A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (12 page)

* * *

N
icola watched
Max ease forward over at his table, leaning toward Judith. Whispering sweet nothings, no doubt.
Stupid Max
.

Nicola jumped as Cassie poked her in the side. “Come with me to the bathroom, Charlie?”

“Really, Cass? This is so unlike you.”

“Behaving like an actual girl? I know.” Cassie rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

Lachlan slid out of the booth to accommodate them. Nicola smiled back at him as she tottered through the bar.
So pretty. So Not-Max
. Cassie tugged on Nicola’s arm to keep her moving.

In the ladies’ room, as soon as the door swung shut, Cassie rounded on Nicola. “What are you up to, Charlie-girl?”

“Huh?”

“Usually you pick one guy and you go for it. I’ve never seen you try to play the jealousy card.”

Her friend seemed to have gone from zero to sixty, and Nicola was still trying to find the parking brake. “What?”

“
Max
. You’re flirting like crazy with Lachlan to get to Max.”

“Am not.”

Cassie snorted.

Nettled, Nicola leaned against the wall, hunching a shoulder. “I’m not. Lachlan is gorgeous. And
British
.”

Cassie smirked. “I noticed.”

“And Max is…
Max
.”

Cassie laughed. Nicola poked her.

“Fine, fine.” Her friend raised her arms in surrender, turning her mermaid tattoo and the samurai on her forearm upside down. “The Den Mama will retire for the evening.”

Nicola felt dizzy and realized she’d turned her head to follow the tattoos’ faces. She righted herself, blinking. “Don’t give me anymore beer.”

“
Duh
.” Cassie narrowed her eyes. “What’s the deal with you and Max anyway? The way you talk about him, it feels like he was more than a childhood sweetheart.”

Nicola winced. That’s right, she had sort of fudged the truth with Cassie the other day.
Well, shit
. “He wasn’t just my childhood sweetheart. We dated on and off for eight years.”

“Now you
have
to tell me the rest of this. Eight
years
?”

Nicola nodded toward the door. “Lach and Tierney—”

“They’ll wait.” Cassie pressed her back against the door, preventing Nicola from opening it. “Max and you. Talk.”

Nicola clucked her tongue. Cassie could be pretty damn stubborn when she set her mind on it. Still, Nicola’s beer and the British flirt were waiting for her outside. The sooner she gave Cassie the dish, the sooner Nicola could get back to her evening plans. “Max and I dated in high school and a little after, like I said. Hot and heavy. The first big, official, we’re-
so
-over breakup we had was the summer I graduated college, because he drove drunk and crashed his car.”

“Right. And then?”

Nicola glared at her for interrupting.

Cassie made an apologetic grimace, then mimicked locking her lips and throwing away the key.

Nicola went on, “After that, we didn’t speak for five months. I moved across the country for grad school. I was making new friends. I had a few rebound flings at parties. Then I came home for winter break. Max and I ended up at the same New Year’s party. We kissed at midnight. We got back together.”

The memory of that kiss still made flutters in her chest. They’d circled each other that whole New Year’s night, eyes meeting across the crowded room, secret smiles hidden from their friends. Then, a minute before midnight, sneaking away, holding hands under the moonlight. A magical, special moment stolen out of time. She’d missed him so much, wanted him so much, and she’d been fighting it for months. So when Max leaned toward her, the starlight shining in his eyes, Nicola had kissed him.

Cassie touched her hand, breaking Nicola free from her reverie. Nicola shook herself and continued, “Max and I were good for a little while. But he was still partying too much, and I…I got pretty clingy. I stopped hanging out with my old friends, stopped making new ones at school. I only wanted to be with Max.”

Cassie frowned. “He cut you off from your friends?”

I’m telling it wrong
. Nicola rubbed her forehead, frowning, trying to figure out how to explain this bit. “No. It was all me. He was—he
is
a social butterfly. He always liked to be out with people. Partying. And I didn’t like my new school, so I
really
didn’t feel like socializing. Max became enough for me.”
Here’s the difficult part
. She took a ragged breath. “I was going to grad school on the East Coast, but right about then, I told him I could transfer to UCLA so we could be together. I, um, I even offered to drop out for a while so we could be together.” She cleared her throat, still embarrassed by her younger self’s single-minded devotion.

Cassie gaped at her, arms crossed, samurai tattoo snuggling up to the mermaid design on her other arm. “You were going to quit school because of a
guy
?”

Nicola rolled her shoulders, trying to shake the prickling tension, but finally she had to meet Cassie’s gaze. “
Yes
. I thought I was going to marry him. I thought he was going to be my future. Those kind of choices seem more reasonable when you’re pretty sure
the
guy
is the love of your life.”

Nicola dug her fingernail into a crack on the linoleum of the sink, avoiding Cassie’s gaze. “But he saw things your way. Said I was making him my whole life and I needed to pull back, have interests outside of him. We broke up. He was right.”

He
had
been right, but that didn’t mean she could forgive him for destroying the girl she’d been. For shattering her heart so completely, she was only now managing to put the last few pieces together.

“So you two broke up for good, then?” Cassie asked.

Nicola hesitated. There was more, but only a little. And it was so much messier than what had come before. And Lachlan was waiting, and other people needed the bathroom. This was enough. Cassie had the big picture she’d wanted. Nicola had unburdened herself. Crisis solved.

Cassie bit her lip, shooting an uncertain glance at Nicola. “Do you still have feelings for Max?”

More talking?
Nicola brushed a hand through her hair and knotted her fingers at the back of her neck. She wanted to laugh the question off, but her mind kept spiraling back to Max, to him sitting out there with another woman, to the way her stomach was in knots thinking about it. To that kiss after her audition, to the warmth in her heart the moment she’d opened the door and seen him again. She wet her lips. “I don’t know.”

Cassie scoffed.

“Cass, I honestly don’t. Half the time I want to kill him. Half the time I want to tear his clothes off with my teeth.”

“Honey, I just met Max a few days ago and
I
feel that way about him. He’s gorgeous.”

Nicola hip-bumped Cassie in rebuke. “But I don’t know if that means I still have feelings for him.”

“The lust vs. love question,” Cassie intoned.

“It’s not love.”

Her friend shot her a skeptical stare.

“It’s
not
love.” Nicola slapped the sink, shaking her head. “Even I am not stupid enough to fall in love with Max Fiesengerke for a third time.”

Cassie looped her arm through Nicola’s and pulled her out the door, dragging Nicola toward their booth, toward Lachlan. “Then you should be fine, right? As long as it’s not love.”

Nicola nodded, but, as they passed Max’s table and he didn’t so much as glance at her, her stomach was in knots again. Knots she still didn’t know how to untie.

As they approached their table, Lachlan stood and smiled beatifically, first at Cassie and then, with an extra special warmth, at Nicola. She looked up at him, admiring the chiseled perfection of his cheekbones, the mobile sensuality of his lips. A gorgeous man, that Lachlan.

And there were no minefields with him. No baggage. No history or emotional gunk. No tangled knots of feelings.

Most importantly, he was not Max.

As she slid into the booth, Nicola made sure to slide in extra close to Lachlan. He pushed another beer her way, and, despite Cassie’s quelling look, Nicola batted her eyes at Lachlan as she took a drink.

* * *

M
ax was painfully
aware of Nicola passing behind his chair, the scent of her citrusy perfume drifting across his senses like a caress, but he forced himself not to follow her with his gaze. Judith was the important thing right now. Judith and his career.
Yes
.
Right
.
Obviously
. “So, you’re looking outside the company for your King Henry?”

“Yes. But that’s Isabelle’s idea.” Judith tilted her head to the side, her silky hair sliding over her shoulder. She was a beautiful woman, with a cool sort of sex appeal, but she was too aware of it. Judith knew how to position her body to display her breasts, how to tilt her head to create the best view of her face. She made a pretty picture, but it was exhausting to be around her after a while, to be around all that posing and trying.

Nicola, on the other hand, was totally unconcerned, laughing, tossing her hair with careless grace, the edge of her sweater slipping unnoticed to show more and more of her creamy skin and delicate bones…

“Max? Where did you just go?”

“Sorry.” He eased onto his elbows, leaning close to Judith so he couldn’t even see Nicola’s table. “You were saying there were other contenders for Henry? Outside the company?”

“Yes.” She drank, then set her glass on the table with a click. “For instance, what’s your brother’s availability like this fall?”

“Peter? You asked me out to talk about getting Peter to play Henry?”
Fuck my life
. He took a deep drink of his iced tea, momentarily wishing he could trade for Judith’s scotch.

“It would be a big coup for the RSF to have someone of Peter Fiesengerke’s notoriety work with us. The opportunity would be good for Peter too. Build his credibility as an actor.”

Because Peter needs more opportunities to shine
. Star of the Year. People’s Choice. Sexiest fucking Man Alive. Max glanced away from Judith to hide his flare of anger, which left him staring at Nicola as Lachlan leaned over to whisper something in her ear. She giggled and very carefully looked anywhere but Max’s direction.

He jumped as Judith’s fingertips brushed over his hand again. Reining himself back from his crappy mood, he shoved a smile onto his face. “I think Peter would be an interesting choice for the Henry part. You should call his people. I don’t have anything to do with his career.”
And damned if I’m going to be the one to offer Peter my dream part
.

“
Max
.” Judith laughed. “You don’t think I invited you here to insult you by offering your brother the part?”

Max blinked, feeling like a dog jerked hard on a leash. “Um?”

Lowering her voice, she clasped his hand and tilted forward on the table. “Isabelle wants Peter, but I’m more interested in you. You would make a great Henry.” She drew circles in his spilled tea on the table. “But, as director, I do have to keep an open mind and pursue every interesting possibility I can.”

He kept silent, waiting for Judith to drop the other shoe. On his head.

“I thought you and I could chat for a bit,” she continued. “Establish a good relationship. That might go a way towards convincing Isabelle I should have you for my Henry.”

“All right.” He should feel relief. He still had a shot at Henry. A
good
shot too, if Judith was telling the truth. So why did his gut feel all shivery with anxiety?

A crash of glass followed by swearing made him whip around. He was just in time to see Tierney shoot out of the booth and barrel through the bathroom door, her hand over her mouth. Nicola’s Asian friend trailed after her, clasping two purses in her hands.

Lachlan and Nicola rose on wobbly feet to follow the other two. As they slipped out of the booth, the Brit sidled closer to Nicola. His arm fell easily, companionably around Nicola’s shoulders. Instead of heading toward the restrooms, they walked out the front door together.

“Max?”

He tore his gaze away. “Sorry, Judith. One of the crazies over there is my roommate. I think I should check to make sure he’s not too drunk to get home safe. Will you excuse me?”

Judith’s mouth crimped with displeasure, but then she blinked and smiled at him. “No, of course. We can continue this another time.”

Max barely nodded to her before throwing himself out of his chair and chasing after Lachlan.

And Nicola.