Page 52 of Control

She shrugged. “There was the odd interaction between Reed and her the day we stopped by. Clover said that Monica didn’t fight her husband on donating money because she was so caught up in the family’s image. What if she secretly feels similarly to her son, knows what he did, or even came up with a plan to get rid of her daughter, and now she’s thinking they won’t get caught? I mean, she was oddly serene for someone whose daughter recently died.”

I stared at Alana in disbelief. “You know, if you ever decide to leave your job at the news station and decide the podcasting thing isn’t for you, I think you could have a very lucrative career at Harper Security Ops as a private investigator.”

She jerked back. “Really?”

Nodding, I confirmed, “You’re phenomenal, Alana. Not only do you have this determination and drive to get to the bottom of this, but your instincts are incredible.”

“That’s really sweet of you to say.” Her voice was soft, timid.

“I’m just being honest. And while it will take time to build an audience, I think you’d do a heck of a job doing this thing as an independent journalist for real instead of pretending to be one.”

A flush of heat crept over her skin. “Thank you. Your vote of confidence certainly gives me a lot to think about. It’s strange. I was so fired up to get back to the station when I was first in the accident, but now I’m sort of dreading having to go back.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I’d be relieved to get my clearance from the doctor now that the swelling has subsided. To a degree, I am, but only to the extent that I’m healing. I don’t know, I just don’t want to lose momentum. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing here for Annie, even though I’m only going to be returning part-time for the first few weeks.”

Unable to stop myself, I reached for her hand. I took it in mine, squeezed, and said, “We’ll still get this done. I promise.”

Her eyes dropped to our linked hands, her fingers twitching. “There’s the other issue that sucks about going back to work.”

“What’s that?”

She met my gaze, the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You’re going to be bored all day waiting for me to finish.”

I almost burst into a fit of laughter. Instead, I cocked a brow and decided to take advantage. “Maybe you should let me have some fun now, then.”

There was an involuntary squeeze on my hand, her body tensing. “How could I do that?”

“Let me take you out.”

“What?”

I hesitated a moment, considered my options, and said, “I know you’re all fired up about everything we learned this morning and that you’ll likely want to spend the rest of the day organizing your thoughts and coming up with your next move after we go visit Yasmine in the hospital. But tomorrow, I want to take you out. No work, no stories, no investigation. Just two people going out to do something fun and grabbing some dinner afterward. What do you think?”

Alana’s thumb moved slowly over the skin on the back of my hand. I wondered if she even realized she was doing it, or if she knew the effect that she was having on me. Following a long stretch of silence, she said, “Okay, Ty. After everything you’ve been doing to help me and be such a critical part of this project with me, I think it’s only fair you get something you want. I’ll let you take me out for dinner and some fun tomorrow evening.”

Until she’d given me that confirmation, I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been that she might turn me down. I grinned at her, allowing myself to not feel the slightest bit guilty about the attraction I felt to this woman so soon after my break-up.

There was something about Alana that I was drawn to. Maybe it was that she was gorgeous. It could have been her determined but fun disposition. Or perhaps it was the way she made me feel valued, like I wasn’t wasting my time by wanting to go the extra mile for her.

Whatever it was, I refused to pretend I didn’t feel it. I’d lean in and risk taking a chance on a woman like her.

“Did you enjoy that?”

Alana smiled at me from across the table, her eyes holding a softness about them. “I did. It really was a lot of fun. But I have to say, I think you had more fun than I did.”

I shrugged, settling back in my chair in an attempt to hide my satisfaction. “I was with you. I don’t think you understand just how much fun you are to hang out with.”

Her eyes narrowed playfully. “I don’t know, Ty. I’m pretty sure you were just caught up in the terminology being used this afternoon.”

She wasn’t wrong.

As promised, I’d taken Alana out for some fun this afternoon before bringing her out to dinner tonight. While I’d had a slew of ideas run through my mind about what I wanted to do with her, unfortunately, some of them weren’t options right now with her foot still in that boot.

So, I’d settled on taking her to a glass blowing class. We’d had such a great time—much better than I had anticipated. And considering I knew I was going to be spending time with Alana, I had already anticipated it being amazing.

The thing was, there were so many aspects to glass blowing, so many terms, that had me thinking some unsavory thoughts. There was the blowing part of the glass blowing, and I certainly made sure to pay full attention to it when Alana had her turn using the device known as the blowpipe.

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