Chapter One #4
Then again, he was offering to pay her a butt load of money, which would be amazing.
Especially right now. She could put some away, pad her and Em’s nest egg, and then sink the rest back into the business.
Janelle, her best friend and business partner, would appreciate that.
They’d only been open for a few months, and currently, Janelle’s massage clients were the ones keeping the doors open. It would be nice to contribute more.
Which brought to light one glaring question. “Why me? How on earth did I end up your first choice?” Was it possible he remembered her after all?
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away again.
Her stomach lurched, and then spiraled right into her shoes. “I wasn’t your first choice, was I?”
He looked at her, his mouth pulled down on one side, and shook his head.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. It wasn’t surprising. Sport Medicine and strength and conditioning were male-dominated fields, especially at the elite level. Didn’t take the sting out of finding out she was basically bottom on the barrel. “How many?”
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Alex—”
“How many, Nick? How many people have turned you down already?”
He waited a beat and then blew out a breath. “Seventeen.”
It probably would have hurt less if he’d grabbed the pen off her desk and stabbed her with it.
But she refused to let him see how much it affected her.
Instead, she crossed her arms and gave him a single nod.
“So, I’m your last choice.” Her voice came out hoarser than she would have liked, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. “Your hail Mary.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and then snapped it shut. The tension in his shoulders spread through the rest of him, but he didn’t look away.
She’d appreciate the directness more if her insides weren’t shriveling to dust.
He plowed his hand through his hair, making it stick up in an endearing, disheveled sort of way. Which she was not supposed to be noticing, because she was hurt and angry.
“That’s not true.”
At least he sounded sincere. Not that she was falling for it. She just raised an eyebrow, gave him the I-call-bull look that usually worked with Em.
“Okay, fine,” he said, titling his head to the side.
“It’s sort of true. But you did come highly recommended by a friend of a friend of mine.
Jessica Canton. She played on the University of Washington volleyball team when you were on staff there.
She said you were the best and she’d heard you’d started your own business.
So, I did a little digging and found out where you were based. ”
That was unexpected. She remembered Jessica, and had liked her, but they’d never been close. She’d worked with her through a flare up of rotator cuff tendonitis a couple of years ago, near the end of Alex’s time at the university.
She placed her hands on the desk behind her and leaned back.
Gave herself a little extra room. With him standing, almost looming, over her it felt like there was a shortage of space in her already small office.
“This is a big commitment. I’ll need to look over your file, maybe contact your doctors and depending on what I find, I’ll need to think about it. Can I let you know tomorrow?”
Why was she hesitating? Sure, the whole last choice thing stung, but overall, it was an incredibly lucrative offer.
She just wanted a moment to think about it, without his presence clouding her judgement.
Because, no matter what she kept telling herself, being in the same room with him, even all these years later, still had a weird effect on her.
She needed him to go, so she could think and assess and plan. Without the massive, six foot four, two-hundred-and-forty-pound distraction hanging on her every word.
That muscle at the side of his mouth twitched, but he nodded. “Sure. You can just call and let me know what you decide.”
“Great.” She nodded, too, although she suddenly felt ridiculous and stopped. The silence stretched between them, racing to that slightly uncomfortable point within seconds. She eased back a little more, trying to get her body to stop twitching with the urge to run fast and run far.
Either that, or do something totally inappropriate and climb him like one of the trees in the national park she liked to hike in.
He shoved his left hand in the pocket of his coat again.
It was black cashmere and fit him beautifully, but was so not suited for a rainy, Pacific Northwest winter.
And now that she thought about it, she totally should have taken his coat when he’d first come in.
She’d just been so surprised to see him standing in her waiting room, her brain had short circuited.
He thrust his thumb in the direction of the door. “I’m gonna go and let you get on with your day.” He turned.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
The words slipped out before she’d even realized she was going to say them. He turned back. The way his eyebrows drew together and one side of his lips dipped down would have intimidated her, if she wasn’t so bloody mortified.
She slapped her hand over her mouth and willed lightning to strike. Put her out of her misery. What had she just done?