Chapter 12

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Shay's night out with her brother, Sawyer, went smoothly and wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. She saw some old friends, and since it was a private party, there wasn't any press. It was almost three in the morning when she got back to the hotel room, and there was no sign of Nate.

It wasn't like she expected him to wait up for her. There was no reason he should have, but she was disappointed all the same.

They worked all day Sunday, only taking a break to eat and stretch, and what they didn't finish, they worked on during the flight to Austin. Their time in Austin went quickly, and once again, Shay didn't get to see any of the sights, but she did get some delicious food, and the spring weather was beautiful.

Now, they were in their last city on the trip, Atlanta. It was big, busy, and hot. The only good thing was that the office was a new start-up, so they had plenty of room for Nate and Shay to work there instead of at the hotel. It made a nice change and removed some stress about being in such a private setting with Nate.

Shay and Nate spent Monday in the usual meeting with the bigwigs, reviewing the strides the new branch had made in such a short time. On Tuesday, Shay's world took an unexpected turn, and not for the better.

She was sitting across from Nate taking notes as he reviewed some paperwork. He liked to make comments followed by page numbers while she kept a list so that he could review it when he had a little more time.

"Have a quick look at these numbers, Shay," Nate said as he pushed a spreadsheet in front of her. "Something doesn't look right, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

Nate had started to include Shay more and more in the financial questions that arose once he realized that Shay's mind could spot a simple mistake in record time.

Shay leaned over and pulled the sheet of paper toward her, her arm brushing Nates. Even though they had done an excellent job of tamping down the attraction between them, it still popped up from time to time. Often, it was an accidental brush of the hand or simply standing next to him that caused Shay's senses to go on high alert. For her, it didn't take much.

Nate always appeared to be immune.

"Knock, knock," they heard behind them.

Nate looked up at the door, taking off his glasses and catching Shay's attention.

"Wright, I want to introduce you to one of our newest financial advisors." The company's local director said as he pulled forward a man the Shay automatically recognized. "This is Brody Peyton. His parents are the actors, Thomas Peyton and Blandine Frasier."

Shay felt every muscle in her body tense when she heard the name, and she refused to look in their direction. Brody had been her high school and college boyfriend, the one she was glad to have lost touch with all those years ago.

There was nowhere for Shay to go, so she focused her attention on the numbers in front of her, and hoping she would be forgotten, she kept her head down. She did peek up at Nate, who was looking at her down the bent head. He must have read something in her look because he stepped away from Shay and walked with the two men into the outer office, closing the door behind them.

Shay took a shaky breath as she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

She hadn't looked at Brody, but she figured he hadn't changed much. He was still capitalizing on his parents' fame. Whenever he had gotten into trouble as a kid or wanted special treatment, he would throw their names around. Shay had especially hated it when he had thrown her parents' names around as well.

Nate entered the office and sat next to her before Shay could dissolve into a puddle of bad memories.

"A friend of yours?" he asked, coming straight to the point.

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