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“Nicole?” André came closer.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room, taking in all the work that had been done since the last time she’d been there. She tried not to look at André but he was looming too large in front of her and she really couldn’t avoid it.
He was in jeans and a stained red t-shirt that was downright scandalous in the way it clung to every single muscle in his upper body—from his chest to his biceps. Work boots, gloves, sweaty hair pushed back from his forehead, fucking suspenders that only accentuated every curve of his pecs and shoulders.
He was speaking but she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“And who’s that guy?” she gestured to the other man in the lounge she didn’t recognize. This one was older, shorter, with dark complexion and black hair.
“Javier,” he introduced himself and then folded the knife in his hand. To André he said, “It looks like maple but we’d need to pull all the carpet to see what kind of shape it’s in.”
What carpet? This carpet?
She looked down at the floor beneath her and then back to André, then to Justin.
Justin had that perplexed look on his face that he used when he was getting ready to play stupid.
“Johnny!” she hollered, backing (slowly) toward the door. When she reached the hallway, she turned toward Studio Y and propelled her aching body as fast as it would go. “Johnny!”
He met her in the hall, his expression puzzled. When his eyes bounced over Nikki’s shoulder, she knew she’d been followed.
“What’shedoing here?” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.
Johnny frowned at her tone. “He’s here to do some measurements. I hadn’t decided on hiring him yet.”
She narrowed her gaze at her longtime friend and boss. “Uh, he ran me over last night. Or did you forget?”
Johnny opened his mouth, closed it, blinked a few times. “I was going to talk to you before making—”
“You think?” she cut him off.
“Nicole,” André said softly behind her. Like a warning.
But she was not amused.
“After the fit you threw whenyourex started working here, I’d think you’d be more sensitive—”
“Wait.” Johnny planted his hands on his hips. “Your ex?”
Nikki’s mouth was still open, but no sound came out. She pivoted in the hall so she could see both Johnny and André.
André shook his head at her. “I didn’t tell him.”
Nikki blinked and looked between the two men as her stomach curled in on itself.
Shit.
“Uh…” She blinked at André, then at Johnny. Purposely, she closed her mouth and shuffled back the way she’d come.
Was she running away?
Fuck yeah.
She just needed a minute to get her head together and find some more freaking Advil andthenshe’d deal with…whatever this was.
Except that neither man was about to let her go that easily.
She reached her office with Johnny right behind her, and André right behind him. Which wasn’t a surprise considering she was moving at the speed of a peg leg pirate in deep mud.
