Page 78 of Skins Game

She rode down the elevator because at least the elevator had no corners where Kingston Moore would randomly pop around, and then there he was, standing on the stairs below her with startled blue eyes, broad shoulders, and his big hands clutching the handrails in a slim cut suit that accentuated his long legs.

Nope, didn’t want to run into him again unexpectedly.

And alone.

Kingston was probably cloistered in the second-floor conference rooms with the rest of the sales department, running the post-mortem with the manufacturing coordinator to deliver the massive order to the customers.

And she did want a Snickers bar. M&Ms just weren’t cutting it that afternoon.

Nicole rode the pokey elevator down to the first floor.

The floor and walls jiggled the whole way, and she sighed a little as it passed the second floor without stopping.

Okay, she was on a quest for a Snickers bar, and she ducked into the break room to pillage its superior vending machines.

Kingston Moore was sitting at one of the round tables, the one she’d crawled across to kiss him becauseof coursehe was.

Papers littered the table. A laptop was open in front of him, which he glared at as he sprawled in a chair like he was accustomed to a big executive chair and a wide desk.

He looked up, his lips parted like he’d drawn a breath. “Nicole.”

“I just want a Snickers bar,” she said, plodding across the room to the machine she knew was always stocked with them.

“I’ll arm wrestle you for one.”

She paused, swallowing, before she tapped her credit card on the reader. “I’ll just buy myself a candy bar.”

“I’m not a corporate spy,” he said.

She couldn’t get over how he’d demanded her designs like he had a right to them. “Okay.”

“I wasn’t up to anything.”

“There were layoffs. Caitlin Moffett and Rainbow-Supreme are gone, and a lot of other people.”

“That’s rough. Trimming a company down is brutal.”

“The lab feels empty.”

“I imagine it does.”

“You’re still here.”

“Different department. I’m a sales guy.”

Nicole tapped the code for the Snickers into the keypad. “You’re pretty good at sales. I saw the numbers.”

“It was a good trade show. Can we talk?”

The Snickers bar dropped, and she fished it out of the tray. “I’m working on iterations of a design right now. I don’t have time to talk. I just needed a snack.”

“Nicole, please.”

She turned around to flee, but she caught a glimpse of Kingston out of the corner of her eye.

He was leaning forward at the table, his eyes intent on her, a piece of paper crumpled in his fist.

“Let me explain,” he said.