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“No.” He shook his head and held up his hands. “No way.”
“So what do you do besides take pictures of birds?” She didn’t quite believe he was birdwatching, but she’d let that slide.
He shrugged. “I’m a security consultant.”
“Security consultant? What does that mean?”
“It depends on the clients’ needs, really.”
“And if I were your client?”
She knew she’d said the wrong thing the moment he froze.
Harper turned his face toward her, one side of his mouth hitched up a tiny bit. There was no physical change, except in the way he looked at her. It was heated, wanton. “I’d say you need round the clock, personal security. I could even cut you a deal, give you a good rate and handle you myself.”
“Oh my God.” She laughed. It was that or shrivel up and die of embarrassment. It was too much. “Stop that. Be serious.”
“Alright.” He sighed and shuttered the heat. Could he turn it on and off like that? Probably. She shouldn’t let herself get that worked up about it. “It’s different depending on the client, if it’s a company or an individual. Also, is the threat physical or digital? It’s not just adding a new security system, changing the locks and telling you to make sure your windows are secure at night. It’s tailored to the client specifically. I’ll recommend different things based on the threat. And sometimes, when it’s a person, that can extend to things like self-defense training and whatnot.”
“Wow. How’d you get into that?”
“Left the military, started working in the private sector with a security company. It’s pretty typical these days.”
He was older than she’d first thought if he’d accomplished all of that.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Me? Oh, I don’t do anything.”
“Nothing? I find that hard to believe.”
She shrugged. “I’m taking a year off. I finished my Master’s and decided to focus on the family businesses for a bit.”
“Yeah? What’s your specialty?”
“Actuary,” she said, and braced for a blank look.
Instead, Harper nodded. “Risk assessment type stuff, right? Lots of projections, statistics and whatnot?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly.
“You must be really smart.”
Robin opened and closed her mouth. Her instinct was to play it down, after all that’s what Dad did. Only, this time she didn’t want to.
“Yeah. Actually, I am pretty smart,” she admitted.
It felt as though she’d popped the cork on a bottle. Bubbles of pride welled up inside of her and she grinned back at Harper.
He propped his elbow on the back of the bench. “You were totally the top of your class, weren’t you?”
Her cheeks warmed, and she licked her lips. “Which time?”
“Oh.” Harper’s brows lifted. “Listen to you, Miss Which Time? I’m going to guess all three. High school, under grad and master’s.”
“You’d be right on two accounts. I was more than a little done by the time I got through my master’s degree and I wasn’t as diligent as I should have been. I got frustrated with how people who could be the absolute worst scored the better job sometimes.” It galled her, but she’d still been at the top of her class, just not the top.
“Pretty and smart.” He lifted the cup to his lips and drank without breaking eye contact.
