A Little Bit Pregnant. Susan Mallery
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thanks.”
“Why not? You’re pretty enough.”
“How flattering. Pretty enough? Pretty enough to get a brainless fool who thinks with his biceps? Why would I want to?”
“For the fun.”
“I’m into substance, but thanks for the offer.”
She would never understand Zane’s casual attitude toward the opposite sex. Didn’t he want to settle down? But she already knew the answer to that question. In the two years she’d worked for him, she’d never seen Zane get involved with anyone for more than a few weeks. There was always a new airhead on his arm and he didn’t seem to care that they were interchangeable.
For her part, she gravitated toward serious men who used their brains. Unfortunately none of them had been appealing enough to get her over her Zane crush. Biceps-Man would be a change, if nothing else.
Oh, like that was going to happen.
“I need to like the guy before I have sex,” she said. “Call me old-fashioned, but it’s true.”
“Fascinating information,” Jeff Ritter said as he walked into her office. “Thanks for sharing, but we have more pressing matters.”
Nicki winced silently. If she could have picked some part of the conversation for her other boss to overhear, it wouldn’t have been that.
Jeff stalked into the glass-enclosed office and slammed the door shut behind him. Nicki braced herself for the explosion while Zane seemed singularly unimpressed. He remained slumped in the chair next to her desk.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Jeff tossed him a folder. “What the hell were you thinking? Dammit, Zane, you could have told me what you were going to do.”
Zane flipped through the pages of the computer activity report. “You would have told me not to. Technically we’re partners and you can’t order me around, but you would have tried to convince me it was a bad idea.”
Jeff glared at him. “It was a bad idea. Do you have any idea how many laws you broke last night.”
Nicki figured she might as well join the fray. “I have the actual count, if you’d like it.”
Jeff turned his laserlike stare on her. “You’re in enough trouble already.”
She sighed. “I know. But just for the breaking and entering, and turning off the security system. And the fire alarms.” She considered the number. “Okay, so it was a lot of laws.”
Zane shot her a grin. She held in a smile. Jeff wasn’t amused.
“I’m glad you two think this is so damn funny, but I don’t. Our company has a reputation to uphold. We don’t go around breaking the law for our own purposes.”
Zane raised his eyebrows. Jeff shoved his hands in his pockets. “Only under extreme circumstances,” he amended.
“I was helping out a friend,” Zane said.
Jeff’s gazed narrowed. “You should have told me what you were going to do.”
“I couldn’t. If it went bad, I didn’t want you or anyone in the company implicated.”
“Nicki knew,” Jeff said.
“Sure, but she’d never say anything.”
Zane’s casual acceptance of her loyalty was both gratifying and annoying. She felt like the faithful family retainer…or a favorite dog.
“You could have gotten her in a lot of trouble,” Jeff said.
For the first time since swaggering into her office, Zane actually squirmed.
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.
“That’s right,” she told Jeff. “Zane’s pretty useless.”
Now they were both glaring at her. She shrugged.
Jeff started to speak, but Zane cut him off. “My friend had been working two years on the prototype. These guys stole it and he wanted it back. I said I’d help him. I had to, Jeff. I owed him.”
Nicki knew a few details about Zane’s background. He’d been in the Marines where he’d done a lot of things he didn’t talk about. Jeff had the same sort of background. Several years ago the two of them had met up and started the company.
Neither of them talked about their past, nor did they ever sit around telling war stories. But every now and then, something came out. A new piece of information, a whisper of a truth.
It was there now—in the tone of Zane’s voice as he said those three words.
I owed him.
She didn’t know what they meant, but Jeff did. Instead of complaining or continuing the questioning, he simply nodded.
“Next time, run it past me, okay?”
Zane rose and nodded. “Promise.”
He walked out of the office.
Nicki watched him go. How had Zane owed the guy? Had he saved his life or something? She knew there was no point in asking. Zane was a master at avoiding topics he didn’t want to talk about.
Jeff turned his attention back to her. “You could at least pretend to be worried that I’m going to fire you.”
“You can’t. Not over this. I work for Zane and he needed my help. My job is to provide backup, not to pass judgment on what he’s doing.”
Jeff sighed. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
“You like that I’m smart.”
“Yeah, well, you’re okay. When you’re not being a pain.”
She grinned. “Is Zane in trouble? Are you going to punish him? Can I watch?”
One corner of Jeff’s mouth twitched. “You two deserve each other. I have a meeting with a client. Someone who’s going to pay us for protecting him and his family.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
She turned back to her computer. Zane walked by and stuck his head in her office. “How about lunch? Mexican. You can buy.”
“I want Chinese and this one is on you, bucko.”
He shook his head. “All right. But only because you’re crabby. Brad must not be putting out this week.”
“His name is Boyd,” she yelled after him.
“Whatever,” he called as he headed down the hall.
She considered chasing after him, but then what? It wasn’t polite to run down her boss.
Nicki turned in her wheelchair and rolled over to the file cabinet under the window. As she flipped through the folders, she told herself that she simply had to get over her crush and pronto. Boyd was a perfectly nice guy, and if not for her weakness for Zane, she might have fallen in love with him. That was what she wanted—to have one great man in her life, to settle down, get married, do the kid thing.
But until she found a way to get over Zane, she was stuck in limbo—wanting what she couldn’t have and having what she didn’t want.
“The Seahawks by three,” Zane said over a plate of Kung Pao Beef and rice.
Nicki grinned. “You lead with your chin. You should know better. I’ll take those three points, and listen to you whine come Monday morning.”
She noted the information on a sheet of paper that listed all the pro football games for the weekend.
Zane knew taking the Seahawks wasn’t smart, but he couldn’t help rooting for the home team. Nicki had