you open up a restaurant round here, you’ll have to take me there so I can decide for myself.” The moment the words left my mouth, I wished that I could take them back. Had I just asked my boss out on a date? I knew it was a bad idea to drink wine with lunch! It made me say stupid things.
“I might just do that,” Nick smiled. “I’d really value your opinion.”
“Now I know you’re just saying that.”
“No, I really do value your opinion,” Nick urged. “If you were interested, I wouldn’t mind talking to you a bit more about my plans for the new restaurant. You can’t beat someone with local knowledge to make sure you get things right. Most restaurants fail within the first two years, but not mine and that’s because I do the research first. In fact, I’d love it if you took me to your favorite restaurant so I can take a few notes.”
This time there was no mistaking it. Nick was definitely flirting with me and I sat back, examining his face for any sign of guile as the waiter came to clear away our plates.
“Careful now,” I warned him lightly. “The workplace is no place for romance, remember? You’re getting dangerously close to asking me out on a date.”
“Not at all,” Nick countered. “I’m asking you out for research purposes, that’s all.” He did a good job of trying to pretend he was being purely professional, but there was something about his tone that told me that he definitely had an agenda. “But since we’re on the subject of dating, I did want to talk to you about Justin.”
“Justin?” I frowned. “What about him?”
“I’m not going to tell you how to live your life and what you do in your private time is none of my business, but I feel that I need to warn you about getting too close to Justin.”
“Is that right?” I sat back and folded my arms. “And what exactly do you need to warn me about?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Justin’s a great guy and a good friend of mine, but when it comes to women…” He laughed and shrugged. “Well, he’s the epitome of a lone wolf, if you’ll pardon the pun. Justin’s a pl
ayer. Although he usually knows to keep relationships out of the workplace, since we’ll be moving on in the not too distant future, he might decide to make an exception in your case.”
“I wouldn’t worry about anything like that,” I reassured Nick. “I’m not exactly the kind of woman someone like Justin goes for.”
“Are you kidding?” Nick snorted. “Don’t put yourself down, Jess. There are plenty of men who’d want to be with someone like you.”
The way he looked at me, I couldn’t help but feel that he was talking about himself and I picked up the dessert menu. It wasn’t that I needed anything else to eat. I was just desperately trying to find a distraction.
“Did you want dessert?” Nick asked.
“Mm-hmm.” I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the sumptuous photos illustrating the menu.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I could murder a piece of chocolate cake,” Nick said, gesturing to the waiter. “And another bottle of wine.”
“Oh no,” I protested. “No more wine. There’s still this afternoon’s deliveries to make up, remember?”
“I’ve decided Matt and Justin can deal with them,” Nick replied. “I’m making an executive decision to give you the afternoon off to make up for being so grumpy towards you when we first met. I already sent Matt a text to tell him not to expect us back, which means you can relax and enjoy a couple more glasses with me.”
I didn’t think I could ever relax around someone who looked the way he did, but I wasn’t going to turn down an afternoon off with pay, so I agreed to more wine and ordered a slice of lemon cheesecake.
“So are you single, Nick?”
I knew that I shouldn’t have had that extra glass of wine! There was a little voice inside me urging me to be cautious, but the thought of not needing to go back to work combined with the alcohol had left me feeling reckless and I figured that if Nick had brought me out so that we could get to know each other better, I might as well ask. It wasn’t as though I’d stand a chance with him anyway. As Justin had told me, Nick had more than his fair share of women to choose from. He wouldn’t someone like me when this was the kind of world he usually moved in.
Loving Bear: A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Love Laid Bear Book 2) Page 4
