He nodded and turned away.
He caught a few snatches of whispered conversation behind him....
“Wow! Did you see that? He smiled.”
“I thought he was very nice.”
“I was so scared, I nearly fainted!”
Andrew thought the latter might have come from Donna. He didn’t look back to indicate that he’d heard anything. He certainly didn’t want to be responsible for causing a pregnant woman to faint, he thought ruefully.
He headed back to his office, nodding pleasantly to those he passed along the way. Reaching his door, he steeled himself for the silence and solitude he would find inside.
It reminded him all too painfully of how quiet and lonely his home would be after Nicole moved out.
HE FOUND NICOLE in his bedroom. She sat cross-legged on the bed, twisted into an odd position as she painted her toenails a bright watermelon red. Solomon was curled at her side, carefully grooming his paws as though in imitation of her. Country music blared from the clock-radio on the nightstand. Nicole hummed along.
The utter rightness of the scene hit Andrew with an almost physical blow as he stood silently in the doorway, watching her. His fingers curled at his side.
Before he could speak, the song ended. In a rather frantic movement, Nicole snatched up the telephone. She held it to her ear for a moment, her fingers poised over the buttons, apparently listening to the D.J.’s babble. And then another song began and she sighed and replaced the receiver without dialing.
Andrew frowned. “What was that all about?”
With a gasp, Nicole jerked around to face him. The cat meowed in startled reaction to her movement.
Nicole gave a breathless laugh. “Andrew! You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
“I managed to get away early today.”
“Really? Good for you,” she said approvingly, setting the tiny bottle of nail polish aside. It didn’t seem to bother her that she’d painted only eight nails. She climbed off the bed and padded over to kiss him. “Hi.”
He restrained himself to a light kiss in return, though he was tempted to throw her on the bed and let her know just how deeply it had affected him to come home and find her there. “Hi, yourself.”
“Solomon and I are trying to win a contest,” she explained, waving a hand toward the radio. “Sometime in the next hour they’re going to play the sound of a foghorn at the end of a song. The tenth caller afterward wins a thousand dollars.”
“I see.”
“Do you mind if I finish my nails? I only have two left,” she said, balancing on one bare foot as she held the unfinished one in the air for him to see.
He nodded. “Go ahead.”
She settled back onto the bed with the nail polish. He took the chair, pulling it closer to her. Solomon leapt into his lap and presented his head for a welcome-home rub. Andrew absently stroked the cat, hearing its rumble of approval as he suddenly, sinkingly, noticed the partially filled suitcase sitting in one corner of his bedroom.
He cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone chokingly tight. “I see you’ve started packing already. So you must have got the apartment you were looking at.”
Concentrating on her painting, she nodded absently. “Mmm. Yes, I did. It’s really cute. I think you’ll approve.” When Andrew didn’t comment, she continued. “I’ll take these things over early in the morning so I’ll have part of the afternoon to retrieve some of my other belongings from storage. I’d like to get somewhat settled in before I go to work tomorrow evening.”
“I had planned to go to my office in the morning, but if you need me to help you move, I can change my schedule,” he offered re
luctantly. He’d rather cut out his tongue than help her move out of his house, but he felt obligated to at least go through the motions of offering assistance. He wished she didn’t look so damned pleased about her new home.
She could at least pretend to be sorry to leave him.
“About your new apartment...”
“You do want to check it out, don’t you?” she asked with a smile. “I assure you it’s in a perfectly safe neighborhood and has a security guard and everything.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I—”