by Doyle, Mae
The thought of playing doctor with him made me blush even harder.
But, of course, it wasn’t Nick. It wasn’t even a man.
The woman who had spoken to me leaned over me, blocking out the bright light of the sun and making it difficult for me to see who it was, then reached down to grab my hand. I sucked in a breath when she touched my hurt palm, but let her pull me up.
And then I looked up.
And up.
And up.
I was reminded for just a moment why life wasn’t fair. I was a hippopotamus looking up at a gorgeous giraffe, except this giraffe didn’t have a weirdly long and blue tongue.
At least, I didn’t think so. Nick would probably know for sure, and that thought made me scowl.
It was the leggy, busty, gorgeous, laughing, blonde from the office. The sun was directly behind her, shining on her perfect hair, making a halo effect around her, and I grimaced.
Of course she would get a halo.
It seemed infinitely unfair, but there wasn’t any reason for me to be rude to her. “Thanks for your help,” I said, trying to keep the fact that I hated her for laughing with Nick out of my voice.
“It’s my fault you fell! I didn’t see you there, I’m so sorry!” She brushed a curl out of her face, tucking it behind an ear that had a diamond so big I was surprised she wasn’t walking around hunched over from how heavy it was.
And of course she didn’t see me there. She was probably a foot taller than me without shoes, and her expensive pumps made her tower over me, making me feel like a little kid on the playground who got hurt.
Don’t let her be nice. Please, make her really, really mean so that I don’t have to feel bad about not liking her.
“Do you need anything? Ice? A bandage? I’ll grab anything you need, just tell me!” The look on her face was one of horror, and I had the feeling that she was the type of woman who would volunteer at the animal shelter on weekends, only she couldn’t, because she wanted to adopt them all, so intead she wrote them a huge check each year to help pay for dog food.
She and Nick were perfect together.
The thought made my heart sink and I realized with a start that I’d been staring at her and hadn’t answered her questions. Shaking my head, I tried to keep my voice as even as possible. “No, I’m fine,” I lied, ignoring the shooting pain in my knees. I was afraid to look down to see how badly I was bleeding.
Thank goodness I hadn’t worn my turkey tights today or they’d be ruined, and I did pay full price for them. Call it a splurge.
“Are you sure? I know a doctor,” she began, but I cut her off.
The last thing I wanted to hear was about how she knew a doctor and how he was so great and would take care of me. Well, that was the second-to-last thing I wanted. The real last thing I wanted was for her to take me to my office and have her boyfriend look at my knees and palms.
Because that’s what he was, right? Her boyfriend?
They would look perfect together, I realized with a start, and had to shove the thought deep down so I didn’t dwell on it.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, fixing a smile on my face. My ribs hurt from my new burner phone and my knees were most definitely bleeding, but I couldn’t stick around any longer. “I’ll just be more careful next time,” I told her, then started to walk away.
“Okay!” She called after me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her waving. She still looked concerned but gave me a huge smile when she saw me. “I’ll be thinking about you!”
Gag. Me.
I didn’t want to tell her that I’d be thinking about her. Thinking about her making Nick laugh. Thinking about her impossibly long legs and her wiggle walk.
I gave a little wiggle on the way back to the office, but almost threw my back out, so I stopped. There were more important things to worry about than shaking my hips.
Like setting up my phone.
Letting down my boss.
And not lying any more.
Chapter 14
I waited until the last possible second to give Nick the number to my burner. I waited partly because it took me so long to get the blasted thing set up, and also because I spent a solid thirty minutes in the bathroom cleaning up my knees and palms.
Linda gave me a look when I came back in, all bruised and bleeding, but for once she kept her mouth shut, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.
The last thing that I thought I could handle was her prying into what had just happened.
For the second time since starting my new job, I’d shimmied out of my tights and balled them up to deal with them later. My legs were chilly and I made a mental note to get a space heater.
Finally, though, I’d put leaving the office and seeing Nick off long enough, and I got up, packing my purse and making sure that my new phone was turned to silent before locking my door behind me. Nick was still in his office, and I gave myself a little pep talk as I headed in that direction, the sticky note tight in my fist.
He has a girlfriend.
You only have to lie this one more time.
If he decides to call the phone, he’ll get the voicemail, and then you can text him later that you can’t cater for him.
No. Big. Deal.
I was so busy talking myself through my brilliant plan that I didn’t notice that he’d left his office and was standing right in front of me. I kept walking, my head down as I stared at the floor, talking myself through the fact that, after this lie, everything would go back to normal.
And then the empty space in front of me was gone and I was bouncing off of his perfectly toned and muscular chest. Running into him was what I thought running into a wall would be like.
And no, even though I was ridiculously clumsy, I’d never done that.
Not yet, anyway. At the rate things were going, I was pretty sure that I’d be running into a wall at some point in the near future, and all I could do was hope that the leggy blonde wasn’t there to see me do it.
“Oh, Katie,” he said, reaching down to grab my shoulders and keep me on my feet. I stopped dead in my tracks, heat flowing throughout my entire body at the way my name rolled off his tongue. “You were on a mission, where were you going?”
He glanced down at me and I had to shake my head a little to clear his delicious scent from making me completely intoxicated. Just being this close to him and breathing him in made me feel a little high, and that definitely wasn’t the best way for me to act when I was around him.
“Hey, Nick,” I stuttered out. “I have the caterer number here and I thought I’d bring it over to you.”
“Great,” he said, plucking it out of my hand and looking at it. “Not a local number, huh? Did they say where they’re from? And who is the owner?”
I thought fast, trying to remember what information I’d given him before.. “Nope, not from here. And her name is Marie.” He had no way of knowing that that was my middle name, right? “And hey, I reached out to them today and she apologized, but said that they can’t help out on this Thursday.” I shrugged, trying to look like I was honestly sorry for this shocking turn of events, and he frowned.
“Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that,” he said, slipping the sticky note into his pocket. “I did want to reach out to them to thank them for last Friday. That stew was…unconventional, but I really liked it. And I’ll be sure to pass this number on to some of the people from the luncheon.”
He really liked my stew? I grinned stupidly at him before remembering the leggy blonde and the fact that he didn’t know the stew was mine. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ll find someone else to cater this week, though, okay? I have a few leads.”
Nick nodded, but he looked distracted. “Okay, Katie. I have to admit, the name of this catering company is a little strange, but after tasting how they can cook…I have no complaints.”
I had to get out of there. It was getting harder and harder for me to resist reaching up and looping my arms around his neck. He looked like he needed
a good kissing, and I mentally chastised the blonde for not doing it.
Then again, I didn’t want to think about his lips pressed onto anyone else’s but mine.
“Well, have a good night! I’ll get another caterer booked tomorrow, finalize the decorations, and then I thought that I’d take a look at the overall branding you have going on here.” I waved my arm, encompassing the entire building, and made sure that I included Linda in my sweeping gesture.
If Nick wanted to improve Marshall Medical’s reputation around town then maybe he needed to figure out how to make Linda a little nicer.
That seemed impossible, come to think of it, so intead of dwelling on that thought, I decided to just make my quick exit. Before I could go, though, Nick reached out and grabbed my arm.
It didn’t seem to matter that I had on a nice warm cardigan, that fact that up until a moment ago I’d been a little chilled thanks to having to lose my tights again, or the fact that I knew that he was dating the leggy blonde.
As soon as he grabbed my arm, it felt like the entire world slowed to a stop around us and I felt my body start to dissolve into a puddle of goo. If we were in a movie, the cameras would have panned slowly around us, making it seem like we were suddenly the center of the universe.
It was a feeling that I was sure he was used to, but one that I hadn’t experienced before.
I gasped and looked down at his hand on my arm, then back up at his face.
He was so, entirely, completely, unfairly gorgeous. This was the closest I had gotten to him, and I wasn’t surprised to see that his skin was flawless. He did have a tiny mole on his jaw, though, and I wanted to touch it.
Everything about him was so perfect, and that made him human. Grinning, I looked up into his eyes. He probably thought that I was crazy, but he didn’t pull back or shove me away in horror, so at least I didn’t completely repulse him.
“You’re doing a great job, Katie,” he said, and I felt my stomach twist. Every nerve in my body felt like it was on high alert as I waited to see what else he was going to say.
“I’ve been needing to make some changes around here for a while, but I just never knew what to do. It’s so…sterile, and while I want my patients to know that they’re in good hands, I don’t want them to feel like they can’t…be human. Does that make sense?” He furrowed his brow a little and looked at me and I nodded.
“It does,” I managed, finally forcing my tongue to work. All of my muscles seemed to have decided to quit working the way I needed them to, and it took all of my concentration just to say those two words. “And you’re right, it’s a bit boring in here.”
His eyebrows flew up at that. “Boring?”
Um, yes, one hundred percent? “A little? It’s all white and…clean, and I’m sure that you have more personality than that.”
He paused, his mouth open, like he was going to say something, but then shut his mouth again. “You think that it’s boring?”
Oh, crap. I honestly couldn’t read the man. I’d been so busy thinking about what it would be like to kiss him and take him home with me that I hadn’t really considered why he’d have his office so sparse and cold.
But then I remembered the small pink sticky note and I rolled my shoulders back. Obviously there was some part of him that had a bit more personality than what he was showing in his office. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I was definitely in for more than a penny right now.
“I don’t know that it fully expresses your personality,” I told him. “A little color wouldn’t hurt — after all, isn’t that why you hired me in the first place? To liven it up a bit?”
“Something like that,” he said. “But the white is…”
“Sterile? Boring? Oppressive?”
“Clean.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s clean, for sure.” I had a very good feeling that his cleaning staff had either the easiest job in the world or the hardest. On one hand, any bit of dirt that appeared anywhere in the office would be so obvious that they should be easily able to hunt it down and eradicate it.
On the other hand, they were held to really high standards. Like, impossibly high. I wasn’t sure that I could meet the same level of standards.
“Anyway,” I said, finally pulling both of my feet out of my mouth, “I’m going to go. I’ll have a caterer and menu for you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sounds good. But don’t be surprised if Tasty Foods comes around,” he called after me, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
That was the thing, though. I knew it but he didn’t — Tasty Foods wasn’t going to come around because that would mean that I’d have to come around, and there literally wasn’t anything that the man could say to make me change my mind.
For the first time since the whole Tasty Foods debacle began, I was feeling back in control of everything. I straightened my back, which Tiffany had told me didn’t just give me another inch in height but also kept my boobs from sagging, and headed for the front door.
“Katie!” Linda called out to me and I almost kept walking to finish out my powerful exit from the office, but I knew that she wouldn’t let me live it down if I didn’t go talk to her. Slowly I turned and headed to her desk instead. She was looking at me with a mixture of interest and confusion, and waved an envelope in the air when I walked up.
“How can I help you, Linda?” I asked. Last night while in bed I’d decided that I was going to be overly friendly to Linda. She could be horrible to me all she wanted, but there wasn’t any way that she was going to drag me down to her level.
If I let her drag me down to her level and was nasty to her then she was just going to beat me with experience, so I couldn’t play that game. And we worked together, so although I’d hoped that I could avoid her, I knew that it wasn’t possible.
If I couldn’t avoid her then I’d be nice to her.
I was failing at my goals for the day anyway, seeing as I kept lying to Nick. Might as well engage with Linda while I was at it.
“I have the check for Tasty Foods,” she said, with a sniff. “But I can’t seem to find them online anywhere to send them their money, so I need you to take care of it.”
“Oh, yeah, they’ll want that,” I told her, reaching out for the check. Even though I knew that I had to take it, I didn’t want to. I knew what would happen when I did.
I’d have to figure out what to do with the check. I’d probably have to lie to Nick again about paying them. If I didn’t cash the check then Linda would figure it out when she balanced the books later.
My fingers closed on the paper. I fully expected something big to happen, like a spark to travel through it to my hand or the heavens to open up and God’s voice to proclaim “Liar!” while I burst into flames, but nothing happened. I just stuffed the envelope into my purse between my real cell phone and my burner.
The last thing I wanted to do was leave the burner in my office and risk the cleaning crew finding it. There wouldn’t be any reason of them to be suspicious about it except for the fact that it was basically an antique and the Smithsonian would probably love to have it on display.
“I will take care of it,” I promised her, but mentally I was just adding to the list of things that I had to do to cover my tracks.
1. Deal with anyone who called or texted me about catering for them
2. Figure out how to get rid of this check
3. Pay Nu Wave Catering for the food she bought out of my own pocket while still trying to save money for a new apartment
I’d turned over a new leaf, so why did I feel like I was still struggling to keep my head above water?
Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
I really needed to learn how to say no.
Chapter 15
As promised, I’d picked up dinner. Gyoza was, easily, one of the world’s most perfect foods, and our favorite place where I’d ordered it used used enough garlic in them that I could have killed a vampire just by breathing on them, but I loved it.
The little pieces of garlic caramelized and got stuck between your teeth, making it difficult to fish them out with your tongue, and that’s exactly what Tiffany and I were doing.
“Am I clean?” I asked, turning to her and pulling back my lips so she could see all of my teeth. It felt ridiculous, but it was easier than getting up and walking the short distance to the bathroom to floss.
“Mostly.” She pointed to my front top teeth. “You have a big one right there. Too bad Nick isn’t here, because I’m sure he’d love to see this.”
“Hush, you,” I told her, sucking hard at my front teeth. I wasn’t sure if I got it out or not, so I put my hand over my mouth before speaking again. “Besides, I told you about the leggy blonde. I don’t think he has any interest in me, garlic teeth or no.”
“Are you sure that it’s his girlfriend?” She leaned over and put her plate on the coffee table. “It’s entirely possible that she’s his friend, right?”
“Friends don’t make friends laugh like that unless they’re talking about doing the horizontal no-pants dance,” I pointed out. “Besides, they look perfect together.”
Before she could retort, my phone vibrated.
Well, not my phone.
That phone.
The phone.
I’d had it in my lap since I got home, and I grabbed it now, only to see that it was ringing. It vibrated for what felt like an hour, then sat silent in my lap. A minute later there was a beep for a voicemail.
Shaking, I flipped open the phone and dialed in to check it.
“Did you have to buy a dinosaur phone,” Tiffany asked, but I ignored her as I punched in my voicemail code and put it on speaker. In just a moment, the warm sound of Nick’s sexy voice filled the room.
“Hey, Marie, this is Nick Marshall. You catered at my company on Friday but weren’t able to come to the event. I just wanted to thank you personally for the work you did and tell you how sorry I am that you can’t cater for us this week. Hopefully we’ll be able to work together again soon, that stew was delicious. Anyway, have a great night.”
