Page 71 of Between the Lines

“Hey,” she murmurs, a small smile on her lips. Then her eyes widen. “I fell asleep.”

“Yes, you sure did.” I hold up the bottle of wine. “Raided the wine cellar downstairs, too, I see.”

“I bought it myself!” She pushes up onto her elbows. A strap of her tank top has fallen down, leaving one of her shoulders bare. She’s too fucking pretty.

“Please tell me you didn’t,” I say.

“Yes, earlier today. While I was out on a research trip.”

“A research trip?”

She nods and pushes firmly into sitting. Pulling her legs beneath herself in a cross-legged position. “Yes. I did…” She looks down at the mess on the coffee room table. “I went to your high school and elementary school.”

“You didwhat?”

“I needed to see them to be able to describe them.”

“No reader will be interested in my elementary school.”

She gives me a prim look. “Yes, they will, Aiden. Because it’s part of painting a larger picture.”

“I could have taken you there. If you really wanted to go.”

“You were at work,” she says.

“I could have skipped out for an hour,” I say.

It’s a complete lie. I didn’t even have time to eat dinner today, never mind taking a break to drive around areas I haven’t been to in years. Decades.

“I didn’t want to bother you.” She looks at the bottle in my hands, and a slight blush creeps up her cheeks. “I didn’t plan on having so much. It was better than I expected.”

“I’m glad you think so. It’s my mother’s pride and joy.”

“Does she live up there now?”

I smile faintly. “You never stop working, do you?”

With her hair mussed from her nap and her eyes warm on mine, it’s impossible to look at her and not remember her lips on mine last night.

On the projector screen, laughter erupts again.

“My work is you,” she says.

I focus on the bottle in my hand. “Yeah. I don’t know what I think about that.”

“You don’t like being under so much scrutiny. I get it,” she says with a small shrug.

That’s not it.

But I don’t want to go into the nuances of it. I fill up her glass instead. “You don’t mind if I have some of this, do you? And never buy it again. I have an entire roomful.”

“I didn’t want to steal any of it.”

“Charlotte.”

She meets my glare head-on, and then she shrugs with a small smile. “Okay. I’ll raid it completely and sell everything on eBay tomorrow.”

“Good,” I say without missing a beat. “Use the profits to buy yourself a new car.”

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