Into You Series: The Complete Collection

4. Nia

CHAPTER 4

NIA

T he nine-hour drive is the opposite of what I imagined when I woke up this morning. I had intended to cruise in my own car while listening to some steamy audiobook. If I have to endure the charm of Ian all week, I could at least fantasize about some attainable muscled hunk taking me on the beach under moonlight.

Instead, I’m stuck with Ian in a tight car with a very handsy bride and groom. Every so often I look and see Ian’s large hands on the center console as he leans forward to talk with Cameron. I hate that I imagine what it would be like to touch those hands, or to have them touch me in only the best of horrible ways.

Cameron keeps pulling the car over every other hour to admire various buildings. It’s his architectural passion coming out, and every time it’s the same deal: Grace lovingly wraps her arms around his waist as they look off in engaged bliss (sometimes I even think I see her touching just below his waistband? Ew. ), and Ian spends his time either attempting conversation with me or staring off into the distance with his hands in his pockets, looking cool and sexy.

What a jerk.

We eventually stop off at an old roadside country store that advertises local peaches. I walk over to the covered cart, where an old woman smiles at me as if this is the most blessed day she’s ever lived. Judging by the texture of her skin and her crinkled laugh lines, I’d say she’s spent a lot of her life enjoying this kind of sunny weather. I smile back at her.

“Good morning,” I say. Her wrinkled smile beams back. It would be a sweet moment if the chipper voice of Ian didn’t come from behind me a second later and almost make me jump out of my skin.

“The weather is beautiful, eh, Polly?”

Happiness gone.

It’s the same nickname he’s used for years after finding out my parent’s absurd naming conventions. Yes, they named their daughter Apollonia. Yes, middle school was an absolute treat. And yes, I used to sort of kind of like it when he called me that. It was like a fun little joke between us—until it wasn’t.

I watch him breathe in the surrounding air, showing off his broad, muscular chest as it expands. I bet he’s doing that on purpose.

“Don’t call me that,” I shoot back at him.

Ian is like this—pushy, cocky, always doing whatever he wants. I can’t stand it. And yet…it sends some odd spark through me, like fuel to the flame I keep trying to snuff out. Let me tell you: stop, drop, and roll doesn’t work. Trust me.

“Nia,” he continues, grinning from ear to ear as if walking on eggshells with each syllable. “How long has it been?”

“Not long enough.” Eight months and three days, actually. Not that I’ve been counting.

“Ouch.” His hand goes to his heart in mock offense and I try to ignore the gesture as well as his defined wrists and muscled forearms. The sun has been doing him favors this summer. I shake the thought off.

Ian looks down to me—it’s the only direction he can look. I am a fairly average 5’ 4”. He is a little more than a foot taller than me, and while that could seem like a dream for some women, I refuse to be seduced by a man based on height alone. You can shove your online dating profiles stating I’m over 6 feet tall someplace else.

“Well, have you missed me?” he asks with a smile. My chest constricts. It’s a complicated question, but he doesn’t need to know that.

I almost don’t want to give him the satisfaction of a conversation, but the old lady at the register stares at me and I feel personally attacked by her judgment. She doesn’t know us. She doesn’t know the history.

Ian always told me he didn’t date co-workers. Of course, he said that at a time when my own inhibitions were lowered, I was vulnerable, and I tried to act on my attraction to him like the silly, lonely idiot I was. I’ve hated myself ever since, but I’ve hated him even more. It’s easy to dislike a man who turns you down only to find him later that evening with another, much younger co-worker—the receptionist, of all people.

I don’t date co-workers, my ass.

I wanted him. It took me a bit to admit it to myself, but I did. Hell, I’d be blind to not long for him now. I had let my guard down and was strong enough to resist at the time, but seeing Ian and Saria climb into that car together? That broke me.

Years of teasing me? Just a fun game for him. It meant nothing. I meant nothing. I was the butt of his jokes, and it’s hard to forgive a man who led me on for so long only to shoot me in the heart with an arrow—and not the sweet Valentine kind.

Old lady, you don’t know the half of it.

But her gaze drills into me and she reminds me too much of my late grandma, who insisted on me being cordial to even the worst of enemies. So, I oblige the ghost.

“How is self-employment?” I ask.

“It’s going well,” Ian says, allowing my change of subject and browsing the peaches alongside me. I try my best not to let our arms cross paths, though his hand does come dangerously close. I’m watching you, boy. “I like being my own boss.”

“You never were one for authority,” I say. Understatement of the century. If I had a nickel for every time someone told Ian to do something and he came up with some snarky comment to sidestep the responsibility or just straight-up refused, I wouldn’t need to work anymore. Not that I would stop working due to Ian, anyway—just on principle.

“I always respected human resources at least,” Ian says. He grins down at me, and I give a sarcastic grimace in return.

“You tested the limits.”

“And you let me.”

His hand is on the peach right next to the one my hand is hovering over. He arches an eyebrow and takes one step closer. I narrow my eyes, daring him to try anything.

I dislike his stupid, cocky face. I dislike the way he flirts with the world as if his smile is the meaning of life. It makes me want nothing more than to prove him wrong. But, in this shack, in the heat of the summer, there is some weird greenhouse-like effect where I feel flushed, and I can’t tell if it’s the humidity or that silly little grin of his. There’s also that annoying, ever-familiar snag in my chest at the sight and closeness of him.

The fan overhead is the only source of cool air, and it isn’t doing its job nearly as well as it should. Ian is driving my blood pressure through the roof of this little fruit stand.

“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” I say.

We stare at each other like we’re in some great war, looking across the battlefield before firing off cannons. On one side, there’s me, ready to defend my land and ward off invaders with guns a-blazing. On the other side, there’s Ian, a man of secret warfare with an army of spies and silver-tongued speech, drifting into opposing territory just as soft and sweet as poison.

“This is going to be a stellar trip,” he declares with a grin.

He picks up the peach and takes a large bite of it. A bit of the fruit’s juice slowly runs down his chin, creating a small trail through his stubble before he wipes it off. He wiggles his eyebrows as if he knows I’m watching that single droplet flow down from his lips. He drops some bills on the counter in front of the old woman and, with a wink to her—not even to me—he saunters off. Yes, he saunters .

I place my three peaches on the scale in front of the now chuckling woman.

“Honey, if I had a man who looked like he does…” She trails off in thought.

I slap my money on the counter. “Then you would be miserable.”