Page 87 of Breaking the Ice

“Oh, I haven’t finished yet. I want that corner office and” – she cast around for something truly outrageous – “an obscenely expensive car.”

She had a midrange car now that she rarely used but that was beside the point.

“And I swear to God, Bob, if you ever call me Sammy orgirlagain, I’m walking andnevercoming back.”

She caught Nick’s eye over the top of the customer’s head and he winked at her.

“Good lord, gir… I meanSamantha. You can have whatever you want, just get your ass back in here first thing tomorrow.”

Samantha blinked.Wow.The accounts must be in a complete mess.

“What about this biological clock nonsense? I hope you’re over all that.”

Samantha inspected Nick’s downcast head. Not really but it wasnevergoing to happen. Not with Nick. And she wasn’t letting her eggs settle for anyone else. “Yes. I’m over it.”

“Thank Christ for that. Damn fool idea to be wasting your talent and brains on becoming a baby machine.”

Samantha clutched the phone at Bob’s disparaging assessment of motherhood. Not that long ago she would have agreed with him. But the last few months had turned all her former beliefs on their ear and she’d gone from grudgingly giving in to her eggs’ demands for a highly inconvenient baby towantingone – Nick’s baby – so badly she could hardly think about it without getting a pain in her chest.

From someone demographically compatible to a one-horse race.

She replaced the handset as the customer left and Nick strode across the shop to gather her into a fierce hug. “Well done. That’s the best news.”

Samantha smiled and accepted his congratulatory kiss. It was.Really… it was.

But, as the kiss escalated into something more and her eggs hummed the ‘Wedding March’, she wasn’t so sure. Being with Nick and getting to look at him and touch him and smell him every day would be hard to give up even if he wasn’t in Tetworth for much longer.

Breaking off the kiss, Nick asked, “What about your eggs? You still haven’t found Mr. Demographically Suitable.”

No. But she’d found someone better.

“If I couldn’t find him in the last few months he probably doesn’t exist. Don’t worry,” she assured him with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Despite what my eggs think, I don’t need a baby to be fulfilled as a woman. They’ll survive.”

And so would she.

It was plainweirdthe next morning dressing in her power suit. She’d become used to the jeans and tee and Samantha didn’t recognize the woman staring back from the mirror. And it wasn’t just the formality of her Stella McCartney suit, it was her perception of herself.

Her usual critical reaction was absent. She was looking at herself through new eyes. She could see the soft pinkness of her mouth and the way her waist curved into her hips and her glowing skin and the way her hair framed her face and thelushness of her cleavage. She was seeing herself as a desirable woman. As Nick saw her.

And damn if she didn’t look good!

She couldn’t not stop in at Birdie’s on the way to the office. Unfortunately the aroma of old books and peppermint tickled her nostrils, completely obliterating the last of her lukewarm anticipation over going back to her high-powered job.

Shedidn’twant to go. She wanted to stay. She wanted to kick off her shoes, grab aLarry and Stretch, ask Nick for a coffee and throw herself on the lounge.

He kissed her when she drew level with him. Kissed her like it had been an age since he’d last done it even though it had only been an hour. “I don’t want to go,” she admitted when they finally broke apart.

The real world had intruded into their tinted paradise and soon he would be gone and nothing would ever be the same.

“Yes, you do.” He brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. “The minute you walk through the doors, it’ll be like you never left. And you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

A few months ago, she’d have agreed wholeheartedly. Right now, she wasn’t so sure. Getting back on the horse was the established path but maybe she didn’t want that anymore?

The phone rang. “Let me. One last time.”

He smiled as he picked up the receiver and handed it over. “Good morning, Birdie’s Second-Hand Romance Bookshop, this is Samantha.”

It was for Nick so Samantha passed the phone back before taking a turn around the bookshelves, touching the spines, losing herself temporarily in their familiar feel and smell.

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