“Is this a trick question?”
“Think, Nick. Break the stereotype.”
It took him a second. Then it all came rushing back.
“Your date!”
Bingo.
“That’s right,” I said dryly. “My date.”
He leaned back with a bright smile.
“How did it go?”
I considered punching him. No one would know. He wouldn’t remember in the morning.
“Well, it ended in your apartment—
“As all dates should.”
“—so what does that tell you?”
He paused a second, before shooting back up to give me a sudden kiss on the cheek.
“I’m sorry about your date, Abby.” He dropped back down on the bed, twisting the covers around himself once more. “It’ll never happen again. I swear.”
“What?” I couldn’t help but smile. “My date? Or you interrupting?”
His eyes fluttered open then closed.
“...that’s the spirit...”
Without another word, he drifted away. Dreaming about lobsters, no doubt, and the things he could do to save them. The same things that would surely make my life a living hell.
I grabbed a spare blanket out of the closet, and curled up on a chair by the base of his bed to sleep. Kicking off my wet heels onto the floor.
Just another uneventful day in the world of Nicholas Hunter...
Chapter 5
IF I WAS HOPING FOR a better day tomorrow, the next morning didn’t bode well.
A throat cleared. The floor shifted. A sudden stab of light burned the backs of my eyes.
I swear, if this has anything to do with lobsters...
But it was something far, far worse. I opened my eyes to find myself in a room with not one man in the Hunter family. But with two.
“Mitchell!” I leapt to my feet in alarm, relieved as hell that, while an impromptu visit from the head of the company was never a good thing, at least my dress had finally dried. “I’m so sorry—I wasn’t expecting you!”
A pair of dark eyes swept me up and down. There was no hint of a smile.
“Clearly.”
Mitchell Hunter may have been Nick’s biological father, but the similarity between the two men stopped there. One was all light and whimsy. The other was dark. Frighteningly so.
The first time I’d been summoned to corporate headquarters (yes, summoned), I’d waited a full two hours in the lobby as a meeting ran into over-time. It wasn’t until I heard muffled crying from the conference room, that I ventured cautiously down the hall. The door was open, and against all my better instincts, I leaned forward to peek inside.