LITMIR.BIZ

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Nick Delaney’s wake, Celie’s fingers already itched to open her laptop, and she wasn’t surprised when her boss himself picked up a conversation they’d abandoned midsentence a few minutes earlier, cut off by the boarding announcement.

      “In fact, don’t even get out the Fadden McElroy file,” he said, stopping beside his seat.

      “No, they didn’t seem to have a grasp of the Delaney’s ethos, I felt,” Celie answered. The Delaney’s chain of steak houses had recently fired its advertising agency, and this two-day trip to New York had been part of the process of selecting a new one. Celie had found it fascinating, though tiring.

      “Exactly,” Nick said, in answer to her comment. “The other agency presentations I want to review inflight, but I’ll make that call to the Chicago office, first.”

      “They’ll want cell phones switched off soon,” she reminded him.

      “It’s a quick call.”

      He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open and keyed in the number. His strong body almost managed to fill the wide business-class aisle. Celie and Nick had been nearly the last passengers to board, and the flight attendants were beginning to make their final checks. Nick looked down at his seat as he spoke into the phone. There was a blue pillow on the seat, and he picked it up with a preoccupied expression, then stood back for Celie to pass.

      As she took her seat, she debated removing the pillow from his grasp, but he had it tucked into the crook of his arm like a baby, and he was listening intently to the voice at the other end of the phone right now. She didn’t want to distract him, even though she was sure he didn’t really want the pillow.

      It reminded her of something, suddenly, and she blinked. A baby. Nick and a baby. Nick and a baby that he didn’t really want.

      She’d dreamed this. Something very akin to this. The night before they’d left Columbus for New York, two days ago.

      Celie lived in a cozy apartment in a big old house in the Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood of Victorian Village. It was a place that she sometimes felt might be too cozy, and too dangerously romantic, for an efficient, organized person such as herself, and she’d certainly never before had the vivid dreams she’d been having since she moved into it two months ago.

      And this week, she’d dreamed about Nick and a baby. She could remember it in detail, now.

      The baby had looked as good in his arms as a designer gown on a supermodel. They’d accessorized each other, so to speak. Cute big dark head of hair, cute little dark head of hair. Broad shoulders, tiny fingers. Red tie, blue sleepsuit. White shirt that was coming untucked, and a blue flannel blanket, also untucked. The man and the infant belonged together like apple pie and ice cream, like tulips and springtime, like baseball and hotdogs.

      Celie’s multimillionaire boss had held the little boy in a way that had made both man and baby look oddly vulnerable, so that both of them had tugged at her heart in a way she didn’t want at all, and wasn’t used to. He’d seemed different in the dream, not like the Nick Delaney she knew so well from the hours she spent in the same office with him. That Nick was confident, driven and impressive in every way.

      In contrast, the dream Nick had had a softness to his eyes that had looked partly like fatigue and partly like tenderness, and both qualities had called forth an almost painful hunger inside the Celie-in-the-dream to go up to him, real close, lean into his tall, well-muscled body, lift her fingers to his face and—

      Celie frowned and sat up straighter.

      She didn’t like having such vivid dreams, nor did she like remembering them in such detail. She was practical, responsible, efficient and in control. She wasn’t a visionary. And she certainly never thought of her boss in a personal context like this. It was a point of professional pride to her that in seven years as an executive assistant for a total of six increasingly successful men in three different jobs, she’d never even come close to falling for her employer.

      And I’m not falling for him now.

      This employer, in particular, she sensed, would be a dangerous man to care for. He organized his emotions the same way he organized his life—in separate compartments, with strict labels. Celie valued this quality in a boss, but she didn’t think she’d want it in a lover.

      Still on the phone, Nick paced back and forth, the way Celie’s sister’s husband, Alex, sometimes paced back and forth when he was trying to soothe their crying baby girl. Little Lizzie had recently celebrated her three-month birthday with a weeklong visit from Kentucky to Columbus with her parents, and her aunt Celie adored her.

      “Maybe I got Alex and Nick mixed up in the dream,” Celie muttered to herself, as she opened her laptop.

      “You okay?” he said, with his hand over the phone.

      “I’m fine.”

      Nick saw that she had her laptop out. “Bring up the spreadsheets from Hampton Finn Lloyd, would you?”

      He continued to pace. This was his caged-lion look, and he did it a lot, although today his movements were confined to a smaller area than usual. To and fro he went, like a big cat, with every muscle coiled, as if he had too much energy at his disposal to expend on a mere telephone call.

      He would have to sit down, soon. The flight attendants had begun to close the aircraft doors. Celie managed to take the blue pillow from him, at last, in a deft maneuver that didn’t disrupt his train of thought, the way her sister would take Lizzie from Alex, sometimes.

      Nick didn’t have any babies in his life that Celie knew of. Not one of his own, and no nieces and nephews, either. His only brother, Sam, although married, was childless. And if Nick was dating anyone, Celie didn’t know. He wasn’t the kind of boss who asked his assistant to buy gifts—or kiss-offs—for his girlfriends.

      If she’d had to guess, Celie would have said he was uninvolved, right now.

      Which means he’s available, said a sneaky little voice inside her head.

      She frowned at the voice, and mentally argued it down. For the second time in as many minutes.

      Sure, she liked Nick. Respected him. Was aware of the powerful impression he made on almost everyone he met, with his clear gaze, his strong handshake, his quick mind. She even felt a little possessive toward him at times, running so many important aspects of his life the way she did.

      Professionally, they accessorized each other, so to speak. Like baseball and hotdogs. Like tulips and springtime.

      But all of this was a long way from feeling, like Celie-in-the-dream, as if she wanted to reach up and—

      “Okay, now, these figures here,” Nick said.

      “Cost breakdowns on their proposed print ad campaign,” Celie answered at once, happy to snap off that other, much more disturbing train of thought and focus on work.

      The airplane engines began to speed up, ready to taxi away from the gate. The flight attendants launched into their safety announcement. Nick and Celie were forced to pause briefly during takeoff, when laptop and briefcase had to be stowed beneath their seats, but apart from that, Nick was as tireless as ever.

      Only toward the end of the flight did he announce, “Okay, we’ll leave it there. I’m going to call Sam.”

      “Do you want me to—?”

      He shook his head, pulled out the phone again, and hit the speed dial. His eyes looked clouded, which they hadn’t a few minutes ago, and his mouth looked a little tight. Celie had become adept at picking up Nick’s emotional signals over the past eight months.

      He was worried about his younger brother, the way Celie herself often worried about her mom.

      He probably didn’t realize he let it show, but Celie could tell, and she wasn’t surprised. Sam was only eleven months younger than Nick, and she knew they’d always been close—close enough to make a spectacular success of working together for the past ten

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