Frozen Heart Read online

  I looked down at my own plate. I’d had blanquette de veau, which I had polished off efficiently, if not with as much carnivorous enthusiasm as he’d displayed. “I’m not an android, no. But I do pride myself on a certain reserve.”

  “Reserve is one thing. But you—” He pointed his fork at me. “You’re terrifying. You have all your employees so afraid to put a foot out of line that they don’t even dare go to the bathroom to take a piss.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, as superciliously as I was able. “Are you criticizing my managerial style?”

  He looked briefly alarmed, but then he must have sensed that I wasn’t seriously annoyed, because he flashed an unrepentant grin. “I guess I am, yeah. But honestly, I’m just saying you should try warming up a bit. I mean, I admit I don’t know anything about running a company the size of Snow and Associates, but there’s got to be a better way to do it than terrorizing the people who work for you.”

  “I do not—”

  “Reorganize the entire file room in the next ten seconds, Lawson, or I’ll fire you!” he sang out, his eyes dancing, and I growled softly.

  “Perhaps I do terrorize them,” I admitted. “Occasionally.”

  “Also.” He pointed the fork at me again. “You could call people by their first name every now and again. Wouldn’t hurt. It would make you seem more, you know, human.”

  I wondered why I was sitting here, taking advice from a man who was so young and inexperienced that the milk in my refrigerator had been around longer than his bachelor’s degree. My father would have frowned upon this sort of insolence in one of his employees, and I should do likewise. But for some reason, I didn’t feel inclined to chastise him.

  I realized that I liked him. He was a very likeable young man.

  “Very well,” I said. “What is your first name, Lawson?”

  “Uh…” His cheeks flushed red, drowning his freckles in a sea of crimson. “Well, most people just call me Nash.”

  I had a vague memory of his first name from glancing at his employment application, and that didn’t match up with my memory. “But that’s not your full name, is it?”

  He looked hunted. “Nash is fine.”

  I glared at him with all the sternness I had cultivated over the past seven years. “Your real name, Lawson. What is it?”

  His face absolutely flooded with color. “Nashville,” he muttered, looking like he wanted to crawl under the table and disappear.

  “Nashville,” I echoed, unable to stop the corners of my mouth from twitching upward. He must have seen the faint smile, because he immediately bristled, and a flood of defensive words poured from him.

  “Look, my parents fell in love in Nashville, all right? They went back there for their honeymoon, and I guess they—well, Mom always told me I was made in Nashville, so that’s what they called me. It’s a stupid name, okay? I mean, I don’t even like country music! Just call me Nash. Please.”

  “Nash it is, then.”

  His face was still bright red, but he smiled a little, too. “See? That makes you seem more human already.”

  “Thanks so much,” I said, trying for sarcasm and failing utterly. “And you may call me Alex.”

  His eyes went wide, like I’d surprised him. “You go by Alex? Not Alexander?”

  “Alexander was my father. My friends call me Alex.”

  The truth of the matter was that I didn’t have any friends, just business acquaintances and social contacts. But he didn’t have to know that.

  “Alex,” he breathed, as if trying out the syllables on his tongue, and all at once I was hard again. Just from the sound of him whispering my name.

  Which was of course ridiculous.

  I needed a diversion, right now. Something to take my mind off my too-attractive assistant, his bright smile, and the sound of his voice murmuring my name in an intimate tone.

  “Care for dessert?” I suggested.

  His eyes lit up, as if he hadn’t already eaten enough to feed a small country.

  “Is there any cake?”

  Chapter Three

  Nash

  After our dinner at the fancy French restaurant, we strolled out into the frigid air of a March night. It was dark, and a cold wind gusted through the manmade canyon between the skyscrapers, lashing our faces. I groaned, because I didn’t have a coat. My cheap suit jacket didn’t count—the wind went straight through it.

  “It’s so coooooooold.”

  I almost expected Alex to say that he enjoyed the cold, like the snow king I half believed him to be, but instead he pulled his black overcoat around himself and shivered. “Hurry up,” he said, and strode toward the parking garage. I had to scramble to keep up. The top of my head barely reached his chin, and as a result his legs were a lot longer than mine.

  Inside the garage, and shielded from the worst of the wind, we both breathed a sigh of relief. I headed for my car, a nice little black Chevy Cruze sedan my parents had bought me for graduation. Over my shoulder, I called, “Thanks for the food. The cake was totally awesome.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why do you insist on speaking like a valley girl, Nash?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I grinned at him. “I don’t know, Alex. Why do you insist on speaking like a robot?”

  I turned away and headed for my car, but all at once his hand closed on my arm, holding it fast.

  “Why don’t you let me drive you home?”

  I hesitated—not that I could’ve kept walking, with his hand wrapped around my wrist like a steel manacle—and glanced back. His face seemed smooth and indifferent as always, but something glittered in the depths of his eyes, something that I instinctively knew was dangerous. Damn it, I thought. I knew I should’ve kept that robot crack to myself.

  “Oh, my God,” I whined. “You’re gonna fire me, aren’t you?”

  He blinked like he was startled, then chuckled. It was the first effort at laughter I’d heard from him, and it sounded a little rusty, like he hadn’t laughed in a long time. Maybe he hadn’t. He didn’t really seem like the laughter type.

  “I’m not going to fire you,” he assured me. “I just wanted to talk to you a little longer, that’s all. Get to know you a little better. Come on.”

  He tugged, but I dug my heels in.

  “What about my car? I just got it, and I don’t want someone trashing it.”

  “I’ll make sure Security keeps an eye on it. I’ll even pick you up and drive you back here tomorrow. Come on… Nash.”

  The sound of my name in his voice—that low, deep, rumbling voice—sent a shiver down my spine. All at once I had the feeling that I was heading into very dangerous territory, and that if I was smart I’d refuse, and go home in my own car.

  But I’ve never been all that smart, and besides, something about the way he said my name made me weak in the knees. He tugged again, and I followed behind him obediently, like a puppy on a leash.

  I had somehow assumed that he got to and from work in a limo. A snowy white one, maybe, to match his name. But instead he led me toward a spacious private parking space between two concrete barriers, which enclosed a sleek red car that looked like it had been created for speed. I gaped.

  “You have a Ferrari!”

  “Yes.” He threw me a quizzical look over his shoulder. “You sound surprised.”

  “Well, I mean, a Ferrari Portofino? Really? Wow, I read an article about them last month. They go like 200 miles an hour. I dunno, Alex, I just never thought of you as that sort of guy. I figured you’d drive like my grandma. Don’t you always go ten miles under the speed limit or something?”

  He paused, turned, and looked down at me. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but there was definitely some sort of light glowing in his eyes. I think it was a look of challenge.

  “Get in the car,” he said, “and find out.”

  ✽✽✽

  The Ferrari was a hardtop convertible, and it was way too cold to put the top down. Even so, I could swear I heard the wind whistling
past my ears as we raced along the interstate.

  “Oh, my God.” I covered my face with my hands. “We are going to die.”

  “We’re going four miles over the speed limit, Nash. That’s all.”

  “Really?” I cracked my fingers and peeked out. It felt like we were going incredibly fast. Maybe it was just the fact that I was riding in a Ferrari. Me, Nash Lawson, a passenger in a Ferrari. Life was looking up.

  “Really. A car like this is a cop magnet. If I want to try out higher speeds, I’ll take her out to a track sometime.”

  “Have you ever done that? Gone two hundred?”

  “Haven’t had the chance yet. This car’s pretty new. I took my Aventador up to 150 once, though.”

  I’d never seen an Aventador—most people don’t get the chance, considering there have only been a few thousand produced—but I knew it was a Lamborghini. I thought about what the inside of this guy’s garage must look like, and sighed, dazzled.

  “Oh, my God. You are so much cooler than I thought, Alex.”

  He snorted. “It takes so little to impress you.”

  “I’m easy,” I said, and instantly wished I hadn’t.

  He glanced at me, lifting an eyebrow, and refrained from comment. Which was probably just as well.

  A silence fell between us, but not necessarily an uncomfortable one. The Ferrari purred its way down the interstate. I watched the headlights flickering over Alex’s face, illuminating it in flashes, and thought about how surprising he was, and how he wasn’t at all what I had expected. He might be cold, but underneath the ice he seemed like a decent enough guy. I’d imagined he had a frozen heart, but I was pretty sure by now that his heart beat the same as anyone else’s.

  “I bet girls are really impressed by this car,” I blurted.

  He shrugged a big shoulder. “Wouldn’t know. I got it quite a while after my divorce.”

  He was divorced? Really? I hadn’t known that either, and wondered if it was the reason for the snow king act. I decided to try to dig a little more, as long as I had him talking. Who knew when he might decide to clam up and never speak again?

  “Don’t you date, though?”

  “Not lately. I spend most of my time at the office.”

  “That sounds kind of lonely.”

  “Running a company successfully requires a certain isolation,” he intoned.

  I squinted at him, because the way he’d said that sounded kind of odd. “Are you quoting somebody?”

  “My father. He taught me everything I know about business. Snow and Associates was his, and I’ve tried to run it the exact same way he did.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, but I bet he didn’t go around threatening to fire people all the time.”

  “Actually, he did. And…” A small, wry smile tilted up the corner of his mouth. “He would never have allowed an assistant to call him by his first name.”

  “Maybe he was wrong,” I ventured.

  There was a long pause. At last he spoke.

  “Maybe he was,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him over the Ferrari’s engine. “About some things, anyway.”

  I should’ve shut up then, but I’ve never been good at being quiet. I looked out into the blackness of the night, and words came out of my mouth without any conscious input from me.

  “So how long were you married?”

  There was another silence, as if he were considering whether to answer, or to tell me to shut the hell up. At last he responded, “Almost five years.”

  “Any kids?”

  “No.”

  His curt answers were not encouraging, but I pressed on anyway. “What happened?”

  “We simply were not a good fit. I don’t really want to talk about it. Anyway, as I said, it’s been four years. Ancient history.”

  I nodded, and looked at him, trying to convey sympathy. “I had a boyfriend in college,” I volunteered. “I mean, it’s not like we were married or anything, but we dated for two years. When we broke up, it took me months to get over it.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You’re gay?”

  Something about the way he’d suddenly clutched at the wheel worried me. I frowned at him. “You’re not gonna give me a hard time about that, are you? I mean, it’s the twenty-first century, Alex. Don’t tell me you’ve got issues with gay people.”

  “No, no issues.” He sounded strained. “It’s just that…”

  He trailed off, and another silence fell. Discomfited, I looked away, and stared out the window into the darkness. Intellectually, I was aware there were still plenty of homophobes in the world, and I probably shouldn’t go blurting out the fact that I was gay to someone who had the power to fire me, or at least to make my life miserable. But I refused to hide who I was. I’d always been out and proud, ever since high school, and I wasn’t about to stop just because I was a suit-wearing corporate drone now.

  The silence grew very uncomfortable. At last he spoke, in a near-whisper.

  “I’m bi.”

  Huh. Of all the things I’d imagined he’d say next, I hadn’t expected that. The way he said it, like it was something utterly momentous and terribly scandalous, made me pretty sure it wasn’t a fact he disclosed to a lot of people. The fact that he’d shared it with me, a guy he barely knew, made something inside my chest heat up.

  “Cool,” I answered.

  “No one else knows,” he added hastily. “I mean, except my ex. And I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

  “Hey, I won’t out you, Alex. Don’t worry.”

  His fingers loosened fractionally on the steering wheel, and he seemed to relax a little.

  “What do you mean, no one else knows?” I asked, spurred by curiosity. “You date guys too, right?”

  His voice was low. “I told you, I haven’t dated anyone since my wife. I mean, I’ve gone to the theater or the opera or art openings with plenty of women, but it’s never gone beyond pecks on the cheek. And before that, I never—I never—”

  I had to fight not to gape again. “Oh, my God. Are you telling me you haven’t been with anyone in four years? That you’ve never been with a guy?”

  “Never,” he said softly.

  Jesus. It sounded like he’d forced himself into celibacy for years in order to avoid exploring his sexuality, and that made me ache for him. He clearly wasn’t comfortable with being bi. If his wife had been aware of it, I thought, maybe that had contributed to the breakup of his marriage. Maybe she, like so many people, had the crazy idea that bi people couldn’t be trusted, or that they slept around.

  If so, no wonder he was scared to tell anyone.

  And yet he’d told me. The warmth in my chest expanded, till it was a wonder I wasn’t glowing like fucking E.T.

  “Wow,” I said. “Haven’t you ever wondered—”

  “All the time,” he said, and there was a sorrowful, aching quality in his voice that made me sure that he was starving for human contact. Maybe that was why he’d asked to drive me home.

  Maybe, beneath all the bluster and threats and coldness… he was just lonely.

  “Have you ever even kissed a guy?”

  He blew out a long breath.

  “No.”

  Okay. That wasn’t cool. Not at all. “Next exit,” I said.

  He tilted his head, looking confused. It was a good look on him, somehow. “Google Maps says your exit isn’t for another two miles.”

  “We’re not going to my apartment, goddammit. We’re going to park this Ferrari in a nice dark abandoned lot… and fog up the windows a little.”

  His mouth fell open. “We can’t—I can’t—you’re my assistant, Nash.”

  “Don’t worry, Alex. I’m not trying to use you to get ahead in the company, okay? I just think you should, you know, not have to wonder about it anymore.”

  He shook his head, looking like he thought it was a terrible idea. His fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly again, his breath rasped in his throat, and I sensed that he
was about to totally freak out.

  “Just a kiss,” I said, as persuasively as I could manage. “That’s all. You want to know what kissing a guy is like, don’t you? Well, give me a chance to show you.”

  He hesitated a moment longer. Then I saw his fingers relax again, and I knew I’d won.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Chapter Four

  Alex

  This was a bad idea. A really bad idea.

  Getting involved (even a little involved) with someone who worked for me was pretty much the number one item on my father’s list of how not to run a company. A CEO couldn’t remain properly distant from his employees if he kissed them, after all.

  And yet here I was.

  I steered the Ferrari off the interstate and wondered how the hell I’d gotten to this point, anyway. Until a couple of hours ago, my interactions with my assistant had been strictly limited to work-related conversations. Well, demands, actually. Orders. The two of us hadn’t really conversed at all until those moments alone in the elevator.

  And yet somehow, in just a couple of hours, Nash—Nashville, I reminded myself, smiling a little at the memory of his red-faced embarrassment—had managed to get under my skin and change everything. I was calling him by his first name. I was giving him a ride home. And against all logic and common sense, I was allowing myself to be directed to an abandoned parking lot on the outskirts of the city.

  “I used to come here all the time in college,” he said cheerfully, as I eased the Ferrari over the weed-choked asphalt. “Cops never come out here. It’s safe, so don’t freak out.”

  “Nothing is that safe, Nash. You never know when paparazzi might—”

  “No one followed us off the interstate, right? You checked in the rear view mirror, didn’t you? Well then, there’s no reason paparazzi might be hanging around this old abandoned hardware store, expecting a billionaire bigshot in a Ferrari to drop by. Am I right, or am I right?”