19. Women Who Probably Want Nathan Hunt

NINETEEN

#1 Charlotte the Mule.

As dress rehearsals go, the dinner went more smoothly than most.

See, the point of a dress rehearsal is always to work out any remaining kinks in the production. It's where you figure out that someone is entering the stage from the wrong mark or that the light blocking doesn't match the choreography for the second scene's entrances.

So, in a way, it was a good thing that someone like Charlotte Mueller was sitting across from me at dinner, watching me try not to look lost when someone discussed a difficult surgery Nathan had had last week or pretend that I'd "forgotten" basic things about my boyfriend like his birthday or the fact that his brothers' names were Spencer and Carrick (rather than not knowing these things at all). Her ladylike snarls and curt questions pointed out the holes in our production in a way Nathan's other coworkers, who barely seemed to know him at all, could not.

Clearly, there were some things we needed to fine-tune.

Didn't make it fun, though.

Otherwise, I managed to fake my way through the rest of it, including a meat course served through a cloud of smoke and soup offered in the form of a bubble. In a way, Nathan had done me a favor by bringing me to a restaurant where you didn't have to order. The silverware was changed out for every course, so I didn't have to worry about which fork to use. And since everyone was eating the same things, I could just wait to see how other people portioned out their food before I attacked mine. By the end, I was surprisingly full, which was more than I expected from courses consisting of approximately two tablespoons of food each.

"So you'll be at the gala?" Reagan asked as we waited outside Columbus Circle for cabs.

I smiled at the smaller woman with braided hair. Reagan and I had hit it off fairly well—probably because she'd grown up in a neighborhood not far from mine, near Yonkers.

"Yes, we will," Nathan confirmed beside me, where he had secured my hand in the crook of his arm. "But we'll be sitting at the Huntwell table. We're chairing the event this year."

For probably the twentieth time that evening, I tried not to look surprised. He hadn't mentioned the part of the "gala" where I was the date of the head honcho.

On the other side of us, Charlotte eyed Nathan with something that looked a whole lot like lust. Which turned to disdain as her blue-eyed gaze landed on me.

"Great," Reagan said. "There's never anyone fun at these things, right, baby?" She squeezed Dwight's arm.

He just nodded as several cabs pulled to the curb.

"We'll see you then, Joni," said Jordan and his wife hummed her approval as she traded air kisses with me. He was a bit older than the rest of the crew—I gathered he was the original doctor at the clinic and had been a bit of a mentor to the rest of them. There was something fatherly about the way he looked over Boon, Dwight, and Nathan before turning back to me with a kind smile. "I'm glad you're bringing this one out of his shell. It's about time."

We watched as each couple got into their own cabs, all departing for what I was sure had to be their massive apartments and townhomes scattered all over Manhattan. None of them had that look on their faces, the invisible weight of people who didn't know where their next rent check was coming from or how they were going to pay their cell phone bill next week.

What must that be like?

"I need to pick something up at the clinic," Nathan said after everyone was gone. "Do you mind walking? It's only a few blocks from here."

I nodded. "I'm all yours."

He blinked, almost as if startled, but didn't argue as he led me down the street.

"I think your coworker has a thing for you," I said as Nathan unlocked the elevator panel of the charming brick building off West Sixty-Fourth Street. "The single one with the short brown hair."

I'd been here before, of course. That humiliating appointment seemed like eons ago.

The elevator doors closed, and he appeared to consider the idea as we rode up to the fourth floor.

"Charlotte? Yes," he finally said as the doors opened.

I waited for him to expand on this as we walked into the empty clinic. When he didn't, I tugged on his wrist just as we reached his office. "Explain."

Nathan sighed as he unlocked the door. "Why?"

"Because you made me spill my guts about Shawn. And also, because it seems like something a girlfriend would know if she were in a trusting relationship."

Not, I told myself, because I was actually jealous. That wasn't the case at all.

I followed him into the darkened office, and when he sat down in his desk chair, I leaned against the desk in front of him.

Nathan looked up at me. "Charlotte joined the practice last year, but our families have known each other since we were children."

"I picked up on that. She likes to name-drop your mom."

"I don't know why. I don't really get along with my parents." Nathan shrugged. "But I don't think she was particularly happy you joined us at dinner. I've gotten the feeling she would prefer to be my date for the gala and any other events I might have to attend."

I snorted. "You think? Real talk: I kept wondering if she was going to shiv me with her steak knife. I also don't think she believed we were a couple. She was quizzing me all evening."

For that, I received an adorably wry look. "I don't think Charlotte would ‘shiv' anyone."

"Just one more difference between her and me, then."

"What do you mean?"

I swallowed a grin. His obliviousness was sometimes too cute to handle. "Just that…well…let's just say that if you were really my man, I wouldn't have put up with a snooty brat like that, making eyes at you all night long."

That brow lifted again. "Oh, really? What would you have done differently?"

"Probably called her out in front of everyone. Told her off, maybe thrown the dessert all over her blouse for good measure. I doubt raspberry chocolate mousse comes out of white silk."

I giggled. I was only half serious, of course. Okay, maybe more—my temper had gotten the best of me more than once, and the idea of prissy Miss Charlotte scraping poo-colored dessert off her perfect clothes was more than a little funny.

"Should I have done that with Shawn?"

And just like that, the laughter was gone. "What?"

Nathan stood suddenly, his big body blocking the lights of the city while he caged me between him and the desk. Not so close I couldn't escape. But several steps beyond regular decency, nonetheless.

"I didn't like the way he was looking at you or the things he was saying at Opal. And at the time, I didn't even know who he really was." Nathan's voice seemed almost an octave lower. A rumble that reminded me quite clearly of a lion on the prowl. "If we see him again, are you suggesting I throw hundred-dollar scotch on him the next time he calls you ‘Sunshine'?"

I swallowed. "Only if you wanted to be punched in the face. Shawn doesn't hold back."

Nathan considered this. "I don't start fights, Joni, but I have ended a few. I doubt it would last long with him."

We blinked at each other in the darkness. There was that stare again. The one he had been hiding all evening. The one he only seemed to use with me.

"Well, then, I suppose it's a good thing we're not actually in a relationship," I said with a suddenly scratchy voice. "I'd hate for you to start your first one."

Nathan looked at me—hard. His gaze dropped to my mouth before returning to my eyes. "You'd be worth it."

We were both quiet for a long minute. I opened my mouth to speak, not exactly knowing what I would say.

And just then, the elevator door opened with a ding.

"Nathan?"

My eyes popped open. She didn't. That bitch. Had she followed us here?

"Nathan? Is that you?"

I turned as Charlotte's voice rang out through the empty clinic. Nathan's hand, suddenly cuffed around my wrist, held me in place.

"Easy," he murmured.

"Where's that raspberry mousse when I need it?"

"Or a shiv?" He chuckled before calling out over my shoulder. "Hello, Charlotte. I'm just here picking up a few patient files to review. I thought I'd show Joni around since she's with me."

Charlotte's heels clipped the wood floors of the clinic as she approached. "Oh, I see. I needed to grab a few things as well."

Liar, I thought. You heard him tell me he needed to come here and thought he'd be alone.

Yeah, Nathan was really lucky I wasn't his actual girlfriend.

I twisted around to smile at Charlotte, though Nathan still had my wrist pinned to my side, warning me not to move. He stroked the sensitive skin just over my pulse with his thumb. Nothing Charlotte would notice. But something everyone in the room would sense anyway.

"You should do that, then," he told her, which was a dismissal if I'd ever heard one.

Charlotte seemed a bit taken aback. I offered a haughty grin. That's right, get the hell out.

"I…all right." She bobbed her head and went back down the hall to her own office, but not before shooting another glare in my direction.

I turned to Nathan once she was gone. "You know, this only proves my point."

He sighed. "It doesn't look very good, does it?"

Part of me thrilled that he didn't like her attentions. But only part. The other was saying something else completely. Something I knew I had to say it out loud.

"She would probably be a better fit for this little job we're running here," I murmured, though it was hard to think straight with his thumb still tracing gentle circles over my wrist. "Given the fact your family already likes her, especially. She already has an ‘in' there."

The thumb stopped. "Job? Oh, you mean our relationship."

"Our pretend relationship, yeah. Except with her, it wouldn't have to be pretend."

Nathan shook his head. "I don't want a relationship with Charlotte Mueller, pretend or otherwise."

"Why not?"

I was pressing. I couldn't help it. I told myself it wasn't because I was jealous, that I wasn't being that girl who forced her boyfriend to denounce another pretty girl just because she couldn't handle it. There was no point. Not when this wasn't even a real relationship, to begin with.

I was also lying to myself.

He took a step closer, forcing me to sit completely back on the desk. "Because she isn't…"

His chest brushed against the front of my dress. I wondered if he knew how sensitive I was to just his presence. If he knew I wasn't even wearing a bra with this dress, and if he looked down, he'd see exactly how he was affecting me.

This wasn't right. This didn't feel like pretend anymore. Charlotte wasn't in the room. None of his coworkers were present.

I wasn't sure I cared.

"She isn't what?" I dared him, tugging lightly on his tie.

I looked up and found Nathan's deep brown eyes pinned to my mouth.

He licked his lips. "She isn't you."

His lips descended on mine, this time accompanied by a hand at my back and another that slipped into my hair and pulled just enough to make me moan. Nathan seemed to take it as an invitation as his tongue slipped in to greet mine, dance with it a bit, before he explored the rest of my mouth, sucking, licking, biting at my lips until I was panting into his.

The hand in my hair slid down as we kissed, wrapping around my neck, flattening over my sternum, and then slipping beneath the cowled neck of my dress to close over one breast. His mouth traveled over my jaw, licking and biting at my neck while his hand squeezed and kneaded my breast with a tight, consistent rhythm.

Nathan's entire body shuddered.

I couldn't help but quiver right back in response.

"Perfect," he mumbled against my skin. "So. Fucking. Perfect."

I purred as my hands slipped into his hair, curls so soft and lush. My God, his mouth was perfect. His touch, too. Most men veered too far in one direction or the other, but Nathan's hands, a surgeon's hands, were trained in finesse. Equal parts rough and tender.

The thumb that had previously tortured my wrist now brushed delicately over my nipple, toying almost reverently before he tugged the loose neckline down with a slight tear and took the nipple into his mouth.

I gasped.

Worship.

There was no other word for what Nathan was doing with each flick, each suck of his tongue and lips.

This was no boy bumbling around in the back of a friend's car or a drunken fumble after too many drinks at the bar. Nor was he some preying older man looking for one thing from an innocent young girl.

This was a man, pure and simple, doing what so many of them could never manage in the presence of a woman.

Adoring her.

Revering her.

Worshiping her with every nip of his teeth, every swirl of his tongue.

I fell back, only to be caught by Nathan's other arm, suspended at his mercy as my legs fell open, urging him to grind his erection into me through the wool of his pants and the thin lace of my new lingerie.

I realized at that moment that I'd never understood what real passion was. Never with any partner—not even Shawn—had I really felt what it was to be prized. Cherished. Not until this night, this moment, in this office, with this boyfriend.

Fake boyfriend.

Fake.

"Well, good night—oh!"

Whether it was the word echoing through my mind or the sound of Charlotte's voice, I suddenly felt like a bucket of cold water had been tossed over me. Nathan froze, then immediately straightened, taking me with him as he pulled my dress back into place.

I didn't dare look in her direction, choosing instead to lay my head on his chest and stare at the wall. She'd see everything written across my face.

Desire.

Guilt.

Lust.

Lies.

Nathan, however, was as cool as ever. The only signs that he'd just been devouring me like a bodega buffet were his mussed hair and slightly swollen mouth that was probably only visible to me.

He pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow, Charlotte."

The hand at my back kept me sitting upright while I flapped my hand over my shoulder, hoping that would suffice as a polite goodbye.

I kept my cheek pressed to his lapel as her footsteps retreated. And the elevator door chimed open. And then finally closed.

Then and only then did the hand at my back retreat.

I stifled a whine at its absence. No, come back.

Nathan stepped away to adjust his clothes, which were barely out of place. His erection was still obvious, but he adjusted that too, so it wasn't quite so present. But he couldn't hide something that large.

Not really.

Nathan's eyes met mine, unfathomably deep and dark in the dim light. "Do you think she believes it now?"

I coughed. "Does who believe what?"

He nodded toward the elevators. "Charlotte. Do you think that worked?"

My stomach dropped. God, I was an idiot.

That was just part of the act. Another scene in the play. A kiss that had felt so damn real, I'd done the worst thing a performer could do—gotten lost in my character.

Still breathless, I nodded.

"Good. She'll gossip with her mother, and it will get back to mine."

I nodded again, then bit my lip, wondering if Nathan might kiss me again for good measure. You know, just to make sure, in case she came back in.

But he didn't.

I wondered if he ever would again.

Or, more importantly, if he should.

"What about your friends?" he wondered.

I blinked. "Huh?"

"This isn't just for me. Who needs to see us together for it to get back to him—to Shawn?"

If Charlotte was a bucket of water, hearing Shawn's name was like plunging into an ice bath. I honestly hadn't really even thought about it beyond talking to Rochelle.

But Nathan had a point. To take myself off the market, word needed to get around. Which meant that I needed to bring him into my world as much as he was escorting me through his.

I took his hand. "Up for a late night?"

He tilted his head to the left. "I suppose. Where are we going?"

I looked him over, took in his buttoned-up persona and the perfect face, and considered how no one who really knew me would ever believe I'd have snagged a dude like this.

For the first time, I wondered if that meant they didn't know me at all.

"Brooklyn," I told him after texting a few friends. "We won't be long. But we'll need to stop by the apartment to change clothes first."