Eventually my breathing calms and the tears are all gone. I begin to drift off to sleep, but then suddenly it’s light and I have to force my eyes closed to ward out the stream of brightness. Nico turned on the light.

“What are you doing?” My eyelids are still pressed tightly closed as I speak.

“Open your eyes.” Nico’s voice is soft, but his words are a command, not a question.

I don’t respond, and I also don’t open my eyes.

“Elle, baby, open your eyes.”

His tone is so sweet, I’d find it hard to deny him anything when he talks to me like that. So I do it. I open my eyes a little and look up at him. His beautiful green eyes are right there, so close to me. And they’re waiting. Waiting for me to look back at him fully. I allow it, allow my eyes to fully open and look into Nico’s. At first I’m just looking at the eyes themselves. The beautiful color, the dark pupil in the sea of soft green, the thick dark eyelashes that frame the beauty God has given the man. But then I find myself looking past the surface and I’m searching. Searching for what I expect to find there. Then I realize. It’s not there. No pity, no shame, no doubt. And my eyes widen when it hits me.

“There she is.” The corner of Nico’s mouth twitches and I can’t help but smile back at him. My body heaves a deep breath of relief and I feel as though I’m at peace for the first time in a very long time. It might even be the first time I’ve ever felt this way.

***

We spend the next few hours talking and making love and I never want it to end. But I have an early afternoon deposition that I’m not prepared for and I have to drag myself into the office. “I have to get to work. I’m late, even for me.”

“You’re usually late to work?” Nico seems surprised.

I laugh at his comment, he must be the only person on the planet that doesn’t know about my issue with timeliness. “I’m late for everything.”

Nico shrugs, “I guess I didn’t notice.”

I smile at him and yes, I think I might even blush a little. Blush at the man who has touched every part of my body with his mouth and now knows my innermost, darkest secrets. “You seem to be the only thing that I can make it on time for.”

Nico’s eyebrows arch in surprise, but then a slow, smug smile spreads across his handsome face and I’m rewarded with his dimples.

I playfully smack him on his chest. “Don’t get too full of yourself, I’m sure it was beginner’s luck and you’ll be waiting for me most of the time, just like everyone else.” I attempt to leave the bed. I need to take a shower and get to work, but Nico pulls me back down and I’m quickly positioned underneath him.

I think he’s still being playful, but when I look up at him, I find his face serious. “I need to know something, Elle.”

“What?” I’m confused at how we went from playful to serious and what is bothering him.

“Dinner with the pansy ass last night?”

“The pansy ass?” My brows furrow as I speak… for a second I really am confused as to what he is referring to, but then I realize he means William.

Nico doesn’t say anything else, he waits for my response.

“We had a business dinner with a client.”

“I didn’t see any client and it didn’t look like business to me.”

“That’s because he told me the dinner was at six and not seven so that I wouldn’t be late. So when I got there at six thirty, we had a half an hour to wait for our client together.”

My answer seems to satisfy him, but the tension I see flee from his face only disappears for a few seconds. Then it’s back.

“I don’t like seeing the two of you looking so cozy.”

“We’re friends…we’ve been friends since law school.”

“Men who sleep with a woman don’t do friends, Babe.”

“Well William does.”

“I see the way he looks at you. He doesn’t want to be your friend.”

“Whatever.” I roll my eyes, this conversation is going nowhere. “It’s not like I have a choice, we have cases together.”

“Okay, so you work together. You don’t need to sit at a bar and have drinks too.”

“You don’t understand.” I’m sure that he just doesn’t get what William and I have. William’s fine with being friends and I don’t understand why he’s acting jealous.

Nico releases me and I think our conversation is over, so I begin to walk to the door, intent to take a shower and finally drag my ass into work.

“So you won’t mind if I have drinks with Amy tonight, then?”

I stop in my tracks and turn back to look at Nico. He’s sitting up in my bed, his hands clasped behind his head in a casual stance. Who the hell is Amy?

“Oh, we’re just friends. We used to sleep together, but we’re just friends now. She’s a vitamin sales rep and we’ve been talking about adding a line of vitamins to my gym, but I usually keep our business talks in the gym. But maybe it would be better if we discussed our business over drinks instead.”

Very nice. I feel like ripping Amy’s head off, whoever the hell Amy is. But I get it. Point taken. “Fine, I’ll do my best to keep my business with William in the office.”

Nico thinks I’m walking back to him to give him a kiss. He’s got such a damn, smug smile on his face. I pick up the pillow and hit him with it before heading to the shower. I hear him chuckling behind me as I stomp my way to the bathroom.

Chapter 43

Nico

I’ve never brought a woman to our monthly dinner. It’s not that my mom and brothers would mind, I just never found one that I thought would still be around by the time the next month’s dinner rolled around, so why bother introducing them? Elle baked cookies to bring, which is sweet, but I’m going to have to hide them from the kids to save them from possible food poisoning. She burned three batches before she finally got it right, or at least she thinks she did.

My niece Sarah takes Elle almost the minute we walk in and introduces her around like she’s a shiny new toy. My mom seems curious and I catch her watching Elle a few times. She must like what she sees because she smiles to herself as she watches. I check on Elle every once in a while, but she doesn’t look uncomfortable so I leave her to the women. She catches me looking at her each time, and smiles like a kid. It’s hard for me to tear my eyes away.