work longer hours than I do.
How about tomorrow?
I’m on call tomorrow. Saturday?
Saturday works.
No sooner had she put her phone away than Dr. No was forgotten. Nick had her full attention.
After one hour of furious calls to Marisol, the seller and the sentimental buyer, an agreement was reached. Marisol came up to three point nine, which turned out to be a quarter million more than Nick’s client had expected to make. Leila saw Nick transformed, the tension of the night leaving his face and an unfamiliar calm rolling in like night fog. He was in ecstasy.
“I’ll need proof of funds,” he told Marisol.
“You’ll get it, asshole,” she said dryly.
Nick let out a low laugh. “I love doing business with you.”
“Sure. Say goodnight to your new girlfriend.”
Leila rolled her eyes. Girlfriend? Whatever.
Nick chucked his phone and took a victory lap around the great room, soliciting a standing ovation from an imaginary crowd. Leila obliged him with a slow clap. When they settled down, she said, “Marisol is tough!”
“She works with developers. There’s good money in that. I knew she could go higher, but wanted to hold out for her client. I respect it, but I don’t have time for those games.”
“Will they tear down this house for sure?”
“You said it yourself. This house in any other neighborhood wouldn’t be worth as much. That’s a problem.”
“I feel sorry for the woman who wanted to raise her kids here.”
Nick came to stand before her. “Don’t go soft on me now.”
Leila held his gaze. The world went silent. For a fleeting second, she thought he might kiss her. If he did, heaven help her, she’d kiss back.
“Are we okay?” he asked.
Her throat tightened. “We’re more than that.”
He caught the double meaning. She wished she’d chosen her words more carefully, but it was the truth.
“I’m not going to pull a stunt like that again. You’re the most interesting person I’ve met in a while. I don’t want to make fun. I want to get to know you.”
She wanted to get to know him, too. But could she say that? How would that sound?
“I can’t lose you to Tony.”
He had to be kidding about Tony. Nicolas Adrian wasn’t that insecure. But when she replied, her voice was hoarse. “You’re not going to lose me to anyone.”
This should count as a first date. They’d hosted a party, and that beat dinner and a movie. They’d had their first fight. Nick hated to see her upset, but with that crucial milestone out of the way, couldn’t they move on to make-up sex?
He wanted to, so badly.
They’d moved outside. It was a dull night. Gray clouds walled off the moon. He was stretched out on a lounge chair. She sat at the pool’s edge, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles.
“My aunt pushed me into it,” she said in response to a question he’d forgotten asking. “I came home with a flyer one day and she went nuts. She thought I had a chance.”
“It might not have paid off—”
“It didn’t,” she said bitterly. “A lot of time and money wasted only to place as a runner up when it really counts.”
“You won a car. Most kids have to slave away at a fast-food restaurant to afford a used clunker.”
To hear her tell it, she’d wasted her entire life. And he suspected she was hanging on to her old car out of pride rather than necessity.
“Tell me you won’t look up any more photos.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”
She sighed. “I give up.”
He tried to reassure her. “I’m a little obsessed with you. What can I say?”
“I’m really not that interesting.”
“I disagree.”
She sat straight and solemnly confessed. “I put stock in all the wrong things. It’s a thing with me.”
He liked that she trusted him enough to share her weaknesses. “And I like complicated women. That’s my thing.”
“Like Marisol?” she asked.
Talk about territorial.
“Not like Marisol. But wasn’t it good to go up against her tonight?”
“So good!”
She smiled. A dimple appeared in her left cheek and vanished. He’d never seen it before. The more he studied her, the more secrets there were to discover.
“Do you think your client spent his nights this way?”
“By the pool?”
She nodded. “Talking.”
“Not likely,” he said. “Did I mention he’s a dick?”
“Then why fight so hard for him?”
“That’s the business, Leila.”
Just when he was sure she’d written him off as a heartless bastard, she surprised him with a question.
“How does it feel to win?”
“You’ll tell me someday.”
To most people he was the golden boy, born under a lucky star. “Success follows you,” an old boss once told him. Only he knew the effort that he put into building his career, and the skill it required to make it seem effortless. Leila had drive. He had no doubt she’d turn her luck around.
“Why are you single, Nick?”
It seemed that all the earlier questions had been leading to this one.
“Because I want to be.”
Such was his nature. He was bloodless in negotiations and unsentimental with women, but to his mind, these were positives. He didn’t have a ton of emotional baggage to weigh him down. You only had so many years to fully dedicate to work, and he had no intention of wasting them. He’d
