“I think this is all too much for you, too soon. I’m going to call Rick and have you switched to one of the junior editors. He’ll make sure to keep things simple. You probably won’t even have to leave the office.” He paused to let his words sink in. No doubt she was feeling relieved at the reprieve.

“If you don’t mind, I need to make a lot of calls. I have to cancel flights, hotel rooms, conferences, book signings, and conventions.” He sighed heavily for effect. “I guess I can wait for most of these calls until I get to the office since they’ll take hours. I had you booked all over the country. The one in Hawaii will be kind of tough to get out of.” He paused for a few seconds to allow that to sink in.

“It’s really a damn shame because I think you would have really enjoyed yourself. I know touring can be a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun,” he said as he opened his e-mail to make sure that all his travel confirmations were set. “But there’s also a lot of fun, new experiences, trying new things, meeting new people. I think this could have been really good for you, but I’m not going to push you into something that you’re clearly not ready for.”

Nick waited, watching the bathroom door like a hawk. He bit back a groan of frustration, knowing he had to remain cool and calm if this was going to work. His eyes darted back to her desk and he couldn’t help but grin when he spotted the scratch ticket.

“You wouldn’t happen to know the area code for Vegas, would you? I booked you there next month and I need to let them know-“

“Vegas?”

“Yeah, I…” his words trailed off as he turned his head and found the little recluse standing in the bathroom doorway, fidgeting nervously with her fingers. She stood straight, but avoided looking at him.

There were few things in life that left him speechless and this was one of them. The drab, frumpy little recluse that he’d left with his friends was gone. In her place was a very pretty and adorable woman. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, she wasn’t Dana Pierce level pretty, but she was definitely hot.

He ran his eyes from her newly cut silky hair over beautiful caramel eyes, cute little nose, the bottom lip that was fuller than the top, small oval chin, slender neck, surprisingly full br**sts accentuated by a baby pink top, a slender waist, nicely shaped h*ps and short, yet nicely shaped legs.

One very important question came to mind, why in the hell had she been covering all that up? That thought was immediately followed by the realization that this new look would definitely work in his favor. Before all he had was her work to push the name. Now he had a beautiful face to back the work. This would be easier than he thought.

“Where else would I be going?” her quiet voice tore him from his thoughts. He gave himself a mental shake and focused on the problem at hand, convincing her to take a chance with him.

He moved to the end of the couch, gesturing to the computer on the table.

“The whole itinerary is right there if you’d like to take a look,” he said casually as if he wasn’t nervous as hell.

She looked close to bolting again, but curiosity clearly won out. She sat down on the couch, careful to keep her distance from him and scrolled down the list. He knew she liked what she saw by the way she was trying to bite back a smile.

“And there would be time for me to do other things?” she asked hesitantly.

Oh, he had her. J.L. Lewis was his.

“Absolutely.”

Chapter 6

“What are you doing?”

Jamie quickly shifted the new laptop on her tray so that the monitor was now facing the airplane window.

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

Nick frowned down at her. Even sitting down he towered over her, intimidating her. She inwardly sighed, wondering when she was going to catch a break. Thankfully, and much to her delighted surprise, first class seats really were spacious. All throughout her photo shoot and meetings this morning she feared being squished between Nick and some unknown, probably smelly person, during the six hour flight, but luckily the airline bumped them up to first class at the last minute. It probably had something to do with Nick flirting with the ticket woman.

She wondered if he would use that lovely little talent for the rest of their flights during their tour. It would save her nerves. Not that she couldn’t handle sitting in coach. She could. The few times she’d flown were in the coach section and she’d survived.

No, her concern was being squished in by Nick. He intimidated her and made her feel uncomfortable. The man was far too bossy for his own good and with her being the world’s biggest pushover that wasn’t exactly going to help. Space was her friend. As long as she had that she could breathe and think clearly. Well, sort of….

“If you’re not working then I need the computer,” Nick said, sounding grumpy. He hadn’t been happy when he discovered that she didn’t own a laptop.

When she quietly suggested they bring her desktop with them he glared at her. Just glared. For about a minute she held back her apology for not owning a laptop. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Finally she couldn’t hold it back any longer and apologized and promised to buy one.

He didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed on her and she would swear to her dying day that they looked calculating. It made her take a nervous step back. After another moment of making her squirm, which she really didn’t appreciate, he told her they would share his new laptop until he could find one that met his specifications for her.

She really didn’t understand why they couldn’t just pop into a Best Buy and pick one up and told him that. He just shook his head and told her he’d handle it.

That was fine with her. She really didn’t care and was more than happy to play around with this one. It was pretty cool. For the first ten minutes she played around with it. Then she felt kind of felt guilty about that so she started editing John Bishop’s latest novel only to stop doing that ten minutes in because she wanted to see if it was her turn in an online Scrabble game. It was. Since then she’d been kicking some cyber butt if she did say so herself.

“Well, if you’re done do you mind if I got some work done?” he asked calmly enough so she passed the computer over, but not before she quickly closed the Scrabble window and erased the web browser’s history. No need to poke the tiger, she thought.

Deciding this was probably the best time to use the bathroom, she stood up.

“Excuse me,” she said as she flattened herself against the back of the seat in front of her, there was more room in first class, but she liked to get as much space between herself and the man watching her with an amused expression as she could.

“Where are you going?” he asked, looking back at the screen.

“Bathroom.”

He nodded as if she’d asked for permission. She almost snorted. She might be a pushover, but she wasn’t that pathetic. She quickly made her way to the first class lavatory and sighed as she spotted the “Occupied” sign. Deciding that it was better to wait here instead of in her seat, she leaned back against the wall and prepared for the long haul.

“Excuse me, is this the line for the bathroom?” a deeply masculine voice said, drawing Jamie’s attention.

She looked over to answer the man and found herself speechless and probably blushing. He simply smiled at what was probably her impression of a dying goldfish while she tried not to drool. This man was GQ level handsome, not as handsome as Nick or Edward Pierce, but close enough to fray her weary nerves.

He held out his hand, expectantly. “Since it looks like we’re going to be line neighbors I thought I should introduce myself. I’m Sean.”

Was this man flirting? Oh, he definitely was, judging by the glint in his eyes.

Jamie barely stopped herself from looking behind her for the beautiful woman that obviously had his attention. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was flirting with her.

She forced herself to take a calming breath as she shook his hand. This was so new and unexpected. Men did not flirt with her. They simply didn’t.

“Jamie,” she said quickly when she realized she was only holding his hand and staring. Oh, she so sucked at this! He probably thought she was the biggest freak on earth. Any second now he’d give her a polite smile and step back.