That would be too weird with your family.” “Okay, I’ll be your girlfriend, but not your fiancée. How could she contemplate not helping him now? He wouldn’t allude to Michael unless the situation was serious. “And another low blow.” But he sounded genuinely worried. “You know what it’s like to be in a relationship you can’t get out of. “And I’m hoping that you’ll do this not so much because it’s part of the job, but because we are friends.” “But I like to think of us as friends,” Jake continued. She shifted in her chair and crossed her legs. It was around this time last week that she’d been lying on that very desk. “I know things have been a little”-he glanced at the desk and a smile flickered across his face-“uncomfortable between us lately.” He stroked a finger along the steel top of the desk, and for some reason she couldn’t yank her gaze away. The desk she was trying not to think about. “No kidding.” He rose to his feet and strolled around the desk, then rested his ass against it. “You want me to play the love of your life?” “Nadia already suspects there’s something between us, so we’re going to play along with that.” Anyway, the love of my life.” She remained silent-she could think of absolutely nothing to say-and waited for him to continue. “And if she still doesn’t accept it, then I knock her out.” “So, I have to tread gently, but I want to make it clear in no uncertain terms that it’s over between us.” She clamped her lips closed and made a zipper sign with her fingers. “Well, what a surprise-I told you she was unstable.

“Under other circumstances, I’d just cut her off, but she’s a family friend, and my mother informed me that Nadia has had…emotional issues in the past.”

Losing control nina croft