Page 33 of Just My Luck

He shook his head, then he was quiet for a moment. “You know, one of the main reasons this”—he motioned between us—“was worrying me is the same reason Rick had to go to the board about his feelings toward Sofia.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

He leaned closer, until we were a breath away. “I’m your superior at work.”

“And?” I waited.

He rolled his eyes. “Appearances.”

I laughed. “We’ve known one another far longer than we’ve worked together.”

“Still.” He shrugged. “I know how the board⁠—”

“The board is made up of a bunch of your dad’s golfing buddies. Whom we’ve known forever. I bet you that they all have had bets on when we were going to get together for years.”

He nodded. “Okay, so you got me there.” Then he sighed as he sat back.

“Does that mean that you are finally over all your reasons we can’t work?” I asked, holding my breath.

His eyes focused on mine and he took entirely too long to answer. “For now,” he finally said.

Chapter 12

Jax

There were at least a dozen things I could think of blocking my and Nova’s relationship from moving forward. None of them had to do with working together.

Fear wasn’t something that normally held me back in life. When it came to Nova, however, fear always won out. Maybe because it mattered more than anything else in life?

Over the next few weeks, we continued to hide our relationship from everyone. At one point, I was pretty sure Nova had told Sofia. She had explained that she’d taken Sofia to lunch one day and had changed her mind when Sofia confided in her that my brother had suddenly pulled away from her. They’d spent the entire lunch talking about that failing relationship instead.

We had finally decided I would tell Rick, just to make things official with him and the board. I was going to tell my brother after work, but before I could meet with him, the snow had started. An hour before quitting time, Rick sent out an email telling everyone to go home due to the weather. I took it as a sign to skip the conversation.

Nova knocked on my office door and leaned against the frame. “Want to head up to your place and wait out the storm?”

I shut my computer down in record time.

We had just settled down in front of the fireplace, eating some leftover lasagna, when Rick called.

“I can’t get a hold of Sofia. I’m heading down to the brewery now to check on her.” He sounded worried.

“Want us to meet you there?” I suggested.

“No, I’ll… keep you posted,” he said and hung up.

“What’s wrong?” Nova leaned up to look at me.

“Rick can’t get ahold of Sofia,” I said, frowning at my phone. “He sounds worried.”

She shifted and pulled out her phone, calling her best friend. “It went to voicemail.” She sent a text.

I tried calling Rick back a half hour later, after Sofia had sent several more messages. We were just getting dressed in warmer clothes to head down there ourselves when he finally called me back and filled us in on how Sofia had been kidnapped by Leonard Whistler. He assured us that she was okay, but Nova demanded to talk to her.

When she got off the phone, she confirmed that her friend was in good hands and that she was going to be staying at Rick’s for the night.

“I really want to go and check up on her,” she said as we settled back down as the storm raged outside the windows. “But she was adamant that she didn’t even have a scratch on her.”

“I’m sure my brother is going to take really good care of her,” I added, pulling her back into my arms.