“Five, four, three, two, one: HAPPY NEW YEAR!” everyone shouted, and the room erupted in cheers as couples came together to share their first kiss of the new year.
Everywhere I looked, couples were kissing and embracing. Nellie froze beside me, as if she didn’t know where to look either. We ended up looking at each other.
That simmering connection between us zapped and sizzled, and I swallowed hard. I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted to take my next breath, but she’d shown little interest in me romantically.
Nellie bit her lip, and my eyes tracked the movement. “Happy New Year, Boss.”
Her calling me Boss rocked me with the reminder that I couldn’t blur these lines.
“Happy New Year, Nellie,” I said gently. “I hope all your dreams come true this year, and more.”
Her eyes misted, and she smiled. “Thank you, Noah. The same to you,” she said, then set down her glass and wove around the couples.
* * *
Nellie
* * *
I had to get out of there. I grabbed my coat and slipped out the front door, intent on getting back to the security and safety of my apartment.
Not only was I tired—really tired—but with all those kissing couples, I was feeling dangerously close to asking Noah to be my first kiss of the new year, so I wouldn’t start the year off as lonely as I’d been the year before.
But that was a dangerous, foolish idea. Especially given the fact that he was my new boss.
Setting aside the mess of him being my boss entirely, the whole baby situation made everything beyond complicated. What if he wasn’t the father? I couldn’t decide which was worse, the idea that he might be, or the idea that he might not be.
If he was the father, we’d be tied together forever through co-parenting another human, and that would influence how he saw me.
But all I could think about while I’d stood beside him, with couples all around us counting down the seconds into the new year, was how I didn’t feel so lonely with him beside me.
When we'd made eye contact, I felt that undeniable pull that I spent so much time fighting and ignoring. For a second, I’d wanted to stop fighting it and fall into that feeling. I’d wanted his lips on mine, his kiss stealing the breath from my lungs. I’d wanted to see if this thing between us was real, or imagined. I had almost allowed myself to forget everything going on.
Knowing how much I’d enjoyed kissing him before had my mind muddled and my heart aching to connect with him.
I let out a huff of aggravation, walking along the pathway that led to the garage and my apartment. I told myself I could not catch feelings for Noah Wood, not right now, maybe not ever.
It didn’t matter how compatible we were in bed, or how my body had bloomed under his expert touch. It didn’t matter that I dreamt of that touch, of that feeling, so vividly, I’d wake up aching for him. It didn’t matter that the way he looked at me fanned the flames of something that had been burning since the moment we first made eye contact at the Witches’ Ball.
I didn’t do long term relationships for a reason, and I couldn’t try now—not when my focus needed to be on myself and my future.
Thankfully, I made it up to my apartment without anyone noticing I was gone. I locked the door behind me and peeled off my knee-high boots, doing my best to ignore the tight tugging sensation in my heart.
I left the lights off, making my way through the dark apartment to my bedroom, where I changed into a pair of comfortable pajamas and texted Sage and Tabitha, letting them know I was tired and was back home so they wouldn’t worry.
Then I crawled beneath my heavy, comfortable comforter and let the tears flow.
Chapter Thirteen
Noah
* * *
After Nellie left, I wanted so desperately to follow her, to find out what had put that devastating look in her eyes. But I held back, locked in place by her calling me Boss.
I couldn’t help but mentally kick myself for hiring her and blurring those lines. But at the same time, I knew that hiring her had been the right move, and that decision had been bigger than the both of us.
I felt this tug toward her, and I wanted to explore it. Boss or no, promises to my brothers or no. I couldn’t ignore that tug, that feeling that this was it—she was it. Every second I spent in her company affirmed that feeling, that our souls were somehow connected. Entwined.
