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“Take care of yourself.”
* * *
Thirty minutes after Cole left, the first delivery arrived. The note stapled to the bag said “Don’t forget to eat.”
Garlic and basil wafted through the room as she opened the bag from Napoli’s with a grin. The memory of her first dinner with Cole replayed as she looked around her office. It was the first time she’d truly seen the person behind the CEO suit. The man who would bring her dinner and wipe spilled lettuce off the floor. And he was still sending her food.
Joey ate the alfredo immediately, occasionally pausing to refresh the search algorithm. She was taking care of Will’s request first. Then she’d need to set up the required security measures for worming her way into the FBI systems. Whatever Flint said about her ability, it wasn’t going to be easy.
She sent a text to Cole while the algorithm dug through Coulter’s personal bank transactions.
Joey: Thanks for dinner. Wish we could eat it together.
His response came almost immediately.
Cole: Me too. Maybe next time.
She smiled broadly and hit the video camera icon in the upper right. When he answered, it was obvious Cole was home.
“Well, hello there, beautiful. Isn’t technology great?” he said.
She nodded and propped the phone up on her desk, blushing at the compliment. “It’s not like being there, but at least I don’t have to eat alone.”
Cole smiled. “I’m glad. How are things going?”
She shrugged and took a bite. “Fine so far. Things are tense around here, but we’re waiting for some intel before we can move.”
“You sure you can’t tell me?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m definitely sure. But it’s okay. We’ll just have to talk about something else. Tell me about your family. Growing up.”
She saw Cole hesitate and wondered if she had chosen a bad subject.
“I’m surprised you don’t know it all already.” His words held no bite, and the teasing tone made her smile.
“You’re a surprisingly difficult man to dig up information on, Mr. Kensington.”
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll fill in the gaps.”
“Okay, well… You grew up in Maryland. Your parents worked for the State Department and traveled extensively. I couldn’t find anything about where you attended school, so I assume you were homeschooled while you traveled with them.”
Cole shook his head. “Good guess, but no. My parents did work for State and they did travel a lot. But… I guess they didn’t want to take me with them. I lived with my grandparents. And yes, they did homeschool me.”
“Ahh, see. So close.”
He smiled and raised his glass to her. “Yep. I’m sure you discovered that my parents died in a plane crash when I was fourteen. My grandfather started dealing with dementia years before that though.”
More pieces of the Cole Kensington puzzle started to click into place in her mind. “That must have been really hard.”
Cole nodded, but he was no longer looking at her through the phone. He was lost in a memory somewhere. “It was. My grandma tried her best, but she couldn’t take care of him. He… became a different person. This kind, gentle hero of my mine slowly became an angry and vindictive stranger. Grandma cried all the time. And I just tried to be there, for both of them, you know? She died first, when I was seventeen. Grandpa was in a home by then.”
Her heart broke for the young man he’d been back then, trying to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders, then landing in a group home. “I’m so sorry, Cole.”
He looked back to her, as though remembering she were there for the first time. “I can’t know for sure if my dad would have eventually had it too. As far as I know, he was still healthy when he died. But I never want to put anyone through what my grandma had to endure.”
“You won’t,” she said automatically.
He clicked his tongue. “You don’t know that, Joey. There’s a genetic component to the disease. I might be slowly losing my memory and not even realize it. Every time I misplace something, the question is there, taunting me. Am I just human? Or am I getting old enough to start seeing the beginning stages?”
