Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,44

he’d joined me at the table and leaned in. “You mean your boss was your friend back in high school? How long ago was that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Suddenly, I felt less like I was having a quasi date and more like I was being interviewed. “Uh, seven years, give or take.”

Max leaned back and wiped his mouth. From the way his eyebrows were pressed together, he clearly had some kind of deep thoughts about all of this, even if I couldn’t quite imagine what they’d be.

Someone knocked at my door. Thug barked one time, and lazily at that. I think he was more interested in waiting to see if Max, who appeared to be a human garbage disposal, was going to leave a single scrap of food for him.

I opened the door, expecting the guy with the little hat, but I saw Nick standing on the porch like a dark cloud. His hair was still wet—I assumed from a shower—and he wore a dark collared shirt with even darker pants, which looked scandalously good on him. In typical Nick fashion, he didn’t seem to think he needed to explain why he had knocked on my door or why he was just standing there, glaring at me.

It felt like every bit of moisture in my mouth had evaporated until my tongue was just a stupid, useless blob of dry sandpaper. I wanted to say a dozen things. I wanted to tell him to stop glaring at me like he owned me. But I also wanted to explain why Max was sitting at the table behind me with a stupid look on his face.

Instead, I just motioned to the table. “Hungry? There’s still some left,” I said.

I didn’t think Nick could glare any harder, but I was wrong. “Can I have a word?” he asked.

I nodded and followed him out to the porch. He pushed the door shut behind us—it wasn’t quite a slam, but it was close.

Nick licked his lips and paced a few steps in a small circle, then ran his hand through his hair. If I wasn’t so on edge, I could’ve laughed out loud to see how at war he seemed to be. I would’ve given anything to know what was going through his head, because I knew whatever came out of his mouth was going to be a half truth, at best.

“Do I even want to know?” he finally asked.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. “How am I supposed to know what you do or do not want to know? Have you even been honest with me one time since our interview?”

“Wait. What?” Nick asked. He stopped pacing now and fixed those heavy eyes of his on me. “How did this become about me?”

“This? Maybe I could help you figure it out if I even knew what this was.”

Nick scowled, then started to laugh humorlessly. “Fine. If you want me to say it, I’ll say it. As your boss, I’m not impressed to see that my vice president has so little self-control—that she couldn’t even make it one night without letting some doofus with an idiotic name into her bedroom.”

I pulled my head back, and my mouth hung open. Oh, hell no. He was going to just assume I’d slept with Max? “Jealousy is not a good look on you,” I said tightly. I walked back to the door and put my hand on the handle. “And you know what?” I turned. I was about to say more, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t need to debate him or try to plead my case. He was acting like a child, and if he wanted to act that way, I was happy to treat him like one. I went back into my cabin without so much as glancing his way.

Chapter 12

NICK

I didn’t see Miranda all day, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Ever since she stormed off on me in the morning, I’d been hoping to catch her out somewhere. I didn’t dare call her or knock on her door, and I tried to tell myself it wasn’t just because I couldn’t stand seeing that guy in her room again. It had taken everything in my power not to walk in there and do a little sloppy dental work on him.

Thankfully, I had never been the type of man to let my desires rule over my actions. No matter how fiercely I might be at war in my head, I could