“This?” He jiggled the hanger with a little smile. “This is not my fault.”
“Oh really.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I couldn’t wait to hear how he tried to get out of this one. “And how do you figure?”
His handsome face shone with self-righteousness.
“You were the one who picked that terrible bag.”
“Purse,” I corrected, rubbing my temples.
“That terrible bag which couldn’t be more than twenty bucks—tops.”
Twenty bucks?!
“Nick—it is several hundred dollars.” I couldn’t have stressed the word more. “That’s why I picked it. We agreed this was supposed to be price comparable, right?”
He nodded curtly.
“That’s what I’m doing. Honoring our professional arrangement.”
A sarcastic bout of laughter burst out of me, as I gestured to the lingerie.
“And what about that is possibly professional?”
Both of our eyes swept over the laced bra, for a moment. The black satin straps that hung down. Connecting to a thong. Connecting to a garter. Connecting to something else that...well honestly, I’m not even sure what it was. At some point, it could have been footies.
Nick faltered for only a moment, before regaining his perfect composure.
“I’m glad you asked. The thing that’s professional about this, is the price.” He lifted his chin proudly. “It’s a little over a hundred dollars. Bringing us closer and closer to our goal.”
There was a burst of laughter from the front of the store, and I shot a furious glare over my shoulder before turning that glare back to him.
“A hundred dollars?” I stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Let me see.”
In one fluid motion, he ripped off the tag and stuffed it into his pocket. If I’d really pressed him, I’m sure he would have swallowed the damn thing.
“Sorry,” he said dryly. “Reflex. Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
To trust him.
I took a step back, and for a moment, everything paused.
“What are you doing?”
Over the last ten minutes, I’d asked the question a million times. But this time, it came out completely different. No banter. No games. We were talking about thousands of dollars here. It didn’t matter if that was pocket change to him, it was still a hell of a lot of money. The kind of money that shouldn’t be spent on employees, no matter how good of friends they might be.
Nick’s playful smile vanished for a moment, replaced with something almost shy.
Shy. From a man who didn’t know the definition of the word.
This, more than anything else, stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Just...let me.”
There was no entrapping debate this time. No tricks or champagne. Just a simple request.
Let me.
Chapter 10