Page 52

Abagail sighed and set her phone onto her knee. “This wasn’t a planned trip, and while I can take the days because there’s nothing urgent going on, it does mean that I need to prepare Ivy for my absence.”

Nicola pressed her lips into a thin line. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have a job like that, one where she could simply take off whenever she wanted to. She definitely wouldn’t be a boss over someone. Hell, she could barely manage to keep herself together.

“But why do you work?”

“Because I have a job.”

“Abs…” Nicola dragged out the nickname.

Abagail glanced up at her then, a curious look on her face, one that Nicola wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

“It’s clear your family has money. Warren never really talked about it much, but you don’t have to work, do you?” Nicola played with the edge of her T-shirt, not quite sure where this line of questioning was coming from. “Like, you don’t need the income.”

“No. I don’t.” Abagail wrinkled her nose and went back to her phone. “But there’s more to work than income.”

Nicola vastly disagreed. If she could spend every minute at home with Alanna, taking care of her and not working, then she absolutely would. But unfortunately, the things of life required money, and she needed a job to pay rent on an apartment she didn’t have, to put gas in her car and maybe get insurance on it next year, and to occasionally have a full-blown meal that actually filled her belly.

“I think a hard work ethic is extremely attractive on a person, don’t you?”

Nicola shivered. She did find that attractive. It was also a quality that Warren didn’t have but Abagail did. Equally so, Nicola didn’t have it. And she knew it. The list of jobs that she’d had was getting close to the triple digits, and every time she found one that was decently stable, she’d be pulled away by some drama with Alanna.

She swallowed the lump that suddenly lodged itself in her throat.

“I find work not only a distraction from the mundane, but I like to keep my hands busy.” Abagail looked over at her now, dragging her gaze from Nicola’s eyes and down her throat to her chest, over her waist to right between her legs. Abagail lingered there, her cheeks reddening and her body tightening.

Just what exactly was she thinking now?

“Not something I think you’re unaware of.”

“No,” Nicola answered, her voice cracking on the word as her body started to react to the lingering gaze.

“Why haven’t you had a job? Truly, because I don’t think it’s because Warren told you that you couldn’t work.” Abagail put her phone down on the edge of the couch.

Nicola sucked in a sharp breath. Abagail might be distanced from her family, but she wasn’t ignorant of them. She shook her head slowly. “He did tell me I wouldn’t have to work as soon as we got engaged.”

“But you weren’t working before that.” Abagail settled her hand on Nicola’s knee and gently stroked her with her fingers. “Why?”

“Alanna,” Nicola whispered. “Well, not because of her but because of her. It’s a mess, and I’m the only one she really has. We have an aunt, but ever since she got married—which was before our parents died—things got complicated and distanced with her, and she tries, she really does. But she has so many issues on her own, and Alanna—she needs me.”

Abagail shook her head quickly, gripping Nicola’s knee hard. “I didn’t say Alanna didn’t. But you also deserve to live and do the things that you want to do.”

No one had ever said that to her before. Not even Aunt Simone. Well, she had, but not so directly, and at the same time, there was an undercurrent of responsibility for Alanna in there. But that was also here now, but this felt...different. Nicola couldn’t place why exactly.

She shivered and shook her head again. “I need to take care of Alanna.”

“At the cost of your own stability and happiness?” Abagail raised that pesky eyebrow, and they both knew full well that the conversation they were having now was so different from the one that Nicola had started. This wasn’t about work anymore—it was about values.

“I’ll do anything for Alanna.”

“Hmmm.” Abagail’s lips pressed into a thin line. Nicola suspected that she was thinking something, scheming something, and while Nicola wanted to ask what it was, she was a little scared to find out just exactly what that was. “And when do you start doing things for yourself?”

“I-I don’t.” Nicola bit her lip and dropped her gaze to Abagail’s mouth. “Unless you count everything I’ve done with you in the last couple of weeks.”

Abagail chuckled, a slow seductive laugh that turned Nicola on in a second. “I think it’s a perfect way to be a bit selfish.”

Nicola’s lips quirked upward, and she moved swiftly, straddling Abagail on the couch, her knees digging into the cushions. “We’re definitely really good at being selfish together.”

“We are.” Abagail slid her hands up Nicola’s thighs to her waist, moving her palm to the center of Nicola’s chest. “I’ll have the next payment to you by the end of this week.”