She shook her head, but of course he couldn’t see her.
“Okay,” he said again. “Thanks. Goodbye.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
12
NIKKI WORE TWO industrial-strength sports bras under her pink-and-black sweater the next day, and noted with satisfaction that they flattened her by at least two cup sizes. Unfortunately they were also hot, but that couldn’t be helped. She was not going to lose this job because her boss couldn’t help ogling two stupid bumps on her chest.
Not that the dean had said or done anything inappropriate, but she’d found herself in uncomfortable situations in the past, and one could never be too careful. And she suspected part of Margaret’s resentment of her stemmed from her looks.
Nikki further diminished any residual sex appeal by wearing a pair of flat ballerina slippers instead of heels with her skirt. And once again, she tied her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. If she had to, she’d even find some clear glasses. Whatever she had to do, she was going to stay employed and pay down her debt.
She would not risk a repeat of what had happened at her last office job—borderline sexual harassment by an older man who then used a flimsy excuse to get rid of her when she made it clear she wasn’t interested.
Nikki entered the office with a smile and the peaches-and-cream cheesecake she’d made the night before.
Dean Trammel brightened when he saw it. “What’s that?”
Margaret’s evil-looking brows snapped together as she growled the same question. “What’s
that?
”
“This is one of my signature cheesecakes,” Nikki said. “I thought it might be nice with some coffee, for breakfast.”
The dean rubbed his hands together. “Yum. I sure will have a piece.”
Margaret muttered something under her breath about brownnosers and stomped off to cranky-pants headquarters.
Nikki ignored her, went to the kitchenette and cut everyone a slice—there were two other assistants and an intern, all of whom seemed in danger of losing consciousness after the first bite. Moans of pleasure eddied out from every corner. Nikki enjoyed her coworkers’ reactions. She liked baking for friends every so often—she simply couldn’t picture herself doing it full-time, like her mother.
Dean Trammel wiped his mouth with a napkin and took a sip of coffee. “You made this?”
She nodded.
“Are we voting Nikki a raise, everyone?” he joked.
“Hear, hear!”
Nikki felt heat rising to her cheeks. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. “I’m going to take a piece to Margaret.”
Everyone exchanged uncomfortable glances and made excuses to leave the kitchen, toting their cheesecake and coffee with them.
Nikki raised her chin, squared her shoulders and picked up the plate. Then she marched it into Margaret’s office. “Hi,” she said. “I thought you might like a piece of this.”
Margaret bared her teeth. It looked like she wanted a piece of something, all right: a piece of Nikki’s dead carcass. “I don’t eat sweets.”
“Oh, just one bite can’t hurt, can it?” Nikki set the plate down on her desk, along with a fork and a napkin.
Margaret eyed the slice of cheesecake as if it were an old, stinky shoe. But in the face of Nikki’s pleasant, persistent smile, she sawed off a piece of it with the side of the fork and brought it up to her lips, her eyes narrowed.
Nikki resisted the urge to say, “Choo-choo!”
Margaret shoveled in the bite between her dry, scarlet lips. She chewed. And her eyes widened. An expression of exultation tried its best to dawn across her face before she slapped it back into the murky depths of her soul to cower again in the sludge.
“Cheesecake,” she said, “is fattening.”
Nikki shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”
Margaret glowered at her and pushed the plate away until it teetered at the edge of her desk. Did she expect Nikki to bus it back to the kitchenette? If so, she’d be disappointed.
“Um, listen, Margaret. That boy who brought you the Perez scholarship application yesterday? Adam Burke? Well, he left his phone by accident. Can I leave it in your care so that he can pick it up later?”
“Why can’t he get it from you?”
“Oh. Well. I took your warning about not fraternizing with students a bit seriously, then, didn’t I?” Nikki dropped the phone on her blotter. “Silly me.” With a little wave, she turned and left Mags’s office, making her way back to her own desk.
It was just a tiny bit gratifying to hear the clink of a fork on china as soon as she was out of sight. Ha!
ADAM USED A FELLOW STUDENT’S phone to call the dean’s office before going over there, as Nikki had instructed him to do. Her voice when she answered was cool and professional; she gave no hint of anger—which made him feel almost worse than if she had.
There was no sign of her when he walked in, though she’d been sitting at the reception desk the day before. She was probably at lunch.
So he knocked on the partially open door behind the desk, and Margaret, the undead woman, looked up from her computer. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Adam Burke. I came to get my cell phone.”
He tried not to stare, but Margaret-the-undead had a white smear across her upper lip, with what looked like graham cracker crumbs stuck to it.
Completely oblivious of this, she smiled and motioned him to follow her.
He did.
“I looked over your essay for the scholarship,” she said. “It’s excellent.” A crumb fell onto the face of his phone as she handed it over to him, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
“And your track record of volunteer work is very impressive.”
“Er, thanks.”
“Would you like some cheesecake, young man? I just baked one yesterday.”
“I’d never turn down a slice of cheesecake, ma’am. What kind is it?”
“Peaches and cream. My specialty.” And she led him into the kitchenette of the place, where sure enough, a third of a cake sat on a platter. “Shh, but I’ve had two slices already,” she told him. “I’d be grateful if you’d take the rest off my hands.”
“Um, sure…” Starving medical school students didn’t turn down food. Especially not homemade food.
She lifted the entire slab of cake, plate and all, and nested it into some aluminum foil. Then she folded that up into a neat package, gave him a plastic fork, and herded him toward the door.
“Thank you very much,” Adam said. “This is so nice of you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Margaret said.
He almost told her about the smear and crumbs on her lip, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. She might take it the wrong way. She’d see it herself soon enough.
“I’ll show myself out,” he said.
“All righty, then. You remind me a little of my nephew. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you on the scholarship.”
“You’re too kind, ma’am.” As she turned and went back down the hallway, looking pleased, he exited into the reception area, only to run into Nikki.
Like the day before, she was all business: hair in a bun, loose sweater, flat shoes.
She was still beautiful, but she certainly didn’t look like the tousled sex goddess he’d had spread-eagle on the couch the night before.
“Uh, hi,” he said, feeling a flush climb his cheeks at the memory of how they’d parted.
“Hi.” She frowned. “What’s in the foil?”
“Oh. That lady Margaret baked a cheesecake last night and she gave me the rest of it.”
“She
what?
” Nikki came out of her chair, clearly outraged.
Why, he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if it were
her
cheesecake, after all.
“Give me that!” she said, rising to her feet.
“Huh?”
“Give me that cheesecake.”
“No,” Adam said. “It’s mine. She gave it to
me.
”
“She
can’t
give it to you—”
“She made it, she can, and she did.” He strode to the door. “Jesus, woman. You may be hot, but you’re a little unbalanced.”
Nikki’s cheeks flushed with anger and her eyes got stormy.
Was this rabid PMS? Adam stared at her. “What’s your problem? You’re not the only one on the planet who can make a cheesecake. And since you’ve made it clear that I’ll never get one of yours, I’m darn well taking this one.” With that, Adam got to slam a door in
her
face, thank you very much. It felt good.
But the cheesecake, which he wolfed down on the way to his next class, was even better.
NIKKI REALIZED, as the remainder of her cake sailed out the door with that cell-phone-fixated jerk, that she hadn’t gotten one slice of it herself. She’d been too busy serving everyone else.
Fuming, she forced herself to get back to work, typing letters and filing miscellaneous paperwork. She’d made that cake with her own hands, and not only had Margaret taken credit for it, but she’d given the rest of it away. How could she have done it? Margaret was evil. Downright rotten to the core.
What a sad, bitter, venomous sack of estrogen she was. Nikki tried to let her anger go, tried to tell herself that the poor woman had nobody else upon whom to take out her life’s frustrations.
She told herself to be the bigger person. And when she went to get another cup of coffee and saw Margaret with the white smear and crumbs across her upper lip, she tried not to be entertained. It was sort of awful, really, to witness the fact that nobody, not one person out of the entire office, had told the woman she needed to clean herself up.
It was more awful, she had to admit, than that butt-headed Adam Burke running off to stuff his face with her cheesecake after treating her the way he had.
Mags’s eyes slid away from hers as Nikki glowered at her. The woman stared fixedly at her computer screen and her fingers galloped ever faster across the keys.
Nikki went into the kitchen and got a napkin. She glided with it into Margaret’s office and extended it to her. Then she tapped her own lip significantly, turned and left without saying a word—though she was sure that her good deed would not go unpunished.
13
THE CHEESECAKE HAD ALMOST sent Adam into orbit with his backpack full of books, but the score on his Foundations of Medicine test brought him back to earth with a bone-rattling thud.
The number seven was not at all lucky when paired with another seven and staring up at him from a one-hundred-point exam. A seventy-seven was unacceptable and unpardonable.
Dr. Antonio da Silva, the instructor, looked at him with concern in his dark, hooded eyes.
“Como estas,”
he asked. “Is everything all right, Adam?”
Mortified, Adam nodded silently.
This was what came of bachelor parties and self-indulgence with girls. He had no time for such things. He had no time for friendships outside med school, much less relationships with women. So it was a damn good thing that Nikki was unbalanced and angry with him.
Because he didn’t seem to have the power to say no to her. When he looked at that face of hers, that body…he forgot all about classes like Brain and Behavior. He forgot about
Grey’s Anatomy.
He just wanted to get to know
her
anatomy. Up close and personal.
He blinked the images away and stared again at the seventy-seven on top of his exam. There were vague mutterings of unhappiness from the rest of his study group, and they weren’t sparing with the dirty looks, either.
Once per week, it was each of their turns to type up and synthesize the notes from this class’s lectures and readings, and he’d let them down. They probably weren’t happy with their scores, either. He’d have to find a way to make it up to them.