Page 46 of A Ticking Time Boss

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Were you nervous tonight?”

“No.” Just now, I think. I’m nervous right now. “Why would I have been?

He smiles again. It’s smaller this time, and something about it makes my heart hurt. “You and I were on a date, spitfire.”

Air feels stuck in my throat. “We were?”

“Yes,” he says. “Had a good time?”

I nod. “Excellent food. Excellent… company.”

Carter’s hand smooths from my hair to my cheek. Long fingers flit across my skin, fitting themselves to my jaw. Tilting my head up.

I didn’t think he liked me like this. I didn’t think…

And then I can’t think at all, because his golden eyes are burning on mine. “Glad you had fun,” he says. “But I’m not going to ask you out again.”

Oh.

“Good?” I whisper.

He smiles. “I know how you feel about dates, so I want you to think about this. Consider if you’ll let me ask you out. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes. Yeah, I mean. I can do that.”

“Great.” Then he bends his head, and I close my eyes, heart pounding. But he only presses his lips to my cheek. The rough feel of his stubble against my skin sends a shiver down my body, all the way to my toes. “And Audrey?” he says. “The guy who cancelled on you is an idiot.”

“Right. Sure.”

Carter straightens to his full height. His smile is cocky, full of himself. Every inch the man I’d met in that bar weeks ago. “I’ll be out of town for a few days. Think about it until I get back,” he repeats. “If you’ll let me take you out for real.”

I nod, not finding words, and watch him disappear down the street. Hard to imagine I’ll be thinking about anything else.

ELEVEN

I spin the pen around in my hand, the solid weight of the metal cool against my skin.

“With our budget constraints,” the speaker drones on, “a gradual increase is the better option. But that would mean…”

My mind wanders again. It’s done that a lot this conference, and at damn inconvenient times, too. During meetings and panel discussions. Thank God I’d managed to hold it together long enough to give the short speech I was required to.

Tristan has asked me twice what’s on my mind, and both times I’d answered the Globe. Strictly speaking, it’s only a half of a lie. Audrey is a Globe employee, after all.

We haven’t texted much since I said goodbye to her outside her apartment. She’d looked shocked and flushed and wide-eyed, like I’d taken her completely by surprise, drowning in that oversize coat. It had hurt to kiss her cheek instead of her lips. It had hurt to turn and walk away from her. To put the power in her hands.

Tell me, I’d wanted to ask, what you need from me. I’d wanted to make her comfortable, to banish the nerves, to coax her into telling me the real reason dating scares her.

But I’d swallowed every single one of those traitorous words.

Audrey wants it all. A boyfriend who cooks her dinner and reads the paper with her on the weekend. And she deserves it all.

And I can feel myself standing at the ledge—wanting to give her that. Wanting to be the man she turns to for all of it, and doubting I’ll ever be able to live up to it.

It would kill me to be less than she needs, I think.

I spin the pen faster.

What do I know, anyway? About loyalty and family and being a man who keeps his word?

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