Page 30 of The Texan's Secrets

“I did. I thought he did too. But he hasn’t called.”

“It’s only been a couple of days.”

“Nick called you. He enticed you to his office. Where’s his office, by the way?”

“He rents a space in Workspace Plus. I hadn’t been there before. It’s really nice. Back to Chase.”

Paris polished off her drink. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Did he kiss you goodnight?” Emilia pressed.

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

“Short. Too short, like he didn’t want to commit.”

“Or like he was being a gentleman.” Emilia couldn’t help remembering Nick’s kisses. There was absolutely nothing gentlemanly about them. There was nothing gentlemanly about anything else he’d done either. His moves had been flat-out hot and sexy.

Paris groaned like she was in pain and rolled to her feet.

“What?” Emilia asked.

“Your obvious memories of bliss. You’re killing me here. I need another drink.”

“He’ll call,” Emilia said with conviction as Paris headed for the kitchen.

At the desk in his home office, Nico stared at his phone, ridiculously tempted to call Emilia.

He knew he should wait. There were only a couple more days until the IPO launch party, and he’d see her then. But he was impatient. He couldn’t get the woman out of his mind.

The lovemaking was one thing. He’d do that again in a heartbeat. He’d also take a kiss or a hug. In fact, he’d be happy just to watch her smile from across a room.

He pictured her smile, then her laugh, then thought about her incredible strength of character. He and Misha had had it tough losing their parents. But their struggles paled in comparison to Emilia’s. She seemed to have grabbed every little opportunity in her life and made the most of it.

Take the Coders Plus organization. It sounded like she’d worked her way through most of their workshops and lessons, and that had got him thinking.

He’d shied away from making a teaching video for them when they asked. And he still didn’t want to bring that kind of attention to himself. But being featured in the video was only one part of the equation. Somebody had to develop the workshop.

He could do that part. He’d like to do that part. And Emilia might be interested in helping him. It was a worthy cause, and she obviously respected the organization. And how many budding Emilia Scotts were out there right now who couldn’t afford expensive tuition?

The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea.

Giving in to his impulse, he tapped her number.

“Hi, Nick.” Her voice was breezy when she answered.

“Are you working?”

“Lunch break.”

“Oh? Where?” Maybe he could meet her somewhere.

“At my desk.” There was a smile in her voice. “Why? Where do you usually eat?”

“At my desk,” he admitted. “Sometimes I move to the table.” It depended on how intensely he was coding. He often had to keep his mind focused on the sequence. In some cases, if he walked away, he had to reread a whole bunch of lines of code to get back into the groove.

“Nothing like productivity,” she said with a chuckle.

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