Page 14 of A Reclusive Heart

“Miss Harris,” he said, trying to sound casual, “I’d like to apologize for upsetting you. I realize that this is all a bit sudden and overwhelming for you. I believe Rick made a mistake in assigning me to you.” He ignored the snort of agreement that came from somewhere in the vicinity of the tan door, probably the bathroom, and continued.

“I think this is all too much for you, too soon. I’m going to call Rick and have you switched to another agent. He’ll make sure to keep things simple. You probably won’t even have to leave theoffice.” He paused to let his words sink in. No doubt she was feeling relieved with the reprieve.

“If you don’t mind, I need to make a few calls. I have to cancel flights, hotel rooms, conferences, book signings, and conventions,” Nick said, pausing with a heavy sigh for effect. “I guess I can wait for most of these calls until I get to the office since they’ll take hours. I had you booked all over the country. The one in Hawaii will be kind of tough to get out of.” He paused for a few seconds to allow that to sink in.

“It’s really a damn shame because I think you would have really enjoyed yourself. I know touring can be a lot of work,” Nick said as he opened his email to make sure that all his travel confirmations were set. “But they’re also a lot of fun, new experiences, trying new things, meeting new people. I think this could have been really good for you, but I’m not going to push you into something that you’re clearly not ready for.”

Nick waited, watching the bathroom door like a hawk. He bit back a groan of frustration, knowing he had to remain calm if this was going to work. His eyes darted back to her desk and he couldn’t help but grin when he spotted the scratch ticket.

“You wouldn’t happen to know the area code for Vegas, would you? I booked you there next month and I need to let them know-”

“Vegas?”

“Yeah, I...” Nick’s words trailed off as he turned his head and found the little recluse standing in the bathroom doorway, fidgeting nervously with her fingers as she stared down at the floor.

There were few things in life that left him speechless and this was one of them. The drab, frumpy little recluse that he’d left with his friends was gone. In her place was a very pretty and adorable woman. She wasn’t the most beautiful womanhe’d ever seen, she wasn’t Dana Pierce-level pretty, but she was definitely beyond fucking adorable.

He ran his eyes from her newly cut silky hair over beautiful caramel eyes, cute little nose, the bottom lip that was fuller than the top, small oval chin, slender neck, surprisingly full breasts accentuated by a baby pink top, a slender waist, nicely shaped hips and short, yet nicely shaped legs.

One very important question came to mind, why in the hell had she been covering all that up? That thought was immediately followed by the realization that this new look would definitely work in his favor. Before, all he had was her work to push the name. Now, he had a pretty face to back the work. This would be easier than he thought.

“Where else would I be going?” her quiet voice tore him from his thoughts. He gave himself a mental shake and focused on the problem at hand, convincing her to take a chance on him.

Nick moved to the end of the couch, gesturing to the computer on the table. “The whole itinerary is right there if you’d like to take a look,” he said casually.

She looked close to bolting again, but curiosity was clearly winning out. She sat down on the couch, careful to keep her distance, and scrolled down the list. He knew she liked what she saw by the way that she was trying to bite back a smile.

“And there would be time for me to do other things?” she asked, looking hopeful.

Oh, he had her.

J.L. Lewis was his.

“Absolutely.”

CHAPTER 8

“What are you doing?”

Jamie quickly shifted the new laptop on her tray so that the monitor was now facing the airplane window.

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

Nick frowned down at her. Even sitting down, he towered over her. She inwardly sighed, wondering when she was going to catch a break. Thankfully, and much to her surprise, first class seats really were spacious. All throughout her photoshoot and the meetings this morning, she’d feared being squished between Nick and some unknown person during the six-hour flight, but luckily for her, the airline had bumped them up to first class at the last minute. It probably had something to do with Nick flirting with the ticket woman.

She wondered if he would use that lovely little talent for the rest of their flights during their tour. It would definitely save her nerves. Not that she couldn’t handle sitting in coach. She could. The few times she’d flown were in coach and she’d survived.

No, her concern was being too close to Nick. He intimidated her and made her feel uncomfortable, which wasn’t exactly helping her to overcome being the world’s biggest pushover.Space was her friend. As long as she had that, she could breathe and think clearly. Well, sort of...

“If you’re not working, then I need the computer,” Nick said, sounding grumpy.

He hadn’t been happy when he’d discovered that she didn’t own a laptop. When she’d quietly suggested bringing her desktop with them, he’d glared at her. Just glared. For about a minute, she’d managed to hold back an apology for not owning a laptop. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Finally, she couldn’t hold it back any longer and apologized and promised to buy one as soon as possible.

He didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed on her, and she would swear to her dying day, that they’d looked calculating. It made her take a nervous step back. After another moment of making her squirm, which she really didn’t appreciate, he’d told her that they would share his laptop until he could find one that met his specifications for her.

She really didn’t understand why they couldn’t just pop into the nearest Walmart and pick one up and told him that. He just shook his head and told her that he’d handle it. That was fine with her. She really didn’t care and was more than happy to play around with this one.

For the first ten minutes, she’d played around with the laptop to see what it could do. Then, she’d felt kind of guilty about that, so she’d started editing John Bishop’s latest novel only to stop doing that ten minutes in because she wanted to see if it was her turn in an online Scrabble game. It was. Since then, she’d been kicking some cyber butt.

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