Page 2 of This Time I'm Keeping You
“Thank you, Mrs.Tanaka.I really enjoyed the signing.”At least, I did until he showed up.
“It was wonderful, Poppy.I’d love you to come back soon now.”
“I’d love to,” she said, forcing her lips into their last smile for the day.
Poppy left without looking for Nick Atherton, but she found him anyway, standing in the middle of the doorway she wanted to walk through.
“By the reaction you just gave me, Poppy, I’m guessing you’re still pissed with me for?—”
“You have that wrong, Atherton.I stopped feeling anything for you many years ago.Now move so I can leave,” she added through her teeth.
“It’s been years.Surely, you’ve forgiven me by now?”He tilted his head slightly to one side, and Poppy hated she remembered that was something he’d always done.“Of course, not that you told me at the time what had happened.”
She was absolutely not continuing this conversation.“Go away.I have no interest in rehashing those years, and I’m sure you must have a wife or girlfriend to pick on by now.Who, by the way, has my undying sympathy,” Poppy said, which quickly turned into a squeak as he pulled her laptop bag from her grasp.
“Give that back!”
“Relax, I’m just being a gentleman, Tinker Bell.You should be happy I know how.”
“Don’t call me that!”she snapped, trying to retrieve her bag.
Poppy felt the old frustration resurface as she looked up at Nicholas Atherton.Poppy’s corneas had once stored every detail of his appearance.
His face was made up with the same features that others had, but on him, they’d been put together to make a woman sigh.She’d classed him as sinfully handsome, especially when he smiled and there was that dimple in his left cheek.Now she just wanted to get as far away from him as she could.
He leaned closer, his eyes going to the simple gold chain around her neck.Poppy fought the urge to yelp and retreat.
“Where’s your bell?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Poppy said, buying time.She knew what he was referring to—the little bell necklace he’d given her.A birthday present, he’d said.She’d loved it so much and never taken it off, at least until the day she’d overheard him telling his friends why he spent time with her.
“Yes, you do.”
“Whatever.Now give me back my laptop.”
“It’s been years, Poppy.Surely you can spare a few minutes for an old friend,” he said, turning to walk through the door first and then holding it open for her to follow.
“I’m game for another fifty if you are.”She walked outside behind him.“And we are not friends and never were.Now give me my laptop bag, or I’ll call the police and have you arrested for stealing.”
Chapter2
Nick looked at the woman before him.Angry woman, he amended.
“Have coffee with me, Poppy.They do a really nice peppermint mocha at Brew Stop,” he said, heading down the street with her laptop bag slung over one shoulder.“We’re both older and wiser now.We can be friends, surely?”
“No!Damn you, Atherton, come back here!”
Ignoring her, he kept walking.
As soon as he heard that Poppy Sylvester was here in Brook signing her latest book, he hadn’t been able to put the thought of seeing her again out of his head.She was one of the few regrets he had in life.Not her, or the time he’d spent with her, but how things had ended between them.
Last night, he’d stayed up to finish her book.Nick had tried to visualize the sweet, slightly awkward girl he’d known writing a thriller and come up short.He’d enjoyed it, but still it had surprised him Poppy had written it.
She’d been smiling at someone when he arrived today, and he saw the girl she had been in the face of the woman that Poppy Sylvester now was, but there was no doubting the lanky, shy college kid had gone.
Her blond curls were piled high in a big clip.Reaching his nose, Poppy was short even in heels, curvy, and every inch a woman.She wore a blue dress that crossed between her lovely breasts and caressed and hugged where, in his opinion, it should caress and hug.
“Bet those are a killer to run in,” he said, looking down at her sexy, ridiculously high red heels as she tried to keep up with him.“A nice change from the grunge look you had going on in college.”
