see you tomorrow,” he whispered, and that was all it took for my knees to become jelly again.
He grinned as he arranged my bag on my shoulder, and then he perched against his desk to watch me leave the room. I held my breath and tensed my abs the entire way, and I think he could probably tell because his smile became amused and his eyes twinkled.
Once I’d walked out of his sight, even if he leaned to look almost around the corner to watch me—I’d done that several times—I almost jogged to the door.
Fuck. Nico had asked me out. I nearly couldn’t contain the joy exploding inside me. My heart wanted to throw a party. My grin hurt my cheeks. They’d never stretched so wide.
And I wanted to shout my news to the world. Hell, a banner ad or a plane writing our names in the sky wouldn’t tell enough people.
Nico Holton had asked me out.
14
Nico
My cell phone rang as I was just deciding which files to take home for the night, and I slipped it from my pocket before smiling as I answered.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, Nicky. I know it’s kind of late for this kind of invitation, but I wondered if you’re free to join us for dinner?”
I checked my watch automatically. But it didn’t matter what time it said or if I needed to be somewhere else, my answer would only be ‘yes.’ Still, I could tease her a little first.
“Last minute on a Wednesday? Did your previous guest cancel?”
She laughed. “There wasn’t anyone else.”
“Then did you cook too much food?” I smiled as I imagined her rolling her eyes at me.
“You know I always do that.”
I thought of the cases I should probably glance through before tomorrow then pushed them from my mind. That was what later was for. “Okay. You talked me into it.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Didn’t take much talking.”
I walked toward my office door. “It never does.”
“You still at work?” She seemed to be mixing something in the background. Or banging pots and pans together, anyway.
I could picture her so clearly—hair escaping from her high ponytail to form crazed tendrils around her face, smudges of flour on one of her cheeks, and a twinkle of fun in her dark brown eyes.
“I hope it’s meatballs,” I murmured then cringed at my use of the word balls, with Jamie on my mind.
Mom replied, but I didn’t hear her. I was too busy thinking of Jamie and my case of extreme blue balls since I’d refrained from spreading him across my desk and ravishing him every minute of the day since Saint had released us both from his rule. I didn’t even need to look at him to be ready to fuck him. Just the sound of his voice or the scent of his cologne gave me a raging hard-on.
“Nico?”
“Huh?” I shook my head to get rid of the thought of my hard-on. I still had Mom on the phone.
“I asked if you’ll be bringing a guest.”
“A…a guest? Um, nope.” I offered Malcolm a brief wave as I strode past his office. “No guest.”
“Just family then.”
I could hear the smile in her tone, and my gut twisted. It would be dinner with Mom and her new family, but I owed it to her to try to find my new role in her life.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Just family.”
“Maybe one day we’ll have an extra face around our table?”
I was used to her clumsy teases as she tried to find out the latest details about my personal life and I chuckled as I pressed the key fob to unlock my car. As I slid into the driver’s seat, I cradled my phone against my shoulder and threw my bag onto the passenger seat.
“I’m going to head home and shower and change. I’ll see you in about an hour.”
Good thing she was used to me ignoring her questions about my love life.
I arrived at Mom’s house exactly an hour later. I grabbed the flowers I’d bought her on the way from the passenger seat and got out of my car. The walk to her front door was bittersweet. This used to be my path to my front door. But now the bedroom window at the top left didn’t belong to me, it belonged to—
“Harley! Hey, how are you?” I greeted the teenager who opened the door.
I knew a bit about my new stepsister—she was fourteen and a freshman at the local high school. So, that was what I