by Doyle, Mae
“But I’ll miss you a lot,” she said. “You’ll have to text me while you’re gone.”
My stomach twisted at the look on her face and how she was staring into his eyes. Instead of throwing up all over her, which was my first response, I turned away from the table and walked out the door, Brett on my heels.
“Hey, I forgot to ask you, how long do you need me? And when are you going to pay me?” Sighing, I spun around to talk to him, but movement across the room caught my eye.
Linda was staring at me, one eyebrow raised high up on her forehead. Her mouth dropped open a little and I grabbed Brett, shoving him towards my office.
“Get in here,” I said, pushing him down the hall. He stepped into my office and turned to look at me, a little confused. “Okay, here’s the deal. Nobody can know that I hired you off of Craigslist.” Leaning past him, I grabbed my purse and rummaged through it, pulling out $60.
“You can take this now, but as soon as they leave we’ll clean up and you’ll help me walk it out to the same car that drove up, you got it? Nobody, and I mean it, Brett, can know that you don’t really work for Tasty Foods, okay?”
He grabbed the cash and stuffed it into his pocket, giving me a strange look. “You’re in a mess, aren’t you? What did you do?”
We didn’t have time to get into it all, and I told him that, turning him to the door and shoving him out. “Just be good, Brett, okay? And don’t screw this up for me.”
Even as I said that to him, there was a tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that I was the one screwing things up.
So I did what every rational and intelligent woman in my position would have done.
I ignored it.
Chapter 21
“Katie, wait,” Nick called, and I slowed down, closing my eyes. I was so close to the front door and to freedom. If only he hadn’t been able to catch me then we could completely forget about the fact that I was a liar.
Forget about the fact that everything almost fell apart at the luncheon.
Sara had left with the rest of the group, but not before reminding Nick how much she was going to miss him. Brett looked over at me from across the room and raised an eyebrow, but I kept my face stony and still.
There wasn’t any reason for anyone there to know how I felt.
Now, though, I smiled and turned around to see Nick. Even though I’d wanted to escape, the fact that he was calling me and chasing me down felt…well, good.
“What’s up, Nick?” My voice was calm but inside I felt like I was about to fall apart as I waited for him to answer.
“Linda already left, and she’s the one I run things by sometimes,” he said, handing me a photograph. I took it and turned it so that I could see the young woman on it.
There were two shots of her, one from the front, the other from the side. She was very pretty, no doubt about it, but I wasn’t sure why he was showing them to me.
“Mugshots?” I ventured, and my heart flipped when he laughed.
“Hardly. She came in for a consult and I just don’t think there’s anything I can do for her. Sometimes people get so obsessed with the idea of perfection that they can’t take a step back and realize that they don’t need to change any part of themselves.”
I looked at the photos again. If this girl didn’t think that she was perfect, then I had a pretty good idea of what she would think about me.
“If her nose needs work then you might as well chop mine off my face,” I told him, reaching up to touch the tip of my nose.
“Yours?” He frowned and swatted my hand out of the way, lightly cupping my chin and tilting my face so that I was looking up at him. “What’s wrong with your nose? It perfectly matches your face, which is lovely, by the way.”
My face is lovely?
“It’s too big,” I pointed out, but I didn't move. I didn’t want to pull away from him.
He leaned closer. “I disagree.”
My heart started a staccato in my chest and I swallowed hard, reminding myself that, even though he was the hottest man on earth, Nick was still my boss. I was helping him with a moral dilemma about a patient, and there wasn’t any reason for me to make it all about me.
“Oh.” It was the only thing I could manage to say that wouldn’t fall under the guidelines of sexual harassment. “It’s just that my last boyfriend told me that it was too big.”
“He did?” There was a note of concern in Nick’s voice.
I nodded a little, tears springing to the corners of my eyes. He’d said a lot of mean things to me, that was just one of them, and not nearly as bad as the others.
“Well, I think that he was wrong.”
“He said that it was so big it made it difficult for him to kiss me.” He’d not said that, exactly, but had alluded to it as being a reason why he found himself constantly kissing other women.
“He’s stupid,” Nick said. “I can show you, if you’d like.”
“Show me?” My heart was beating so hard now that I was surprised a huge brass band didn’t come banging through the door to join in on the beat. “What do you mean?”
The question was hardly out of my mouth before he was kissing me, his lips soft against mine.
This was a mistake, but I didn’t exactly do anything to pull away from him. The smart thing would have been to stop him, but I couldn’t seem to pull away from him in order to argue with him.
My first thought was that my ex had, most definitely, been lying to me. My nose was not too big to keep people from kissing me, and I had the definite proof right in front of me.
The second was that my boss was kissing me.
The third was that he wouldn’t if he knew all of the things I’d lied to him about.
The fourth thought was me telling myself to shut up and enjoy it.
I decided to listen to my fourth thought and I melted into him, enjoying how soft his lips were. He dropped his hand from my chin and ran it up and down my arm, before loosing linking his fingers together with mine.
It felt like fireworks were going off inside of my body. Every place our skin touched I felt the crackle of electricity. My breathing was hitched and ragged as energy surged from him to me, taking the path of least resistance through our lips.
This was the kiss I’d always been waiting for but never knew that I could have. It was the kiss that I’d imagined sharing with a heartthrob like Leonardo DiCaprio, but it was even better.
I’d thought before that I would swoon if I got this close to Nick, but that definitely didn’t happen. Instead, I felt more alive than I ever had before.
Before I could do something stupid, like reach up and pull him closer, or press my body into his, he pulled back, his breath ragged.
“That was proof that your nose is not, as your ex told you, too big for you to be kissed,” he told me. “But I don’t mind doing a little double checking.”
That made sense. The last thing that I wanted was to find out later that he just hadn’t…kissed me correctly. Even though it was difficult for me to catch my breath and I felt like I was floating outside of my body, I somehow managed to nod.
“That sounds…very kind of you,” I managed, looking up into his gorgeous eyes.
Had I ever really noticed just how nice his eyes were?
I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t really remember no.
I felt like I was going to come out of my skin, and that feeling only intensified when he bent his head again, brushing his lips once more against mine. He dropped his hands from my arms and lightly grabbed my waist, pulling me closer to him.
I’d so far managed to keep from pressing my body up against his, but now I couldn’t stop myself. I leaned into him, feeling the firm security of him, enjoying how safe he made me feel.
His mouth moved against me, his tongue dancing against mine, and I finally reached up to grab his arms. My hands had been hanging uselessly at my side, but I grabbed his upper arms, squeezing a little bit as a let out a small moan.
&nbs
p; That sound slipped into his mouth and he pulled me closer against him.
I felt like my skin was suddenly too small and like I couldn’t handle the energy flowing through me. He kept kissing me, the feeling of his lips on mine threatening to make me do something stupid.
I felt completely intoxicated, the energy from his kisses rushing through me and making me feel lightheaded. I hadn’t had anything to drink all day long, but I suddenly felt like there were bubbles in my body.
I was floating.
I was completely out of control and I just wanted more, but he slowly pulled back, keeping his hands on my waist.
“Katie,” he said, and I opened my eyes to look at him. For a moment, I didn’t feel like I could focus on him, but his gorgeous face sharpened under my gaze.
“That wasn’t appropriate, was it?” I asked, and let go of his arms, dropping my hands down by my side.
“It was perfect,” he said. “Just a medical consult, that’s all. And you can tell your ex that your nose is just…perfect.” He stepped back from me, a flash of confusion on his face, and I stepped away, keeping my eyes locked on him.
“Have a good trip,” I somehow managed, fumbling behind me for the door. “I’ll, um, see you when you get back?”
“Definitely,” he said, and the husky sound of his voice made it almost impossible for me to walk away from him.
Turning away from him, I walked outside, gasping at the chill in the air. I wanted to run back to Nick, but I had to walk away. What had we just done?
Why had he kissed me like that?
* * *
Tiffany had her feet propped up on my lap and was explaining for the third time why she deserved a foot rub after all the help she gave me with the catering fiasco.
It wasn’t that she was wrong, exactly, but I didn’t want to touch her feet.
“Have you washed them recently?” I asked, and she flicked her foot at me.
“I showered this morning, remember? You were complaining that I was going to use up all of the hot water.”
“Which you did,” I pointed out. “And then you went to work for hours, so lord knows how bad they’re going to smell.”
“Wuss,” she said, swinging her feet off of me and sitting up. As she did, my phone buzzed.
My phone. My real one, not the burner phone. I scrambled for it, almost falling off of the sofa in an effort to grab it, and once I did, I swiped my thumb across the screen immediately.
“Booty call?” Tiffany asked, grabbing a chip and popping it into her mouth.
“Who exactly do you think is sending me booty calls?” I asked her, but couldn’t say anything more because my mouth felt dry.
“Nick, obviously. Don’t tell me that you think he’s forgotten about what it was like for the two of you to kiss.” She leaned over my shoulder to look at the screen, then gasped before grabbing my phone from my hand. “Is that a picture of him?”
It was.
It was Nick, presumably in Italy, holding up the biggest, most delicious margherita pizza I’d ever seen. My mouth started to water just looking at the picture, but I couldn’t be sure if it was because he was in it or because of the pizza.
Probably a little of both, if I was being honest with myself.
“That’s Nick,” I said, a little unnecessarily, and Tiffany grabbed my phone. Before I knew what she was doing, she’d snapped a pic of me and sent it to him.
“What are you doing?” I screeched, grabbing the phone from him as the whoosh sound the text made rang in my ears. “What did you send him?”
“Just a pic of you looking cute in response to his pizza pic,” she said calmly, like she hadn’t just ruined my life. “Didn’t think that you’d want him to forget what you looked like while he was halfway around the world. He probably didn’t get a very good look at you when his face was stuck to yours yesterday.”
“You are the worst,” I said, but before I could continue to be mad at her, my phone buzzed.
“What did he say?” She asked, and I leaned back, holding my phone over my head so she couldn’t get it.
“He says that I look happy,” I told her. “What in the world did he mean by that?”
She laughed and leaned back on the sofa, pulling the blanket up over her and grabbing the remote. “That you look happy, Katie. Why do you have to read into everything good that people tell you?”
“Because I’ve spent the entire time I’ve known him lying to him?” I said, ignoring her when she turned on the TV. We’d been talking about watching scary movies all evening, but if Nick was going to text me then I wanted to make sure that I was paying attention to him.
Sure enough, right as the first zombie started wandering across the screen, my phone buzzed again.
Big plans tonight?
I looked around the condo. My big plans had originally been to pack up and get out of Tiffany’s hair, but that hadn’t exactly worked out since I’d spent so much money on the Tasty Foods lies. Now that that was hopefully in the past, I could try to save up enough to move out by my next paycheck.
Just spending time with the roomie.
His words flashed up almost immediately. There’s nothing I like more than a nice quiet night in.
I chuckled to myself. He was in Italy, for goodness sakes, so why he wanted a nice quiet night in, I had no idea, and I told him that.
It’s really fun to travel when you have someone to go with.
I smacked Tiffany on the arm, dragging her attention away from the TV. “Hey, what do you think he means by this?” I asked, showing her my phone.
She rolled her eyes. “He wishes that you were with him, obviously.”
I felt warmth run through me, like I had just eaten a huge spoonful of caramel. Was it possible that he really thought about me like that? He didn’t really act like it at work, but he had taken me shopping for decorations.
Well, except for when he proved to me that my nose isn’t too big for kissing. Hopefully he didn’t act like that with all of his employees that he’d had in the past, but I wasn’t about to ask him and find out.
Then I remembered the way Sara had clung on him at the luncheon and I frowned. The devil appeared on my shoulder and I typed away before I could stop myself.
I bet that Sara would have loved to go with you.
As soon as I tapped send, I froze and then tossed my phone so that it landed by my burner on the coffee table. Tiffany sighed heavily and paused the movie, turning to me with a look on her face that let me know that she wasn’t pleased.
“What is wrong with you tonight? You’d think you never talked to a guy before. Or made out with one at work.”
“First of all, I never should have told you that. Secondly, I told him that I bet Sara would have loved to go with him,” I said, wringing my hands. “I panicked! What was I supposed to say, ‘I’d have gone with you, especially if you could guarantee that we’d be sharing a bed’?”
“You’re a mess,” she told me, pointing her finger at me and then jabbing me in the chest. “You are going to drive him into the arms of the leggy blonde if you don’t stop this. He kissed you, not her. ”
“You’re right,” I told her. “What do I do?” I glanced at my phone, but it hadn’t moved or buzzed since I’d tossed it on the coffee table.
“Be you,” she told me. “Just…cooler, if you can.”
“Cooler?”
“Less weird,” she clarified. “Can you do that?”
I didn’t know. Could I? I glanced at the phone again and Tiffany took the moment to turn the TV back on. Reaching for the phone, I let my fingers brush against it for just a second before I pulled them back.
What if I’d upset him?
I’d never know if I didn’t check it, so I grabbed the phone, flipped it over, and stabbed at the screen just as it buzzed in my hand.
“What did he say?” For someone who was trying her best to not appear interested, Tiffany turned off the TV in a hurry and turned to look at me, her face expectant
. “Did he tell you that he found an Italian version of the leggy blonde or that he was in the market for something shorter with red hair badly in need of a new dye job?”
“It’s not that bad,” I protested, grabbing a strand to look at it.
Tiffany sighed. “Katie…”
“Right. The text.”
Sara would have, but that door closed a long time ago even though she doesn’t want to admit it.
Oh. Well, that was good to know. I should have felt happier about it than I did, though. Before I could come up with anything to say to him, he continued.
I look forward to seeing you when I get back. Don’t be a stranger.
“Shouldn’t have mentioned Sara,” Tiffany said, a sad look on her face.
“I know.”
“You better do something good to make sure that he knows that you’re on his team.”
“Yep.”
“Any idea how you’re going to fix this?”
The screen of my phone went dark and I looked up at her. “Not at all. Any thoughts?”
She shook her head and leaned over to hand me the bowl of popcorn. “Snacks help.” The bowl was still half full and the popcorn was dripping with butter.
I nodded. They helped, but they weren’t going to fix the fact that I put my foot so firmly in my mouth. Again.
Chapter 22
I decided Monday that I was going to turn over a new leaf.
Again.
New Katie, who’s this?
No more lying. No more pretending that I’m someone I’m not. I had big plans to pick up a box of red hair dye towards the end of the week in case Nick came back early so he could see me in all of my fiery glory.
I’d gone shopping over the weekend and picked up new light bulbs, some rugs, plants, and even some huge paintings that I’d managed to get on sale at the flea market thanks to scuffs on the frames.
To be honest, though, when I walked into Marshall Medical and was met with the bright harsh light and the white decor as well as Linda’s glare, I’ll admit, my steps faltered a bit. She just had that effect on me, and while you’d think that walking through the very spot where Nick and I had kissed would make me feel more confident, you’d be wrong.
