Page 106 of Boyfriend of the Hour

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 thinkyour 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.”