The introduction was as quick as it was strategic. He held out his hand between them, forcing her to release him in order to do the same. Banking on the fact that she wasn’t left-handed. It also created some well-needed space. In order to have made her little move, she’d had to get right up in front of him—just inches away. A handshake changed all that.
She stepped back a bit to introduce herself more formally.
(By that, I mean...to shake his hand.)
“Ella Campbell.” She smiled widely, seductively. Flashing the entire restaurant a pair of perfect veneers. “Abigail thought the two of us might hit it off.”
At the moment, Abigail was currently thinking of ways to discreetly kill herself.
“Did she now?” Nick’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, and he turned his fixed smile from her to me, scorching me with the heat of it. “How very...insightful.”
Insightful, sure. Everything about this just screamed insightful.
I couldn’t even meet his eyes. I literally wanted to crawl inside my brand-new bag in a state of essential hibernation. Wait for this dreadful day to be over. Ella, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more pleased with the way things were going.
“Wasn’t it, though?” She tossed back her hair, ‘casually’ angling herself in such a way as to attract the most possible attention. “From the second she mentioned your name, I knew the two of us would be a natural fit.”
Nick’s smile tightened, and his knuckles tensed white.
“Well, that’s my Abigail.” Only from years of years of knowing him, could I hear the steel beneath the honey. “Always has my best intentions at heart.”
With that barb to my soul, he gestured to the table and the three of us sat down.
I tried not to look up. Tried to keep my eyes fixed on the table. But it was like trying not to watch a car accident from just two feet away. One that you’d manically engineered yourself.
“So Nicky,” Ella lay her large breasts upon the table, resting them comfortably on her place-setting as she leaned seductively forward, “have you ever done anything like this before?”
The cleavage was distracting enough—I’d give him that. If Ella really applied herself, I was sure she could use the things for some kind of demolition. Breaking down doors, and such.
But that wasn’t what had my poor client temporarily tongue-tied. You see, upon sitting down, he’d suddenly realized that the girl he was supposed to be professionally ‘dating,’ bore a freakishly impossible resemblance to a woman his father had married a few years back. A woman who—if memory served—Mitchell had divorced after she’d done to Nick beneath the table at Christmas dinner, exactly what Ms. Campbell had done seconds before shaking his hand.
I kicked him under the table, and he shook himself back to the present—blinking away the horror as he stared back into her cat-like eyes and tried to remember the question.
“I’m sorry,” he tilted his head apologetically to the side, “what was that?”
Ella blushed, as if her irresistible attraction had derailed him. This was going to be even easier than she’d thought.
“I said,” she leaned closer, pushing the breasts right up against his arm, “have you ever done anything like this before?”
He glanced down, hesitated, then forced his eyes back up. Across the table, I hid my face behind a menu, slumping lower and lower in my chair.
“I...uh...I actually haven’t.” He leaned back with a casual smile, creating another well-needed bit of space. “At least not under these kinds of circumstances. I’m sure Abby told you—”
“A company merger, blah-blah, cleaning up your rep
utation, blah-blah.” She flashed an impish grin, as if she was being fucking adorable. “She told me you need something steady.”
I did no such thing.
Thankfully, a waiter appeared at that very moment, sparing Nick from having to come up with a response. The man looked over our rather odd trio for a moment, before lifting his pad of paper with a pleasant smile.
“Can I get you folks started with some drinks?”
Nick cleared his throat and glanced down at the menu for the first time, still trying to recover himself. “Uh—yes, thank you. I think we’ll start with a round of sake—”
“Oh, didn’t Abigail tell you?” Ella interrupted again. “I don’t drink.”
Nick’s bright eyes glassed over. At this point, he was completely incapable of telling whether or not I was pulling a prank. “You don’t drink...today? Or on weekdays? Or—”