Page 25 of Hold Me Today

Entrepreneurial spirit that I am, I’d bottle up that scent and sell it by the boatloads. I’d make a mint off it. Change the lives of millions of women and men because I’m not kidding when I say this: Nick Stamos smellsdelicious.

His warm breath wafts across my forehead, rustling the baby hairs that have escaped my top-knot. My knees pin together, unwelcome lust spiking at his nearness, and I shift my focus from the breadth of his chest to his too-handsome face.

Nothing in his expression speaks to the same arousal flaring to life within me.

As usual.

“We’ve known each other a heck of a long time, Mina, but make no mistake”—his gaze drops to my mouth, lingers, before lifting once more—“we’ve never been friends.”

And welcome to that moment in my life when good reason disappears and need slips in. Licking my lips, I counter, “You’re lying.”

“Lying about what?”

“About us not being friends. We might not be besties”—he snorts derisively at that and I refrain from punching him in the solar plexus—“but I’ve known you my entire life. I know more than what Effie’s told me over the years.” I think back to the wooden sculptures in his office. Those took time and patience and an acute precision that most people lack. Not Nick, though.

“I know you’re a details guy,” I go on, refusing to step down and let him win this round. I would never consider him a close confidante—a frenemy, perhaps, more than anything—but to hear him dismiss our relationship riles me up in a way that leaves me feeling rattled. “I know that when you started Stamos Restoration, you lived off Ramen noodles for almost a year. You were twenty-three and full of dreams and Brynn hated that you put everything you had to give into a new business and not on dates and outings and the little trinkets she wanted.”

Controlled as his expression is, I don’t miss the flare of his nostrils. “I did it for her,” he growls, drawing ever closer still, “for us, for our future.”

“No.” I angle my chin in silent challenge. “You worked all those hours foryou. Because you spent years as a kid holed up in your room building anything and everything. You interned at an antiques place in high school, restoring furniture, long before Brynn entered the picture. So, maybe I’m not yourfriend, but let’s not play it like I don’t know you. I know plenty.”

I’m breathing hard.You revealed way too much, my heart bemoans. I may as well have waved theI-crushed-on-you-for-yearsflag. A white flag, of course, for surrender and acceptance. Fact is, I spent my teenage years and early twenties collecting any and all anecdotes regarding Nick’s life that I could. I know more than I should because I oncecaredmore than I should.

Those old feelings may be long gone but that doesn’t mean all the memories have dissipated along with them.

After my little rant that has nothing at all to do with the renovation project, I expect Nick to return to the topic of my salon and botched plans and new mock-ups and everything that is professional and orderly. Nick is, at the end of the day, a rule-follower.

Obsessively so.

But maybe he’s trying to prove me wrong—to axe his saintly nickname once and for all—or maybe he’s right and I’ve never known him the way I thought I did.

Because instead of wheeling around and leaving me alone in the hallway, he grinds his molars, jaw clenching, and then that hand on the wall is shifting over until it rests mere inches away from my head, invading my precious space. His sweatshirt-covered chest grazes mine with each labored contraction of his lungs. And those unreadable gray eyes blaze with emotion.

Too far. This time, I’ve pushed himwaytoo far.

Abort.Abort the mission!

My feet refuse to move. They’re rooted to the concrete flooring as my back collides with the wall and my fingers curl in at my sides.

“Nick?”

His full lips part and the words that spill out rock me to my core. “I know that you used to get bullied in high school because you collected Barbies. Some asshole saw you at Toys “R” Us when he was there with his little sister.”

I blink, more than a little surprised by the admission.Even if the admission is true.Swallowing down my nerves, I find the need to defend myself a little, to make my younger self not seem quite so pathetic. “It wasn’t like . . . I mean, it’s not like I played with—”

Nick shakes his head, cutting off my tangent. “You practiced cutting hair on them. I remember, Ermione.”

Between my difficulties in class and being that “weirdo with the Barbie fetish,” high school was rough. Teenagers were assholes, and sometimes, when you were different—a little moreunique, I liked to think—than your peers, your differences became an opportunity to be targeted. My learning disability, my Greek “otherness,” my weirdness, all made me a prime target for getting shit on. Back then, I never had the self-esteem to hold my ground.

“I remember when he came in to school one day with a black eye and a busted lip.” The memory pulls a soft, caustic laugh from me. “I wanted to feel bad, you know? I’m against violence, no matter if someone deserves it. Maybe the bully is being bullied at home—or maybe that’s my brain making excuses for their inexcusable behavior. But after months of putting up with his asshole comments, I straight up walked around on cloud nine for days after seeing him like that.”

“Weeks.”

“What?”

Nick shifts his weight on his feet. “You walked around for weeks lookin’ like you’d been hand-delivered a unicorn. And,” he says, looking down the aristocratic slope of his nose at me, “I’d never felt so pleased with myself.”

Pleased with—?

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