She didn’t want to read it. But at the same time, she’d never wanted to read anything quite so much in her life.
She rolled her eyes. The magic had already gotten its hooks in her. She might as well have been in fifth grade, eager to find out if the cute boy in the row behind her thought she was cute too.
Oh, this was bad.
Emails were harmless, she reminded herself. And he was her potential client. She couldn’t very well ignore an email from him.
She still stared at it for a long, long minute before clicking on it.
Dear Undrea,
I’m very glad our second meeting went better than our first.
She smiled. It had gone better, that was for sure. And she was glad about that, too.
I’ve done a fraction of the research I need to do, but I can already tell I’m going to want the full kit. Fish, coral, anemones, and whatever other inverts you think would work. If I’m going to do it, might as well do it up right, don’t you think?
Looking forward to our next meeting. I think Bowie is too.
All the best,
Ethan
She read it three times, which was ridiculous because there was no hidden meaning. Nothing to read between the lines for.
She hit reply and typed out a quick response. Thanks for the input. I’ll take all of this into consideration as I plan your tank. I’m also glad our second meeting went better than the first. Tell Bowie I said hi.
—Undrea
Was that too cute? Telling the cat she said hi? But no, he clearly adored that animal. And Ethan had brought him up in the original email, so the response was warranted.
She read her answer a few more times. Added the word “new” in front of tank. Then deleted it. Then added “Talk soon!” as her closing sentence.
And finally hit send.
It was only then she realized he hadn’t mentioned Nina once. His cat, yes. His fiancée, no.
Was that a sign of anything? Or was she just losing her mind over an upright that just saw her as the aquarium specialist?
But Ethan didn’t just see her that way, did he?
Although maybe that was exactly how he should see her. And the only way he should see her, because that’s all she was ever going to be. Sure, they could be friendly. That was how she treated all of her clients. They might even become friends. After all of this magic nonsense was behind them. That happened with clients, sometimes. Becoming friends.
Roxy was an example of that.
But Roxy hadn’t been a handsome, sexy man currently engaged to someone else when Undrea had met her. That was a whole different kettle of fish.
She put Ethan and his email out of her mind. She’d answered him. That was all she needed to do.
With laser focus she went through the rest of her inbox, answering questions, making note of a supplier’s sale she wanted to take advantage of and forwarding two customer questions to Whitney to handle.
Then she grabbed her purse and keys and headed for the warehouse to get Aaron for lunch. She needed to keep focusing on work. That would get her through this. And if she kept doing that, before long, Ethan’s job would be behind her and so would this whole stupid kiss thing.
She hoped.
What was it about Undrea? She was wedged into Ethan’s brain like a complicated equation that needed solving. Although he had a feeling she could never be solved, and therein lay her appeal.
Try as he might to focus on the ion membrane, his thoughts kept returning to her. The way she looked. The fascinating color of her hair. How she smelled of the ocean in the best possible way. The light in her eyes when she talked about something that excited her. The color of those eyes.
Bowie hopped up onto his desk, sat on the plans for a small community center that Ethan was considering funding, and meowed at him.
“Yes?” Ethan said. “Can I help you?”
Bowie lifted his foot, then put it back down.
It was clear the cat wanted attention. Ethan grinned. “Hey, dude, I was kind of looking at those plans.”
Bowie stared as if to say he knew better.
“Okay, well, I was about to look at those.” Ethan scratched under the cat’s chin. “What do you need? Some attention, huh? Or are you trying to get treats out of me?”
“Ethan?” Nina called up. “Are we going or—?”
Nina’s open-ended questions were really questions that didn’t need answering. They were her way of passive-aggressively telling him what to do. It was cute. Sort of. Now they didn’t seem quite as cute as they had once been.
“Yes. Coming,” he yelled back downstairs. He gave Bowie another rub on the head. “I have to go out. I’ll be back soon. Then we’ll have some play time, I swear.”
He grabbed his jacket and headed down.
Nina smiled at him as he descended the steps. “Ready for lunch?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“I found a spot in town that’s supposed to be very popular with locals. It’s called Howler’s Bar and Grill.”
“A bar and grill?” His brows went up in a teasing way, but it was a surprising choice for her. “You really are branching out.”
She laughed, looking pleased with herself. “I’m embracing my new hometown.”
“You are. I give you points for that.” She was the one who’d found Nocturne Falls and sold him on it as one of the upcoming small towns to live in.
He felt bad for thinking she’d been passive-aggressive earlier. She’d just been trying to get him moving. He knew that. He also knew how easily he could go down rabbit holes with his work and disappear for hours.
How else was she supposed to motivate him? He smiled at her. “You look very pretty, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Her smile turned sly. “As pretty as your new friend?”
He made a face. “My who?”
“Don’t play coy with me. I saw the way you were flirting with her.”
“Are you talking about Undrea?” This was new. Nina definitely had a jealous streak, but he hadn’t seen it in a long time.
She pressed her fingers to his chest and smiled. “You liked her, didn’t you?”
“I did. But I like a lot of people. Especially intelligent ones. Didn’t you like her?”
Nina blinked at that as if she hadn’t expected that question. “She was…fine. I didn’t really give it that much thought.” Then her fingers pressed a little harder. “But you were definitely flirting with her.”
“Was I? Because if that’s how you perceived it, I think that’s more about you than me. I was just having a conversation.” Had he been flirting? He wasn’t sure. Flirting felt deliberate. He’d just been enjoying Undrea’s company.
Maybe that was flirting.
He didn’t know. Didn’t care. And he was done talking about it. “Are we going to lunch or—?”
She smirked at him as she picked up on the way he’d phrased the question. “Yes.”
He drove, and as he did, he tried to pay close attention to his surroundings, to really take in this new place he’d moved to. It was nice. Beautiful, really. The hills were dotted with homes. A lot were traditional log cabins, but some were like his, built in the chalet style.