Page 4 of It Must Be Love

"Hi, Nolan," I spoke into my earbuds.

"Naya, is this urgent?"

This was how all our conversations went. It was always transactional with Nolan. I had no idea why he couldn't muster any affection for me, but I'd given up trying to figure that out.

"Yes," I said firmly. "Did you ask Amias to give me a job?"

"What?"

"You heard me, Nolan."

I heard a long sigh. "I didn't. I may have mentioned that since you were moving, you'd need a job in Boston. Why?"

"I…I just overheard a conversation that made me wonder. Anyway…thanks. Say hi to Magnus and—"

"Naya," my sister-in-law grabbed Nolan's phone, "can you babysit Magnus tomorrow night?"

"Ah…."

"Our regular canceled, and Amias and Ann are throwing a party at his place," she motored on.

"Sure, Kara."

"Great. I'll drop him off around six? Thanks."

And then they hung up on me. Boring nerdy Auntie Naya, who dressed like a frump and had nobody in her life. I needed to get some cats, and I'd be set at the tender age of twenty-six to be a cat lady. If only I wasn't allergic to the little furballs.

Chapter 2

Amias

"We've been dating for months, and I can't understand why you insist that we keep separate apartments," Ann started up on her usual nag fest while she did her makeup.

She'd insisted on throwing a party at my place in Back Bay. I didn't mind having people over. I had a good housekeeper and cleaning crew. Ann had catered the food and hired a bartender to mix and serve drinks for the evening. All I needed to do was show up.

"Because we tend to break up, Ann, and I'd like to make sure we're actually going to have a steady relationship this time before talking about moving in."

"Amias, your lack of trust in us hurts."

I wish she'd cut the crap. She knew I didn't mince my words. She also knew I wasn't ready to live with her, and nagging me wasn't going to help. Ann and I had been doing this dance for years, and, in all honesty, I was getting tired of it. The sex was fantastic, but everything else was starting to take its toll, especially dealing with her constant need to be validated.

Am I pretty enough? Rich enough? Successful enough? Do you love me enough?

Christ! She was driving me nuts with her constant demands. Ann was as old as me, and I knew she was starting to panic that she'd not find someone in time to have babies. I wasn't planning to bring kids into this world with a woman I wasn't sure I had a future with. Considering how it was going between Ann and me, after dating this time around for six months, I had a feeling that she'd need to find someone else to impregnate her and put a ring on her finger in whichever order she preferred.

I had to give one thing to Ann though, she threw one hell of a party. Since she'd done the heavy lifting for the evening and wanted to claim her place as my partner, I let her play hostess while I caught up with friends.

"How are things?" Hayes asked me while he smoked a cigar on my large rooftop patio. It was damned cold, but thanks to the heated lamps placed strategically around the seating spaces, people were congregated outside as well as inside.

"Things are fine. How about you?"

He shrugged. Hayes was a professor at Harvard, teaching and doing research on computer linguistics. Of everyone in our group from MIT, he and I were the closest. He even sat on the board of Midas Technologies because his counsel was important to me.

"Gemma and I broke up," he said.

"Congratulations or condolences?"

"Congratulations," he assured me. "She dumped my ass because I was being a douche."