Page 30 of A Ticking Time Boss

“Impress me? Oh, thank you,” I tell the bartender, accepting another glass. I should take it slow with this one. “As if you’d work to impress me.”

Carter’s gaze returns to me, eyes teasing. “You’re right. You’re already suitably impressed. I’m surprised you’ve held off on asking for my autograph for so long.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Autograph? Who do you think you are?”

“The co-owner of a very successful venture capitalist firm,” he says. “Some people would be impressed by that, you know.”

“Oh, I know. How many people have tried to con you out of your money tonight?”

“A few,” he admits with a crooked smile. “A nice woman spent a solid ten minutes trying to, subtly and very tastefully, get me to invest a couple of million in her arthouse newspaper before I told her it had absolutely no future.”

“Carter!”

“Well, I said it more delicately than that. Are you going to tell me off for being rude again?”

“I shouldn’t,” I say. “You’re my boss.”

He shrugs with elegant ease. “Not here, I’m not. Besides, I let her know I’m in more than enough trouble with the Globe, but thank you very much. You’d have thought someone in the newspaper industry would do their research.”

“Again with the snark,” I say, but I’m chuckling despite myself. It’s hard not to around him. Leaning against the bar, he looks just like he had the night we first met. A man from a different world, a god come down to play with mortals, and I’m somehow his chosen confidant. It’s intoxicating.

“Admit it,” he says. “You love it.”

I take a sip of my drink to keep from answering, but he sees the answer in my eyes, because he smiles wider. “Of course you do.”

“Do you know I called you peanut guy in my head the first night we met?”

“Peanut guy?”

“It’s true.”

“Like the little guy with a top hat? Mr. Peanut?”

I shrug. “You offered me peanuts the first time we met.”

“It was a good ice-breaker,” he says. “It wasn’t intended to become a moniker. I hope you’ve never thought of me as that again afterwards. Peanut guy,” he mutters. “The indignity.”

“It’s not bad, as nicknames go.”

“It’s awful.”

“Somehow I’ve gained one in my department.”

His eyes dance. “Have you, kid?”

“Ugh,” I groan. “Not that one.”

“I love that you hate it.”

“I hate that you love it.”

“Touché,” he says. “Now tell me what your nickname is in the newsroom.”

I look down at my glass and trace the rim with my finger. My admission suddenly seems foolish. I’d gained it, after all, for standing up to him. “Spitfire,” I say.

He chuckles. “Do you tell your colleagues off for their manners too, Audrey? Or is it only your bosses?”

A blush climbs up my cheeks. “I don’t know what came over me that first night when we met. Or at that all-hands meeting, for that matter. I’m usually not as… forward.”

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