Solving For Nic (7 page)

“Son, it’s good to see you.”

Nic’s molars ground together as he forced out a semi-polite response.

“How long are you in town? You should come out to the ranch. Claudia would love to see you.”

“Nic has a flight leaving in two hours,” Pam answered for him. “We’re on a tight schedule. Let’s get started.”

Unruffled, Andreas took the seat at the head of the table and made a big show of putting on his reading glasses and looking the paperwork over. He asked some questions he already knew the answers to and expressed concerns over details teams of lawyers had worked out weeks ago.

Nic let Pam answer the questions while he took a deep, calming breath and tried to picture the waters off his place in the Keys. He did have a flight but it was to Miami, then he was driving to his house in Key Largo and spending some time shaking off the anger that always followed his meetings with Andreas. Except this time, the marine blue waters off his home weren’t what came to mind. No, it was a pair of blue eyes widening in shock as he took possession of her for the first time.

Nic’s whole body tightened as the night with Lizzie replayed itself. She had been sweeter than she looked. His fingers clenched into fists but there was nothing he could do now but let the memory wash over him. He could still taste her, hear the tiny cries of surprise, and still feel the hard bud of her nipple on his tongue. The whimpers that had given way to delicate growls of pleasure had pushed his control to the limit as the heat of her body took him deep, shredding away all his expectations of sex and showing him how jaded he had become.

He’d forgotten the excitement of it until her eyes flew wide and she wound her arms around him and pressed so hard against him she penetrated the layers of distance he kept between him and the rest of the world. It was as if she’d pulled him out of a cave despite his protests then flung him into the sun.

It had rocked Nic to his foundation. He hadn’t known sex could be like that. She’d been inexperienced but it hadn’t mattered. Her response, the total surrender in her eyes—all of it had been more than Nic had ever dreamed possible. He’d found something precious with Lizzie. He’d fallen asleep with her in his arms planning breakfast and thinking the world might not be such a bad place after all.

Then she’d taken it away. Done what everyone else he let himself care for did. She’d left.

She’d walked out of his hotel room and disappeared, leaving him empty except for the raging hunger he’d been unable to slake with anyone else. Last night he’d tried but had ended up leaving a beautiful girl in tears when he told her it wasn’t working.

Pam’s hand on his forearm under the table kept Nic from clawing the table in half. She handed him a pen. He didn’t read the paperwork. He signed it, handing over almost two billion dollars he’d never see again. A family debt paid.

Family? The word was laughable. He shared the Maretti name but they were not his family. Not that he needed one, Nic reminded himself. He didn’t need anyone, other than the woman sitting next to him in this farce of a meeting, and the large man standing by the door, who never left Nic’s side. Both Pam and Tag, the head of his security team, had enormous salaries in return for keeping the world away from him.

Nic didn’t need anyone else.

“Miss Sellers, are we boring you?”

Lizzie's chin slipped off her palm as she straightened in the uncomfortable desk. Cringing, she ignored the snickers and took a deep breath. “No, sorry.”

“Maybe you aren’t interested in Riemann surfaces.”

Heat crawled up the back of her neck and she wiped her hand across her face, hoping to stop the angry color burning under her skin. Hatton wasn’t the most fascinating lecturer in the department. Normally she fooled him into thinking she was paying attention, but today she was off her game.

She wasn’t back in the real world yet. Everything was slightly out of sync. Sleeping with Nic had been a huge mistake. She was haunted by the glide of his hands over her, the way his legs felt tangled with hers. She could still feel him and taste him. She couldn’t close her eyes without the night replaying itself for her. Had he been disappointed? Had he not called because their night hadn’t been anything special?

Lizzie swallowed hard and tried not to fall apart.

He hadn’t called because she’d walked out on him.

“Sellers!”

Her attention snapped back to him again. He was staring up at her from his podium, eyebrows raised. Had he asked her a question? Lizzie wasn’t sure. She searched the last few minutes but there was nothing. And there was never nothing. Tears burned her throat and panic started to set in. She’d never felt so out of control before.

“We’re waiting—” Hatton leaned against the podium.

This confrontation had been brewing all semester. It had started when she’d asked him a question he couldn’t answer the first week of classes. She hadn’t meant to embarrass him, but she’d ended up making a serious enemy. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t let him get to her and she managed to ignore him. Now, on the last day of class, she bit down hard on the inside of her lip and tried not to say something she couldn’t come back from.

“Or are you all out of your famous questions?”

She was on her feet before she realized what she was doing.

“You take one step and you’re out. The rest of you get out, class dismissed.”

The room quickly emptied out, but he took his time packing his messenger bag with his laptop and papers. “I told Dr. Pak it was a mistake to let you into our program,” he said without looking up. “Would you like to know why?”

“I can’t wait,” she muttered under her breath.

He glanced up at her, gray eyes frosted over. Hatton wasn’t completely horrible-looking but the post-grunge look was dead as far as Lizzie was concerned.

“You’re too smart, Miss Sellers.” He started up the steps. “It’s too easy for you. You spend most of your time daydreaming and trying not to nap when there is a waiting list of students who would work their asses off to be in your place.”

She started to protest but he stopped right in front of her.

“There are men who spend their entire careers trying to work through equations you can do in your head but what do you do? You yawn. You doodle. You daydream. You make it clear to everyone around you that you think you’re slumming.”

Lizzie shook her head. “No.”

“And then you take off for a week—”

“I had a family thing.”

“Family thing?” He smirked and pushed his rectangle glasses up. “A wedding you mean? Tell me, did you catch the bouquet? Is that why you’re even more distracted than usual? At least before your week back to the swamp you made the attempt to look as though you were interested but since you’ve been back…well, you didn’t come back. Did you leave your brain at home dreaming of wedding dresses and flowers?”

She flinched because he wasn’t completely wrong. It wasn’t the wedding that had her distracted. It was Nic.

“Maybe I’m right and math isn’t your thing. You should consider fashion merchandising or journalism? Maybe you’d—”

“I get it,” she snapped.

Lizzie’s arms tightened around the notebook and computer she clamped to her chest. She blinked back tears refusing to cry.

“You’re a cruel joke on the entire mathematics community. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you look like you just walked off the
Good Ship Lollipop
?” He waved his hand at her hair.

Lizzie’s jaw dropped at his verbal attack. She’d never had anyone be so openly vicious to her face.

“Are you going to cry?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

She shook her head. Her skin burned with humiliation and something else she hadn’t expected.
A cruel joke on the entire mathematics community?

Who did he think he was?

“Is that what you want? To make me cry?”

He laughed, turning away from her. “Oh, no. I want to make you leave. In fact, I have an opening for TA next year. I think I’ll put in a request for you.”

“What?” She gasped, anger getting the best of her. “There’s no way. Dr. Pak—”

“Dr. Pak, what? Promised you a position on his team? That’s too bad.”

Anger sputtered out of her without warning. “Why would you even want me on your team when you think I’m such a joke?”

His smile was cruel. “Because you’ll need my approval to make it through your second year, and if you continue like this you’re never going to get it.

Lizzie opened her mouth to tell him exactly where he could go, but he shook his head.

“Grow up, Miss Sellers. And if you show up this fall, be ready to work your ass off.”

She nodded, unable to even come up with a defense. “Okay.”

His head snapped back when she didn’t argue.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

His body language completely changed and she had the distinct impression she’d surprised him. “You have a gift, Sellers,” he spoke in a much more reasonable tone. “Whatever has you so distracted has got to go. You have more important things to do.”

She nodded again, because he might have the facts wrong, but he was absolutely right.

Sunshine blinded her when she stepped outside, but she kept walking until she found an empty bench. She sucked in a breath, blinking back burning tears. She covered her face with her hands. This was not who she was.

This was not how things were supposed to be. She’d dreamed about Princeton for longer than she dreamed about Nic. Now Nic hadn’t just ruined her for other men, he’d put her future in jeopardy. She couldn’t let that happen. She had plans, goals, and problems to solve. She didn’t have time to be distracted by schoolgirl crushes.

She sucked in another breath and swallowed everything down. Hatton was right. She’d been coasting. It wasn’t because she was bored. New Jersey was a world away from New Orleans. At home people were at least polite to your face. Here, they were cold and rude. The other students in the department had dismissed her on the first day as one step down from Elle Woods.

She’d spent the first twenty years of her life not talking about math and making people forget she was a mathematical genius so they didn’t treat her like a freak. Now she was surrounded by people who loved the same things she did and she had no idea how to talk to them. She was a freak. She didn’t fit anywhere.

The first day of class she’d discovered she didn’t know how to approach people. She’d never realized it before because she was always surrounded by people she knew. In high school and college, she’d always had Jen and Jen never met a stranger. Lizzie hadn’t realized she’d been floating in Jen’s wake all these years. When faced with so many strangers and Jen nowhere in sight to break the ice, Lizzie hadn’t known where to start. It was easier to keep to herself. Easier to go to class then back to her apartment.

Now, the last place she wanted to go was that empty apartment. She wanted to be as far away from this place as possible. But she also wasn’t ready to go home either. She wanted hot sunshine and warm sand. The beach. She wanted to go to the beach. Maybe she could get in the ocean and scrub her skin clean. She would call Rogan. He wouldn’t ask a lot of questions and he’d let her have a condo for a few days. She could watch a bunch of chick flicks, eat way too much ice cream and get this nagging pain out of her system once and for all. She would regroup.

She dug her cell phone out of her shoulder bag and flipped it on. She ignored the twinge in her stomach. There were no missed calls or text messages. Had she honestly expected to hear from Nic after she’d crept out of the hotel suite while he was asleep?

Had she really thought having sex with Nic Maretti would help get him out of her system? Talk about epic fail.

The memories washed over her again. His hand moving over her, the crisp hairs on his legs and chest tickling her skin. She could feel him moving inside of her, turning her into someone she didn’t recognize anymore.

She’d lost herself with Nic. She didn’t think her skin would ever feel normal again. Her lungs didn’t work right. She ached everywhere for something she couldn’t let herself have again.

Being with Nic had been too intense. The sounds he made and things he said to her. It had all been too much. She couldn’t feel the ground under her feet.

There were dozens of half-started e-mails in her Drafts folder, text drafts on her phone but she hadn’t known what to say. Sorry for running away from the best night of my life. She’d stared at her phone for days, trying to think of something clever to say and to apologize for leaving the way she did. At some point she’d realized the phone went both ways. He had her number but he hadn’t sent her a clever e-mail or text message either.

She’d done something stupid then. She Googled him and found photographs of him all over a southern bachelor gossip blog with a beautiful brunette who’d been Miss Austin. Sometime later, with her face pressed against the cold tile floor of the bathroom while the contents of her stomach flushed away, Lizzie decided it was for the best. That night had meant nothing to him. He’d probably been disappointed. He hadn’t been interested in a repeat performance.