Page 54 of Breaking the Ice

Nick watched her read, apparently engrossed and so damn detached, unlike himself who was practically humming from the hot sweep of her gaze. Looking at her now, no one would ever guess that she’d kissed him passionately in an alleyandpractically thrown herself at him after the vibrator debacle.

Not that she appeared to remember the incident. She certainly hadn’t mentioned it.

Irked suddenly, Nick wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to look at him like she had that night in the alley. Like she had when she’d propositioned him after a half bottle of vodka.

“Here?” he asked, deliberately pointing to the wrong spot.

She looked up, glaring at him impatiently, the exact opposite of the alley, yet he felt gratified in some bizarre kind of way by any response. “Other side,” she said derisively as she returned her attention to the book.

Nick licked it off, not wanting to push her any further.Jesus.Hadn’t he just decided on a distance strategy? Why was he goading her? And why was she in such a mood?

“You haven’t forgotten we’re going to the Book Fair this afternoon?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nope.”

“You’re not going to” – his eyes dropped to the necklace – “wear that are you?”

Another glower as she eyed him. “Absolutely. Is that a problem?”

“Nope.”

Nick held his hands up in surrender. He wasn’t entirely sure why she was so pissed at him today, just that she was. She was acting irrationally, like a… guy who hadn’t been laid in ages.

And on that he could most definitely relate.

18

By five o’clock Samantha was prepared to lose face over the diet thing. After nibbling on plain crackers and one apple, she wasstarving. It was just a short detour from their destination to Martha’s and luckily it was open till eight every night. All she could think about, apart from people’s stunned looks as they saw her choice of jewelry, was a friand.

She continued on as Nick turned left in the direction of the convention center. They’d agreed to walk there yesterday and get an Uber back to the shop with their goodies after.

“You’re going the wrong way,” he said as he caught her up and halted her progress.

“Look, okay, I give in. I suck at diets and I need to eat.”

“No, no.” He shook his head as he caught her hand and dragged her in his direction.

“It’s just a block away,” she protested, looking back over her shoulder at Martha’s fancy calligraphy sign she could just see from this corner. “And if I don’t eat something now I’m going to become completely irrational.”

He blinked. “Oh I’m sorry, I thought we were already there.”

“Not by a long shot.”

“Can’t wait for that then,” he said, continuing to bustle her along. “We’ve only got twenty minutes to get there. They shut the doors to newcomers at five-thirty. It’s huge, there’s bound to be something to eat there.”

Samantha sulked the entire way, her stomach protesting every step. By the time the convention center came into view and they’d dashed up the sweeping concrete stairs to the entrance like Rocky freaking Balboa, she was almost delirious.

Had she not been suffering from severe hypoglycemia, she would have punched the air a few times. Not even the sight of row upon row of trestle tables groaning with second-hand books revived her.

Then, to add insult to injury, all the food stalls at the Book Fair had packed up for the day and she very nearly cried. On top of her meager nutritional intake she’d also completed a brisk thirty-minute walk.

Sothiswas what it felt like to wander in the desert for forty days.

“Right.” Nick glanced at his watch. “We’ve got two hours till it closes. You concentrate on the romances and I’ll look for the Westerns but if you happen to spot any grab them.”

Samantha’s stomach growled, reminding her, in case she’d forgotten in the last ten seconds, of its depleted status.Two hours. She was never going to last two hours. It growled loudly again to underline the situation.

She placed her hand over her stomach to try and absorb some of the noise as Nick quirked an eyebrow. “I told you I was hungry,” she muttered.

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