When the Lights Go Down. Amy Cousins Jo
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effective. We minimize chaos. The more shows we run, the more obvious that will be. The only limits are on how many good people I can hire, and that pool is nowhere near tapped out yet.”
“Okay.”
He plucked the napkin out of his lap and dropped it on the tablecloth in front of him. Like clockwork, the server arrived with the check and Nick handed him a credit card. The man returned almost immediately and Nick gestured for him to wait while he signed the slip. Before she could figure out what to say next, Nick put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to slide it back.
Her butt was frozen to her seat, like she was sitting on a block of ice, the cold locking her brain into immobility. Her jaw creaked as she pushed the word out. “So, okay?”
He looked down at her. “You’ve got the job.”
“I do?”
The distinction was important.
The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Meet with Heitman. Go over the script. If your numbers are in line, then you, your crew and your warehouse have the job.”
She stood up. Now was the time for some memorable comment to seal the deal. Some pithy remark about how he wouldn’t regret it. Maxie opened her mouth.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
She spun on one heel and walked away, bracing herself momentarily on the arm of a passing busboy as the trembling in her knees threatened to spill her across the slick Brazilian-cherry wood floor.
The pristine surfaces of the ladies’ room at Nomi had never echoed so loudly with shouts of glee.
“Yes!”
An older woman in beige linen and pumps yanked her hands out of the sink and left the room without drying them, glancing back over her shoulder on her way out.
“Yes!”
A glimpse of herself in the wall-length mirror arrested her celebratory stomping dance around the room. She laughed out loud and wondered if the escaping woman had gone to summon help.
Her eyes glittered wildly and color rose high in her cheeks. She couldn’t get enough air for shouting, though her open-mouthed grin was unshakeable.
She looked high.
Or insane.
The laughter rose from her belly and shook her soul with joy, turning into another loud woo-hoo! at the end.
“We’re on our way, baby,” she said with satisfaction to her reflection and shook her head at the grin she still couldn’t get off her face. But she must have managed to tone it down a notch from lunatic to simply happy, because when a waitress cracked the door to the restroom and poked her head in gingerly, she smiled back at Maxie before glancing around the empty room and leaving. She checked her cell phone before leaving the bathroom and, sure enough, there was a missed call and a message from a New York number. But she didn’t even care about the missed opportunity with the New York show. Heitman wanted her and his shows almost always hit the big time after launching in Chicago.
This could be the start of everything.
Walking back to where Nick was waiting for her near the elevators to the ground floor, energy flooded her body. She felt as if sparks were shooting out of her fingertips and the ends of her hair. It wasn’t possible for a body to hold in this much electricity. She wanted to sprint up a mountain. Or dance, dripping sweat, to a thundering beat in a hot, crowded club.
Or be thrown on a bed and devoured.
The elevator doors opened in front of Nick. She heard another couple approaching down the hall.
She couldn’t hold this explosion inside for one more second. And mountain climbing and dancing were out.
Stepping into the elevator behind Nick, she pushed the door-close button in the face of the startled couple and dropped the portfolio to the floor with a heavy thud.
Nick looked at the folio. He looked at her, eyebrows drawn together. She might have seen the beginnings of a smile.
Yeah, no time for that.
She smacked her palm against his chest when he took a step toward her and held him away. Felt a full-body memory flash of the last time she’d had her hands on him.
“In sixty seconds there’s nothing but business between us.”
She curled her fingers under the placket of his shirt and yanked him close enough to wrap her free hand around his neck and pull his mouth down to hers. Her lips bruised against his teeth as their mouths crashed together.
The world spun and she stumbled backward until her head rapped against the elevator wall, held up by the iron bands of his arms around her, one of his hands on her ass, pulling her up and into him, the other gripping the back of her neck. His tongue plunged into her mouth and hers did battle with it. She moaned as fire shot through her and raced her hands over him, desperate to get even closer.
He found the hem of her shirt and scraped a hand up her naked back, while she arched her breasts into him and sucked greedily at his mouth. Gasping, she dragged his hand from her back to her naked breast beneath the shirt, crying out when he scraped a thumbnail roughly over her hard nipple.
The ding of the bell when they hit the lobby barely registered.
When she came to, they were leaning against each other like two shipwreck survivors stumbling back onto solid ground. Nick’s forehead braced against hers and she wasn’t certain whose breath rasped louder in the small square box that suddenly felt devoid of air.
The slide of the doors opening and then closing again pulled her part of the way to clarity. She knuckled the door-open button before they were recalled to the twenty-fifth floor.
The tiny ping of a hairpin hitting the floor as she straightened rang in her ears like a bell.
Her updo was definitely a lost cause.
She jammed the elevator door open with one booted foot and tugged her fingers roughly through what remained of her French twist. Pins dropped and bounced on the floor as she raked loose hair back, hoping she didn’t look like she’d just jumped off a cliff. The descent from the twenty-fifth floor had been quite a ride.
They both stepped out into the lobby and Nick handed her the forgotten portfolio. He didn’t let go when she tugged it, so their fingers met on the black leather handle of the case.
His eyes were deep and dark, all iris and shadows of blue. His breath was still uneven.
Hers was, too.
“Sixty seconds?” He sounded like he regretted it.
She felt the zing where his hand touched hers, but didn’t back down.
“All business.” Her answer was firm.
After another moment, he dropped the handle of the portfolio and led the way through the revolving glass doors at the front of the upscale hotel that housed Nomi. A shiny black town car pulled up as they stepped out into the cool night air. Nick lifted a hand to the driver and turned to her.
“Can I offer you a ride?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“I think I need the walk.” She slung the folio’s shoulder strap across her chest and nodded goodbye. Taking her first long strides, she gloried in the feeling of her muscles moving, needing the activity to calm her sizzling nerves.
“Maxie, it’s three miles to your place.”
She didn’t let herself wonder how he knew that.
“Thank god!” she called out without looking back, letting her legs eat up the long walk home.
She felt his eyes on her until she turned the corner and headed north.
Chapter Three
A