Kate Hoffmann - Mr. Right Now

He wasn’t really sure why he’d come. He’d already decided not to use Nina Forrester for information about Attitudes magazine. Too many complications. Yet, he had still made a simple phone call to the magazine and learned she was a fact checker, a job that probably didn’t put her in daily contact with the editor and publisher, Charlotte Danforth, anyway. The information she might be able to provide would be marginally valuable at best—or that’s what he chose to tell himself.

“So why the hell am I here?” Cameron muttered.

Was it curiosity? He couldn’t deny that he’d found their little encounter over a cup of coffee surprisingly intriguing. Maybe it was the contradiction, the wide-eyed naif hiding a provocative siren. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the ad she’d written. If he hadn’t taken it from her hand, he never would have put the two together. But then, he’d never been a very astute judge of the female mind. For a guy who didn’t have a real date until he was a junior in college, Cameron Ryder had been forced to learn fast, leaving several very pronounced gaps in his studies.

There had been women, a fair number of them since he’d started NightRyder, but never anything serious. He thought back to his days in college, to the fantasies of beautiful, sexy women, blond and leggy, with tanned and trainer-toned bodies. They were every misfit’s dream and over the past five years he’d dated—and bedded—a string of them.

But somehow, the reality had never lived up to the fantasy. Though many of the women were nice enough, there was nothing beyond the gorgeous bodies except the desire to capture a wealthy and powerful man. More and more, he’d found himself playing the role they’d wanted to him play, pretending to be someone he could never be, smooth and sophisticated, yet caught in a series of empty relationships.

So he’d stopped dating months ago, instead putting his energy back into the business. Nina Forrester was the first woman he’d found even remotely interesting in all that time. He exhaled, his breath clouding in front of his face, then pulled the door open. He hadn’t been inside more than a few moments before he saw her. She was sitting at a table over in the corner. She turned to look at some papers she’d spread in front of her and he silently studied her profile—the pretty nose, the lush lips, the golden hair that framed her face in soft tendrils.

Without thinking, he crossed the room and came to a stop beside her table. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He felt as if he’d been transported back to that awful moment in high school when he’d worked up the nerve to ask the prettiest cheerleader out on a date, only to have her laugh in his face.

Cameron swallowed hard. “I owe you a cup of coffee.”

She looked up and for an instant, he thought he saw delight in her pretty blue eyes and a tiny trace of a smile curling her lips. “Hi,” she said, her voice breathless with surprise. She stood up quickly, knocking her hip against the table and nearly spilling her cup of coffee in the process. “What are you doing here?”

Cameron knew enough about women to play it cool. “I was just passing by and thought I’d give the coffee another try.”

“Oh, right,” she said, a nervous twitch of her lips passing for a smile. “I guess you didn’t get much of a taste of it last night.” She paused. “I should buy you a cup.” She motioned to the second chair at her table. “Why don’t you sit down.” Without another word, she hurried off. But a few seconds later, she returned, her face colored with a pretty blush. “How do take your coffee?” she asked.

“With just a little cream,” Cameron replied, slipping out of his jacket. He watched her return to the counter, then sat down and waited. When she came back with his coffee, he stood and pulled out her chair. But as she sat down, she caught her elbow on his arm and half the coffee spilled all over her papers.

“Oh, no!” she cried.

Cameron grabbed the cup from her hand just as it was about to dump all over his sleeve, then set it down. He handed her a stack of napkins. “You are a menace with a cup of coffee,” he teased. “Maybe we should stick to tea.”

Nina mopped up the coffee on her side of the table, then glanced up at him, gracing him with one of the most beautiful smiles he’d ever seen. “Maybe we should. Maybe it’s like that movie. I’m doomed to repeat the same clumsy mistakes over and over, every time we meet.”

“Well, I made sure to dress in brown,” he said, indicating his brown wool trousers and sweater. “So fire away. I’m ready.”

When the table was finally cleaned up, they both sat down. The blush still stained Nina’s cheeks and Cameron still wasn’t sure what to say. He’d have been completely satisfied just to sit across from her and look at her pretty face, but he guessed that she expected a little more. “Is this work?” he asked, pointing to the coffee-stained papers.

Nina nodded. “It was. I’ve got a special project I’ve been assigned. I’ve been working on it all day.”

“And where do you work?” he asked, already knowing the answer. He felt guilty even bringing up the subject of her job, considering his position, but it was a safe subject for two people who barely knew each other.

“I’m the head of research for Attitudes,” she said. “It’s a weekly magazine. Our offices are right across the street.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the embellished job title. Still, he was secretly pleased that she was trying to impress him. “Attitudes?”

“Have you ever heard of it?” She forced a smile. “I suppose not. I mean, you’re not really our type—our reader—I mean, our demographic.”

“And why is that?” Cameron asked.

“Well, you’re a little too…”

He waited as she groped for a polite way to say conservative. “Tall?” he asked. Her blush deepened and she shook her head. “Too stubborn? That’s always been a problem.” She shook her head again. “Or maybe I’m too clumsy?”

Nina laughed. “The word we’d use around the office might be ‘conservative.’ Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s just not our demographic.”

“Gee, I thought you were about to say I was too handsome or too charming.”

“Maybe I should have,” she murmured, sending him a coy look over the rim of her coffee mug. “So, what do you do?”

“I’m in…computers,” Cameron said.

“I could have guessed that,” Nina commented. “I mean, from the way you were dressed when we first met. You looked like a businessman.”

A long silence grew between them and Cameron fought the sudden urge to lean across the table and kiss her, simply to see if her lips tasted as good as they looked. Instead, he grabbed the next handiest subject. “Tell me about this project you’re working on.” Cameron pointed to the papers. “You said it was important?” He picked up his mug and took a sip of his coffee.

“There’s not much to it,” Nina replied. “I’m supposed to find out everything I can about some guy named Cameron Ryder.”

A sudden cough burst from his throat and he sucked in a deep breath, the coffee going down the wrong way. Nina’s brow furrowed in concern and she reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Are you all right?”