about how you tried to do this without me. Big mistake.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I did these types of projects all the time at my last job, even though I was a copywriter and a creative person. People like me get stuck doing other people’s work all the damn time.”
He pushed away some chairs and lifted a projector off the floor and placed it on the table. Connecting it to his laptop, he turned it on. It whirred for a few seconds before a beam of light shone on the white wall.
“Well, I don’t know what the standards were at your last job, but you forgot some key assumptions in your projections and budgets. I have a list of them here.” A mirror image of his laptop screen appeared on the wall. Nolan typed in his password and a detailed Excel sheet popped up.
My eyes moved down his spreadsheet, taking in each of his detailed line items. All twenty-three of them.
I had only half of them accounted for, at most.
When I finished scanning, I thought I’d find a smug I told you so expression plastered all over his face, but surprisingly, I didn’t. He leaned in closer. “Do we need to add anything else?”
I pulled up the presentation from the hard drive. “I had two others. One is for music licensing costs. The other one about whether we make an Android version.”
He nodded and added those to his spreadsheet. “Anything else?”
I shook my head and updated the spreadsheet I had used for all the previous calculations. With Nolan’s added caveats, my revenue projections and budgets had changed by 12 percent. Not a huge amount, but enough to probably get fired if we ever had to request additional budget or missed our financial target.
My lips pressed together. It killed me to say it, but not saying something would be wrong. Looking at my laptop keyboard, I mumbled, “Thanks for your help.”
He cleared his throat to get my attention. He had his index finger behind his earlobe when I looked up. “I’m sorry, what did you say? I missed that.”
I pinched my mouth. Damn it, Nolan Fucking MacKenzie.
I exhaled. “Thank. You. For. Your. Help.”
He beamed at me. Arrogant bastard. Leaning back in glory, he nearly fell because his floppy chair back was broken. I burst into a fit of giggles as he skittishly sprang up like a jack-in-the-box.
Feeling bad about my outburst, I asked, “You want to double-check my numbers before we email them over to Ian?”
Tingles of excitement passed through me as Nolan scooted his death-trap chair next to me. With him this close, I could really see how attractive his features were, with his gleaming dark brown eyes, full lips, and powerful, broad shoulders. I found myself subconsciously leaning closer, removing the distance between us. Swallowing hard, I tried to focus on the numbers on the screen and not the heat radiating from his body. Could he hear my heart thudding against my chest? Thud-thud-thud-no-no-no-no-Mel-Mel-Mel . . .
He tapped the down arrow key on my laptop. “I ran into Asher in the hallway. He mentioned that he was at a rehearsal dinner with you yesterday and you both saw me.”
Oh no.
Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.
Sweat sprouted in the usual places. Forehead. Upper lip. Armpits. My bra underwire area.
He shrugged. “It was the first time I’d tried online dating since I moved to Seattle.”
“Oh, how’d it go?” I swallowed hard and stared at the laptop screen.
“She introduced herself by saying she had just met up with another guy earlier and they’d had too many drinks. And guess what?”
I bit my lip and looked at him.
“After I complained to your officemate about how she was twenty minutes late for our date, that she had already had three drinks and wanted to do shots with me, and then asked me flat out how much money I made, Asher slapped me on the back and asked for her number.”
I laughed so hard it hurt my sides. What a classic Asher move.
He smiled and his gaze shifted from the screen to my face. “Everything checks out.”
“What?”
“The numbers. All the formulas and inputs look good.” Nolan took off his glasses to wipe the lenses with his shirt. When he put them back on, he lowered his head and looked at me through the top of them. “I have to ask, why didn’t you just let me work with you?” His long lashes are so distracting. “It was easier to do it together.”