I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him it was obviously too much, that this entire spree had been kindhearted but confusing as shit, and walk right out of the store.
But the words ‘too much’ had never really registered with Nick. He wanted to do something nice to apologize. He was staring deep into my eyes.
In the end, I pulled in a breath and did the one thing that people who work in PR are never supposed to do.
I told the truth.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A beaming smile spread across his face—a smile I’d never seen before. It wasn’t bored, or mischievous, or amused, or anything else I’d come to associate with Nick.
It was sincere. A soft kind of radiant that seemed to glow from the inside-out.
“Then it’s yours.”
Chapter 11
By the time we emerged from the store, the afternoon sun had already risen high in the sky. We got hotdogs from a nearby stand—just as Nick had requested—and ate them in silence on a bench in Central Park. Watching the pedestrians. Tossing bread to the pigeons.
Neither one of us had really said much since the moment with the necklace. And while this silent, over-analytical tendency was completely normal for me, it couldn’t have been any less so for Nick. The man didn’t have an ‘off’ switch. Truth be told, the only times I could remember him being silent, were when he was sleeping.
Several times, he glanced over at me. Several times, he glanced down at the Dior bag by our feet. Each time, he was either unwilling or unable to speak.
When he finally did say something, it was the last thing I ever expected to hear.
“So,” he began softly, “do you have a list of names for me?”
For one of the first times in my professional life, I blanked.
“I’m sorry,” I sat up a little straighter, trying to catch up, “names?”
His face tightened for a second, then smoothed clear.
“Of girls. Girls the company would approve of. Girls you think I should date.”
It was all I’d wanted that morning—to hear him say those words. To ask that question. I would have given anything I had just to make it so. But now?
For some reason, it made my skin go cold.
“Oh. Right.” I dropped my eyes down to my lap, before forcing them back up. “Yeah, we should talk about that.”
The hotdog wrappers were thrown away. The Dior bag was slid out of sight.
“We could go one of two ways,” I said slowly, trying to will away the lingering alcohol so I could think clearly. “Either find someone you already like and know—someone that would make the board breathe easier, or...” I trailed off, unable to say the rest.
Nick cocked his head curiously to the side.
“Or?”
I glanced at him apologetically, already anticipating the fall-out.
“Or...we could find a complete stranger. Someone that could use the exposure, and would be using you, just as much as you used them. Happens in PR all the time.”
He didn’t say anything, and I moved quickly forward—dismissing the idea almost as quickly as I’d introduced it in the first place.
“But that’s probably a bad call. It has the benefit of keeping things strictly professional, but in doing so, I’m sure it would get terribly awkward. You’d be faking every kiss, every intimate moment caught on camera. Whereas with someone you already knew, there would at least be a personal aspect to it, and you wouldn’t have to pretend—”
“Let’s go with a stranger.”