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“Here’s what you’re going to do…Dani,” he said after looking at her tag. “You’re going to serve my fiancée on hands and knees like your life depends on it, and you’re going to get her anything she wants and make sure she likes it. Maybe then I won’t get you fired. Or buy this entire store and get all your little snickering friends fired, too, just for the heck of it.”
My eyes widened. He wouldn’t…but then, this was Nick we were talking about. He totally would.
I felt conflicted. I wasn’t the type to enjoy a scene like this, but I appreciated that he was defending me. I’d never had anyone fight for me like that.
“Yes, sir.” The attendant nodded immediately. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” She nodded at me, too, before she scurried off.
Nick was still eyeing her with an annoyed look after she left.
“Pick whatever you want,” he muttered when he finally turned back to me. “We’re going to buy up this whole store just for the heck of it.”
“Hey,” I said, dragging his eyes back to me.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I still don’t forgive you.”
He was confused for a second, and then he gave me a funny look. “I didn’t do it for you to forgive me. I did it because no one gets to talk to you like that. Ever.”
“Oh…well, thanks,” I muttered with a small smile. He smiled back, and it felt like we’d established a truce.
But I had no idea how to feel about it.
EIGHTEEN
NICK
Lisa’s hand kept moving restlessly on her lap as I drove. We were currently on a winding highway leading deeper into the countryside. We’d been driving for an hour already, and while Violet had quickly passed out in her seat, her mother was a bundle of nerves.
“Relax,” I told her. “Simon is an excellent babysitter for the puppy.”
“It isn’t that,” she said, although I’d noticed she’d been a little reluctant to hand the puppy over to my assistant. I guessed it was his permanent stoic expression that scared people, but the truth was that Simon was a big animal lover. He had a few bigger dogs in his home, all perfectly trained, a parakeet, a few cats, and even a chipmunk. The man loved animals more than humans, and I swear he would turn his entire home into a zoo if we let him.
“I’m not worried about Gary,” she said, and I cringed.
“Seriously, we’re going with that name?”
“Violet chose it,” she said noncommittally, and I sighed, figuring I could live with having a pet dog named Gary.
“So what’s worrying your pretty little head then?” I asked instead.
“It’s your aunt,” she admitted after a few seconds of contemplation. I saw the anxiety in her eyes when I turned my head and glanced at her. “I mean, it’s my first time meeting her. It’s normal to be nervous and think about a lot of things.”
“Like what?” I prompted.
“Like, what if she doesn’t like me?”
I couldn’t help it then. I burst into laughter. “You’re kidding, right?” I glanced at her downcast expression, and it made me laugh again as I shook my head. “Why on earth wouldn’t she like you?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe she thinks you can do better. You’re a hotshot billionaire, after all, and I’m just the girl you knocked up back in high school. I mean, I know this relationship isn’t real or anything, but I don’t feel like putting up with passive-aggressive comments all night. As silly as my worries might sound to you.”
I stopped smiling then. The last part of her statement didn’t sit right with me, either because she described her worries as silly or because she said our relationship wasn’t real.
Probably the former because it would be unreasonable for me to dislike the latter since it was the truth.
“My aunt isn’t a snob,” I explained to her. “I know this might be hard to believe, looking at me now, but we didn’t exactly grow up rich. We were middle class, but at prep school, I might as well have been dirt poor. Either way, she doesn’t expect me to fall in love with a prima donna or heiress or anything. She just wants someone sweet, loving, and warm. And you tick all the boxes.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
