CHAPTER TWELVE
Nova wrapped both hands around the cold beer bottle as she sat alone in the corner of the hotel bar and restaurant, staring down at the half-destroyed plate of nachos in front of her.
A drink and her favorite snack would normally have been enough to improve her mood at least a little, but tonight, even chips, melted cheese, and beer weren’t cutting it.
The only positive was that she was caught up on work.
After leaving the team earlier, she had locked herself in her hotel room for nearly three hours, finishing everything Mr. Silverman needed before she headed offshore tomorrow.
So, if the world decided to implode while she was stranded on an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf, at least her client wouldn’t be able to say she had left loose ends behind.
Unfortunately, her personal life was an entirely different story.
Her conversation with Sophia earlier kept replaying in her mind.
“This has Dad and Rick’s father written all over it,” her sister had said without hesitation. Nova had agreed. The entire thing felt too calculated and too convenient.
While Nova had a mini meltdown on the phone with her sister, Sophia had tried to calm her down.
“Don’t stress yourself out over it tonight,” she had told her. “If there’s no engagement announcement, people will eventually start asking questions. Then that will be their mess to explain, not yours.”
Nova wished it were that easy. But knowing who she was dealing with, the situation would be anything but easy.
She had just reached for another nacho when a shadow fell over the table. She looked up and nearly choked on her own breath when she saw Snow standing there.
◆◆◆
Snow walked through the sliding glass doors of the hotel, laughing as he read his mom’s latest text.
“What’s so funny?” Nails asked.
“My mom. I finally told her the real reason why Yvette and I broke up all those years ago. Now she can’t stop feeling bad.
” He held up his phone and showed him the text.
“I can’t believe I defended that girl. I even blamed you!
You know how hard it is for a mother to admit she was wrong? She owes me an apology too.”
Nails barked out a laugh. “Your mom apologized to you because your ex cheated on you?”
“Apparently.” Snow slipped his phone into his pocket. “She also informed me she’s removing Yvette from every family photo in her house.”
Bear grinned. “Your mom knows Photoshop?”
“No,” Snow deadpanned. “She owns scissors.”
“Remind me not to piss your mom off,” Aussie joked.
“Well, if Yvette doesn’t stop calling, I’m afraid that my mom is going to do more than just remove her from photos.”
“She’s still calling? Even after you told her to move on?”
“Yup. But I just ignore the calls.”
He wanted to laugh at himself. He had spent years learning how to de-escalate dangerous situations. Unfortunately, nobody had ever taught him how to de-escalate an ex-girlfriend who resurfaced with what seemed to be professional-grade stalking capabilities.
He ran his hand through his hair out of frustration. Christ, he really didn’t need to be dealing with this crap. He had enough on his plate at the moment.
“Come on, man, it isn’t that bad,” Nails joked.
Snow just glared at him. Yeah, it was easy for him to say that because he wasn’t having to deal with that type of crap anymore. He had Riley now.
Tomorrow he would begin a mission that already had enough unknowns attached to it. The last thing he needed to deal with was an ex-girlfriend who suddenly resurfaced after years of silence and didn’t understand what the phrase “move on” meant.
Then there was the situation with Nova. Just thinking her name made his jaw tighten.
His feelings for her were becoming increasingly complicated, and he didn’t like it.
The smart move would be to keep things professional and maintain some distance between them.
End of story. But the problem was that somewhere between laying eyes on her on the plane and the present, she had managed to get under his skin.
He barely knew anything about her, yet he found himself wanting to know more.
It was a dangerous train of thought, one he had no business entertaining.
Still, after spending the last day fighting the assignment, he had finally accepted that Nova wasn’t going anywhere.
And whether he liked it or not, they were partners on this operation, and he needed to quit wasting energy resisting it and focus on the mission ahead.
A sharp elbow nudged him in the ribs, dragging him from his thoughts.
“Is that Nova?” Playboy asked.
Snow looked toward the restaurant and immediately spotted her sitting alone in a small two-seater booth tucked near the back wall.
His gaze lingered on her for a moment longer than it probably should have.
He could tell something was off with her.
She looked tired. Actually, she looked more than tired.
There was a heaviness about her that hadn’t been there earlier, as if the weight of something was pressing down on her shoulders.
The usual spark he had come to associate with her seemed dimmed tonight.
His thoughts drifted back to earlier, as they were finishing up for the day.
She had received a text, and when she looked at it, her expression had completely changed.
But the moment Derek asked her if everything was okay, she masked it, brushing it off with a smile and telling them that everything was fine.
Though he and the rest of the team all called bullshit.
Whatever was in that text had upset her, and judging by the way she was sitting alone now, looking like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, it was still bothering her.
The question was why. And for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he found himself wanting to know.
“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later,” he muttered.
The team followed his line of sight toward the restaurant, and several smirks appeared instantly.
“Don’t,” Snow warned, pointing a finger at them before anyone could open their mouth.
Nails held up his hands in mock defense. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Okay, fair.”
Snow rolled his eyes.
“I’m just saying, for a guy who says she’s a distraction, you seem to be very invested in her.”
Okay, he wasn’t entirely wrong. But he wasn’t about to admit it. He looked back into the restaurant.
“See?” Nails said.
Snow groaned. “See what?”
“The look.”
Snow slowly turned his head.
Nails grinned. “You know, the one that says you’re about to walk over there despite everything you just told us.”
Snow stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. Then he turned and headed toward the restaurant anyway.
The explosion of laughter behind him followed him all the way to the door.
“Jesus Christ,” Snow muttered under his breath as the guys disappeared toward the elevators, still chuckling like idiots.
Nova was reaching for a nacho when she looked up just as he stopped beside the table, and genuine surprise crossed her face when she realized who it was.
“Oh, it’s you.” She stuffed the overloaded chip in her mouth as she looked at him.
Snow wanted to laugh. There was something about the way she looked at him that always seemed to hit him square in the chest.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked, gesturing to the seat across from her.
She lifted one of her perfectly arched brows as she finished chewing. Then she took a sip of her beer.
“You want to sit down…here…with me? Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk with you.”
“About what?”
Snow rubbed the back of his neck. Christ, she was making him work for it. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
Nova raised an eyebrow. “The wrong foot? I think we skipped the wrong foot and went straight to a face-plant.”
Snow stared at her for a second before a reluctant chuckle escaped him. He had walked right into that one.
“Okay, that’s probably a more accurate assessment.”
To his surprise, the corner of Nova’s mouth twitched upward, and she waved toward the seat across from her. “Have a seat.”
Snow slid into the booth across from her and rested his forearms on the table, suddenly feeling like a complete ass for how cold he had been toward her.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked, scooping up another nacho and popping it in her mouth.
Snow opened his mouth, fully intending to launch into the apology he had just conjured up when he walked in here. Instead, his brain completely abandoned the mission when he watched her take a bite of that nacho.
Why the hell was watching her eat a nacho causing his brain to malfunction?
He watched as she chewed, completely oblivious to the fact that she was short-circuiting the thought process of a man trained to operate in high-stress combat environments.
It wasn’t even a particularly sexy thing.
She was eating loaded nachos. There was gooey cheese, meat, and jalapenos involved.
Yet somehow she managed to make it look adorable.
Snow immediately hated that word. He was a Navy SEAL. He jumped out of aircraft and carried enough weapons to invade a small country. He should not be sitting here describing a woman eating nachos as adorable.
“Snow?”
Her voice snapped him back to reality.
“Huh?”
“You were saying?” she stated, looking amused.
Right, the apology. The reason he had walked over here in the first place. Not the nachos. Definitely not the nachos.
Snow cleared his throat and dragged his attention back where it belonged.
“Right. Sorry about that. My mind was elsewhere.”
Nova arched an eyebrow. “Judging by the look on your face, that sounds dangerous.”
The worst part was she wasn’t wrong. It was very dangerous. Not because of the mission. But because every minute he spent around her seemed to make him like her a little more, and he was running out of excuses for why that was a bad idea.
Fuck, he needed to get his head out of the clouds.
Taking a deep breath, he looked at her. “I want to say that I’m sorry for being an ass.”