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"It's nothing." Corey glared at me from across the table. "Miss Smith from the executive office is here to show us her barista skills in between handling some work for me. Continue, George."
"Um, okay. Like I was saying, I don't think..."
I didn't hear the rest of what he said. All I could focus on was Corey watching my every move as I returned for more drinks and bagels.
His eyes never left my body, and I hated that my cheeks were flushed red in reaction.
As I set a drink in front of him, he grabbed my wrist and whispered, "Why do you keep insisting on breaking the goddamn rules, Hayley?"
"Because you're an asshole." I snatched my hand away and passed out the last of the hot chocolate.
George slipped me his business card with the words, "Call me" written on the back, and another team member slid me a napkin with the words, "You're hot as fuck. Dinner?" scrawled in blue ink.
"Can I just say that I think it's beyond amazing that Notre Dame is going to be our first account at the new company?" The brunette I'd met in the kitchen clapped her hands in approval. "Mr. Walters, that must be very validating for you."
"Why would that be validating?" he asked.
"Oh, come on!" She smiled. "You don't have to be that modest with us."
"Yeah." George chimed in again. "Getting accepted there at sixteen and finishing a full year of credits in the summer before dropping out because it wasn't challenging enough? No wonder Statham made you his chief of cybersecurity."
"Since when did you go to Notre Dame?" I asked, looking at Corey. "I thought—"
"Harvard, right?" George smiled as he sipped his latte. "That's a natural assumption, and it trips me up, too. Jonathan Statham and most of the developers dropped out of Harvard. Our leader, however, is the different one as always. Unless he hacked his way into their system and made all of this up."
Everyone around the table laughed, and I realized the look Corey was giving me was damn near glacial.
"Hope you all enjoy the drinks and bagels," I said before stepping away and returning to the kitchen.
I pulled out my phone to look up Corey's company bio. I knew my brother had gone to extreme lengths to change his personal records so no one would be able to use our parents colored past in a smear campaign, but Corey? I couldn't imagine him doing the same.
I clicked on his sexy suited picture and read:
Corey Walters was born to two beloved school teachers in Ohio. At a young age, they recognized his aptitude for higher level math and science and enrolled him in evening classes at the local community college while he was still in high school.
At the age of sixteen, Walters became one of the youngest students ever to be accepted into Notre Dame's elite engineering school. After earning stellar marks and pursuing his undergraduate education for only one year, he dropped out to become one of the founding contributors to America's number one tech company: Statham Industries.
I reread those words a few more times, combing my way through the most obvious of lies. I opened my inbox to send him a text about this, but he suddenly snatched my phone and grabbed my wrist—pulling me down the hall and into his bedroom.
"What the fuck was that?" He glared at me, dropping my hand. “I told you to never bother my team members when they come over here."
"Making drinkable coffee and edible bagels means I'm bothering you?"
"You being somewhere you're not supposed to be is bothering me." He backed me against the wall. "Especially when you're asking questions that already have answers."
"You mean lies?" I glared right back at him. "You could've at least made that shit more believable. There's no reason for you to lie about the way you grew up."
"Just like there wasn't any reason for you to lie about being in business school when you were playing around in a fucking coffee shop."
"It was a coffee and wine bar."
"It was a goddamn lie."
"I didn't know you cared so much."
“I don't,” he said, closing the gap between us. “But what I do care about are the rules. So, if you're going to stay here, in my house where I never even wanted you, you need to—”
"Stay the hell out of your way, right?" I was tempted to slap him. "Beg you not to leave me behind in the morning when you go to work, and deal with you ignoring me the whole way there and back?"
