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“Really?!” My mother was suitably scandalized and couldn’t wait to hear all the details.
“And what about a man? Is there someone?”
I was dying to talk about Tate and decided to tell her an edited version.
“Actually…”
My mother started clapping her hands in excitement. “I knew it! I knew it! This calls for cappuccinos!!!”
My mom’s idea of a cappuccino came in a sachet and cost a dollar at the local store. It was hardly the work of art I had gotten used to at the office, produced by a machine the size of a small car. But my mother’s cappuccinos tasted of home and acceptance and the kind of warmth that came with fitting in and being loved no matter what you did. That made it the best coffee in the world. I told her that there was a senior guy at the office that I had become friendly with, and had kissed one night. It was a very PG, scaled-down version of what had actually happened.
“Is he married?” she asked.
“No!” I was surprised that she’d even ask that.
“A lot older?”
“Yeah, a bit,” I admitted.
“Enjoy it while you can, but don’t let it become too serious,” she advised. “Before you know it, you’ll be picking up his stinky underwear from your bathroom floor while he is playing videogames all night with his buddies.” She was basically describing my brother Steve.
I pulled a face and she laughed.
But I would’ve loved to pick up Tate’s jocks from my bathroom floor.
I couldn’t tell her that though.
Because then it would be obvious that I’d fallen for him. Maybe just a small, tiny bit. Nobody needed to know.
But I knew, of course.
Chapter 14
Tate
I spend a week schmoozing with investors, talking tech at the convention, going out at night and partying with whoever invites me for drinks. I spend time at roulette tables, with strippers pushing their titties in my face and talk to big men with loud voices about money they don’t have that they pretend they want to give to me. I give them the attention they want, spend time with people I would normally not even look at twice, all because I don’t want to think about Evie.
But I can’t have her in my head, filling the precious space with thoughts of her sweet face and juicy thighs. I had let it go to too far, had compromised myself with her. I thought it was just sex but the chemistry between us was powerful and the connection was too strong. She’d slipped past my internal firewall and was wreaking havoc with my code.
She’d hacked my emotions.
And there was only one way of dealing with a hacker. You had to shut them down. Find the weak chink in the armor, the code that gives it all away.
When I got back from Reno, I was exhausted. I thought I might sleep for two full days. Then I heard that she’d been here, with Summer, while I was away. Suddenly I saw her everywhere, I imagined her in my bed, sleeping alone and it drove me wild with desire. I pictured her naked of course, my satin sheets pulled over her perfect breasts.
“Where was Annika?” I asked Summer.
“With the band, of course,” she rolled her eyes.
I made a mental note to fire her. She should have known better than to abandon my daughter.
“Don’t fight with her too!” Summer warned me.
“What do you mean?”
“You and Evie, she said you’d had a fight.”
“She said that?” That was an interesting take on our situation, I thought.
