by Sarina Bowen
“Hmm? What man?” I don’t look her in the eye.
“That lottery guy. He told you who my daddy is, right? And now you’re gonna be all extra nice. That’s bullshit, Becca. I’m just the intern. I don’t need special treatment.”
Whoops. “Uh, okay. Sorry.”
Heidi Jo looks grumpy for the first time since I met her.
But then our players take the ice, and everything else is forgotten. Unfortunately, Detroit scores a goal on Beacon five minutes in, ending the game.
A “sudden death” overtime is always a little shocking. For a moment it’s quiet in the box as we all stare down at the ice, trying to deny what our eyes just saw.
Nate leans back in his chair, tips his head back and sighs.
“Better luck next time, boys,” Stew says.
“Nate,” Georgia says from the doorway. “We’ll need you downstairs.”
That’s it. My night is done. I can slip out the back and finally get some sleep.
And then I realize I left my coat downstairs. So I’m stuck following the VIPs out of the box and toward the elevator.
I hang back, taking the last car. Heidi Jo has ditched me—finally. I’m alone with my sluggish thoughts until the elevator doors open on the post-game mayhem. The hallway is full of journalists and support staff. Georgia and her colleague are trying to herd reporters into the press room. I work my way through this craziness toward Hugh’s office, where I think I tossed my coat.
“Miss Rowley.”
Nate’s voice stops me as I pass his office door. When I turn, I see he’s perched on the edge of the desk, probably because Georgia asked him to wait there until it’s his turn to step up to the press conference dais. His tie is straight and his shirt is crisp. Whereas my makeup is smudged and I feel as though I’ve summited a mountain in these clothes, he looks like a million bucks.
Or a billion. Technically.
“Is there something you need?” I ask. Please say no. “And what’s with this Miss Rowley business?” After I ask, I want to kick myself. Letting on that it bothers me is probably a bad idea.
He frowns. “I was only going to ask if you knew why Alex didn’t show up tonight.”
“No,” I say slowly. “I haven’t heard from her. It wasn’t me who put her on the invite list.”
“I see. I guess I’ll give her a call tomorrow and make sure she’s okay.”
“Right. Okay.” I clear my throat. “Good night.” I turn to go.
“And…”
Fuck. “Yes?”
“I wasn’t trying to be a heel. That…” he makes a hand motion toward the hallway. “The eager intern called you Miss Rowley. I thought it sounded nice.”
“Nice,” I repeat stupidly.
He shrugs.
“To me it sounds like you forgot my name.” I step into his office and shut the door behind me, because I seem to be picking a fight with the great Nate Kattenberger, which is colossally stupid. At least I have enough of an instinct for self-preservation not to let anyone else hear it.
Nate flinches. And when he speaks again, it’s still in his iceberg voice. “That wasn’t my intent. To make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re treating me like I have Ebola.” This complaint comes out sounding squeaky and weird. I should know better than to have an emotional conversation when I’m exhausted.
“Poor calibration,” Nate says. Then he turns his head a few degrees and puts on his thinking face.
“What?” He’s completely unreadable. With Nate’s thinking face, you just never know. He might be considering the topic at hand, or he might have instantly changed gears. Right now he might be considering a merger with Comcast, or reinventing the way your phone battery functions.
“It’s taken me longer than I’d hoped to recalibrate my reaction to you. My apologies, Rebecca. You were right when you pointed out that this is your place of work, and that it would be wrong to pursue you here. And I haven’t.”
I try to take that in. “So this whole Mr. Darcy routine is not because you’re mad at me?”
“No.” Nate gives me a tiny smile. My first one in weeks. “Not mad at you. Not at all.”
I’m so confused. And the worst part is that it’s all my fault. I was so eager to have that awkward conversation in Nate’s office—the one where I told him that it could never happen again, and that he wasn’t allowed to bring it up. If I hadn’t made these demands immediately, then maybe I’d know what he thought about the whole thing.
“Look. I’m sorry I screwed up your…calibration.”
“It’s entirely my own fault. We discussed this already.”
“Not exactly,” I admit. “I never let you tell me what you thought about the whole thing.”
He gives me a smirk. “By whole thing are you referring to a very hot night in Bal Harbour, Florida?”
“Of course I am!”
He shrugs, and I want to slug him. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. The guy who owns your place of employment can’t say what he feels. I don’t want to look like that guy. I don’t want to be that guy. And now we know my poker face needs work. So I’ll get right on that.”
He folds his hands, as if the matter is settled. The problem is that suddenly I don’t want it to be settled. I want to know. “Nate,” I whisper. “Tell me what would’ve happened if you weren’t my boss for seven years. Or even—what if I didn’t say no to breakfast that morning. What would you have said to me over hotel coffee?”
“Something awkward probably.” He clears his throat. “Look, there are no hypotheticals. You were never just some girl I met at a party. So don’t ask me to tell you what I think. Not if a little awkwardness sends you into a tailspin. Because I don’t think you’re ready for what I’d have to say.”
“But…” My heart rate accelerates. I feel wide-awake and joyous and bewildered. Everything at once. “What if I hadn’t given you a long speech about how the whole thing was a huge mistake? What would you have said if I let you talk? Do you even know?”
“Of course I know.” He stands up, but doesn’t come any closer to me. “I’ve thought about it every ten minutes since. I’ve thought about us during conference calls and while watching hockey.” In an uncharacteristically fidgety maneuver, Nate scrubs a hand through his hair. “I thought about us on the Gulfstream and also in bed.”
My face flushes instantly. Because the idea of Nate having a fantasy parallel to mine is not something I’d really considered. “What about us?” I squeak.
“What do you think? In my imagination we aren’t reviewing spreadsheets, that’s for sure.” He puts a hand on the desk beside him. “The only office furniture in this scenario is the desk I’m bending you over.” He drops his voice. “Does that answer the question? Or should I go on about what color dress you’re wearing when I lift it up and…”
I hold up a hand to stop him before I need to turn a fire extinguisher on myself. “I think I get the idea.”
“And that’s just off the top of my head.”
Whew. “That, uh, jives pretty well with my own thoughts on the matter.”
“Really?” His eyes widen. “Then why are we avoiding each other instead?”
“Because it would be fun, but fun ends. Think about it. You’d run to the end of your playbook pretty quickly and then everything would be doubly awkward. Once you thought it through, you’d decide we needed to just forget about the whole thing, too.”
“No fucking way,” he says immediately. “When did you get to be such a pessimist?”
“Since birth,” I point out. “Have you met me?”
“You’re not a pessimist, Bec,” he says, leaning against the desk. “You love everyone, except maybe your intern. You planned Georgia’s wedding like she’s royalty. The whole fucking team would lie down in the road for you. That’s not pessimism. That’s why I don’t quite buy it now.”
“Well…” My heart is thudding. I can’t even think of a response. “Maybe I just can’t imagine a nice end
ing.”
“Do you always plan your escape route first when you’re interested in someone?”
He’s got me there. “I’m never interested in someone.” A beat goes by while I realize what he’s just said. “Are you interested in me?”
“Were you not listening when I just described how very interesting to me you are? If I had my way, though, the next thing that happened between us would be dinner.”
“Dinner?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know. Food consumed near the end of the day? At a restaurant, because I don’t cook. Candlelight. You in a low-cut sweater. That’s what I would have asked for over breakfast.”
I try to take that in. “Like, a date?”
“Like, fer sure.” He’s even teasing me now.
I blink. “That’s really sweet. I’m sorry I threw it back in your face without even asking.”
“Come here,” he opens his arms.
I step forward immediately, letting him fold me into a hug. I lean against his hard chest and let out a sigh. One of his long hands caresses my back.
“Everything got really tangled up there, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say to his shirt. Leaning against his very solid chest calms me down.
“I’m sorry to ever distress you,” he whispers. “You mean a lot to me.”
And then my eyes begin to sting, damn it. I blink rapidly. “I think I went a little crazy, Nate. You mean a lot to me, too. But so does my job. How did we get so complicated?”
“Everything worthwhile is complicated.”
It feels wonderful to be held by Nate. When I feel his heartbeat against my cheek, I stop thinking about him as The Powerful Nate Kattenberger. Right now he’s a guy who gives great hugs.
He runs a hand through my hair. And then he presses his lips against my temple, giving me a gentle, lingering kiss. It’s lovely for its warmth and for the fact that it asks nothing of me except for my acceptance. It’s perfect.
And that’s when the door flies open. “Y’all are needed at the press conference, Mr. K!” says a chirpy voice. And then, “Oh gosh—sorry!”
I’ve already leapt back, though, the way you’d fling yourself out of a patch of poison ivy. My face reddens during the little silence that follows.
“Be there in a sec,” Nate says. He looks completely unruffled.
Of course he does. He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter at all if Heidi Jo tells the league commissioner that Nate and his assistant get a little freaky in his office between meetings. His reputation can’t be dented.
I’m the one who has to look Heidi Jo in the eye every freaking day for the rest of the season.
But not yet. I just can’t.
I slip past her, leaving both Nate and Heidi Jo behind. Three seconds later I’ve grabbed my coat and exited the building into the cool May night.
18
Nate
So that could have gone better.
I stammer my way through the introduction for the press conference. But it’s okay to be a little inarticulate when your team has just coughed up a loss. Nobody cares what I say, anyway. They want to hear from Coach Worthington and the players.
And whatever they’re saying now, I don’t even listen. Blah blah blah we’ll win the next one, probably.
My mind is elsewhere. I’m still thinking about Rebecca’s quick departure, and the horrified look on her face when her chatty sidekick caught us together.
But I’m viewing it only as a temporary setback. Something we’ll laugh about later. I’ll do anything to break the tension between us. Tonight it finally felt like maybe I can.
I’m awoken from my reverie by the sound of chairs scraping. The press conference is over. Rising from my seat, I plot a course for the door. As I move through the crowd, several reporters try to collar me for a quote.
“Mr. Kattenberger, how do you feel about your team’s…”
“Mr. Kattenberger…!”
Nope. Tonight I’m not having it. I give each one a friendly wave and keep moving. The edge of my phone is glowing green, which means that Ramesh is waiting for me outside. Perfect. Ten seconds later I’m sliding into the back of the car.
As per our security protocol, the locks slide shut immediately and he glides away from the curb as soon as he can.
“Rough game,” Ramesh says from the front seat.
“Eh. We can rebuild it. Hey man—one stop before home?”
“Hit me,” he says.
I give him Rebecca’s address on Water Street. It’s only two miles away, and he hits all the lights just right. So I’m pushing the buzzer at her front door only a few minutes later.
That’s when it occurs to me to check the time. It’s 11:46 p.m.
Fuck. I’m such an asshole.
“Hello?” Rebecca’s voice says a few seconds later.
“It’s me.” I sigh. “Look, I’m sorry it’s so late. I said I wouldn’t be that creepy guy. And now here I am standing on your doorstep at midnight. Nothing creepy at all about that, right? You were probably asleep and dreaming about sweaters or something and I wrecked it. Again.”
I can hear myself babbling. Nobody ever accused me of being good at this, though. But I try to get to the point.
“But, anyway, our conversation got interrupted at just the wrong time. Or at least I thought it was the wrong time. I just wanted to say that if you ever want to finish that conversation, I’m here for that. Not literally. I won’t show up at midnight every night until you decide to either talk to me or call HR. But if the mood ever strikes, just say the word.”
Now I’ve run out of air. And none of that sounded particularly sane. So it’s not much of a shock that Rebecca doesn’t say anything.
Not one word.
I put my forehead against the pane of glass in her door and wonder if I’ve just made everything worse again.
Fuck.
Then a set of pretty blue eyes appears on the other side of the glass and I leap back, startled.
The door opens. “Hi there,” Rebecca says, stepping outside.
“Hi.” It takes me a second to realize that she didn’t even hear my rambling speech. She couldn’t have. She was busy pulling herself together and descending two flights of stairs. “That’s a new look for you,” I say, eyeing her getup and trying to regroup.
“This is Renny’s trench coat,” she says. “While you’ve already seen my tiny pajamas, I didn’t want to give the rest of Brooklyn the pleasure.”
“I meant the, uh, baby.” Her nephew must be hanging from some kind of contraption that was strapped to her body. All I can see over the jacket’s top button is his little bald head. “Did I wake him up? Are you babysitting?”
“He’s a night owl.” Becca shakes her head. “Renny and Missy are home, too. It’s just that they’re having very loud sex right now in their bedroom. That’s why I didn’t invite you up.”
I laugh uneasily, and she smiles, too. Her expression is warmer and more relaxed than it was earlier. But there are circles under her eyes.
“Listen, I should go,” I tell her. “I’m sorry our conversation was interrupted earlier. Do you want me to say anything to that intern?”
“No.” Rebecca shakes her head. “I’ll handle it.”
“Well. Just say the word. But I really came here to say that my dinner invitation doesn’t expire, okay? If you should decide a month from now that the idea isn’t as hateful as you originally thought, just let me know. I’m not going to ask again, though. Just to stay on the right side of the creepy line.”
“Oh, Nate!” Her face softens, and our gazes lock. I feel the pull, and it’s not just me. I’m ninety-nine percent sure. “You could never be creepy. It isn’t like that.”
“Good to know.”
Becca pats the baby on his bald head, and I notice that he’s sucking rapidly on his pacifier, making smacking sounds, just like Maggie on The Simpsons. “I want to,” she says suddenly.
“Hmm?”
“Dinn
er. I want to go.”
“Really?” It comes out sounding shocked, and she laughs.
“Yeah. But it has to be our little secret. I’m, um, just trying to feel my way here.” She tries to cross her arms in front of her chest, but the baby is in the way, so she drops them again.
“Okay,” I say quickly. “You’re the boss.”
She lifts an eyebrow to tell me that was a stupid statement. Because I’m the boss, and that’s the whole fucking problem.
“Of this,” I add. It’s true, too. “How’s tomorrow night?”
She blinks. “Okay. Sure. I’m still not sure this isn’t a bad idea.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll sell you on all the perks.”
With a small smile, she looks away, and a hint of pink appears on her cheeks.
She is fucking adorable. I’ve got it so bad.
The baby looks up at me, slurping away. He seems to be evaluating my merits, too.
“Well, I’m going to run along,” I say. A good businessman knows to shake hands on the deal and then get the hell out of there before the other party can reconsider. “See you at seven?”
“Seven,” she says, softly. She holds my gaze.
“Sorry I’ve been—what did you call it? Mr. Darcy?”
“Yeah, you’re all…” She makes a stern, slightly cross-eyed face. “…Chilly. Or maybe constipated.”
I snort. There are very few people in my life who’ll tease me. Rebecca has always treated me like a regular guy, not an icon. And I dig that.
We’re both smiling like idiots now, just staring at each other. And it happens in slow motion. I lean forward, just a little. She mirrors me. We’re just inches apart now. I’m not hesitating so much as giving her time to get used to the idea.
Then she licks her lips, and I can’t resist any longer. I close the distance and lean into the kiss. Our lips come together softly. There is, after all, another small human between us. This one kiss is all I’m going to get. So I make it a good one. I part her lips, gently touching my tongue to hers just once before I retreat.
She’s looking up at me in a lust haze now.