Page 80 of Forever with the CEO

“Some friends,” Nick said, voicing my thoughts.

Yes, this was fake, but I still felt a bit betrayed. I truly thought that the three of us would always be friends.

“Are you okay?” he asked a few moments later. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“It’s been hard. I don’t have many friends left these days,” I admitted.

“You mentioned that.”

“But it’s worse than I thought. I’m not sure what happened. All of my friends sort of disappeared. They stopped inviting meto things. Granted, I declined all invitations because my life had changed, but I couldn’t spontaneously go out for drinks and stuff like that, or have a girls’ weekend. But...” I sighed and looked out the window. “I figured that eventually we were going to find a balance. I was closer to Violet and Danielle than the rest of my friends. We lived together for three years after college because we wanted to save on rent.”

Nick slid his hand over mine. I startled, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because my entire body reacted to his touch. Was this because today was special, or because of our night together?

“Just putting it out there, but all the women in my family are dying to adopt you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They even wanted to throw you a bachelorette party.”

“I know. Meredith said that. I wonder why they didn’t.”

“I said no.” Nick looked bewildered. “I never realized you might want one.”

“I didn’t either... until now. It doesn’t sound bad.”

He shook his head. “The minds of women are always a mystery.”

That made me laugh. “Don’t feel bad about it. Sometimes I’m a mystery to myself.”

“And I can’t wait to uncover every single one of those mysteries,” Nick said.

His voice was a bit lower, but his eyes were playful, nonseductive.

Wait, I spoke too soon. I’d seen that glint before he ravaged me in his dressing room. Yep, that definitely counted as seductive. How was I going to manage tonight and every other night living with this man until I got out of this debacle?

It didn’t matter. For now, I was determined to have fun for the rest of the day. I was genuinely curious to get to know the Whitleys, and this lunch was just as good an opportunity as any.

Then realization hit me.

“With Bob and Sophie here, how are we going to play this out?”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked.

I kept my voice low because the kids were still sleeping in the back, and I didn’t want to wake them up. “Won’t it seem weird that I don’t know your family?”

“If they voice any concerns, I’ll take care of it. And besides, this all happened quickly. You barely had time to get to know everyone.” He grinned. “We barely had time to know each other—except in the most essential ways, of course.”

Ha, this man! Is he starting to be shameless already?First that sexy glint in his eyes, and now he was throwing innuendos at me. But I didn’t have time to mull things over too much because we arrived at the restaurant a few minutes later.

It took us forever to wake the twins, but then they went from sleepy to overexcited when they realized we didn’t go home. They loved adventures. I’d liked the restaurant from the pictures Nick’s assistant sent me, but it was even more gorgeous in person. It was professionally decorated in the same style as city hall was, with flowers and balloons. The photographer had tagged along, only this time he had what looked like a video camera, too, and was already filming the activity.

There was a long table set up for us in a small room with huge windows overlooking the inner courtyard. It was something out of a dream, with perfectly trimmed bonsai trees and plants with multicolored flowers everywhere.

“I’ll have to send your assistant flowers or something in thanks,” I told Nick as I looked around the room. “This is gorgeous!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll give her a raise for putting that smile on your face.”

I wanted to ask why my smiling was so important to him, but how on earth could I without sounding weird?

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