Nicholas. Coordinates and a time, eleven o’clock.
His texts had come so often she’d stopped counting them, but she couldn’t stop treasuring them. She ran her fingers over the numbers before checking her watch. She had plenty of time to eatdinner in front of the blaring television and try to engage her mother in conversation before she headed off.
The awful guilt threatened, and she pushed it aside. Nope. While what she was doing with Nicholas wasn’t totally risk-free, he’d been right: it was far healthier than anything she’d done with the man in a decade.
She didn’t realize she had a goofy smile on her face until it widened when she got another text.
Wear something nice.
Chapter 17
BEAUTIFUL.
Such a trite, overused word. Nicholas wished he could come up with something that better described the punch-to-the-gut feeling he got when he saw Livvy.
Nicholas leaned against a pillar. Livvy appeared utterly at home at the bar of the swanky hotel. She was wearing a red dress, short and strapless, with polka dots on it. A white petticoat was visible under the hem. Her hair was styled in some utterly complicated old-fashioned pouf that matched her pinup-girl dress. On another woman the outfit might have looked sweet and girlish, but she’d paired it with high-heeled wedges that had straps crisscrossing her ankles and calves. The vine on her shoulder peeked out from under the strands of her hair. The dragon was barely visible on the back of her calf, under the skirt, a flash of curling tail.
They’d had sex with the lights on now a couple of times, but he hadn’t spent nearly long enough inspecting and licking every spot of ink on her. Hedidn’t know if there was a point where he’d be satisfied.
For the first time in his life, he’d consciously stopped trying to compartmentalize his personal life from his work and family, and it was an amazing experience. Yes, nothing was as orderly as he was used to. Yes, he’d had to rely on his staff more. Yes, sometimes he zoned out during business meetings since half his attention was focused on how many hours it would take to see her, text her, talk to her again.
But he was happy.
Of course, he could see the problems looming ahead of them. He was growing more and more certain about his feelings for her; she was understandably skittish as hell. But for once he was living in the present, not the past or the future. He was living for himself, Nicholas the Man, not Nicholas the Son or Nicholas the Brother or Nicholas the CEO.
A man sitting next to Livvy at the bar edged closer, turning his head as if he were contemplating talking to her, and Nicholas stifled the growl in his chest. He walked closer, until he could wedge in between the two of them to lean on the bar. “Hello there,” he said quietly.
Livvy glanced his way, amusement dancing in her dark eyes. The dim chandelier lighting in the room caressed her golden skin. “Hello.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Livvy tapped her martini glass. “I have a drink. Can I buy you one?”
“I’d like that.”
“What will you have?”
“Scotch.”
She caught the bartender’s eye and waved him over to place his order. They didn’t speak until after the bartender poured his drink and moved away. The scotch was smoky and delicate, settling over his tongue and throat. “My name’s Nicholas.”
He could tell by the way her mouth puckered that she was biting her cheek. “Olivia.”
“You don’t look like an Olivia.”
“You don’t look like a Nicholas.”
He shrugged. “Call me whatever you like, then.”
“I’ll do that, Nico.”
She’d been sighing that in his ear for the past week. Those two syllables filled him with an unmatched sense of delight. “That’ll do, Livvy.”
She swiveled on her stool. “So, what brings you here tonight?”
“I’m looking for something.”
“What?”
