There was a process to it. One that I’d picked up my first week on the job.
To say that Nick lived for coffee, was like saying that the French had a mild affinity for fattening pastries. It was his first true love. Truth be told, it was probably his only true love.
He had the beans imported from alternating countries in South America and Africa alike, depending on average rain fall, soil acidity, and a million other things that went completely over my head. They were kept in an airtight jar, and ground fresh every morning. Measured out to precision. Brewed to precisely the right temperature.
The slightest deviation would be fiercely condemned. A recurrent mistake would most likely end in termination. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Mitchell and his beloved scotch.
I pulled down the jar with a soft sigh, and started pouring the beans into the grinder.
There had to be some kind of way to get him on board with this. Some iota of wiggle room in which I could get enough of a hold to shake him loose.
As much as I loved Nick, I would not openly go against his father. And while I had, on occasion, secretly gone against his father, in this particular situation—his father was right.
The lobster debacle was just the tip of the iceberg. In the last month alone, there had been enough work to keep an entire PR team sleepless and jumping for five years.
First there was the morning he tried to repel down the Eiffel Tower on a whim. Then there was the afternoon he was determined to climb the Empire State Building with his bare hands. The only way I talked him out of swimming the English Channel was by showing him enough shark attack videos to make myself afraid to even shower for at least a week.
The worst by far was when he conned the night manager in charge of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center into melting said ice, and letting Nick replace it with frozen champagne. At first, it actually looked like it might have been the social extravaganza of the season. Then some lunatic Grinch accused him of trying to serve alcohol to minors, and we were off to the races.
Point being, Nick was feeling a little more restless than usual this month. And if this coming merger was really as important as his father said, it was time to pull in the reins a bit.
But what could I do? What could I offer the man who had everything to make him see things my way? How could I bend the all-powerful to my own will...?
A scalding drop of coffee sizzled suddenly on my skin, and I pulled back my hand with a gasp. The entire coffee ceremony had been performed by muscle memory, and by the time Nick walked downstairs—wearing nothing but a towel—I was ready with the first cup.
“That’s the problem with these coffee makers,” he gestured to the burn with a teasing grin, raising the rim of the mug to his lips, “you’ve got to watch them every second.”
I was less amused.
“Coming from the man wrapped in a jellyfish towel.”
He looked down curiously, his wet hair dripping onto the kitchen tile.
Sure enough, the plush contours of the towel were splashed with an infantile display of smiling sea creatures. The jellyfish in question, was using three of its hands to wave.
“There does seem to be a strange theme developing in my life,” he murmured with a small frown.
Chapter 7
I poured myself a cup of coffee as well, and the two of us drank in thoughtful silence.
Him—contemplating the ocean and all its wonders.
Me—contemplating how in the world I was going to get him to agree to a fake girlfriend.
In the end, I decided that unrelenting persistence would be my best shot. Nick was as stubborn as could be, but he also got bored by things incredibly quickly. If I continued to bring up the conversation, when all he wanted to do was get on with his day, there was a chance—not a good chance, but at least a chance—that he might cave and give me what I wanted.
(That part of the plan was absolutely vital. That I phrased it in such a way, where it would be a favor he was doing for me, rather than a command from his father.)
“You know,” I began innocently, kicking my bare feet against the counter, “before I had to go tearing out of the restaurant last night to help you and your lobsters, I was actually having a pretty good time on my date.”
“Oh yeah?” Nick hopped lightly onto the counter and settled comfortably, waking up before
my very eyes as the caffeine entered his system. “Better than that Swedish guy? The one with the moustache that made him look like a pedophile?”
I snorted in my coffee and took a second to settle myself.
“Yeah—much better than that.” I blew away a cloud of stream. “I think you’d probably like him. First thing he did was order a bottle of Margaux.”