“Touché,” she said calmly, then gestured to Casey and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Joanna Simone. You must be?”
His ex-wife stood there waiting for an answer from Casey, and that made his blood boil. But Casey was classy, always classy, and she took her hand, saying, “Casey. I’m Nate’s friend.”
Joanna turned her focus back to Nate, tapping her toe. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but might you have it?”
Nate winced. He honestly didn’t know, but he was pretty sure he’d packed it up and stuffed it into the back of a closet somewhere. “I’m not sure,” he muttered.
“I’m happy to pay you for it. I certainly don’t expect you to simply hand it over.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s really amazingly generous of you to offer to pay me back for a wedding present, but I don’t need your money, and you know what? I don’t want those stupid hands,” he said, spitting out the insult, hoping it stung. But the presence of Casey, mere inches from him, was the only thing that made him smooth out the next few words so they weren’t filled with the vitriol inside him. He didn’t want her to know that he still harbored this kind of anger towards his ex-wife. “But I’ll check, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you,” Joanna said on a nod. “I’m ever grateful. If you have it, I would really like to get it by next week. If that’s doable.”
Casey stepped in. “We’ll get back to you. Thank you for stopping by. We have a plane to catch,” she said, then she wrapped her hand protectively around his arm, and the way she touched him made all his anger dissipate. It was like a pin deflating a balloon, and all he felt now was some kind of calm, some kind of peace.
They walked into his building quietly. Once they stepped into the elevator, he pressed the button for the top floor, leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Her warm body pressed against his. It wasn’t sexual, and it wasn’t the start of something. It was simply comforting, and he needed it, so he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head.
“I’m sorry you had to see her,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he said. “But I’m glad you were here.”
“Do you want me to look for that sculpture? So you don’t have to? I can be the one to return it to her.”
He pulled back momentarily. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. Unless you want to drop it from a window and smash it on the sidewalk. I’m completely fine with that too.”
He grinned briefly. Only Casey could do this for him. Take him in all these directions. Take him through lust and passion, through business and babies, and then from rage to laughter in mere seconds. He didn’t deserve her, but oh, how he wanted to give her what she needed from a man.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Over the Atlantic . . .
Maybe Kat was right, because the spell Joanna had worked on Nate still seemed to be going strong. He was quiet most of the flight, chatting only briefly with her and with a few of his employees who were sharing the plane. He also slept across most of the Atlantic, and so did she. But they were both awake now and he was more subdued than usual, bordering on sullen. She certainly didn’t expect him to be a barrel of monkeys, or to be flirtatious with her in front of everyone, but she knew that he wasn’t himself, and that he hadn’t quite yet emerged from his Joanna funk. He’d been nose-down in his laptop for the last hour as the sun rose across the Atlantic.
His frown was like a cut in her skin. It burned, and she wanted the cure. She wanted to seal off the pain, and feel good again. That was wholly selfish, she knew, but there it was. More so, her heart lurched towards him, and she desperately wanted to ease his mind, to be the one to take him away from this sadness his ex-wife had draped over him. She could be that person, right? She knew this man, and she knew him even better now that they’d been spending these nights together. She could be his Sherpa and guide him up and over this mountain of gloom.
There was one surefire way.
She took out her iPad and opened her email. A note popped up. Crap. Ethan at Victoria Hotels had emailed her the other week and she’d meant to respond, but then was sidetracked, so she’d flagged the note as important. With it blaring in her face now, she skimmed the contents: Idea for partnership . . . would love to discuss . . . proposal attached. She banged out a quick reply simply so she wouldn’t have to keep reminding herself: Promise to look at this in detail shortly! Thanks for thinking of us. More soon.
Then, she started a new email. Her fingers hovered over the keypad as she screwed up the corner of her lips, trying to figure out where to start. Something dirty. But something funny too. That was a hard combo for Nate to resist.
from: [email protected]
date: June 20, 8:12 AM
subject: Dirty Jokes
Knock, knock . . .
Crossing her legs, she peered at him over the top of her iPad, waiting for the moment when he opened his email. He sat across from her, the oak table between them, his COO a few seats over, and a pair of his VPs still sound asleep in their chairs a couple rows near the back. In the meantime, she clicked open a browser window to look up the open hours for a popular London attraction. A minute later, he raised his eyes briefly at her. A new email landed in her inbox.
from: