She shrugged. “I’ll find something else to do.”
“Any other family nearby?”
“No family at all.”
She could have sworn she saw something like sympathy flit across his face, but she wasn’t interested. “I should get back to work,” she said.
She was nearly out the door when he called her back with a terse “Carr.”
Taylor turned and gave him a wary look. “What?”
He hesitated a second before meeting her eyes. “Most of my family lives on the West Coast, but they’re coming out to New York for Christmas.”
“Okay…” she said, a little confused about what he was telling her. Surely even he wouldn’t be so cruel as to rub in the fact that his family wanted to spend time with him, whereas she could barely coax her aunt into a five-minute phone conversation.
Nick shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “You could hang out. With my family, I mean. It’s months away, which gives you plenty of time to build a list of everything that’s wrong with me, and then read it to my family. My sisters will love you for it.”
“I already have a list,” she said.
He breathed out a laugh. “Never mind, Carr.”
“No, no,” she rushed to say. “I just mean…I just…I don’t, I’m not…”
“You can say no. Won’t hurt my feelings,” he grumbled.
Taylor swallowed. “I’ll think about it.” Her hand lifted to the doorjamb, tapping it lightly with her palm, trying to think of what to say. “Thank you. That’s…”
One of the nicer things anyone’s ever done.
“Kind,” she whispered.
Nick’s smile was genuine. “You seem surprised.”
“Can’t say we’ve ever been particularly kind to each other.”
He held her gaze. “I suppose I started it. With the ice-princess thing.”
She looked away.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” he said quietly.
“Even though it’s true?” she said, forcing a smile.
To her surprise, he didn’t jump all over the opportunity to confirm that she was, in fact, pricklier than a cactus.
“I think you’re complicated,” he said finally.
“Too true,” she said with a laugh, stepping all the way out of the room. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yes, please leave,” he said, lifting his coffee mug in dismissal. “All this friendliness is making me uncomfortable.”
She was still smiling when she made it back to her office. Then her smile slipped into a frown.
Taylor set her cellphone on the desk and bit her bottom lip, her hands finding her hips as a troubling thought settled in.
What if Nick Ballantine got under her skin not because she didn’t like him…but because she did?
And what if he liked her back?
The man had just invited her to hang out with his family. At Christmas…
Taylor had always prided herself on being ballsy, but it took all of her courage to turn around and retrace her steps.
Please still be there, please still be there….
She nearly slammed into him as he exited the kitchen, and he caught her elbow with his free hand to steady her. “This is your new plan of attack, huh?” he teased. “Just mow me over?”
“Have dinner with me?”
Taylor blurted out the question, and promptly felt her cheeks flood with heat. At least she suspected that’s what was happening. As a woman who’d never before been prone to blushing, she wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it was uncomfortable as all heck.
Nick went very still.
She held her breath, heart pounding as she waited for the shock on his face to turn to happiness.
It did not.
Nick touched her arm gently, his face regretful. “Taylor—”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
Please let me die right here. No, wait—let me get back to my office first, arrange myself attractively in my chair, then die.
“I’m seeing someone,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
She swallowed and opened her eyes. His expression was kind but not pitying, so at least there was that.
“I didn’t,” she whispered. “Sorry.”
“Hey, Carr,” he said, giving her a lopsided grin. “Don’t apologize. I’d be flattered if you weren’t so annoying.”
She appreciated his effort to take them back to their usual bantering place, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a single quippy comeback.
Horrifying.
Instead she muttered something about needing to get back to work. But though she intended to walk back to her office, her feet took her in another direction.
She didn’t realize where she was headed. Didn’t realize what she was about to do until Bradley Calloway looked up in surprise at her standing in his doorway.
“Hey, Taylor. What’s up?”
He smiled in pleasure at her presence, all golden good looks and honest-to-God dimples. His dark red tie was perfectly tied, his shirt crisp, his wavy hair perfectly in place.
Bradley Calloway was exactly the type of guy she should be with—dependable. Predictable. Interested.
She gave him a slow smile that she was pretty sure didn’t reach her eyes, but she was also pretty sure he wouldn’t notice. Not because he wasn’t a good guy, but because she wasn’t sure he knew her.
Not like the guy who seemed to know her all too well. And didn’t like what he saw.
Was she here standing in front of Bradley to soothe her stinging ego? Yes. And it was pathetic. But it was also just smart. Taylor was so tired of being alone.
Was it so wrong to want companionship?
To crave it?
“Have dinner with me?” she asked, repeating the question she’d asked Nick Ballantine just a minute earlier.
And this time the answer was very different.
NINE MONTHS AGO
Taylor didn’t go to the editorial side of the Oxford floor often, so she took a couple of wrong turns before finding the office she was looking for.
Only the office she was looking for didn’t contain the man she was looking for.
Taylor froze, her eyes refusing to accept what she was seeing. The plaque outside the door had indicated that it was the office of Lincoln Mathis, the lead editor of the magazine’s women/relationships/sex section.
But the man sitting behind the desk? Not Lincoln Mathis.
Nick Ballantine glanced up and blinked in surprise when he saw Taylor. He sat back in his chair and gave a slight smile. “Taylor.”
She wanted desperately to turn on her heel, but she forced her stilettos to stay put. “Nick.”
Her voice was even and a little cool—not at all betraying the fact that she’d been actively avoiding him for the past month, and they both knew it.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from giving him a quick once-over. He looked…different.
And it wasn’t just the suit and tie, although that was a first. There was a tension to his face that hadn’t been there before, a vague sadness in his eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
He spread his arms to the sides. “This is my gig for the next month or so.”
“What, being a less good-looking stand-in for Lincoln?”