Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(52)

“Hey,” he said. My veins thundered at the sound of his masculine voice. “Can I call you back? I just got to a restaurant where I’m meeting with a client.”

“A woman client?” I asked. He chuckled.

“Hmm. No answer. Interesting,” I said.

He paused for a beat. “Are you jealous?”

“Is she hot?”

“Not hotter than you,” he said, his voice firm, but I could also feel a hint of amusement in it.

“Whatever,” I mumbled. The entire time I’d been his client, I hadn’t gotten the let’s go to a restaurant and discuss your case there treatment.

He sighed. “Nicole, please don’t be jealous. I can assure you that you have no reason to be.”

“I’m not jealous,” I said, and I wasn’t. I just wished things would have been different. I wished we could go out and do things while we got to know each other instead of hiding our conversations behind late-night calls and stupid meetings, where our personal conversations were overshadowed by my past with Gabe.

“Good. I really have to go. I’ll call you when I get out of here.”

I mumbled a goodbye I wasn’t even sure he heard before hanging up. I was stuck in traffic for twenty minutes before Marcus called back. After asking him how the ailing aunt he went home to visit was doing, I gave him the overview of what tonight would be like: club, girls, drinking, partying.

When I got home, Bonnie trotted to the door to greet me, her floppy ears dangling as she tilted her head for me to scratch. I did and picked her up as soon as I set down my bag, keys, and kicked off my heels. I held Bonnie on my hip and sorted through the bottles of wine I had placed on the wooden bottle holder on the wall and set her on the floor and poured some into a glass before putting on a pair of sneakers, and headed out back with her. I let her roam a bit while I sipped on my wine and took in the ocean breeze, watching her to make sure she didn’t number two without my knowledge. There were few things I hated more than stepping on the shit an irresponsible dog owner left behind.

“Is that a cocker spaniel?”

My head snapped up to the shirtless guy slowing down from his jog. Perks of living on Manhattan Beach—hot shirtless guys jogging.

“Nope. King Charles.”

He smiled, crouching down to meet Bonnie’s excited little hop. “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I smiled.

“She looks like you.”

I felt my face heat up a little as I smiled. “Thank you.”

“I’ve never seen you around here.”

“I just moved from . . .” I paused. He obviously didn’t know me as Gabriel Lane’s wife, so he wouldn’t know where I’d lived. It was the first time I realized I was starting from scratch. I was just Nicole Alessi again, and unless you were into digging into people’s past and saw my socialite, wild child days, very few people knew who I was. “I just moved over here,” I said, correcting myself.

“Oh. Where did you move from?”

“Like twenty minutes away.”

“Oh. I moved here from Georgia a few months ago.” He paused. “I’m Brent, by the way.”

“Nicole,” I said, bumping the fist he extended for me.

“My hands are sweaty,” he said as way of explanation.

I heard my phone ringing inside and jerked out of my seat. When I looked at Bonnie again, I noticed she’d chosen that exact moment to take a crap. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I have to get that. Enjoy your run. I’m sure I’ll see you around again.”

“I hope so,” he said, taking off again. I watched him leave for a second before Bonnie tugged at her leash, and I sighed, coming back to reality.

“What have I told you about using the bathroom in front of people?” I whispered, crouching down with the baggie in my hand. “So disgusting, Bonnie. So disgusting.”

When I walked back in the house, I noticed the missed call was from Victor. I debated not calling him back, but I didn’t want him to think I was being childish or jealous because he was out with a female client, so I called back.

“How was your lunch date?” I asked. The harsh breath he exhaled into the phone line made me shiver as if his face was on me.

“Meeting, Nicole. It was a meeting.”

“Same difference.”

“Not the same difference. I don’t sleep with my clients.”

I bit back a smile, tried to mask it from my voice. “That’s too bad. I heard you have a client who was just about to touch herself thinking about that possibility.”

“Fuck, Nicole,” he groaned.

“Hmm?”

“You’re killing me,” he said, voice gruff. Butterflies ignited deep in my belly.

“What kills you more, Victor? Knowing you can have me and passing it up or thinking about me going out tonight and finding another man to satisfy this urge?”

He was quiet, but I knew he was there because I could hear his labored breath in my ear. I stayed quiet. I was never one to shy away, but I was afraid maybe I’d pushed the envelope and in turn pushed him farther away.

“I’ve been sitting outside, staring at the office building trying to get rid of the hard-on you’ve managed to give me, and now that’s looking like it won’t be going away any time soon, which means I’m going to be late to a f*cking meeting I arrived twenty minutes early to,” he said, pausing. I smiled. “To answer your question, both of those options f*cking kill me, but when I f*ck you again, and I will have you again, it’s my name you’re going to be screaming.”