Page 69 of Faith

Had he stepped closer? She wasn’t sure, but she always felt off balance with him. Alfie was harmless, yet he always struck her as a user. If he thought she could do something for him, Nicola was sure he would be even nicer to her. That told her he wasn’t a good study of human behavior. She never hid the fact of how she felt about users.

“So, how about dinner?”

She shook her head and tried to give him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, I can’t.”

“Jensen can’t have you working at night.”

“Of course not. Besides, I had the day off. I already have plans.”

She hoped that would be enough to discourage him. He had never shown much interest in her throughout the years. Still, she always thought he saw her as some kind of glorified secretary. Their last exchange had been him ordering her to get him coffee, and her ignoring him. Which begged the question, why the interest now?

“Shame. Maybe later this week? That is if the Johnson family doesn’t call us back to Maui to discuss the deal again.”

“Maybe. Why not text me and we’ll try and set something up?”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Instead, it chilled her blood. “Sounds like a great idea. Thanks, Nicola.”

At that point, he did something completely out of character for him. He leaned in for a kiss, but she turned her head and took it on her cheek. When he pulled back, she thought she saw a flash of anger, but it vanished so quickly, she was sure she was mistaken.

“Talk to you soon,” she said, doing her best to move away from him.

“You can count on it.”

She said nothing else as she walked away from him. As she did, her phone buzzed. She saw Serenity’s face on the screen and clicked it on to answer.

“Hey, you. What’s up?” she asked.

“Nothing much, but I just had a strange visitor.”

“That makes two of us,” she said.

“You’ll never guess who just left.”

“Bruno Mars.”

“Why would you pick him?”

“He’s from Hawaii.”

“Good Lord. No. Jensen.”

She stopped walking, and the woman behind her ran right into her. Nicola almost fell over from the hit and the rude woman, who had to be a tourist from the sunburn and the attitude, sniffed in her direction. Nicola ignored her.

“What?”

“Yes, your boss and lover Jensen Wulf showed up here.”

She blinked. “He just showed up?”

“Yes.”

She massaged her temple. “He was here too.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was having lunch with Jeff and Ben, he was in the restaurant spying on me.”

“What? Oh. My. Gawd. This gets more and more interesting. What happened?”

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