case she was just one of the crowd. The only difference between her and every other woman mooning over Zane’s broad shoulders and high, tight fanny was she kept her foolish dreams to herself. He didn’t date women with an IQ larger than their bust measurement and she’d been blessed with plenty of smarts. Unfortunately all the brains in the world didn’t seem to be an antidote for his particular brand of charm.
“What about you?” he asked, snagging her cup of coffee and taking a sip. “Did Brad wait up for you?”
She grabbed her mug back. “His name is Boyd and no, I didn’t see him last night.” She hadn’t been seeing much of Boyd at all, lately, but she wasn’t going to share that with Zane.
Zane raised his eyebrows. “Why not? All that computer jargon getting boring? Seriously, Nicki, don’t you get tired of the guy talking in binary code?”
“Boyd isn’t a programmer. He’s an electrical engineer who—” She broke off in midsentence and shook her head. “Why do I bother? You make fun of the men in my life because you’re embarrassed about the women you date. I mean what about Julie?”
Zane chuckled. “Embarrassed? Julie is a former Miss Apple Festival who is studying very hard to be a dental hygienist.”
“Right. She’s in year four of a nine-month program.”
“Math isn’t her thing.”
“She’s going to clean teeth. How much math could there be? What? She can’t count high enough to know how many teeth there actually are in someone’s mouth?”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“She’s an idiot. Don’t you ever want to have a conversation with these women? I mean when the sex is over for the evening, then what?”
He winked. “I go home and sleep. Besides, when I want to have a conversation with a woman, I come see you.”
“How flattering.” The good old female best friend, Nicki thought with a combination of chagrin and humor. That was her.
“I’m telling you, Nicki, let go of the smart guy thing,” he said. “Find some stud and let him have his way with you.”
“No, thanks.”
“Why not? You’re pretty enough.”
“How flattering. Pretty enough? Pretty enough to get a brainless fool who thinks with his biceps? Why would I want to?”
“For the fun.”
“I’m into substance, but thanks for the offer.”
She would never understand Zane’s casual attitude toward the opposite sex. Didn’t he want to settle down? But she already knew the answer to that question. In the two years she’d worked for him, she’d never seen Zane get involved with anyone for more than a few weeks. There was always a new airhead on his arm and he didn’t seem to care that they were interchangeable.
For her part, she gravitated toward serious men who used their brains. Unfortunately none of them had been appealing enough to get her over her Zane crush. Biceps-Man would be a change, if nothing else.
Oh, like that was going to happen.
“I need to like the guy before I have sex,” she said. “Call me old-fashioned, but it’s true.”
“Fascinating information,” Jeff Ritter said as he walked into her office. “Thanks for sharing, but we have more pressing matters.”
Nicki winced silently. If she could have picked some part of the conversation for her other boss to overhear, it wouldn’t have been that.
Jeff stalked into the glass-enclosed office and slammed the door shut behind him. Nicki braced herself for the explosion while Zane seemed singularly unimpressed. He remained slumped in the chair next to her desk.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Jeff tossed him a folder. “What the hell were you thinking? Dammit, Zane, you could have told me what you were going to do.”
Zane flipped through the pages of the computer activity report. “You would have told me not to. Technically we’re partners and you can’t order me around, but you would have tried to convince me it was a bad idea.”
Jeff glared at him. “It was a bad idea. Do you have any idea how many laws you broke last night.”
Nicki figured she might as well join the fray. “I have the actual count, if you’d like it.”
Jeff turned his laserlike stare on her. “You’re in enough trouble already.”
She sighed. “I know. But just for the breaking and entering, and turning off the security system. And the fire alarms.” She considered the number. “Okay, so it was a lot of laws.”
Zane shot her a grin. She held in a smile. Jeff wasn’t amused.
“I’m glad you two think this is so damn funny, but I don’t. Our company has a reputation to uphold. We don’t go around breaking the law for our own purposes.”
Zane raised his eyebrows. Jeff shoved his hands in his pockets. “Only under extreme circumstances,” he amended.
“I was helping out a friend,” Zane said.
Jeff’s gazed narrowed. “You should have told me what you were going to do.”
“I couldn’t. If it went bad, I didn’t want you or anyone in the company implicated.”
“Nicki knew,” Jeff said.
“Sure, but she’d never say anything.”
Zane’s casual acceptance of her loyalty was both gratifying and annoying. She felt like the faithful family retainer…or a favorite dog.
“You could have gotten her in a lot of trouble,” Jeff said.
For the first time since swaggering into her office, Zane actually squirmed.
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.
“That’s right,” she told Jeff. “Zane’s pretty useless.”
Now they were both glaring at her. She shrugged.
Jeff started to speak, but Zane cut him off. “My friend had been working two years on the prototype. These guys stole it and he wanted it back. I said I’d help him. I had to, Jeff. I owed him.”
Nicki knew a few details about Zane’s background. He’d been in the Marines where he’d done a lot of things he didn’t talk about. Jeff had the same sort of background. Several years ago the two of them had met up and started the company.
Neither of them talked about their past, nor did they ever sit around telling war stories. But every now and then, something came out. A new piece of information, a whisper of a truth.
It was there now—in the tone of Zane’s voice as he said those three
