The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 218

Whatever nerves had kept her quiet seemed to disappear the moment I gave her something professional to argue about.

“You’re depending heavily on Vantage’s existing infrastructure to absorb the first phase of integration,” she said.

“We are.”

“That gives you speed, but it also assumes their regional operations can handle the additional volume without significant restructuring.”

“You don’t think they can?”

“I think you haven’t owned them long enough to know.”

That answer caught my interest for reasons that had nothing to do with the strange familiarity between us.

“And if you’re right?”

She held my gaze now, the earlier determination to avoid it forgotten. “Then the six-percent growth assumption Sinclair is currently using becomes generous.”

Kieran glanced her way, but I kept my focus on her.

“So you think we’ll miss it?”

“I think you’re asking a competitor’s analyst whether she believes your acquisition will succeed.”

“And?”

Humor flickered in those blue eyes. “And I’m trying very hard to remain employed.”

Kieran let out a quiet laugh, and mine nearly followed before I caught it, leaving only the faintest pull at the corner of my mouth.

Isla’s composure slipped for a fraction of a second. Her gaze dropped to my mouth as though the almost- smile had caught her off guard, lingering there before she seemed to realize what she was doing and looked elsewhere. The faint rosy tint across her fair cheeks deepened.

The reaction caught me harder than it should have.

Why the hell had she looked at me like that?

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Kieran continued speaking, but keeping my focus on him became harder when Isla adjusted the tablet against

her chest.

A section of hair slipped forward again, and for some reason, the black bothered me.

That made even less sense. There was nothing about black hair I could connect to anything, yet some instinct kept insisting it was wrong.

My mind returned instead to details that should’ve meant nothing—the feel of her fingers in mine, those blue eyes behind her glasses, the familiar way she’d adjusted them and her reaction when I’d almost smiled. None of it gave me an answer, but knowing there was something I was missing was starting to piss me off.

“We should find our seats,” Rebecca said. “The roundtable starts in fifteen.”

Kieran checked his watch. “We’ll see you inside.”

“Sinclair.”

“Ashton.”

We shook hands before Kieran headed toward the next room with Rebecca and Isla, and despite having no reason to keep watching, my gaze followed her until they disappeared into the crowd.

I turned toward one of the Vantage executives waiting nearby before whatever fixation I’d developed became obvious to everyone in the fucking room. He immediately launched into a question about lunch arrangements, and I answered while Sinclair’s delegation settled into a seating area near the windows.

Isla sat beside Rebecca, her hair falling across one side of her face as she lowered her eyes to the tablet on her lap.

I was still watching when the executive said my name.

“Zane?”

Whatever he’d asked before that was gone.

“Repeat that.”

He did, and this time I made myself listen, getting through another introduction and accepting congratulations from two people I knew well enough that forgetting their names would’ve been insulting.

My eyes found the windows again anyway.

Isla looked up at almost the same moment and caught me watching her. Our gazes held across the room before she turned back to Rebecca, stirring that same inexplicable certainty without giving me anything

useful to attach it to.

Nothing gave me a name or explained why a woman I’d supposedly never met could make parts of my own memory feel unreliable.

I returned to the conversation, but the damage was already done.

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A woman I’d never met shouldn’t have been able to distract me this easily.

Worse, I already wanted another excuse to get close to her.

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ISLA

The hotel doors opened onto the late-afternoon rush of Midtown, and stepping outside felt like taking my first full breath since that morning.

Rebecca walked beside me while Kieran remained several paces behind, finishing a conversation with someone from the forum. Cars crawled past the entrance as hotel staff directed departing guests toward waiting vehicles, and somewhere farther down the avenue, an impatient driver leaned on his horn.

My bag slipped against my shoulder. I adjusted it rather than give in to the urge to glance back at the hotel.

I’d made it through the day without hearing the one name I’d feared.

Astra.

Zane had looked at me more times than I cared to count, including several that had made me wonder whether something about me bothered him, but nothing in his face suggested he’d found the answer.

I should’ve been relieved.

Instead, the fact that he’d held my hand and walked away still thinking I was Isla Smith had left behind an irritation I refused to examine too closely.

“Isla?”

Rebecca’s voice brought me back to the curb, where she’d stopped beside a black car. “Are you coming?”

“Sorry.”

She studied me briefly before opening the rear door. “Long day?”

“You could say that.”

“You did well.”

“Thanks.”

Kieran joined us, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Tomorrow morning, I want the regional notes consolidated with anything Ashton disclosed today.”

“I’ll have them ready.”

“Monday is fine,” Rebecca said. “She’s been working on Vantage all week.”

After a moment, Kieran nodded. “Monday.”

III

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He climbed into the car while Rebecca lingered beside the open door. “We’re heading back to the office. You?”

“Home.”

“Good choice.”

I said goodbye and waited until their car disappeared into traffic before ordering my own.

The back seat finally gave me enough privacy to remove my glasses and rub the ache along the bridge of my nose. Unfortunately, getting away from the hotel hadn’t done the same for my thoughts.

Zane kept finding his way back into them, along with details I had absolutely no business dwelling on, including how offensively well he’d grown into those shoulders.

I put my glasses back on and stared through the window, determined to think about literally anything else. Manhattan gave me several million alternatives, yet my mind remained stubbornly fixed on one irritating fact.

I’d known him immediately, while he’d stood close enough to touch me, looked directly into my face and found nothing he could name.

That shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

Maybe the black hair had made more of a difference than I realized. My face had matured, along with enough of the rest of me that expecting him to find the girl he remembered in the woman sitting here was hardly reasonable.

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