Page 48 of Hold Me Today

“I don’t ski.”

Nick doesn’t cave to my stiff rebuttal. “Where in Maine are we going again?” he asks Sophia without taking his eyes off me.

“Bethel,” offers up the instigator of this entire fiasco. “It’s about three hours away. Maybe three and a half depending on how slow you drive.”

Amused pewter eyes pin me in place. “Fast, then, just how Ermione likes it.”

I’m going to murder him. Forget about kissing him, forget about doing anythingmorewith him, I’m going to kill him and then do something horrible with his body. Like bury him in a 1970’s home with awful wallpaper and shag carpeting in every room. Becausethat’sthe sort of godawful grave he deserves, the jerk.

I return his unblinking stare. “I’m going to be sick that weekend. I’m predicting the flu.”

His mouth twitches. “All the better to let me take care of you for a full seventy-two hours. You’ll never meet a better nurse than me.”

“Your ego, Nick,” I mutter, rolling my eyes, “seriously.”

“A little birdie told me I needed more sugar in my life. Well, I’m ready to deliver.”

With my gaze locked on his handsome face, I debate the meaning behind that. Is he . . . is he usingsugaras a sexual euphemism? Something tells me he’s only yanking my chain, but it doesn’t stop me from shifting in my seat because, damn him, now I’m imagining him parting my knees and settling his big body between them. Does he have any tattoos of his own? Any snapshots in time that are forever marked on his body? It seems only fair that I find out, considering he got a full view of my rear end.

Finally, with the image of a naked Nick in my head, I drag the words out slowly like I’m being led to the gallows. “I’ll . . . consider it.”

Satisfaction curves his lips into a wide grin. “Glad to hear it. You need to remember to live, even when you’re reachin’ for those dreams of yours. Plus, I didn’t want to break out the big guns.”

“And those are?”

“Blackmail,” he says with a wink. It’s the second time he’s done that tonight and my heart (and libido) don’t know how to handle it. Looking altogether too pleased with himself, he nods toward Sophia. “Looks like you’ve got two more tagalongs. When’s this shindig happening?”

It’s only then I notice that Nick and I have caught the attention of every person at the table. In the midst of our banter, it was all too easy to forget that we aren’t alone. Effie looks like she’s swallowed her steak the wrong way. Aleka keeps staring at her husband, and I don’t miss the way she checks out her mother-in-law.

KyriaStamos, the one woman most likely to throw a fit at her grandson’s new plans, sits perfectly quiet while she sips hercafé. Like me when the conversation was rolling in Greek, she’s blissfully unaware of anything that’s been said in English.

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

“Two weekends from now,” Sophia says, and, like Nick’s grandmother, she doesn’t seem at all perturbed by the fact that Nick just browbeat me into attending. Maybe she really does need a weekend away from Boston and her ex-husband? Or maybe she’s got her eye on another attendee. Both seem like viable,preferableoptions. Way better than to think she’s gunning for Nick. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!”

Fun isn’t the word I’d use.

But when I glance over at Nick, I amend that.

A weekend in snow-laden Maine sounds like hell, but with Nick there . . . well, maybe there’s something to be said about body heat.

17

Mina

The next morning, I’m up early enough that I watch the sun hit the horizon from my salon’s bay window. Its rays kiss the narrow, winding street, and the other brownstones that rise up like miniature towers and stretch toward the pink-and-orange sky. From a young age, I always loved coming to Harvard Square. It’s a bustle of students and young professionals and creatives carving their place in the world.

Just as I am now.

Seated on the floor with paint swatches spread out before me, I lean forward and press my fingers to the cold glass. Snow fell last night, a good five or six inches that I shoveled at the crack of dawn this morning. Already there’s a dusting of a new sheet of the fluffy stuff and I figure I have another hour or so before I need to bundle up and grab my shovel and boots for round two.

Shoveling snow isn’t my thing. Although, to be fair, winter in Massachusetts isn’t my thing, either. Maybe in five years or ten or twenty, I’ll hire someone to plow the snow on my strip of sidewalk, but right now I’m enjoying the satisfaction of doing it myself. It took me a long time to get to this place in life, and I’m not ready to pass off even the most basic of responsibilities to anyone else.

Even if that means I need to get my butt out of bed at a ridiculous hour to ensure I’m not blocked in by a Nor’easter, I’ll do it, no questions asked.

I shift my attention away from the quiet street and down to the myriad paint chips. It feels like I’ve waited years to pick out a paint color for the walls ofAgape. Endless pictures on my Pinterest boards. Back further than that, I had binders stuffed full of cutouts from interior-design magazines. Each decision made for the salon is a win, a reminder that patience and hard work got me here, even when my own parents would have preferred me to choose the marriage route.

Except that marriage has never been in the cards for me. How can it be when my own mother, who claims to love my adopted father, cheated on her new husband? And with some random guy she met on a trip? Not that my dad is any better. He may have “taken me in” out of the kindness of his heart, but he took me to task in a way he never did with Katya and Dimitri. Expectations I would never meet were set out before me, and I tore through them all, knocking each one down.

---