Page 8 of Hold Me Today

Has there ever been more appropriate timing? I don’t think so.

She who asketh shall receive—or however the saying goes.

For possibly the first time in six years, I smile at the man standing just inches away.

Nick Stamos stares down at me, his pewter eyes hard and narrowed with suspicion. “Trying to amputate my arm, Ermione?”

My smile slips, hackles twitching like a cat’s fur standing on end when stalked by a predator.Er-me-o-ne.His tongue rolls over theRin my given name, his Greek accent perfect and sultry despite the condescension dripping heavy and thick with every purred syllable.

Don’t let him get to you.

Only, he’s gotten to me for years now.

“If by amputate you mean save,” I murmur with practiced flippancy, “then sure. It’s not my fault if technology doesn’t want to work for you.”

Those slate-gray eyes, unlike any pair I’ve ever seen, drop to where I’m still pressing the KEEP OPEN button. When his dark brows rise, taunting me with their perfect arches, I follow his lead and glance down at the illuminated button.

CLOSE DOORS.

Oh.Oh.

Air puffs up my chest indignantly as I inhale swiftly. “You didn’t really need that arm, did you?”

Nick snorts derisively. Without sparing me another look, his big hand circles my wrist. His touch is bold, his skin hot. A shiver ofsomething—revulsion, I hope—rolls down my spine, unwinding and unfurling until even my gold-painted toes curl in my heels. And, as though he fears I’mcompletelyincompetent, he angles my still-pointed finger at the button to close the doors.

Pushes down and lingers, as though to taunt,see? This is how a contraption called an elevator works.Welcome to the twenty-first century, Ermione.

Ermione. Even in my head I can hear him slinging around the name I inherited from my maternal grandmother, knowing that it makes my mouth pinch and my hands clench.

My smile has, as it always does around him, completely evaporated.

The elevator pings shut.

Locking me in with Satan’s mortal sidekick, my best friend’s older brother.

4

Nick

Ermione “Mina” Pappas looks exactly the same.

Releasing her wrist, I shove my hands into the pockets of my slacks and lean back, shoulders to the wall, and ease my gaze over her familiar features. Thanks to my stint onPut A Ring On It, and life before that, it’s been a solid seven or eight months since I’ve seen her last.

But Mina is nothing if not predictable in her unpredictability.

She’s been Effie’s best friend since the two of them were in grade school and amputating their Barbies instead of dressing them up. I’ve had twenty-four years with Mina existing in the periphery of my life, darting in and out whenever the occasion called for it.

Like on the night of my almost-wedding to Brynn Whitehead, my college sweetheart.

My heart barely gives an extra thump in grievance for what could have been, all those hopes and dreams that were once tied up with Brynn now unmoored and wasting away in the waters of Never-Gonna-Happen-Again.

For a moment, Mina does nothing but stare openly at me. Her honey eyes, rimmed with the warmest amber I’ve ever seen, dodge downward and skate over my frame. They stop momentarily along the way, like she’s yielding at a four-way intersection, pausing at my shoulders and my stomach and my hips and my feet.

Her unconcealed perusal is an instant reminder that Mina, although I’ve known her since I was eight years old, has a reputation for flaying men alive with her tart tongue, even as she lures him into bed with her curves.

I’ve never been lured, and have no plans to be, thanks to her status as Effie’s best friend, and so I end her little intimidation tactic with a cough into my fist and a dismissive murmur that I know will goad her into the Ermione I’ve preferred for years: awkward and just a little off-kilter.

It’s the unofficial, dog-eat-dog game we always play: who can outwit the other?

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