by Lauren Layne
“Why would I spill my guts? I don’t even like you,” she muttered. “You don’t like me either.”
“Might make it easier to talk to me, then.”
She rolled her eyes. “How do you figure?”
“Well,” he said, setting his glass aside and walking toward her. “Way I see it, if we hate each other, no matter what the other says, it’s impossible to think less of the other person, right? Seems like there should be a certain freedom in that.”
Taylor opened her mouth to tell him his logic was ridiculous, but then she realized he was sort of right. It did make sense, in a weird sort of way.
She also wondered if, on some level, that was why she and Nick had agreed to this strange living situation. In some ways they could be most like themselves around the other, because there was no point in pretending for someone who didn’t give a shit one way or the other.
Not to mention there was the not so tiny detail that Nick Ballantine had already seen her at her worst.
“I’ve never thanked you,” Taylor blurted out, before she could rethink it. “Did I?”
“For?” His eyes were calm. Patient. It made it easier.
“That night,” she whispered.
She didn’t have to explain which night. The night Taylor had found out that her only relative—the only person in her life who really cared for her—had died. The night Taylor had been alone in the Oxford office.
Except not entirely alone. Someone else had been working late that night. Someone had heard her crying.
That someone hadn’t asked a single question. He’d merely gathered Taylor’s shaking body against his much bigger one and held her while she cried. Sobbed.
And then he’d listened while she told him all about Karen. About how her aunt had adopted her, and cared for her when nobody else would.
That wasn’t the embarrassing part, though. No, the humiliation that Taylor had barely been able to live with since that night was that somehow he’d discovered the most painful truth of her heart.
That she was terrified nobody loved her.
That she wasn’t worthy.
And Nick Ballantine had gently nudged her head away from his chest, cupped her face in his big hands, and told her—promised her—that someone would love her.
“You were wrong, though,” she whispered, meeting Nick’s eyes.
“About?”
He was close now. If she reached out her arm, she could touch him. Maybe be held by him.
“About someone loving me,” she whispered. “He didn’t. I think I’m just realizing now that he didn’t love me. Not really.”
Nick’s head snapped back slightly. “This is about Bradley. Still?”
She blinked, because his cold response wasn’t at all what she’d expected—or hoped for. “Well…yeah. What did you think it was about?”
Nick gave a cold little laugh and tossed back the rest of the wine. He set the glass on the counter and stared down at her. “Let me know when you figure it out, Taylor.”
A few seconds later, his bedroom door slammed, leaving Taylor to wonder what the heck had just happened.
—
Nick angrily stabbed his arms into the T-shirt and jerked it over his head. He repeated the process with a pair of boxers and gray sweatpants, cursing himself—and Taylor—the entire time.
He placed both hands atop his head, lacing his fingers as he stared out the window without really seeing Eighty-Third Street below.
What the hell had just happened out there?
It would be easy to blame Taylor. Hell, he wanted to. Badly. To blame her for the fact that he was in his bedroom sulking over a girl like a teenage moron.
But he was uncomfortably aware that he was the one with the problem.
Just yesterday he’d been hell-bent on turning Taylor Carr into a rebound. He should be out there with his tongue in her mouth, his hands down her pants, making her forget all about fucking Calloway.
Nick swore again and closed his eyes, the truth settling around him uncomfortably.
He wanted Taylor Carr—but when he finally put his hands on her, he didn’t want it to be about Bradley.
He wanted it to be about them.
Chapter 12
Taylor loved her job.
It wasn’t something she’d thought much about recently, given that her personal life was in shambles and her home life involved one very broody, too-sexy-for-his-own-good roommate.
But she loved everything about Oxford, every part of advertising. She loved figuring out how people worked, how they thought, how they felt, and knowing which of Oxford’s advertisers got it right and which needed help figuring out how to appeal to the magazine’s readership.
What she didn’t love was Bradley’s email request that she go old-school for their afternoon meeting and bring print copies of the next issue’s ad instead of reviewing it on their iPads the way they usually did. Apparently some bigwig from Rolex was in the office and wanted to see his full-spread watch ad as it would be in the actual magazine, glossy pages and all. And Bradley’s back-to-back meetings meant he apparently couldn’t print them himself.
Her first inclination was to tell Bradley to stick it. Not because it was an unreasonable request—it was annoying, but not all that unusual in a world that sometimes liked to pretend it was still in the Mad Men era.
No, she wanted to tell Bradley exactly where he could shove the mockups she had to go print, because he hadn’t bothered to tell her in person.
She was doing her damnedest to keep things normal and professional around the office, and he wasn’t returning the favor. He refused to look at her in meetings, and when he did need to address her in person he usually directed whatever he was saying to a spot over her right shoulder.
Their usual Friday meeting had been stilted and awkward, and now he was sending her emails instead of walking the twelve steps from his office to hers.
This breakup had shown her a new side of Bradley, and though a part of her still missed him, another, bigger part of her was wondering if he wasn’t half the man she’d thought he was.
Taylor double-checked her print settings, then selected the big color printer in the copy room and sent her job over. She pushed back from her desk and headed toward the copy room, sticking a hand into Hunter Cross’s open office door to wave hello as he talked on the phone, then blowing a kiss at Brit where she sat talking on her phone.
Taylor’s eyes flicked to the desk where Nick sat on the days he came into the office. Empty. She wasn’t entirely sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Taylor rounded the corner into the copy room and skidded to a halt.
She might not have been sure if she wanted to see Nick—or Bradley, for that matter. But she was very, very sure that she didn’t want to see the woman who stood in front of the printer.
Jessica Hayes’s back was to Taylor, and Taylor took a silent step backward, hoping she could retreat before Jessica saw her.
The other woman turned. Locked eyes with Taylor.
Damn it.
For obvious reasons, Taylor had made every effort to avoid Jessica since that first uncomfortable encounter in Bradley’s office, but there was no way to get out of this without betraying just how much the other woman’s very existence hurt.
“Hi!” Taylor chirped, forcing a bright smile.
“Hey.” Jessica’s expression was a little wary, and maybe a little…pleading. “You sent something to the printer? Mine should be done in a few.”
“No problem,” Taylor said, hating how false her voice sounded. “I’ll come back.”
Taylor started to spin away on her stilettoes. She wasn’t particularly proud of running away, but neither could she stomach small talk with Bradley’s new lover. Or old lover. Whatever.
“Taylor.”
It was the quiet, desperate note in Jessica’s voice that had Taylor pausing when what she really wanted was to turn on her heel and drag Brit to a boozy lunch.
“C
an we talk?” Jessica asked softly.
Taylor hesitated for a fraction of a second, not at all sure she wanted to hear from the woman she’d been left for.
But then, she supposed that if Nick was correct, Taylor herself was also the other woman.
Perhaps she and Jessica owed this to each other. And to themselves.
“Sure,” she said, turning to face Jessica fully.
The other woman really was pretty, Taylor realized. Not flashy, but beautiful in a subtle, classic way that didn’t require bronzer or lip gloss.
For a moment there was only the quiet whir of the printer spitting out paper, and then Jessica spoke.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t know that you and he were involved when he came back to me. He told me he’d ended things, but I didn’t know…” Her blue eyes glanced down at her ballet flats, then back to Taylor. “I didn’t know how he did it. The timing of it.”
“So he finally told you?” Taylor said. “That he left me the day we were supposed to move in together? That he broke up with me in a letter?”
“If it makes you feel any better, he broke up with me in a letter too,” Jessica said. “The first time, I mean.”
Bastard.
“And yet you went back to him,” Taylor said.
Jessica’s lips parted, and then she lifted her shoulders. “I love him.”
“Me too,” Taylor replied quietly. Although even as she said it, it felt…wrong.
Or maybe not wrong so much as…old news.
For that matter, she could have sworn there had been just the slightest question mark at the end of Jessica’s statement as well. As though maybe she, like Taylor, was starting to wonder if Bradley was the perfect guy they had once believed him to be.
It seemed there was nothing else to say, and Taylor had started to turn away when Jessica spoke again. “He didn’t tell me,” she blurted out.
Taylor didn’t understand, and she gave Jessica a questioning look.
“About how he broke up with you. He refuses to mention your name. I heard it from Nick.”
Taylor went still, a little shocked to realize that hearing Nick’s name coming from Jessica’s lips made Taylor feel a hell of a lot more possessive than hearing Bradley’s name.
“Yes, he mentioned that you proofread his books,” Taylor said, wanting to make sure Jessica was aware that she knew Nick. Even though she wasn’t entirely sure she actually did—Lord knew she was no good at reading the man.
Jessica’s lips twitched just the slightest bit, as though she understood Taylor was staking a claim on her roommate.
“Nick wasn’t gossiping about you,” Jessica explained. “I think he just…wanted me to have the whole picture.”
“And do you?” Taylor asked.
The printer finished Jessica’s print job and paused for a few seconds before beginning Taylor’s. Instead of answering Taylor’s question, the other woman turned and picked up the stack of papers.
When Jessica turned back her eyes were unsure. “I don’t know. It hurt when Bradley left me for you. I mean, I understood. You’re gorgeous, confident. He told me it was love at first sight….”
Taylor flinched, both at the memory Jessica evoked and in sympathy for the other woman. It couldn’t have been easy to hear.
And then, because she had to know, Taylor asked, “Did he tell you why he came back to you?”
Jessica looked away.
Taylor took a step forward. “Please. If our situations were reversed, wouldn’t you want to know?”
Jessica blew out a breath. “He said that he started thinking long-term, big-picture.”
“So was I!” Taylor couldn’t help but exclaim. “I signed a lease with the man!”
Jessica winced. “This isn’t my business.”
“Respectfully, it sort of is,” Taylor said with a slight smile.
Jessica looked down at the stack of paper in her hands, then back at Taylor. “Okay. Okay, fine. He said that he realized he wanted marriage and children, and that you didn’t want any of that. But I do want that, so…”
Taylor felt a surge of hurt come from deep inside her, not just from Jessica’s words but from Bradley’s betrayal.
“But…” She licked her lips. “He told me he didn’t want that either. The family thing, I mean.”
Her mind was reeling.
She and Bradley had talked about kids. Taylor had told him early on that she didn’t see herself having them ever, the way she told all men she got involved with.
He’d simply smiled, pulled her close, and said that was just fine with him, that he didn’t need kids as long as he had her, that they would be their own family.
Maybe he’d lied. Or maybe he’d changed his mind, and instead of talking to her about his change of heart had decided to go back to his ex-girlfriend, who probably had more maternal instincts in her pinkie than Taylor had in her entire body.
The printer had already started and finished its whirring with Taylor’s much smaller print job, and she walked toward it, gathering the presentation materials for the meeting. Bradley’s meeting.
God, she was an idiot. For getting involved with a colleague. Who was involved with another colleague. What soap opera nonsense.
But more than anything, she was irritated with herself for getting involved with a man who didn’t know what he wanted, or when he wanted it.
Taylor turned to face Jessica, meeting the other woman’s gaze. “Your boyfriend’s sort of a shit. But I think you’re already figuring that out on your own.”
Jessica’s lips parted in surprise, but she didn’t reply.
Taylor headed toward the door, and this time Jessica let her go without calling her back.
Just as well. There was nothing more to be said. She could only hope that Jessica saw the light about Bradley sooner rather than later.
As for Taylor?
She was done. All the way done. Finally.
Chapter 13
Nick didn’t usually work Tuesday nights, and the bartender he was filling in for had assured him that it would be slow.
She’d lied.
There was a convention at the hotel, which meant that the bar had been packed from the second Nick had started his shift at four, and was even busier at six-thirty.
It wasn’t his sort of crowd. Mostly corporate types who wanted to get wasted fast to numb themselves after whatever boring conference bullshit they’d had to sit through all day. No appreciation for the nuances of a well-made cocktail. They wanted lots of vodka martinis, which most bartenders struggled to make without an eye roll. A real martini was gin.
But whatever. The tips were good, the patrons mostly patient as Nick mixed drink after drink, poured wine and more wine, until finally the drink-needy group surrounding the bar had dissipated somewhat. Increasingly tipsy patrons broke into groups and settled into the cushy seating areas apart from the bar, where the well-trained cocktail waitresses could take their orders.
It left Nick to his domain, those seated at the mahogany bar itself. He scanned from left to right as he chugged a glass of ice water. The trio of hot girls in the corner were all set with their champagne, the awkward couple on their first date had their red wine and Manhattan, a handful of conference participants nursed gin and tonics. The elderly Mrs. Bay sipped her usual Scotch, another couple was still looking over the cocktail menu, and…
Nick froze when he saw the newcomer. She must have slipped in during the height of the rush. It wasn’t the fact that he had no idea how long he’d left her sitting there without a drink that bothered him.
It was the fact that the gorgeous woman sitting at the far side of his bar watching him with a slight smirk was none other than Taylor Carr.
Her smirk softened to a real smile when their eyes met, and he found himself smiling back as he set his glass aside and walked toward her.
Nick leaned on the bar, bracing on his forearms. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
She laughed. “Nice line,
Ballantine. No wonder you’re single.”
“I’m single because my roommate’s cramping my style.”
Taylor leaned forward. “She sounds like a real bitch.”
He smiled. “She can be.”
Taylor’s smile dimmed just slightly. “She doesn’t mean to be.”
Nick resisted the urge to touch her hand. To soothe. “I suspect she’s got her reasons.”
“Nice euphemism. Perhaps your moves aren’t so bad after all.”
“My cocktail moves are even better. Can I get you something?”
“How about an Ice Princess? Wasn’t that my trademark cocktail once upon a time?”
Nick’s head tipped back slightly in surprise. “That bothers you. Still?”
She looked away.
This time he did touch her hand. “It was a year ago. I’d known you for all of thirty seconds.”
“It was spot-on, though,” she said. “And not the first time I’d heard it, either.”
Aha. That’s why his off-the-cuff comment had bugged her so much. He’d struck a nerve.
“Whoever said that to you didn’t know you. Not really.”
She studied him for a moment, and he was absolutely not ready for her next question. “That time I asked you to dinner. You were seeing someone. Who?”
Nick pulled his hand back and stood. “Damn. What’s with the trip down memory lane tonight?”
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if our timing had been different?”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, then forced himself to look back at her. “Sure. Sure, all the time.”
Their gazes locked for a long moment before she shook her head slightly and blew out a breath. “All right, Ballantine. Make me a drink. No more Ice Princess.”
“Sidecarr,” he corrected. “And it was on the menu for several months.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “You put a drink named after me on the menu?”
Nick shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “Sure. Recommended it to everyone I didn’t like.”
She laughed. “Okay, now you’re definitely buying me this drink. And it had better be good.”
Nick grinned, stopping to get the indecisive couple their drink order before making Taylor’s. After all that stalling, the couple opted to go with a glass of chardonnay and a boring vodka rocks.
