“Shit,” he laughs, running his hand through his hair. “They must have forgotten to stock the liquor back here.” As he talks, he strides back over the glass floor, toward the door we came in. “No worries. I saw a bottle of champagne upstairs.”
But when he turns the handle on the door, it doesn’t budge. I stand, stock still in my designer dress and pearls, watching as he frowns, tries the handle again, and lifts his shiny gold watch to a pad on the door. It beeps, the light flashing green, but when Nico pulls on the door once more, nothing happens.
He tries it again, and again, but it stays stubbornly shut.
For the third time, I’m stuck and alone with one of my three bosses.
Chapter 20
Lucy
“This isn’t real,” I mutter. “This cannot be real.”
“No worries,” Nico insists, and I get the sense that he’s acting calm more for my sake than his own. “Should be fixed in a jiffy, this is just a fluke.”
Of course it’s stuck. Either this is an elaborate ruse all of them like to pull, or I’m hitting a particular streak of bad luck. Or is itgoodluck?
A slightly maniacal laugh bubbles up from my throat, and I don’t even bother trying the handle myself. “We’restuck?”
Turning to me, Nico studies me for a moment before holding his palms up, jaw ticking in concern. “Lucy, I can see what this looks like. I swear to you that I would never pull a stunt like this. Wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Are you okay? Need some water?”
“I’m okay,” I insist, still laughing. Maybe it’s the few sips of champagne I had earlier, or the general silliness of this happening for a third time, but I’m emboldened to put a hand on his arm. “Seriously, I know you didn’t do this. If you did, you would have made sure the liquor cart was stocked.”
He pauses, giving me a—what? Impressed or surprised look? Then, he laughs, and his eyes flick down to where my hand is on his skin for a fraction of a second.
“This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to you,” he muses, looking back up at me, and I can see the gears turning in his head. Somehow, I managed to forget the fact that he’d been teasing me earlier about being with Dane.
I didn’t tell him, and IknowDane didn’t, so Nico must have figured it out himself. Which feels dangerous—to let him look at me like this, knowing what he might be able to figure out.
“When he was stuck in his plane,” Nico murmurs, his hand on his chin, eyes sparkling as he puts the pieces together. “You were with him. And let me guess… he was freaking out and trying to act like he wasn’t freaking out?”
“He’s claustrophobic,” I say, crossing my arms, realizing it comes off a touch too defensive the moment the words are out of my mouth.
“I know,” Nico hums, grinning, his gaze flying over my face, “and I bet he needed some comforting, huh? This is what happened with Dane, right?”
I think, but don’t say,And Cole.
Instead of giving myself the opportunity to say something stupid, I step back from him, reclaiming space. Being close to him is making my head feel frothy.
My silence must be all the confirmation he needs, because he lets out another laugh, stalks across the room, opens a small fridge, and pulls out two bottles of water. After handing one to me, he says, “Why, Lucy?”
“What do you mean?” My voice comes out rough, and I take a little sip of the water before sinking down onto one of the comfortable leather couches. They’re arranged to give a great view of the glass floor, and when I glance back down at it,another shiver runs the length of my spine, down my arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“Why Dane? Surely, you have your pick of strapping young men—why choose a decrepit old geezer?”
I want to correct him, to tell him that Dane most certainly isnot decrepit, but Nico knows that. He’s just trying to rope my goat, get me to show how much I’m already starting to care about Dane.
Instead of going down that path, I say, “I definitely don’t have my pick of men. I barely even know how to date.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, and for some reason, I hear myself going on, telling him more than I mean to, gesturing with the water bottle as I do.
“I had a boyfriend in high school. We did theater together. We never really had time to be alone, my parents were fanatics about that stuff. The one time we managed to get in the back of a car by ourselves… well, he wasn’t that interested. Not just in me, but in girls as a whole.”
“Your mistake was being with a guy from theater,” Nico jokes, running his hand through his hair again.
Ignoring that, I shrug, trying to be nonchalant about the whole thing, “When I got to college, I had too much going on to care about dating. College guys always felt so immature to me. And my friend…” I trail off, that familiar tightness settling in my throat like it does any time I think about Frankie.
Nico doesn’t push, but he sinks down into the couch opposite me, his expression shifting as he takes me in. It’s odd to have someone reading me so closely, adjusting to my moods. It must be a lot of work for him to constantly be doing it.
