adjusted the portrait over the fireplace until it hung perfectly straight. Then propped a hip on the corner of her very expensive desk. “You’ll see, Ms. Nicola Parrish. You’ll see.”
Two
Pierce had been forced to cool his heels for six days before Nicola wrapped up her appointments and was officially off the clock. Even now, he’d been coerced into helping her move out of her office in exchange for a face-to-face meeting. Fortunately, his father was holding his own, but Pierce wasn’t willing to wait much longer for the answers he needed.
At Nicola’s request he’d brought a truck he and his dad used to transport inner tubes and kayaks. Pierce had to give it to her—she was a master negotiator. He could think of several hundred things he’d rather be doing on a hot summer day than moving boxes.
His mood, however, took a definite uphill swing when he knocked at the street door and Nicola let him in. She looked far more approachable today. A simple headband kept her pale-blond hair off flushed cheeks. Brief khaki shorts left those gorgeous legs on display, and the outline of her breasts in a close-fitting white T-shirt dried his mouth. The black espadrilles on her feet made her look far too young to be a successful lawyer.
He cleared his throat. “Truck’s parked outside.” His tone was gruffer than he had intended, but he was trying to hide his reaction to her casual attire.
Nicola frowned. “You’re late.”
Eyebrows raised, he promised himself not to take the bait. “There was an accident on the way over. I had to take a detour,” he said mildly.
She swiped a finger across her forehead, grimacing. “It’s hot as Hades in here. Someone got the dates wrong and turned off my power two days early.”
“Bummer.” He stepped inside, not surprised to see the reception area reduced to a large pile of boxes. “Do you live on the second floor?”
“Good Lord, no. That would be a terrible idea for a workaholic.”
He followed her up the stairs, his gaze level with her curvy butt. “Most people who are workaholics don’t admit it.” It was a good thing he was about to do some literal heavy lifting, because he needed something to distract him from carnal thoughts about a woman he barely knew.
The room upstairs was just that, a fairly large open space with a tiny bathroom walled off in one corner. Clearly Nicola had used this level as a storage area, though in one corner there was a sofa and a table and lamp that indicated she might occasionally spend the night or at least catnap in the middle of a busy day.
She bent and picked up a medium-sized box, her gaze wry. “Self-deception is rarely productive. I know myself pretty well. Let’s get moving. So far I’ve got fifty-three boxes ready.”
His lips twitched. “Fifty-three? Not fifty-four or fifty-two?”
“Are you making fun of me?” She frowned, a tiny wrinkle appearing above the bridge of her perfectly classic nose.
He took the box out of her hands. “You finish packing and taping. I’ll load the boxes, Ms. Parrish. I outweigh you by at least eighty pounds, and since I doubt you’d trust me enough to actually fill a box, this makes more sense.”
She folded her arms across her waist. “You may as well call me Nikki. I think we’ve already damaged the lawyer/client relationship.”
Adding a second box to his load, he tested the weight and decided he might even manage a third. “You call it damage, I call it progress. I’d just as soon not have a desk between us.” Unless you’re sprawled on it and I’m leaning over you, licking your—
He brought himself up short, grinding his teeth. Attraction in this situation was not going to help matters. “Nikki it is. And you can call me Pierce.”
* * *
Nikki felt guilty. Not guilty enough to refuse Pierce Avery’s help, though. She had fully intended to hire movers, at least a couple of college guys who needed cash. But when Pierce had called her office repeatedly for three days, she’d been frazzled and testy and had finally told him if he wanted a second appointment so damn badly, he could help her move her office.
She hadn’t really expected him to agree. The ultimatum had been a toss-away comment, a reaction to his dogged insistence. Still, here they were. The guy with the big muscles handling her boxes with ease and the lady lawyer with the big brain reduced to panting over rippling biceps and the faint hint of aftershave that lingered in the stairwell.
Muttering beneath her breath, she finished up the last big pile of junk upstairs by stuffing it all into a trash bag and tossing the bulging plastic blob out the back window into a Dumpster in the alley.
With one last quick glance around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything of value, she descended the stairs, checking first to make sure Pierce was still out at the street. She didn’t want to have to squeeze past him on the narrow stairs. Never had a man made such an impression on her. He was impossible to ignore, both by virtue of his forceful personality and his ruggedly masculine looks.
She’d dated wealthy guys in law school a time or two. But when all was said and done, each relationship ended by her choice. The gulf between her past experience and theirs was too great to sustain a long-term commitment. It occurred to her on reflection that it had been almost two years since her last date here in Charlottesville, and even longer than that since she had been intimate with a man.
Her wide circle of friends kept her social calendar filled, and on the rare occasions when she had free time, she used the extra hours to power through the backlog of work that always dogged her.
She loved her job. The diplomas on the wall were more than mere window dressing. They were a testament to how far she had come. Those same diplomas now rested back-to-back in a sturdy cardboard carton that would go straight into her car when she and Pierce were finished. The only real challenge remaining was her desk. She snagged two packing boxes, pulled up the appropriate spreadsheet on her computer to label them and started opening drawers.
* * *
Pierce stood in the doorway, unnoticed, and studied the woman who was going to help him make sense of the unbelievable. She worked quickly and methodically, using Ziploc bags to corral paper clips, pens, rubber bands and a host of other office necessities. He knew what she was doing. He’d carried out enough boxes to realize that she had color-coded and cross-referenced each one. He had to admire such single-minded organization, but he didn’t possess any of those genes. If it had been left up to him, he would have managed to box up the whole place in half a day.
But Nikki Parrish was too meticulous to cut corners. Which was why she would never be searching for a washcloth and towel at one in the morning, as Pierce had been the night he’d moved into his new house.
While he watched in silence, he saw her reach into the back of the flat center drawer and extract something small that looked, from this distance, like a metal animal.
“Gift from an old boyfriend?” he asked, entering the room and sprawling onto her settee with a groan of relief. The window beside the fireplace was open, letting in a much-needed breeze.
Nikki clutched the figurine to her chest, her eyes wary. “I’m not sentimental, Mr. Avery.”
“I
