Anyone But Nick

by Bloom, Penelope

  I was about to slowly back out of the room when her face turned red. She had been coughing, but now she was just leaning forward and clutching soundlessly at her throat.

  I hurried to her side, slid my arms around her from the back, and pressed my fist into her just below her breasts. She coughed again, and something half-chewed launched out of her mouth and stuck to the back of a chair.

  For a few seconds, neither of us did anything except wait for the glob of half-chewed food to slide down from the chair and fall to the floor. Once it fell, I realized I was still crouched behind her with my arms around her. I could even feel the weight and warmth of her breasts just above my hands.

  I was the first to recover from the shock, so I stood back up, brushed off my knees, and offered her a hand up. She took it uncertainly and then stood, brushing pretzel crumbs from her skirt.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re not the first person to show up for a big interview and choke.”

  Miranda looked like she wanted to do anything in the world but laugh. Her lips quivered, and she finally smiled and shook her head. “Thank you. For saving me.”

  “I’m just sorry I was too late to save those poor pretzels and the chocolate bar. I could’ve sworn you were only in here for a minute before I came in. Are you training for an eating competition?”

  This time, she didn’t appear to have any trouble not smiling. “I missed breakfast.”

  “I’m not surprised. I’d miss my food, too, if I could inhale it that quickly.”

  “If you’re done making fun of me, I have an interview in a few minutes, and I need to get ready.”

  “See you in a few, then.”

  “What?” she asked.

  I bit back the smile that wanted to come. “Nothing. Good luck.”

  Once we’d left the conference room, Miranda fast-walked toward the bathroom.

  I took a few seconds to process what had happened. I’d just seen Miranda Collins double-fisting junk food. This was the same Miranda who only ever ate salads and drank water. The same one who exercised religiously and was the poster girl for perfection. A pang of concern ran through me when I realized she might have taken the breakup harder than anyone thought. I almost called after her to apologize but decided against it.

  The most confusing part had been the way I could practically feel the air crackling between us when we talked. I just wanted to find out if that had been the electrical charge of an imminent explosion, or the potential for a chemical reaction. I guessed maybe there wasn’t much of a difference between the two.

  Either way, I had a feeling that opportunity I’d been waiting for was getting ready to present itself. It seemed like it might be time to tackle the Mount Everest of challenges, after all. The question was whether either of us would survive the process.

  Chapter 3

  MIRANDA

  Damn it.

  My throat still stung from whatever I’d inhaled during my little freak-out. No, it wasn’t a freak-out. It was a calculated, rational decision to lower my heart rate and calm my breathing before a big interview. Hadn’t I read something about salt and sugar being beneficial to proper brain function?

  Probably not.

  I needed to face the facts. I was far from being in control, no matter how hard I wanted to pretend otherwise. I still couldn’t believe that Nick King, of all people, had to be the one to walk in and catch me choking on pretzels and chocolate. Why couldn’t it have been a janitor?

  The postsnack guilt was already creeping in on my walk to the restrooms, but I often thought of my little junk food frenzies as a sanity-retention mechanism. In less fancy terms, I’d go crazy if I couldn’t at least let loose in private every once in a while.

  Everybody expected me to be so damn perfect all the time. I could barely remember how it had all started anymore. All I knew was that somewhere along the way, it had stopped feeling like me. It was more like getting caught up in a current and realizing I’d been carried so far from where I’d started that the only thing to do was continue floating along. And now I could hardly order a hamburger without imagining the sarcastic jokes they’d make. They’d assume I was having a mental breakdown if I skipped a workout or had a stain on my clothes. I’d been so damn predictable and seemingly perfect for so long that the town of West Valley would’ve ground to a halt if I slipped up.

  Get ahold of yourself, Miranda. I took a few more deep breaths—minus the pretzel bag, this time—and tried to shake the nerves out. I knew I was putting too much thought into it. I always did. It wasn’t that everybody else had me in a cage. I’d put myself there, but it had been so long ago that I had no hope of finding the key anymore.

  By the time I made it out of the lobby and passed the elevators, I was composed and focused again. If there was one thing I was good at, it was compartmentalization. Like a kid shoving her toys into the closet until the doors barely shut, I scooped up all my insecurities and stuffed them in a dark corner of my brain. I even used the mental equivalent of the old jump-rope-around-the-doorknobs trick, just to be safe.

  I was me again. Calm, focused, and ready to kick ass. Except I nearly collided with Cade King as I turned the corner toward the restrooms.

  “Whoa,” Cade said. “I guess I lose the bet.”

  “What are you talking about? No—” I closed my eyes and tried to gather myself. “Better question. What are you doing here?”

  Cade squinted. “Like in an existential sense? I guess I’m just trying to leave the world a little less uptight than I found it. You know, fighting the good fight—pulling sticks out of asses. Speaking of which, do you want any help with that?” He actually had the nerve to lean to the side, as if he were trying to look for a stick jutting out of my ass. “It’s in there pretty deep. Might even be a two-man job, but if you push and I pull, I think we could—”

  I jabbed my finger in his chest. “I’m about to have a very important interview, and I don’t need you messing with me right now.”

  “Interesting,” he said. He leaned forward and sniffed slightly. “You smell aroused. Why is that? Why do you reek of . . . passion?” He made a show of thinking deeply, scratching his chin and furrowing his eyebrows. “I know it’s not because of me. And I saw Nick sneak into that room with you a few minutes ago, presumably alone. Miranda!” he said suddenly in exaggerated shock. “Your buttons aren’t even done up properly, you harlot.”

  I glanced down and remembered I wasn’t wearing anything with buttons. “Could you please move? I really have to pee.”

  “Somebody with a guilt-free conscience wouldn’t have had to check their buttons, you know. Just a thought.” He wandered past me, whistling obnoxiously.

  I used the bathroom and then saw Cade was sitting in the lobby once I came back out. He was watching something loud on his phone with a disinterested look on his face. He glanced up at the sound of my footsteps, shot me a thumbs-up and a wink, then went back to focusing on his phone.

  Unbelievable.

  I stopped outside Dan’s door again. I wished I could say I was more calm and collected, but now my thoughts were buzzing with questions. I’d been so confused by Nick barging into the conference room that I hadn’t thought to wonder what he was doing at Bark Bites. Seeing Cade made me even more curious. Were the King brothers planning to acquire Bark Bites, even though it was a fraction of the size of the companies they typically looked for?

  I raised my hand to knock, but the door opened before I could. Dan Snyder, the president of Bark Bites, shot me a sheepish look and then walked straight past me. I watched after him, openmouthed and searching for the right words.

  “Come in,” a man’s voice called from inside Dan’s office.

  I slowly stepped inside. My blood turned cold when I saw who was sitting in Dan’s chair.

  Nick King.

  Suddenly, Cade wandering around in the lobby made complete sense.

  “No. This is not happening,” I said.

  “Dan says you were looking at the VP
job, right?” Nick asked. “Sit. Please.”

  I blinked a few times, half expecting Nick to vanish. It was just a stress-induced mirage, as if all that stuff I’d shoved in my mental closet had caused the doors to burst open, filling my brain with fantasies. But Nick sitting in that chair wasn’t a fantasy. It was a nightmare—a deceptively beautiful nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless.

  As if on cue, he made an expectant gesture toward the chair across from his desk. “We can do the interview with you standing, but your knees don’t look too trustworthy right now. Then again, I am certified in CPR in addition to my familiarity with the Heimlich maneuver, so . . .”

  I cleared my throat and walked across the room in a daze. I sat down in the chair and had to drag my eyes up to meet his. “Mouth to mouth won’t be necessary. I’m fine.” My desire to get as far away from Nick as possible was at war with how badly I wanted this job.

  He looked painfully good as he sat there and studied me. His shirt was a dark charcoal gray with a silver tie speckled with teal slashes of color that brought out his eyes. God. Had he always seemed so intimidating? I had to physically force down the urge to fidget in my chair.

  Nick carried a presence that I knew I could’ve still felt with my eyes closed. He just looked like he was destined for great things, as if a man so painstakingly perfect couldn’t possibly exist just to have an ordinary life. I hated how small he made me feel. I especially hated how that smallness didn’t also go hand in hand with a sense of wonder.

  “I just have one question before we start,” I said. Why didn’t you love me back all those years ago? Why Kira? I mentally willed myself to cool it. Being a hysterical idiot, even if it was only in my own head, wasn’t going to do any good.

  “As long as it’s appropriate,” he said.

  “What? Why would I ask you something inappropriate?”

  He shrugged. “I just wanted you to know it wouldn’t be professional for you to ask me if I was currently single, for example. Then again, we don’t technically work together, yet, so I suppose the line is still delightfully blurry. Scratch that. Ask me anything.”

  My mouth was hanging open. “I was—” I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t even remember what I’d been planning to ask anymore. Was he actually flirting with me like nothing had ever happened? I bit back the temptation to ask him that. It was a verbal minefield I wouldn’t survive stepping into, and I knew it.

  “Yes?” he asked, leaning in.

  “I’m not going to ask if you and your brothers bought Bark Bites, because seeing you sitting there makes that pretty clear. But . . . how did you know I was planning to interview here?”

  Nick tilted his head to the side as a slow smile spread across his handsome face. He chuckled softly. “Oh, I see. You think this is no coincidence? Wow. I’d say I was flattered, but it sounds more like you’re flattering yourself. You think I’d buy an entire company just so I could fulfill some creepy power fantasy and become your boss?”

  I blushed. “When you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. I’m sorry, no, that’s not what I really—”

  Nick drummed his fingers on the table. “The real question is whether I’d use that power to punish you for vowing to avoid me, or to try to seduce you into breaking your vow.”

  I felt thirsty suddenly, and the heat in my cheeks was spreading to my chest. I was appalled at how obviously flirtatious he was being—and also secretly thrilled by it. I wasn’t sure if he was really flirting, though. In some ways, it felt more like he was planning to lure me into a kind of emotional trap.

  “Wouldn’t the third option be that you’re not planning on abusing the power you’d have over me?”

  “That would be a third option, yes,” he said flatly. “It would also be the least exciting option.”

  “So when does the interview start, exactly?”

  “As soon as you’re done investigating my personal life. Also, to answer the question you were too afraid to ask: no, I’m not currently seeing anyone.”

  I chose to ignore that. “One more question. Why Bark Bites? I’ve seen the list of companies Sion has acquired. This is way lower profile than anything you guys have ever set your sights on before.”

  “My brothers and I have our reasons, but those don’t concern you.”

  As perfect as everyone tried to make me out to be, I didn’t always manage my temper as well as I should have. I was also the kind of person whose idea of a perfect day was one where everything went according to plan and stayed on schedule. The past few weeks had been a shitstorm, and today was threatening to push me over the edge. “Part of being the vice president of a company involves helping to make decisions that impact the overall direction of the company. In order to do that, I’d need to know what direction that is. And to do that, I’d need my boss to be open with me.”

  Once I stopped talking, I realized I’d been raising my voice slightly. I sat back in my chair and hoped it wasn’t obvious that my heart was pounding. Nick was just staring at me. Why was he just staring like that?

  He finally leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “Then I’m not obligated to be open with you until I become your boss, am I?”

  I worked my lips to the side, biting back annoyance. “I didn’t come to this interview with Dan—or you, for that matter—to beg for a job. I came to explain why I’m the best fit for it and why you’d be lucky to have me work for you. So if you want the privilege of having me work here, you’ll be open with me. Starting now.” I knew my face looked calm and collected, but my heart was pounding like crazy, and I could feel sweat beading across the bridge of my nose.

  “You know? I have to admit,” Nick said, “I was conflicted about this interview. I thought our past would make it hard to be objective in deciding whether to hire you. But I admire your backbone. Maybe you really do have what it takes for this job.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

  Nick’s full lips flickered outward at the corners, just for a moment. His face barely showed it, but there was a lightness in his eyes now where there had been only hard, piercing evaluation a moment before. “I have some personal reasons for buying Bark Bites that won’t impact you, but from a practical sense, I think there is a huge potential to grow the business model and restructure the company. That’s where you can help me, assuming you still want the job, that is.”

  I felt like I was sweating more than a vegetarian at a barbecue, and I’d only had to endure a handful of minutes alone with Nick. My mouth was running on autopilot. I was in interview mode—kick ass and take no prisoners—but I hadn’t even stopped to ask myself if I could really work for Nick King, of all people.

  “Would you like some water?” Nick asked. “You look a little . . .”

  “I’m fine,” I said, except I thought I might be going through the five stages of grief at record speeds. None of this was real, I decided. It was all too far fetched, too absurd. I pinched my thigh and waited to be zapped from this nightmare to my bed. I closed my eyes in anticipation, but when I opened them again, he was still there. And he was smiling. I wanted to pull my shoe off and throw it at his smug, obnoxiously gorgeous face—even if it was going to take more than a black eye to ruin that kind of perfection.

  “You really think hiring me would be wise?” I asked.

  Nick mulled that over. “A few moments ago, you looked like you were going to punch me in the mouth for implying you might not get the job. Now you’re trying to make sure I want to give it to you?”

  I closed my eyes for a second and attempted to gather my thoughts. He was right, annoyingly. “I just mean, when you think about how—when you think about our . . . you know.”

  “Past?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ahh, wow. I’m sorry. I feel like such an ass for not even thinking about that. You mean your feelings for me would make it uncomfortable for you to work under me?”

  “No. No. That’s not what I said.�
�� Work under him. Why was my mind so quick to twist that into its dirtiest possibility? And why did the mental image of Nick glaring down at me make my stomach twist with warm tendrils of heat?

  “Of course. My mistake.” But the look on Nick’s face said he wasn’t buying my story. The frustrating part was that he appeared so convinced I had feelings for him I was starting to wonder if he was right. “Forget I said anything,” he continued. “But I am curious. Why are you here? Last I heard, you were planning to leapfrog your way to the top of Crawford Industries. A VP job at a failing small-scale company like this doesn’t even come close.”

  “You weren’t the only one who heard. The guys I was getting ready to leapfrog for a promotion decided it’d be better for everyone if it looked like I’d screwed up our biggest account. And maybe I wanted a chance to work somewhere that actually needed my help, for once.”

  For the briefest moment, Nick actually looked sympathetic, but his expression went back to amused so quickly I knew I must have imagined it. “Well, it’s your lucky day, then. Isn’t it?”

  I felt my head sag forward, as if my forehead had suddenly developed a magnetic attraction to my knees. “That’s one way to look at this,” I said.

  “And how do you look at it?”

  “That there’s no room in the business world for personal matters.” I raised my eyes up and stared at him unflinchingly for the first time. “And when you plan to get a job done, you do it, no matter what obstacles get put in your way.”

  Nick chuckled. “A bit dramatic, maybe. But I’ll happily be your obstacle, especially if it means I get to enjoy watching you try to crawl over me.”

  I thought about objecting but realized I’d only make it worse if I acknowledged his implication. “Thank you,” I said curtly.

  “Well. Congratulations,” he said. “The job is yours, if you want it.”

  I shook Nick’s hand and left the room. As much as I wanted to portray calm, I couldn’t help fast-walking my way toward the exit. I just needed space. Air.

  I stared straight ahead. Confidence, confidence, confidence. It wasn’t fair, but the business world expected an entirely different level of professionalism from women. Men could loosen their ties and joke around without losing the respect of their employees. Women didn’t always have that luxury, so I knew I needed to keep my walls up. Always. The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth. Those same walls were part of the reason my “perfect” boyfriend was no longer in the picture. I’d made my choice, though. I’d been chasing my goals for too long to let anything get in the way. Even Robbie. And now I had a bad feeling if I didn’t plow my way through Nick, he’d be the one doing the plowing.