“Not me.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You couldn’t pay me enough to do your job. Or work at the foundation, actually. I really do want to quit. I hate it there.”
“Eve, you can do whatever the hell you want with your life, and I’ll help you.”
She blinked up at him like she’d expected more of an argument. “Okay.”
He shoved his thumb at the elevator. “I have to go.”
“Oh! Yes. Yes, go.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m very happy Livvy makes you happy. If there’s anything I can do to assist with that... well. I’d like to make up for my previous behavior in any way I can.”
Nicholas had thought his father would be the big boss he fought at the end of the game, but now he knew Brendan wasn’t the problem. The biggest struggle, getting Livvy to see how good they could be together, was ahead of him. “I’ll let you know. For now, keep your fingers crossed.”
She showed him her crossed fingers and he smiled tightly. If only it could be that easy. But when had Livvy ever made anything easy? No, she would be difficult and troublesome and contrary.
As the elevator doors closed, he popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth and brushed the crumbs from his hands, uncaring about the mess he was making. Luckily, he could be just as stubborn.
SOMETIMES THEREwas a very thin line between dumb and romantic.
Nicholas eyed the trellis on the east side of Tani Kane’s house. At her old home, Livvy had a tree right outside her bedroom window, a huge oak Nicholas had grown intimately familiar with. Thistrellis wasn’t much different. Except he’d been a lean kid then, not a much bigger man with a creaky knee.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried calling her again, cursing softly when it went right to voicemail. He’d sent texts too, for the past few hours. All of them had gone unanswered.
He glared up at the window. It was getting dark, so hopefully the neighbors wouldn’t notice him casing the place and call the cops. Her car was in the driveway. Maybe if he could get her attention? He picked up a rock, then hesitated, staring at it. It was a big rock. What if he ended up breaking the window? He couldn’t imagine that would endear him to Tani.
Knock on the door.
Wouldn’t it be better to talk to Livvy before introducing the rest of their families into the mix? She wouldn’t be concentrating on them if she was worried about everyone else. And damn it, for once he wanted them both to only be concerned with themselves.
He dropped the rock and stared grimly at the trellis before giving it a good shake.Seems sturdy.
Livvy’s sardonic tone whispered in his ear.Now you’re a trellis structural engineer, huh?
Nicholas grabbed ahold of the wood, grimacing at the dirt. He hoisted himself up, halting when the thing gave a fraction of an inch beneath his weight. Dying like this would be mortifying.
He placed his hand on the next rung carefully, trying to avoid the thorns there. He’d gotten abouttwo feet off the ground when a throat cleared behind him. “Olivia isn’t home.”
He dropped his head for a second. Dying like this might have been less mortifying than being caught like this.
Not seeing any way past it, he crawled back down the trellis and hopped to the ground, surreptitiously wiping his hands on his pants legs before turning to speak to the small woman behind him.
He hadn’t seen Tani since the night he’d rushed into his father’s office to try to stop her from signing away the business. She’d been pale then, her eyes vacant, the skin below them bruised. She’d looked right through him.
She seemed smaller now, more fragile, and not only because of the cane she was leaning on. She’d always dressed in fashionably expensive dresses, but today she wore soft pink pajamas, tennis shoes on her feet.
Losing her hadn’t created the hole in his life losing Paul or Livvy had, but it had been a loss nonetheless.
He straightened and met her dark gaze. “Hello, Tani.”
“Nicholas.” She shifted her weight. “One would think you would have learned to use a doorbell in the past ten years.”
“Uh.”
“It’s been at least that long since I’ve seen you creeping into my daughter’s room.”
Busted. Busted from years ago, it seemed. Nicholas’s smile was more of a grimace. “Uh.”
Tani’s lips curved, but her eyes were pitiless. “Each generation thinks it’s far more clever than the generation before it, doesn’t it?”
He tucked his hands in his pockets, trying not to feel like a chastened nineteen-year-old caught by his girlfriend’s parent. “I’m sorry, Tani.”
