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“It just seeps out of you.” She looked at her as if choosing her words carefully. “Like you’re searching for something.”
Her gaze plunged to Charlotte’s lips and back to her eyes.
“What are you looking for?”
Charlotte was exposed. It was like her reoccurring nightmare, showing up at school unprepared for a test and without pants on, became reality. With her heart pounding in her ears, it was impossible to think. To come back with something clever.
Taking a step forward, Charlotte projected confidence she didn’t have while her muscles spasmed and her stomach tensed. She did not allow herself to consider that Alex might have found her out. If she knew her true purpose, she wouldn’t linger in her doorway asking questions like this.
Alex didn’t move. She allowed Charlotte within inches of her. Convincing herself that her secret was still safe, Charlotte let a sliver of unelaborated truth to filter out.
“You.”
For a single horrific moment, nothing happened. Alex’s stare didn’t waver. If Charlotte wasn’t holding her breath, she would’ve insisted it was a joke and clawed back what she said, but she couldn’t will her mouth to move.
Then, Alex’s beautifully formed upper lip twitched in the world’s briefest smile. “Go home, Ms. Castro. I don’t pay you overtime.”
With that, Alex turned on her heels and disappeared down the hall.
What the actual hell was that?
CHAPTER 13
WHEN STEPHANIE SAUNTERED into her o ce holding two paper co ee cups, Alex looked up from her computer. The scent of an impending ca eine boost brightened her spirits.
“You’re a saint,” she said, reaching for the much-needed jolt. After hours of tedious party planning, she was ready for a break. “Next year I’m hiring a planner.”
Stephanie’s throat bobbed as she laughed. “You say that every year and yet…” She motioned to a large mood board propped on an easel where her ideas for a Cirque du Soleil-esque benefit were neatly displayed.
Alex took a generous swig of cooled co ee. “But this time I mean it,” she joked with a wry smile.
“I’m sure the kids are going to love it,” she replied, crossing one leg over the other before tipping back in the chair across from Alex’s desk.
“I hope so.”
The children’s hospital provided care for kids regardless of their ability to pay, which meant they relied heavily on donations. For the last decade Alex had been throwing various charity events on the conditions that they never
harass her about it and that the kids well enough to attend did. There was nothing she hated more than attending some great benefit for the downtrodden where rich people dressed up and had a good time. It was perverse.
“So, what’s the deal with Charlotte?” Stephanie asked, abruptly yanking Alex back to the present.
“What?” She straightened. “What do you mean?” She guessed what Stephanie was getting at but didn’t assume.
Stephanie raised a thin eyebrow. “Bringing you gifts.
That’s kind of weird, don’t you think?”
Alex’s stomach dropped. She was transported to her childhood when her mother caught the nanny sneaking her a sandwich after she’d been sent to bed without dinner for refusing to eat the rabbit she’d been served for dinner. The nearly forty-year-old memory produced a visceral reaction.
Her skin turned to ice.
“You brought me co ee,” Alex countered with an easy and even demeanor despite the tightness in her chest. “Is that weird?”
Narrowing her eyes, Stephanie refused to toss a manufactured smile her way. She loved her forthright style.
Usually. “Skirting my question? It must be worse than I thought.”
Alex rocked in her chair as she weighed her options.
