Plenty of the staffers glanced up at her and Brit, their gazes friendly but curious.
She hated being the newcomer—hated feeling vulnerable in any way for fear that someone would see right through her shield of confidence and call her out as a fraud. To expose her as what she really was on the inside: lonely. Maybe a little unlovable, if she wanted to get melodramatic about it.
To get ahead of it, Taylor lifted her chin and pasted a smile on her face that was not quite haughty, just…distant. The kind of smile that kept people from getting too close before she could decide if she wanted them to get close.
“Okay, last stop is the kitchen. Then I’m taking you out for lunch and we’re ordering wine, and we’ll tell nobody,” Brit said, touching Taylor’s arm to get her attention.
This time Taylor’s smile was real. Either Brit didn’t buy Taylor’s keep-your-distance vibes or she didn’t care, and had already decided to make good on her best-friend threat.
Taylor found she didn’t mind in the least. She liked the other woman, who was friendly without being sugary.
Taylor had just started to follow Brit when she felt a pair of eyes on her. As the new girl, she already knew there were lots of eyes on her, but this gaze was different—heavy. As though she could feel the weight of it.
She turned her head slightly, scanning the room until she found the source.
The second her gaze collided with his, she knew that the man watching her was everything the other guys at Oxford weren’t.
His dark hair was a touch too long, his jawline apparently not fond of a razor. His white dress shirt was like what the rest of the guys were wearing, but instead of pairing it with a tie and suit jacket, the man had a button undone, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. If he stood, Taylor wouldn’t have been surprised in the least to see it untucked.
None of that bothered her so much as the eyes. Not the color. She thought maybe they were run-of-the-mill brown, although he was too far away for her to know for sure.
No, what bugged her was the way he watched her.
Not quite smirking, but knowing. As though he was the one person in the room who got her, and wanted her to know it.
Taylor whipped her head away, but as she turned, she could have sworn she saw him laugh. At her.
Taylor lifted her chin and continued after Brit, telling herself it didn’t matter. The guy wasn’t even close to her type, and chances were their paths would never cross.
She strode away from the bullpen without giving in to the urge to turn around and see him one last time.
She didn’t.
But it bothered her that she wanted to.
—
More than eight hours later, Taylor shrugged on her trench coat and made her way toward the elevator lobby, refusing to limp even though the Jimmy Choo sandals had declared war on the outer edge of her pinky toe.
It was past seven, and most of the Oxford crew had started clearing out a couple of hours ago, so she had the place mostly to herself.
She’d stayed late to finish up the new-employee training—all those HR-mandated online courses that mostly pointed out the obvious and fried the brain.
The doors on one of the elevators were just closing as she approached, and she hurriedly punched the down button in an attempt to catch it.
The doors reopened, and Taylor stepped inside, only to falter for reasons that had nothing to do with the shoes.
It was him.
The deliciously unpolished guy who’d been watching her earlier.
She’d been wrong about the white dress shirt. It wasn’t untucked after all, but shoved into dark jeans with just the right amount of carelessness.
Taylor hadn’t worked up the courage to ask Brit about him when they’d gone to lunch. She wasn’t even sure why she wanted to know.
Up close, it was even more clear he wasn’t her type. Taylor had always gone for clean-cut and serious guys. Guys she could count on.
This one was leaning against the back wall of the elevator as she stepped into it, looking up from his phone just in time to see her stumble.
“You okay?” he asked.
Brown. She’d been right about his eyes being brown.
“Of course.” The self-conscious retort came out a little more haughty than she’d intended, and he lifted his eyebrows in amusement.
Taylor turned around to face the elevator doors as they shut, her gaze locked straight ahead, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him shift around to the side wall of the elevator car, sliding his phone into his back pocket.
He leaned a shoulder against the elevator, studying her unapologetically.
“Really?” she snapped, irritated by the scrutiny.
He merely smiled and straightened, extending his right hand. She wanted to be petty and ignore it, but manners demand she turn and shake it.
Taylor regretted it instantly. The contact of his palm against hers was electric, and she sucked in a quick breath.
He grinned wider. “Nick Ballantine.”
“Taylor Carr,” she said, tugging her hand free and turning once more toward the front of the elevator so he wouldn’t see how flustered she felt. What was wrong with her? He was just a guy.
The elevator stopped on a lower floor, opening for a group of gorgeous women. Taylor took a moment to admire their fabulous stilettos, wondering if their shoes were pinching as much as hers after a long day.
“First day?” Nick Ballantine asked, ignoring the newcomers, all of his attention focused on Taylor.
“Yup.”
“What team?”
“Advertising. You?” she asked, glancing back at him.
Nick shifted his bag higher on his shoulder. “None. I’m a contractor. I fill in when Cassidy needs a spare writer.”
“So you’re not at the office full-time?”
“Is that disappointment I hear, Ms. Carr?” he asked, rubbing his palm idly along the dark stubble on his jawline.
“Is that ego I hear, Mr. Ballantine?” she countered.
He merely grinned wider as the elevator reached the lobby and the door opened. The chattering women exited first, and Taylor was right on their heels.
“Ms. Carr.”
She sighed and turned back to Nick Ballantine, who’d followed her into the opulent lobby. “Yes? What?”
He walked toward her, stopping just near enough that she had to look up. “Why don’t you like me?”
He sounded genuinely curious, maybe a little amused, and though candor was usually a trait Taylor liked just fine, she didn’t appreciate being called out on her strange reaction to him.
“I don’t know you,” she replied.
“So everyone gets the ice-princess routine?”
The question was teasing, but it still stung.
Ice princess.
The label was hardly a new one, but she’d worked hard to eradicate it in recent years—to remember that just because she’d been raised by Karen Carr didn’t mean she had to become Karen Carr.
Still, there were times Taylor wondered if icy distance was part of her DNA or something. Because she didn’t make friends easily—Brit Robbins being a hopeful exception.