Page 69 of The Nanny and the Nerd
“I got an email from Boomer,” Penelope said in a tumble of words, then did the lip bite thing.
Was she nervous, too?
No, he couldn’t go there. His posture stiffened. “You actually checked your Gale email?”
He didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. It just shocked the hell out of him.
Irritation flashed in her eyes. “I’m not completely tech illiterate.”
“But that flip phone,” he mumbled, then felt a familiar jabbing sensation.
Penelope poked him—and he’d be a liar if he said his stupid heart didn’t skip a beat like a preteen girl attending her first boy band concert.
God! He was screwed!
“Hey, enough about the phone,” she chided, but there was a tinge of mischief in her sable eyes. “And the email from Boomer was pretty long. There’s a lot to do, and Boomer asked if we could work together tonight to shore up the dialogue. He said that you have the final say, and the sooner he gets your approval, the sooner—”
“Yes!” he blurted, cutting her off like a complete asshat.
Penelope startled.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I agree…with Boomer. We should work on it tonight—all night if we have to—on the dialogue. Words that the characters say to one another. There’s no time to lose.”
He cringed, then waited for her response. She stared at him, but she hadn’t run off or slapped him in the face. That had to be a good sign that at least part of the verbal vomit that had spewed out of his mouth made sense.
“How about after I put Phoebe down for bed?” she offered.
He held her gaze—that gorgeous sable gaze that had haunted him all week. “It’s a date.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not a date. It’s work. It’s a work date.”
Shit!
Darla honked the horn, and he and Penelope gasped in unison, the sound pulling him from drowning in the depths of Penelope’s gaze. He took a step back and waved to his mother and Darla as Phoebe called out her goodbyes.
He caught the nanny in his peripheral view as she pressed her hand to her chest and released an audible breath. Jesus! He had to figure out a way to stop this from happening. But before he could brainstorm a way to turn off the nanny tractor beam, his niece turned to them and dusted off her hands. “It’s just the three of us now. This is going to be so much fun,” she exclaimed, then skipped inside.
Penelope’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I better go get Phoebe ready for her bath,” she said, finally finding her voice.
“Yeah, I’ll get ready for our date.” He took another step backward. “Our work date. Our work session.”
He wanted to punch himself in the mouth. The next app he designed would come with a pair of sensors that would physically shock him when he sounded like a complete moron.
“I’ll be ready,” she answered over her shoulder, following his niece into the house.
The sound of Phoebe’s voice tapered off as he closed the door and rested his head against the cool surface. It was as if he’d lived a hundred years in the space of a day! But he couldn’t let his guard down. He couldn’t get caught up in this woman, no matter how damned alluring she was.
He had to be ready to work. The question was, could he pull his frazzled ass together?
And the answer?
He had no choice. The answer had to be yes.
He had to get his head back into the game and remember what mattered.
And that was the success of AI-77.
Period.
His reputation was riding on it. He could not fail. He could not let the ghosts of his past know they’d gotten the better of him.
