by Megan Bryce
Breath rushed past his lips in a half laugh. “I noticed.”
“It doesn’t end well for the Bissette, either.”
Flynn carefully shoved his hands in the jacket pockets.
“So you’re never going to try? Just going to keep your heart locked up?”
Nicole squeezed her hands into fists.
“I was telling you that I’m in love with you. Maybe.”
Flynn blinked and the silence lengthened.
Nicole finally said, “I love you. I think I love you. I’m not a hundred percent sure because I’ve never been in love before. No one’s ever loved me before. Me.” She put her hands to her chest, thumping lightly. “Men have said those words before and I’ve never believed them. And I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you when you said it. Not at first.”
“You believe me now?”
She wanted to say yes. Wanted to tell him she did.
But she told him the truth instead.
“I don’t know. But I want to believe. I want to believe that if you don’t really– not quite– love me yet, that maybe you could. Maybe you will.”
He waited for more but that was all she had. She wanted to believe him, wanted it so badly that she’d come here even when she’d known it would end like this.
He said, “Not going to lie. This, I hate.”
“Me, you mean.”
He waved his hands between them. “This. This maybe. This I think.”
“I’ve given all I can give right now, Flynn.”
“And I thought it would be enough. I thought I would give anything to be with you. Go through any kind of hell but now. . . what’s going to happen when I want more? Because I keep wanting more from you, Nicole, and what’s going to happen when I want everything? When I want your whole heart and your whole life. When I want our future and our children, when I want us and no more me and you? If I’m going to have to walk through hell, I want to know you’ll be there with me the whole time, and now I’m afraid you won’t be.”
“I’m always afraid. I can’t stop worrying,” she said, taking a step closer to him. Wanting to give him all of her truth, even if it wouldn’t be enough. “Except when I’m with you. You’re my closet. My refuge. When I’m with you, I feel safe.” Nicole opened her arms, kept her eyes wide open, and opera-ed, “Sanctuary!”
Flynn didn’t smile. He looked down.
“See, I want to give you that. I love you, and I’d give you anything I could. I just. . . I need a sanctuary, too.” He looked up, meeting her eyes sadly. “I didn’t know that I wouldn’t want to do this with you. Right up until this moment, I just didn’t know.”
Nicole whispered, “Can’t know what you don’t know until you know it,” and felt the first fat, cold raindrops fall from the sky.
Flynn closed the door behind him softly, took his new Superman jacket off gently, and then fell limply onto the couch.
His mom said, “Where’s Nicole?”
“Went home.”
Lisa pulled back the curtain and said, “She’s just standing out there in the rain. She’s going to catch her death.”
She waited for Flynn to get up and when he didn’t, huffed loudly and went outside herself.
Flynn almost got up to look out the window, but she came hurrying back in a moment later, alone and shaking water from her arms.
“She won’t come in. Mike!”
Mike poked his head from the kitchen where he’d been hiding since Nicole had first knocked on the door.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Get her to come inside!”
Mike looked at his wife, then his son still sitting lifelessly on the couch. He went to the door, opening it to look at Nicole.
He shut it.
“Mike!”
“What do you want me to do, Lisa? Carry her inside fireman-style?”
He went back to the kitchen, Lisa following behind him, whispering furiously.
Flynn fingered the material of his new suit, looked at the inside of the two sides but didn’t put them together.
She’d made him a suit. And he would bet it looked great, felt amazing.
He’d never be able to wear it, not without thinking of her.
His dad sat down next to him and passed him a beer and a bag of chips.
“So.”
“So.”
Mike grabbed the remote, turning on the TV and turning the volume way down. “Guess that’s over.”
“Guess so.”
“Probably for the best.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You know. Just. She’s Nicole Bissette.”
Flynn sipped, and took a deep breath, and ate a chip.
Then he said, “No, she’s not. Nicole Bissette is some kind of character. . . some kind of caricature. Nicole is more than that.”
“Oh?”
“She’s careful and cautious but she keeps standing back up. She wants to hide but she doesn’t. She looks beautiful but she wants others to feel it. She makes me a Superman suit but won’t tell me she loves me without a maybe. She’s just standing out there in the rain and I don’t know what she wants from me!”
Mike grabbed a handful of chips. “Women. Can’t get away from that, son.”
A loud thump from the kitchen made Mike jump and he cleared his throat. “But I mean, what would we do without them?”
Flynn took another deep breath, another sip. “Why is Mom hiding around the corner while we’re having this little heart-to-heart?”
“She said I had to do it. And I say this as your father, Flynn, but a man does what his woman wants him to. Even when, especially when, he doesn’t know exactly what that is.”
“Why can’t they just tell us what they want?
Lisa said loudly, “Oh, we try. It just never works.”
“Mom, come on out.”
Lisa came around the corner, saying, “Nicole probably told you what she wanted, you just weren’t listening.”
Had she told him? All Flynn had heard was maybe.
Maybe she loved him.
Maybe she believed he loved her.
“Nope.” Flynn shook his head. “I got nothing.”
Mike glanced at Lisa. “Sometimes you’ve got to read between the lines,” he said and Lisa sighed.
“She needs you to be her sanctuary. She sang it to you!”
Mike and Flynn considered this, and Flynn said, “But I need that, too. Don’t I?”
Mike said, “She’s already given you what you need,” and Lisa and Flynn both looked at him.
“You needed a woman you’d bring home to me and your mom. A woman who’d steal your heart and then offer it back to you. A woman who’d make you smile and laugh and come alive. A woman who’d make you feel like Superman and make you a damn suit to go with it. A woman who–”
“All right. Okay. I get it.”
“Don’t think you do. You’re still here. She’s already given you what all men need. A woman who thinks they’re a ten, ‘cause none of us are. And when you find that woman, you give her whatever you think she wants from you. You’re going to be wrong; give it to her anyway.”
“Nicole doesn’t think I’m a ten.”
“The woman is standing on the front lawn in the pouring rain. She sang to you. She thinks you’re a ten. And my guess is she’s trying to give you all she can. Trying to give you what she thinks you want. She’s going to be wrong. Take it from her anyway.”
Flynn put his beer down and went to the window, looking at Nicole standing in the pouring rain.
Waiting. For what exactly, Flynn didn’t know.
But still waiting.
He heard his dad say softly, “Is that what you wanted?”
He heard the smile in his mom’s voice. “No. But it was still pretty good.”
“There’s just no pleasing you women.”
There was a pause before she said, “But we really like it when you try,” and Flynn was forced out the door before he started he
aring kissy noises.
He stopped on the porch, shutting the door behind him, and stared at Nicole.
Soaking wet and shivering and waiting for him to try again, and Flynn ran to her.
He shouted over the storm, “What do you want, Nicole? From me? What’s my best answer when you say you maybe love me?”
“Say you maybe love me back! Until I’m not afraid. Until I love you, no maybe.”
He wrapped his arms around her, feeling her shaking. “Will you tell me when you’re sure? When there’s no maybe?”
“Yes.”
“No, I mean really tell me. No hints, just tell me outright. Don’t make me guess, don’t make me get it wrong.”
“I will.”
He put his lips against hers. “Well. I accept. I’ll wait.”
She put her arms around his neck, hiding her face against his cheek and saying, “I never wanted to believe before. Maybe I do love you.”
Flynn pulled back. “Is this me now? My turn?”
She nodded, smiling, and Flynn said, “Maybe I love you, too.”
* * *
The fashionistas will return in The Tie’s The Limit! Sign up at www.meganbryce.com to be notified of its release.
from Some Like It Charming (A Temporary Engagement)
Mackenzie Wyatt believes in two things: herself and her plan. And her plan is to keep her head down and to work hard until she can retire. Never mind that she doesn’t know what she’ll do once she retires– at least she won’t be working for the man anymore. Because even though he’s a gorgeous man, he’s still her boss and he likes to push her buttons.
Ethan Howell O’Connor’s charmed life comes to a screeching halt after his latest ex-girlfriend starts a fashionable trend in talking to the tabloids. Now all of Ethan’s old girlfriends are talking to the press, ruining his reputation, and wiping that charming smile right off his face. The only person who can brighten his black mood is the same person who can annoy him to kingdom come. He and Mackenzie have feuded since the day she was hired but now Ethan’s starting to realize: maybe those sparks were hiding a blazing fire.
Mackenzie’s about to find out that sometimes a gorgeous man can come up with a plan all his own, and it’s a given that it’ll mess hers up.
One
Mackenzie Wyatt looked up from her desk as two women went running by as fast as their fashionable heels could take them and sighed.
He was here.
She could turn off her email alert and she could refuse to answer his calls, but she always knew when the lord of the castle had arrived. The surge to the ladies room, the frantic tidying of desks, the energy in the air. It all pointed to one thing–
Ethan Howell O’Connor had entered the building.
It was his after all. And she understood that he needed to make an appearance occasionally. She just wished she could know ahead of time so she could take the day off. He delighted in tormenting her, and truth be told, she delighted in tormenting him. But she was hardly ever truthful with herself about Ethan O’Connor.
She’d given up shutting her door years ago. One unlucky visit she’d tried to hide in the ladies’ room, but he was nothing if not dogged, and he’d sent another woman in to get her. After the poor woman had stopped hyperventilating, Mackenzie had found him sitting behind her desk, eating a Snickers from her emergency stash, grinning that lazy grin, and laughing at her with those sharp green eyes.
She’d stopped hiding right then, and she’d stopped being nice. Very few people realized she had been playing nice, Ethan included. Even she knew it wasn’t a good idea to insult the boss. She just couldn’t seem to help it when she was around him.
But no man took her Snickers without paying the consequences.
Their relationship, if it could be called that, had turned in to a verbal sparring match that was overheard and repeated at every water cooler, and most of the staff wondered why she hadn’t been fired yet. She could only tell them that Ethan found her amusing.
She tried not to let him get to her but two minutes of lapping at his toes was all she could last, and then the dam would break and she would find herself insulting the man everyone agreed was the most charming and handsome they’d ever met.
A hush stole over the floor and Mackenzie rolled her neck. She cracked her knuckles.
She did not run a brush through her honey brown hair, like the co-worker who’d run to the bathroom at the first news of an Ethan sighting. She did not apply another quick coat of mascara around her tawny eyes, like the woman who was hunched behind her desk trying to see her reflection in her black coffee cup. No, Mackenzie kept her expression cool and sniffed her small upturned nose.
And pretended that her heart wasn’t trying to beat its way out of her chest. Because no matter how handsome or charming or annoying or fake Ethan was, he was the only person who could make her break her cool. She would find that exciting if she didn’t detest him quite so much.
Mackenzie forced her concentration back to her work but she knew where he was. She could tell by the murmur of voices, the laughter. No one seemed to be able to do any kind of work when he was near and she didn’t know how anyone in the New York office got anything done. She thanked God every time Ethan visited that Los Angeles wasn’t his home base.
The murmuring and laughter grew closer and louder. He’d picked up an audience and people found things to do near her office. The most charming man in the world vs. the woman who said what she thought and never pandered to authority.
Round one. Ding.
“Hello, Mackenzie. Hard at work, I see.”
She looked up at tall, lean man and kicked herself. She never remembered how good he looked. When he was away she easily forgot how his long eyelashes framed green eyes with a hint of playful devil in them. And how his blond hair framed a face so pretty it just couldn’t be real.
“Hello, Mr. O’Connor. Causing a fuss again?”
He smiled and shut her door behind him. She gave him a look that quite clearly said what she thought about that and he laughed.
She stood and walked around him to open the door, wishing she’d worn higher heels. With Ethan she needed all the help she could get.
“You’re not playing by the rules, Ethan. They’ll bug my office if they can’t hear the show.”
She heard him opening and shutting the drawers of her desk and she sternly hid her smile before she turned around.
She said, “How many desks do you search on your walkthroughs? I’m pretty sure that’s unprofessional.”
He held up the candy he’d found and said, “Talk about unprofessional, what is this?”
“A box of Hot Tamales.”
“And where is the chocolate, Ms. Wyatt?”
She pursed her lips. “I may be able to find some but you’ll have to sit in this chair–” she tapped the supremely uncomfortable chair in front of her desk, “–to get it.”
He grinned, plopping into her cozy, ergonomic chair and propping his feet up.
“Nice try.”
“At least you didn’t find my Snickers.”
He ripped open the box. “I like these.”
“I’m sure you throw up anything you eat in my office, just in case.”
He choked. “Maybe I should have been, but I haven’t.”
Mackenzie shrugged. “You’re not dead yet.”
Ethan eyed the box of candy, shaking it and looking for anything suspicious, and then ate a handful.
“I like to live dangerously.”
She sat down, slouching in the uncomfortable chair. “To what do I owe this visit? I’ll make a note to stop whatever it is.”
“I had to come congratulate the office, and the person, who made such a great sale.” He nodded at her like a king approving his royal decree.
Mackenzie couldn’t help the cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. She’d made him a lot of money over the years but this sale had been a doozy. Her commission had been a doozy.
And truthfully, that was why she w
as allowed to taunt and insult the boss. He may find her amusing, but no one made more money for him than she did. And they both knew it.
He plopped some more candy in his mouth. “I’ve decided to celebrate that little piece of magic with a company picnic this Friday. I knew you needed a personal invitation or you wouldn’t show.”
“Picnics aren’t really my kind of thing.”
“There will be a very competitive game of softball and I’ve heard you can play.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve already arranged for Friday off.” Or she would as soon as he left. “You’ll have to find someone else to win that game for you.”
His feet slid off her desk and he leaned forward onto his elbows. He smiled fully, his white teeth flashing. They were probably caps.
“Oh, Mackenzie. I know you’ll only play for me when money’s involved. I signed you up for the other team.”
Her breath hitched a nanosecond too long and his smile widened.
Mackenzie got her breathing back under control with a grimace. It had only been a slight slip but he’d seen it. Had been watching for it. And that was exactly why Ethan was so dangerous. He found your weakness, then dangled irresistible bait. And boy, did she want to beat him. She wanted to wipe that smile off his face and make him sweat.
She forced herself to say, “Although I’d love to watch you lose, I still have plans.”
He shook his head. “I hate to do this to you but you leave me no choice. I’m making this a requirement of your continued employment.”
“Are you saying you’ll fire me if I don’t attend this celebratory picnic and play a game of softball?”
Ethan nodded his head sadly. “I am sorry but it means that much to me.”
Mackenzie shook her head, a pity-filled smile playing at the corner of her lips. “If you’ll hand me the small notebook in my top right drawer. Yes, thank you.”
She flipped to the middle and made a notation. “Ethan, you’re losing your touch. It’s only been one week since you last threatened to fire me.”
“One week? Are you sure?”
“You called and left a voicemail congratulating me on my sale and said if I didn’t return your call you’d have to let me go.”