Page 20 of Divine Obsession

But Natalia’s face only froze with lack of emotion as she turned away from me without another word.

“Alright, everyone. To get you all back in the headspace, we’ll get started with this code. You have twenty minutes to…”

I watched as Natalia reached for her computer’s keyboard, only to stop herself and lean back in her chair. Her earlier smile was gone, replaced by an almost worried expression. I had wanted to annoy her before, but didn’t mean for my comment to unsettle her so much.

I told myself I didn’t care.

That didn’t stop my frowned gaze from burning into the side of her face. “What’s wrong?”

Natalia slowly looked back at me, slightly embarrassed. “I don’t get my student ID till next week.”

So she couldn’t access the computers. Meaning…

“We’ll share mine.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just use paper–” She argued, pulling a pink notepad and pen from her matching bag.

“Scared you’ll lose?”

She paused, glancing back at me. “What?”

“You can’t check if your code works like that. But you could on my computer. Scared mine will work and yours won’t?”

“My codeswork. I don’t need to prove anything.”

“Mhm.” I rubbed my hand over my jaw, hiding my smirk. “Sure.”

“Exactly.”

I shrugged. “Great.”

The longer we stared at each other the harder it was to cover my arrogant smirk. Or to not notice Natalia’s soft brown eyes.Warm like honey. Intense like a shot of expresso.

My haze vanished when she tsked, reaching for my keyboard.

Two hours later, and half an hour before the end of the class, we were tied. In all honesty, I hadn’t expected her to last that long. No one had before her. And I was starting to realize, ifthere was one thing Miss Perfect wasn’t faking, it was her coding ability.

I couldn’t help but remember the night of the Christmas Charity Gala. What I’d said…You’re a bad influence. You’re obviously not passing with honors.

Man, I really could be a dick.

I had underestimated her. Natalia was smart. A lot smarter than she let on.

It was one of the first things I noticed about her that night. Even before we bumped into each other and she spilled that drink on me. I noticed her the moment she entered the mansion.

And I’d seen her talking to one of the guests – actually, that’s an overstatement. I’d seen one of the donors mansplaining to her about God knows what, even though I could tell by her expression she didn’t need or want to hear it.

Similarly, in the way she allowed Professor Davis to explain to her a code I’d already seen her use.

I watched her nodding along, with a soft smile.

Same way she did with that asshole at the benefit.

I didn’t understand it.

How orwhyshe was so nice to other people.

Yeah. Right.Everyone but me.

---