The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 226

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

out when Zane stopped me.

“Ms. Smith.”

I turned. “Yes?”

“How long have you been in New York?”

The sudden change of subject threw me. “A little over a week.”

“And before that, Auckland.”

“Yes.”

“Why New York?”

“Sinclair offered me the position.”

“You crossed the world for a job?”

“People do that.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“Curious.”

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The answer was simple enough. My reaction to discovering that his curiosity was specifically about me was

not.

I pushed my glasses higher. “Curiosity isn’t part of the regional analysis, Mr. Ashton.”

His piercing green gaze followed the movement, and something about the way he looked at me changed so abruptly that my hand fell away from the frame.

Before I could make sense of it, Rebecca called my name from the doorway.

“I should go.”

“I’ll see you again, Isla.”

The deliberate switch from Ms. Smith to my first name sent a slow awareness through me that I had no intention of examining here.

“That sounded suspiciously like a threat.”

A faint smile touched his face. “Maybe it was.”

I left before he could see how effectively he’d unsettled me, joining Rebecca as she headed toward the elevators with the others.

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9:46 Fri, Aug 28

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

We were halfway there when I realized my blazer was still hanging over the back of my chair.

Fuck.

“I forgot my blazer,” I told Rebecca. “I’ll catch up.”

She nodded and continued toward the elevators while I turned back.

គ

95

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The conference room had emptied by the time I returned, leaving Zane alone near the windows with his phone in his hand. I slipped inside, retrieved my blazer and had nearly reached the door again when his voice stopped me.

“Forgetting something?”

“I already have it.”

I glanced back as he slipped his phone into his pocket and crossed the room at an unhurried pace. I should have used the opportunity to leave, but I stayed where I was until he stopped close enough that I had to tilt my head to hold his gaze.

“You argue well.”

“It’s my job.”

“Is that all it is?”

“What else would it be?”

He didn’t answer, but the intensity in his gaze sent my heartbeat climbing as he closed the remaining distance between us. I retreated without thinking until my shoulders met the cool glass beside the doorway, and Zane followed, bracing one hand beside my head as he leaned closer.

Not a single part of him touched me, yet my heart was already pounding as though my body remembered exactly what my mind was trying desperately not to.

At eighteen, I had known exactly what it felt like to have Zane Ashton crowd me like this, all ridiculous height and broad shoulders until the rest of the world seemed to disappear behind him.

Ten years should have been enough to make my body forget, but standing this close to him made it painfully clear that it hadn’t. He studied my face in silence, his expression tightening as though the answer to whatever had been bothering him since we met was hidden somewhere in my features.

“You look at me like you already know the answer to something,” he murmured. “Then you pretend you don’t.”

My heart was beating so hard I was amazed he couldn’t hear it. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?”

His voice had dropped, and for one dangerous second, neither of us moved.

8/9

9:46 Fri, Aug 28

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

គយ

95

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I should have slipped past him. His hand was against the glass rather than on me, and nothing kept me there except the humiliating fact that I had no desire to move.

Then footsteps approached in the corridor.

“Isla?”

Zane straightened at Rebecca’s voice and stepped away just before she appeared in the doorway.

I quickly settled my blazer over my arm, hoping my face wasn’t advertising what my pulse was doing.

Rebecca looked between us. “Are you coming?”

“Yes.”

I walked toward her without looking back, resisting the urge to turn around until I was safely in the corridor.

By the time the elevator doors closed, my heart still hadn’t settled, and my fingers trembled around the strap of my bag.

9/9

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9:46 Fri, Aug 28

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

Possibly

ZANE

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The elevator doors closed with Isla on the other side, and the fact that I was still standing there several seconds later pissed me off.

I had another meeting in twelve minutes, three calls waiting to be returned and an eighteen-billion-dollar acquisition occupying half my schedule, yet all I could think about was how close I’d come to grabbing her before Rebecca interrupted us.

I’d spent half the meeting watching her mouth while she argued with me and wondering whether she’d still have something clever to say if I covered it with mine. By the time I followed her toward the glass, the thought had stopped being theoretical.

Her lips had parted when I leaned closer, her breathing changing enough to make her breasts rise sharply beneath that fitted blouse, and my eyes had dropped before I could stop them.

Fuck.

I went back into the conference room and picked up the folder Martin had left behind, knowing there was little chance of getting anything useful from it until I got Isla Smith out of my head.

She was attractive. That required no investigation.

I’d noticed the skirt fitted around her curvy hips the moment I entered the meeting and spent more time than I should have pretending I hadn’t. Beautiful women weren’t exactly unfamiliar territory, though, and attraction didn’t explain why standing close to Isla made something inside me react as though I’d done it a hundred times before.

The same thing had happened when I shook her hand at the forum.

Today had only made it stronger.

The tilt of her head when she looked up at me, the way she pushed her glasses higher whenever she needed a second to think, the satisfaction she tried to hide after proving someone wrong. Even watching her retreat toward the glass had struck somewhere too fucking familiar.

For one second, with those blue eyes lifted to mine and barely any space left between us, I’d been certain I had seen her like that before.

There was something I knew about this woman that I couldn’t fucking reach, and after Sunday, ignoring that instinct had become much harder.

My mother’s voice returned with perfect clarity.

I lowered the folder to the table as Sunday night came back to me. For several seconds after Mom said her name, I hadn’t been able to ask the obvious question. Hearing Astra spoken aloud inside that house after ten years had dragged too much back with it before I finally managed to speak.

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