Dirty Filthy Fix: A Fixed Trilogy Novella (Fixed #5.5)(18)

Obviously my demands weren’t going to work with Nate.

No, not Nate. Nathan. I was not his friend. I was not his anything.

But since he’d proven himself a sucker for my feminine wiles, maybe I could use them in my favor.

I tossed my hair over a shoulder and strolled to him. “Don’t you think we could maybe settle this on Saturday?” I twirled my finger playfully around his tie, a burnt red hue that brought out the green in his eyes. “We could talk all night long about the things you want to know. You can torture me until I deliver on your demands.” If I decided to show up, that was.

“No way,” Nate said, throwing my words to him back at me. “How do I even know you’ll show up?”

I pouted, unhappy that he’d caught me at my own game. “I don’t know, Nate. But I can’t talk to you about this right now. You have to leave before Hudson gets here. If he walks in and I have to deal with the embarrassment of explaining to my boss why my one-night stand has taken over his waiting room, I will truly die.”

“You can just tell him the truth. Because you ran out on me and didn’t give me your number. I bet the man will give me a high-five with one hand while handing me your number with the other.”

I peeked over at the elevator, saw the dial rising through the floors, and panic started bubbling within me. Logically, I knew Hudson would never give out my home number. And he wouldn’t really care what I did with my own time, either, though he might be a bit upset that it involved someone he worked with and that I was dealing with it on his work time.

Or would he be furious about me sleeping with an owner of another firm? Was it an ethical violation?

God, I didn’t know. I was sure he wouldn’t give anyone a high-five, but that was about all I was sure of.

Bottom line was, I didn’t want to find out how he’d react.

“Nate!” I exclaimed. My heart rate was going up right along with the elevator.

“Just go out with me.” It was maddening how calm he was in contrast to my anxiety.

The elevator doors opened. It wasn’t Hudson who walked out in a well-tailored suit, but his younger brother, Chandler.

“Hey, Trish.” He winked as he walked by.

Chandler rarely made it to the office before Hudson. Hudson had to be coming up any second. Time was running out.

I was desperate.

“Fine,” I gave in. “I’ll go out with you. Just leave.”

Nate smiled, a grin that went from ear to ear and made my insides turn to mush.

“Now was that so hard?” He leaned in toward me, and I thought for a moment that he’d give me a kiss, but he didn’t. And I was weirdly disappointed that he didn’t.

“Go,” I whispered.

“I’m going.”

He stood and left, and I let out a sigh of relief, but then all of a sudden he was back.

“What?” I groaned.

“I need your number.”

I huffed and held my hand toward him. “Give me your phone.” He passed me his phone, and I entered my phone number into the screen and pressed CALL. I let it ring a couple times and then hung up. “Now it’s in there.” I started to hand the phone back to him.

“I need your address, too.”

I smiled a little at this. “It’s like you don’t trust me or something.” And he was so right not to. But I put my address in his phone, under the new contact that I’d made, and I gave him my last name as well. Basically everything no one at the Open Door had ever learned.

“Now get out of here.” Before I regret this.

We stood there for another few seconds after he took his phone back, and I knew I should throw him out, but it was nice to just hold his gaze, to just breathe with another person for a moment.

“Friday. We’re going out Friday. I’ll call.” He walked out and this time I watched him, making sure he got in the elevator and that it went down with him in it.

And I stayed put in my office. But inside, against my better instincts, I was soaring.





“It’s a nice place,” I said, for the third time, rubbing my sweaty palm on my skirt underneath the table. I looked around Gaston’s, the restaurant that Nathan had brought me to, and regretted having said yes to this date in the first place. It was too fancy, too formal, too much the kind of place where you were expected to sit and talk about your lives all night long.

That wasn’t the kind of girl I was. I wasn’t made for traditional courting. I wasn’t made for a traditional lifestyle. I never had been. I had no plans for marriage, no desire for children. All the things the denizens of this restaurant had or wanted. What was I even doing here?

Nathan looked at me over his glass of chardonnay and narrowed his eyes. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” I lied. I’d agreed to this thing to get him out of my hair, to get him out of my office. All I had to do was get through one night and then I could explain that it wasn’t working out and send him on his way. “Everything’s fine.”

Nate scanned the restaurant, his head tilted to one side as he considered. “You know, I brought you here because my friend owns this place, and I thought it would impress you that I could get us in on such short notice. But now that we’re here, it doesn’t really seem like our type of place, does it?”