Marrying the Billionaire - Macie St. James Page 0,57

any serious discussions, and then she could forget about him.

Otherwise, she risked getting the “I don’t feel that way about you” speech. She could definitely do without that.

24

Nicholas stood at the front of the room behind the podium, looking out at the groups gathered around all the tables. He hated to be stuck behind a podium, but he’d forgotten his clicker at his condo, and by the time he realized it, it had been too late to drive over there to get it.

So here he stood, pressing a button on his laptop each time he had to advance to a new slide. It worked okay for the first half of the presentation—the slideshow was the star of that part of things. All eyes focused on the screen several feet to the left of him.

But then came the interactive part of the presentation. For that, he needed to be able to get a little closer to the audience. So he scooted just far enough to be able to rush back over and press a button every few minutes.

“I can do that for you,” Charlie offered, standing and starting toward the podium. He breathed a sigh of relief at the offer. He wouldn’t have asked anyone here to do anything like that, but now that it had been offered, he gladly handed over the reins.

“Thank you,” he mouthed as he stepped back toward the first table, which was a good twelve feet from where he currently stood. Then he turned to the group and continued.

“Now?” she asked when he nodded over to her. He almost laughed but held it in. They obviously hadn’t had time to coordinate this, so he’d have to work this out in front of everyone.

“I’ll signal like this when it’s time to move forward one.” He held up a finger and pressed it down quickly. Then he turned back and continued talking.

“Uh,” one of the developers mumbled at the front table. Nicholas didn’t know anyone’s name. He supposed he should get to know a few of them if they’d be spending the weekend together, but his brain seemed to scramble whenever Charlie was around.

Speaking of scrambled brains…

He turned in the direction the programmer-guy was pointing, which was the screen. It was still on the previous slide. He realized he’d never answered Charlie’s question. He gave her the gesture, and she promptly advanced to the next slide.

“This was me just a few weeks ago.”

It was a picture of a cat, hair standing straight in the air, weary look on his face. The word “Stressed” was printed across the bottom of the picture, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough. A small trickle of laughter spread across the room.

“This is me now.”

He gestured and Charlie moved to the next slide, which featured a cat doing yoga. Another round of half-hearted laughter.

“What’s changed in my life?”

He moved his gaze across the audience, landing on Justin. Justin merely smiled and looked up at the screen. At least this time he wasn’t staring down at his phone.

Justin knew what had changed. So did Brooke. It was the reason they’d worked so hard to make sure Nicholas and Charlie spent time together. But neither Justin nor Brooke would speak up here.

Or so he thought.

“You’ve realized what’s important in life,” Brooke said, seated at the table where Charlie had been sitting near the back. He was surprised to see Brooke wasn’t at the same table as her boyfriend, who was all the way on the other side of the room. Brooke and Justin were experts at keeping a professional distance from each other even though their co-workers seemed to constantly refer to them as a couple.

Nicholas pointed at Brooke. “Exactly. We’re all working hard to achieve some career goal we’ve set for ourselves, right? But one day you wake up and you realize it’s just not enough. You come home to an empty place—if you’re lucky, you have a dog or cat.”

He pointed at the screen, where the cat was still in a yoga pose. He quickly gestured to Charlie, who advanced to the next slide, which depicted a group of cats kicked back in beach chairs, wearing big floppy hats and sunglasses.

“And one day you look back and try to remember the last time you’ve taken a vacation. Not a guys’ trip to the slopes or a visit to see family or a weekend retreat like this one, but a real vacation. That’s when you realize your work-life balance is off.”

Nicholas stepped even closer