CHAPTER ELEVEN
NASH
“Sir, can I get you anything while you wait?” A demure server spoke to me in hushed tones as she refilled my ice water from a chilled carafe.
“No, thank you. My girlfriend is almost here, and we’ll order together.” I flashed her a quick smile, noting how the word rolled off my lips a little easier now. Still felt weird as hell to say, but here in Axis, the performance was on.
Axis was the restaurant I’d chosen for today’s lunch date with Clara.
The place buzzed with its usual lunch crowd—city council members conducting business over spritzers, society wives planning their next charity function, the odd celebrity, too, if you looked hard enough—and it was the place for us to be seen as a regular couple.
I adjusted my cufflinks as I waited for Clara at the table for two, scanning the entrance for any sign of her.
When she appeared at the hostess stand, I felt that familiar punch of attraction hit me square in the chest. The emerald green blouse I'd had delivered that morning fit her perfectly—sophisticated but approachable, exactly the image we needed to project.
When she spotted me and smiled, something warm unfurled in my chest.
"I'm so sorry I'm late," she said as she reached the table. I stood to pull out her chair, my hand briefly touching her shoulder as she settled in. "I had a phone meeting with a university admissions office, and it ran a lot longer than I planned."
"Which one?" I asked, genuinely surprised. The hostess had seated us at a corner table with a clear view of the restaurant's interior garden—living walls of greenery that I noticed Clara's eyes immediately gravitated toward.
"An online university," she said, color rising in her cheeks. "When I got pregnant with Mia, I kind of postponed my plans to continue my education. Never thought I'd be able to go back, but now..." She gestured vaguely, and I knew she meant the money I was providing.
"What program are you thinking of?"
She went coy. "Guess.”
“Green space planning?” I couldn’t fight the smile when I saw how excited she got.
“Of course my boyfriend knows that,” she said with a wink. “It is something I always wanted to pursue. I just want to have my ducks in a row for when…” she gestured at the air between us. “You know.”
“When will you start?”
“Hopefully fall semester,” she said. “But it turns out they want me to submit a portfolio with my application and I…don’t have that.”
“A portfolio of what?”
“Some existing properties in the city and what I would do to enhance or modify the green space approach,” she said before nodding. “So…I guess I have homework already.”
“That should be a piece of cake for you.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been out of school for so long, maybe I forgot how to do it.”
A server came to take our drink orders. Then we fell into comfortable conversation about city planning, which segued into re-entering college life as an adult, and eventually, comparing notes on our own college experiences. She’d gone to NYU, I’d gone to Ohio State University.
“I always forget you’re an Ohio boy,” she said, swirling her straw around her ice water. “You play the New Yorker part so well now.”
“I had to adapt quickly here.” I reached across the table, inviting her to put her hand in mine. When she did, I swiped my thumb back and forth over her knuckles. “They’ll eat you alive at the top.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said with a small laugh. “Or maybe I can. I feel like they’ll eat you alive anywhere.”
“That’s true,” I conceded with a laugh. “The world is hungry to consume.”
“How did you and Archer make it big?” Clara asked shyly. “You didn’t bring an inheritance from Ohio, you had no connections in New York…”
“Honestly? Big goals, a little bit of delusion, and a whole lotta luck brought us to this level.” I rearranged the silverware at my place setting as I thought about my next words.
“Archer studied engineering in college, and I studied business. We both dabbled in real estate as well. Then we built out our industry contacts through strategic internships and…the rest is history. And a lot of hard work.”
I glanced over Clara’s shoulder because something shiny had caught my eye. That’s when I spotted Haley Reeves sitting at a table in the middle of the grand salon, her phone discretely angled toward us.
"Uh oh,” I said in a low voice. “Don't look now, but Haley Reeves is here. Ten o'clock, brunette in the white blazer."
Clara's fingers tensed in mine, but she didn't turn around. "Is she watching us?"
"Oh, she's definitely watching us." I pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles while maintaining eye contact. "Which means we need to give her something to see."
Clara dipped her chin, a brow lifting imperceptibly. “Like what? Should we fuck on the table right here?”
A laugh burst out of me. I hadn’t expected that response. She giggled, biting her bottom lip.
“We don’t want to make those headlines,” I chided playfully before kissing her hand again. I slid my chair closer to Clara's side of the table, close enough that our legs touched under the white tablecloth. My hand found her thigh, resting possessively just above her knee.
"Just two canoodling love birds over here," Clara said softly, but I could hear the breathiness in her voice.
"That’s right," I murmured, my thumb tracing small circles on her leg. "We're madly in love, aren’t we?"
Her cheeks flushed pink, and she let out a small laugh. "That’s what they’ll say."
The server reappeared then, ready to take our lunch orders. Clara cleared her throat, pressing a hand to her chest as she quickly reviewed the menu. “I’m sorry. I’m not even ready. I was so distracted by this handsome man.”
I chuckled, giving her thigh a healthy squeeze as she inspected the menu.
“Would you like to order, sir?” the server asked me.
The question jostled me out of my Clara-gazing. I blinked, trying to remember what I’d decided on. “I’ll take the hanger steak,” I said. “Medium.”
“And for you, Miss?” The server looked over at Clara.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Clara admitted with a laugh. I could tell she was flustered by the options. Or maybe it was our nearness, the same way I was distracted by the feel of my palm sizzling over the thin fabric of her pants.
“You like fish, right?” I asked in a low voice. Clara nodded.
“She’ll have the tilefish,” I supplied for the server, winking at Clara. I gathered up our menus and handed them off, then returned my focus to where I most wanted to have it.
On Clara.
“So where were we?”
“Bordering on too much PDA for this fine establishment,” Clara cracked, reaching for her water glass.
“That’s the Nash Nightingale way,” I replied smoothly, searching out her gaze.
“I can imagine.” Her throat bobbed as she drank, and she set the glass down with a big exhale. “It’s hot in here.”
“Am I making you nervous?” It was then that I realized my hand had gravitated back toward her thigh. Oops. It felt so terribly at home there.
“No, no.” She waved off my concerns, leaning back and cozying up to me. “This is what we do, right? Just sit here and act cuddly and wait for something called tilefish.”
I caught her scent, something light and floral that I'd been thinking about since our dinner at her apartment. "You're so beautiful, Clara."
I hadn’t meant to say it; the thought had just erupted. Because it was true. And I’d felt this way since the second she sauntered into that hotel bar four years ago, posing as a CEO.
"Nash," she said quietly, "she can't hear us from over there. We’re not wire-tapped. You don't have to go so over the top."
Her gentle admonishment helped me click back into reality. She was right. Even though she was wrong. The truth was, I hadn’t been performing. But maybe it was better if she didn’t know that.
I decided to change the subject, putting some distance between us while we chatted about anything innocuous that I could find. She was too easy to fall into, and something about her felt deliciously soft and familiar.
Our food arrived, and anything that came before was forgotten.
Clara’s eyes lit up when she saw the big white bowl come out loaded with tilefish, royal red shrimp, and carrot-coconut sauce.
Once she finished oohing and aahing over her plate, her gaze moved to my tender cuts of seared steak, topped with shallot sauce and paired with roasted Romanesco broccoli and parsnips.
Our meals disappeared in a blur of laughter, commentary, and sharing bites of our dishes. Lunch was fucking delightful. Once our plates were cleared and we were gazing at each other like we’d known each other for decades, a movement across the room caught my eye.
Haley Reeves.
"She's getting ready to leave," I murmured as Haley signaled for her check. An idea formed, urging me to push the envelope a bit. “And I think it’s time for us to leave too.”
“Don’t we have to pay?” Clara asked quietly.
“I have an account here,” I said with a wink.
I stood, offering Clara my hand. We made our way toward the restaurant's entrance, timing it so we'd reach the foyer just as Haley was finishing up with her bill.
The space was partially secluded, with decorative plants creating intimate alcoves.
I slowed, turning toward Clara with a grin.
“What is it?” she asked slowly. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“I just think we should take a time-out,” I said, fingering the wisp of hair that framed her face. She drifted closer to me until our bodies came together. She tipped her head back, searching my face.
“Just a moment to digest after lunch before all the physical exertion of sitting in a car?” she joked.
I cupped her face in my hands. Jesus, this woman was beautiful. She was even more gorgeous up close, where I could see the flecks of amber in her eyes, the tiny laugh lines around her eyes, the natural ruddiness of her high cheeks. My gaze dropped to her full lips, and I ran my thumb across them.
“Jesus, Nash,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering shut.