Marrying the Billionaire - Macie St. James Page 0,1

second cup of coffee. This was when she was usually at her best.

“I have no idea who Nicholas Shaw is.” Charlie stepped back, preparing to close the door. She decided it would be rude to at least not say something. “As I said, we open at eight. Come back then.”

“Justin is expecting me,” he called out as the door swung toward him.

Charlie had let go of it, just letting it sail toward the closed position. His words had her rushing to grab the handle to pull it back open again.

She squinted at him. “What did you say?”

“We went to college together. Lived in the dorms, then an apartment. Had some wild times. I’m here to see Justin.”

Charlie’s stomach flip-flopped. “You’re Nicky,” she said. “Yes. He’s mentioned you a few times.”

Try a few thousand times. She’d been rude to Nicky. This was not good.

But Nicholas laughed. “That’s an old nickname. Justin loves to call me that. I don’t even like Nick.”

“Come in.” Charlie stepped back, letting the guy waltz right into the office. She felt a stab of disappointment that her morning solitude had just been completely snatched from her. Even if she could find a place in the office for this guy to wait quietly, it wouldn’t be the same. The biggest part of enjoying being here alone was, well, being here alone.

“Nice digs.” Nicholas had stepped around her and was turning in circles, taking in the big, open space around him. They’d crammed most of the staff in here after the layoffs, but so many people worked from home now, there was usually only a sprinkling of workers throughout the day.

“Thanks,” she said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Sure. Just show me where it is. I can take it from there.”

Charlie started toward the break room, feeling odd about walking in front of him. Was he assessing her backside? Why did she feel so self-conscious about it? Before the layoffs, she’d headed up the entire human resources team—well, it had only consisted of two people, but it still took a lot of confidence to manage people. She remained the person everyone came to when they needed hiring help or wanted to update their retirement plans.

Surely, she could handle walking her boss’s college roommate to the break room without her knees getting all wobbly. She took a deep breath. Deep breaths helped with pretty much everything, she’d found.

“You’re the go-to person around here, I hear,” Nicholas commented as they entered the break room. “Justin has said great things about you.”

Charlie turned to look at him. “I’m the go-to person when it comes to HR. Brooke handles marketing, plus the app development team—that’s the core of operations. We’ve been pretty shorthanded since the downsizing, I’m sure you know.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have brought that up. Had Justin mentioned the downsizing to his friend? What if he wanted to keep negative sorts of things from his buddy?

And why was he talking about Charlie to outside people? It made no sense. She handled payroll and kept things running around here. She’d even become a type of office manager and sometimes assistant since Justin had to fire his own trusted assistant during the layoffs. So, she supposed “go-to person” was a good description of her role here, but it just seemed strange her boss would talk about it to his college roommate.

“There’s the coffee.” She pointed toward the one-cup coffeemaker she’d talked Justin into buying when business was thriving. “Do you know how to work it?”

There it was again. That smile of amusement. It was the way he’d looked at her when she answered the door. She didn’t like men looking at her like she was so adorable. It annoyed her to no end.

“I think I can manage it. So, tell me a little about yourself.” Somehow, he managed to sound like a therapist as he made that request. While he waited for her response, he stepped over to the coffeemaker and examined the selection of coffee pods in the holder.

“I’ve been the HR person here for four years.” She stepped back a little, edging closer to the door. The plan was to make a hasty exit as soon as it felt natural. “It’s the only job I’ve ever had.”

Pod poised above the slot in the machine, he turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised. She quickly reviewed what she’d just said. Yeah, that probably did sound a little odd.

“I babysat as a teenager,” Charlie rushed to add. “There was this family down