I let my phone ring, even though it was the third time. Nicole had rushed out an hour ago, and I was still only wearing my briefs.

Leaning back against the couch and staring out the window was about all I could manage, although my hand ran through my thick hair as some kind of stress relief. I was on the verge of losing my temper, and I didn’t want to risk saying or doing something I would regret.

At least, something I would regret more than what I had already said.

I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid. Even in my post-orgasm bliss, I’m usually smart enough to shut my mouth if there’s anything bad I could potentially say. When Nicole fell into my arms and leaned against me, I should have let myself drift off to sleep with her in my arms. Instead of opening my big mouth.

“I only hired you because your dad told me to,” is what I had basically said. It was definitely what she had heard.

I couldn’t blame her, either. There were few other ways to take that comment, and none of them were compliments. I would have been angry in her situation.

But the sad fact was that it was true. I had only hired her because of her dad. Worse, I had hired her with the strict intention of making her quit as soon as possible. No matter how well she did, my goal had been to push her out.

I was lucky I didn’t tell her that much. Although, she didn’t give me much of a chance to fuck up further.

There was a loud knock on the door, and I contemplated staying quiet and pretending I wasn’t there. Except it was probably Maureen, and she always knew when I was there and when I wasn’t.

“What?”

“It’s Daniel. Your door’s locked.”

“I know.”

“Can I come in?”

“I’ll find you later.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding far from convinced. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah.”

If only that were true. If only the door was still locked because Nicole’s naked form was still in my arms, instead of still being locked because I had quickly flicked the knob when Nicole raced out.

When the hell did I start to feel this way about her, anyway? She was an intern, and one I didn’t even want to hire. Her grades were fine and her essays more than acceptable, but she hadn’t gone to Harvard.

She never should have been in the program, and yet she had excelled at it. Of course, as part of my plan to drive her away, I made sure never to let her know that, but it was true. She had learned faster than most – almost as fast as Daniel – and the way she handled that second meeting with the junior markets was, apparently, great.

“She wouldn’t take our shit like the first time.” That marketing intern, Jennifer, had laughed when I asked her about the meeting. “There was a point where I thought she was going to try to fire us all if we didn’t stop arguing.”

That showed a speed of growth that suggested an already impressive woman could become something else. She showed more than a few signs that she could be as good as, or even better than, Daniel.

But I neglected to tell her because of her dad. The man who I swore would never fuck with my life again, had done exactly that. All because I let him.

Again.

I pushed myself away from the couch and headed for the small table, gathering up Nicole’s papers into a neat pile.

Now, I was going to make a stand. I had succeeded almost everywhere else except for Jerry and his bullshit, and that was a win I needed. He, his betrayal and his refusal to get out of my head were finally gone.

Especially now that Nicole had quit. At least, I figured that’s what she was doing when she ran nearly naked from my office.

I headed for the door to my office with her papers in my hand, determined to put this behind me. It would be a pity that I couldn’t see or be with Nicole again, but I would live. Whatever I felt for her probably wasn’t love or anything close, even if it felt like that. It could be lust or something a little more, but I couldn’t have strong feelings for an intern. Especially not her.

I would be fine. Surely.

When I made it to Daniel’s office, he was absent-mindedly toying with a little wood carving of a bird on his desk. He always appeared with some new wooden toy as a result of his wood carving hobby. A hobby I couldn’t understand, but one he seemed to spend a lot of time on.

“Good use of company time,” I said, dropping the papers on his desk.

He jumped. “Sorry, thinking about something.”

“Stop thinking and start reading,” I told him, sitting in the chair opposite his desk. “And read fast.”

He did so, and I began to wonder how Nicole compared to him. They were both smart, fast learners and willing to put in the hours, but they weren’t quite the same kind of employee.

There was something different, and I couldn’t figure out what. It wasn’t in their effort, because both worked their asses off. They had different levels of knowledge, but that didn’t mean anything since they were at different stages of their careers.

It suddenly hit me. Nicole had been willing to argue her point. When I said we wouldn’t go public, Nicole had continued discussing it anyway. When I looked over her shoulder, she had even brought her arguments with her in the form of a marketing plan.

They were good, too. Not perfect, but certainly better than I would have expected of an intern.

But it wasn’t just a willingness to argue their point that made Daniel and Nicole different.

It was that Nicole was passionate and enthusiastic. That was something Daniel just wasn’t, and it hadn’t bothered me at all. But now, remembering Nicole’s excitement when she did something as simple as take a meeting, I couldn’t imagine being without that passion in my life.

Of course, none of that mattered. She wasn’t going to speak to me again.

* * *

It had been nearly a week since Nicole had run from my office, and I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

“This address, please,” I said, handing the driver a note as I climbed into the back of my Mercedes SUV.

He closed the door behind me and moved to the front of the car, and I willed him to hurry. This wasn’t a matter of life and death, but it wasn’t far from it.

I sat back and tried to be patient, but the drive was longer than I anticipated. Even reading emails on my phone didn’t make a difference, and I was soon fidgeting in my seat.

Eventually, I saw what I had come for. It was a small building in the suburbs, and above the door was written, “Aisle Consulting”.

Hardly believing my eyes, I told the driver to pull over so that we could wait near the entrance.

When I found out through a network of contacts that Nikki was interviewing here, I expected it to be a big company. Sure, it wasn’t one I had heard of, but I didn’t know all the consulting firms in the city.

What the hell is a woman like Nikki doing interviewing at a tiny company like that? I couldn’t imagine she would be happy counting billable hours for even smaller companies that were probably going bankrupt even with her help.

Besides, she was fresh out of college, so this was probably another internship. What the hell would she learn from it? How to make coffee for three people in a cramped office?

As I stared at the front door, I saw the face I’d seen every night since we were last together. I was close enough to see her smile, but not close enough to hear what she said to the woman who escorted her out. They both smiled widely as they shook hands, and I could only assume Nikki had been offered the position.

At least I knew the woman offering it to her was smart enough to recognize a gem like Nikki.

A little smarter than me, in that regard.

I waited as they spoke for a few more seconds, and then Nikki turned and walked toward where we were parked. I thought for a second that she had caught me, but then I noticed she was heading for the bus stop just in front of us.

We had reached the end of my simple plan: Find out where she’s working or interviewing, and go see her. I hadn’t thought of what to do once I found her.

Acting on impulse, I leaped from the car onto the sidewalk, closing the door behind me as I rushed toward her. She looked up in fear, probably because I looked exactly like some kind of kidnapper, but then a brief flash of something on her face showed me she recognized me.

It also showed me that all hope was not lost. I just need to figure out what to say.

“Hi,” I said, very unimpressively.

She nodded and looked away. This was going to be harder than I thought, especially when images of her legs around me were refusing to leave my mind.

“So, you’re interviewing there, huh? Do they seem any good?”

“They seem like business consultants.”

“I bet they billed you for the interview, didn’t they?”

She turned away as a smile threatened to appear.

A second later, she turned those gorgeous eyes back onto me. “What do you want, Devon?”

“I think you know, Nikki.”

“No, I don’t. You can’t want me back as intern because you didn’t want me in the first place. I doubt you want me back for sex because I can’t imagine that was more than a one afternoon stand. What do you want?”

That was a hell of a question. “I don’t know,” I admitted, moving to sit on a bench near her.

“Well, that’s helpful.”

“I’m still your boss, Nikki. You can’t show me attitude.”

She turned angrily toward me, finally giving me her undivided attention. “No, you’re not! I stopped working for you when I left the building.”

“Oh, did you now? I don’t recall reading a letter of resignation. I certainly don’t recall firing you, although with your new attitude maybe I should.”

I smiled awkwardly, but she wasn’t smiling back. If I had one, now would be a time for plan B.

Not that I even had a plan A.

After a few moments of silence, Nikki sighed and sat down beside me. “Doesn’t look like there will be a bus for a while.”

“Probably not. This bus stop’s been disused for about six months, according to Google,” I said, turning the screen of my phone toward her.

“For god’s sake.”

She crossed her arms, looked straight ahead and stuck out her chin. Watching her like that made me realize how much I had missed her in the previous week.

“Look,” I started, turning toward her, “I know that was a shitty thing to say to you. It was a shitty thing to do. If I could go back in time I would do a lot of things differently, but they’re done now and I can’t take them back. The only thing I can ask for is a fresh start. You were making impressive progress, and I’d like to see how far you can go.”

She glanced at me, but looked away just as quickly. “How can I come back from that? You didn’t hire me because of my grades or my writing, you hired me because of my dad.”

“That’s how it started, sure, but it continued because of your potential. Like I said, you were making really good progress and showing a lot of growth.”

She relaxed her arms and placed her hands in her lap, and I knew I was making some progress of my own. Now, if only I knew where to go from here.

When she broke the silence with a whisper, I had to ask her to repeat it. “I just want to know why you hired me after my dad told you to. Do you know him?”

Shit, I thought, stretching out my legs and turning away from her. This was the part of the conversation I knew had to occur, but I didn’t want it to. If only there was something I could say that wouldn’t upset her.

I knew nothing of her relationship with her dad, but finding out he was a cheating, thieving scumbag would be difficult for any daughter. Especially if I used those words.

“We used to know each other,” I said, hoping it would be enough and knowing it wouldn’t.

“How?”

“It’s a very long story.”

“Well, apparently the bus won’t be here for a while so I’ve got time to listen.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, even though she was obviously angry. She waited impatiently, and I tried to figure out the best way to put it.

It took me a few moments to decide that the truth was going to hurt no matter how I put it, so I may as well put it fairly simply. Afterwards, she would hopefully still be talking to me.

“We worked together a few years ago. Before I had Pristine. Actually, that’s how Pristine started – I invited him to work on a project with me.”

“What was the project?”

“Military vehicles. I had some ideas that I knew would be good, but I didn’t have a lot of hands-on experience. Your dad did, and we’d become friends at work, so I asked him if he wanted to get involved.”

“And he did?”

“Oh yeah, in a big way. Hell, he probably spent as much time on it as I did once we got going. You’d probably remember because he would have been gone a lot.”

She screwed her face up as she thought, and then it lit up as she snapped her fingers together. “I do remember! He used to leave me with my aunt almost every night and most weekends. I hated it.”

“Sorry about that,” I said with a laugh.

Her silent response told me we weren’t ready for jokes yet.

“Anyway, to cut a long story short, he filed for a patent on it. He tried to take it to market, but he couldn’t get anyone to invest, so he brought it back to me. I found investors, we sold a lot of them, and the rest is history.”

“What do you mean, he filed for a patent? Do you mean he applied for one in both of your names?”

“No,” I sighed, annoyed that she was far too smart to overlook that. “He did it behind my back. He told me he got excited and couldn’t help himself.”

When Nikki turned to me with her eyes watering, I could tell she was struggling with that information. “You mean, he stole it from you.”

It was complicated, Nikki.”

We both sat in silence, staring ahead at nothing. I was trying to come up with a way to make her feel better without lying and pretending I was over it.

Clearly, Nikki was trying to process this new information about her father.

“You know,” she finally said, “I knew there was something weird going on when he said I should be careful here. He wouldn’t tell me what he meant, and he said he was happy for me, but he warned me.”

“About what?” I found that offensive, considering I wasn’t the one who had ripped off a business partner. “I didn’t do anything to him.”

“I don’t know, but to be fair, he wasn’t the only one to warn me. A lot of people did.”

It was my turn to face her. What the hell did she mean that people had tried to warn her about me?

“What about? And who?”

“Just about everyone I spoke to, actually. They said you’re difficult to work with, and that the only thing you care about is money. More than one person said you were ruthless in everything you do.”

“That’s bullshit. Who are these people?”

“I think it’s just the rumor on the street, Devon. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, but you have a reputation.”

The anger was boiling within me, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Sure, there was a little truth to the suggestion that I cared about money, but that wasn’t my highest priority.

I didn’t really have a highest priority.

“I don’t know what to say,” I finally told her. “All I know is that I am who I am. If you don’t like it, then there’s nothing I can do about it, and maybe we should end our business relationship.”

Nikki laughed, and it only made me angrier. We were in the middle of a serious conversation – one where I let her see more of myself than I think anyone ever has – and she laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Alright, alright,” she said, with the hint of a grin. “I wasn’t being mean. I just found it funny that you said we should end our business relationship. I think that ended when I stormed out of your office.”

“Naked.” I shouldn’t have added that, but I couldn’t help it.

I also couldn’t help but smile when she blushed.

“Shut up,” she said, looking away. “Not quite naked. Anyway, the point is that I think our business relationship is already done.”

“It doesn’t have to be, you know. You’re welcome to come back.”

She scoffed. “Oh, yeah? Has my dad called and asked you to take me back?”

“Despite what you think after this discussion, I actually liked having you around. Not to mention that you showed a lot of potential, like I said before. If you come back, I think you’re in with a good chance to make something of the internship.”

I watched the back of her head, hoping for the right answer. That she wasn’t looking at me was a bad sign, but I couldn’t imagine her saying “no”. After all, she was the kind of woman who wanted to succeed.

She reminded me a lot of myself.

“One condition,” she eventually said. “I want to help you win the fight with the EPA. I don’t want to see that land rezoned because that’s bad for the community, and bad for the environment.”

“Nikki, you were obviously going to be tasked with helping me on that project. You sealed that as soon as you wrote that report.”

I knew I was right about her wanting to succeed at all costs. Besides, that land had somehow become important to her, and I was the only one who could help her save it from Iris.

“Fine. I’ll come back.”

We both smiled, and I placed my hand on the small of her back as I guided her over to my car. As the car started and she stared at me, I had a nearly overwhelming urge to kiss her.

That would have been stupid, and too soon. Much too soon.

But I’d never wanted anything more in my life.