Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
“ W hat are you doing?”
Jamie quickly shifted the new laptop on her tray so that the monitor was now facing the airplane window.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
Nick frowned down at her. Even sitting down, he towered over her. She inwardly sighed, wondering when she was going to catch a break. Thankfully, and much to her surprise, first class seats really were spacious. All throughout her photoshoot and the meetings this morning, she’d feared being squished between Nick and some unknown person during the six-hour flight, but luckily for her, the airline had bumped them up to first class at the last minute. It probably had something to do with Nick flirting with the ticket woman.
She wondered if he would use that lovely little talent for the rest of their flights during their tour. It would definitely save her nerves. Not that she couldn’t handle sitting in coach. She could. The few times she’d flown were in coach and she’d survived.
No, her concern was being too close to Nick. He intimidated her and made her feel uncomfortable, which wasn’t exactly helping her to overcome being the world’s biggest pushover. Space was her friend. As long as she had that, she could breathe and think clearly. Well, sort of...
“If you’re not working, then I need the computer,” Nick said, sounding grumpy.
He hadn’t been happy when he’d discovered that she didn’t own a laptop. When she’d quietly suggested bringing her desktop with them, he’d glared at her. Just glared. For about a minute, she’d managed to hold back an apology for not owning a laptop. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Finally, she couldn’t hold it back any longer and apologized and promised to buy one as soon as possible.
He didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed on her, and she would swear to her dying day, that they’d looked calculating. It made her take a nervous step back. After another moment of making her squirm, which she really didn’t appreciate, he’d told her that they would share his laptop until he could find one that met his specifications for her.
She really didn’t understand why they couldn’t just pop into the nearest Walmart and pick one up and told him that. He just shook his head and told her that he’d handle it. That was fine with her. She really didn’t care and was more than happy to play around with this one.
For the first ten minutes, she’d played around with the laptop to see what it could do. Then, she’d felt kind of guilty about that, so she’d started editing John Bishop’s latest novel only to stop doing that ten minutes in because she wanted to see if it was her turn in an online Scrabble game. It was. Since then, she’d been kicking some cyber butt.
“Do you mind if I get some work done?” Nick asked so she passed the computer over, but not before she quickly closed the Scrabble window and erased the web browser’s history. No need to poke the bear, she mused.
Deciding this was probably the best time to use the bathroom, she stood up. “Excuse me,” Jamie said as she flattened herself against the back of the seat in front of her. There was more room in first class, but she liked to put as much space between herself and the man watching her with an amused expression as she could.
“Where are you going?” Nick asked, looking back at the screen.
“Bathroom.”
He nodded as though she’d asked for permission. She almost snorted. She might be a pushover, but she wasn’t that pathetic. She quickly made her way to the first-class lavatory and sighed when she spotted the “Occupied” sign. Deciding that it was better to wait here instead of in her seat, Jamie leaned back against the wall and prepared for the long wait ahead.
“Excuse me, is this the line for the bathroom?” a deeply masculine voice asked, drawing Jamie’s attention.
She looked over to answer the man and found herself speechless. He simply smiled at what was probably her impression of a dying goldfish while she tried not to drool. This man was GQ-level handsome, not as handsome as Nick or Edward Pierce, but close enough to turn her into a blubbering idiot, which she was seconds away from becoming.
He held out his hand expectantly. “Since it looks like we’re going to be line neighbors, I thought I should introduce myself. I’m Sean.”
Was this man flirting? Oh, he definitely was, judging by the glint in his eyes. Jamie barely stopped herself from looking behind her to search for the beautiful woman that obviously had his attention. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was flirting with her .
She forced herself to take a calming breath as she shook his hand. This was so unexpected. Men did not flirt with her.
They just didn’t.
“Jamie,” she said quickly when she realized that she was still holding his hand and staring at him like an idiot.
Oh, she so sucked at this! He probably thought that she was the biggest freak on earth. Any second now, he’d give her a polite smile and step back. Obviously, he couldn’t walk away completely. There were no other bathrooms available. The poor man was stuck in line with her. Even she felt bad for him. Why couldn’t-
“Is that your husband?” Sean asked, still holding her hand, she’d like to point out, as he nodded towards Nick who was now glaring down at his computer.
She laughed. She really couldn’t help it. The idea of Nick Quinn being interested in her was truly laughable.
“You have a very pretty laugh,” Sean said, giving her a boyish grin.
Jamie took her hand back and pushed an errant strand of hair back behind her ear. “Thank you.”
“So, I take it he’s not your husband,” Sean concluded, sounding pleased.
She was about to tell him that Nick was her agent but didn’t, mostly because she still wasn’t comfortable letting people know who she was. So instead, she said, “We work together.”
“Ah, I see,” Sean said, leaning in closely but not close enough to make her feel uncomfortable. “Is this your first time going to Boston?” he murmured in a rather sexy tone.
Jamie couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I’ve been meaning to go for years but never had a chance,” she said, thinking that she also never had anyone to go with or any reason to go. She had friends, but no one she really wanted to go on a trip with. Her eyes darted to Nick. She didn’t really want to do this with him either, but he was giving her an excuse to try something new. Also, having him around made her feel a little safer and more confident to take a chance.
“There are a lot of new experiences to be had,” Sean said as though he could read her mind. “In fact,” he said, leaning closer, “those experiences can start right now if you want. There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want.”
She was just about to open her mouth and ask what sort of new experiences could be had on an airplane when the bathroom door opened. Jamie was barely aware of the middle age man smiling sheepishly as he stepped past them, her mind was suddenly racing with ideas.
“Excuse me,” Jamie said absently as she stepped around Sean. “It was nice to meet you. Um, it’s all yours,” she said, gesturing awkwardly to the bathroom.
He simply shrugged. “I didn’t really have to use it. I just wanted an excuse to meet you.”
“Oh,” Jamie murmured shyly as she practically raced back to her seat, eager to start working on a list as ideas suddenly began racing through her head. Could she really do this? she wondered.
There was only one way to find out, Jamie thought as she quickly, but carefully, moved past Nick to get back to her seat. She sat down, looked at Nick, fidgeted and fidgeted some more as he typed. Finally, he let out an annoyed sigh.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a piece of paper and a pen handy, would you?” she asked quietly. She really did not like the idea of putting this down on paper, mostly because it was private, but there was also her tendency to lose things.
He sighed heavily before asking, “Do you need to work?”
She opened her mouth to tell him no, but then reconsidered it. “Yes, yes, I have to work,” Jamie lied.
“Fine,” Nick said, saving his work before passing over the laptop. “There’s a folder on the desktop with your name on it. I’d appreciate it if you kept everything you worked on in there.”
That would definitely make this easier, Jamie thought as she shifted in her seat so that he couldn’t see the screen. She opened a new Word document and quickly titled it, “Try New Things.”
Nick barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes when the little recluse shifted in her seat so that he couldn’t see what she was working on. As long as she worked, he really didn’t care what she was doing, and judging by her focused expression and fingers tapping away at a rather impressive pace, she was no doubt working on her next book.
A new book would be the perfect finishing touch to this tour. Granted, it would probably start a whole new tour, preferably a European tour, but he would deal with that later. He thought about asking her what her new book was about but decided that he’d ask in a couple of weeks. Right now, he needed to focus on getting her through this book tour in one piece.
In a few weeks, when everything settled down and his little recluse was firmly under his thumb, he’d start working on her new book with her. He knew getting her to do things his way was going to take some time, not much considering how easily she’d folded under a simple glare, but it was still something that needed to be done and quickly.
There was too much to do and not enough time to do it in to let the little recluse get in the way. He needed to be able to make last-minute decisions without having to worry about holding her hand. It would just make things easier if she left everything to him. All she needed to do was write, edit if it made her feel important, and show up and smile when and where he told her to, which he thought with a satisfied sigh, wasn’t going to be an issue anymore.
Four hours later, he knew that he had her exactly where he wanted her. From here on out, there weren’t going to be any problems. She accepted his word as law, which she should. In fact, if all women listened to him as well as his little recluse did, his world would be perfect.
He watched as she looked around the hotel foyer nervously. When her eyes landed on the Gold Ballroom’s bulletin board announcing the romance writer’s convention the following day with a special appearance by J.L. Lewis, he had to bite back a smile. The blush and look of surprise on her face was actually kind of cute, but it also let him know one very important thing.
Jamie was easily intimidated.
This was going to be so fucking easy. All he had to do was give her a little nudge every now and then, sprout bullshit in her ear and he’d have her doing everything he wanted.