Page 66 of Not That Complicated

I made myself a cup, opened up my laptop to see which deadlines were screaming for immediate attention, and managed to distract myself with work for two whole hours.

Who needed athletic Adam-sex?

I’d become a workaholic.

You can’t think about corpses and police officers when you’re trying to satisfy a client who has the vaguest idea of what they want, but they do know that they want it by the end of the week.

After two hours, the headache was back and I was seriously in need of a proper coffee—I hadn’t managed to choke down more than a mouthful of the freeze-dried stuff.

I was a snob, wasn’t I?

Whatever. I wanted the good stuff, and I wasn’t ashamed.

I grabbed my coat, stuffed my laptop into the bag along with the power cord, and headed out.

I stopped abruptly in the foyer and stared at Adam behind the desk.

I mean...

“Are you always here? Do youlivehere?”

“Good morning, Ray.”

“But...always? Aren’t there child labour laws?”

“We’re not doing this today,” he said crisply, getting to his feet and leaning over the desk. To my astonishment, he slid his fingers along my jaw, tilted my face up and kissed me. Quick and dirty. “Good morning, Ray. And no, I don’t live here. I live with my mother.” He smiled at the surprise that must have shown on my face. “Moving home after university is not exactly ideal, but she needs the help. She had a pacemaker operation while I was finishing up my degree, and since I'm still deciding what to do, I came home. In case you were wondering, working here isn't my end game.”

“You didn’t get a degree in hotel management, then?”

“Less managing them, more designing them. Architecture degree.”

My father wouldlovehim. If Dad had even an inkling of Adam’s existence and of Adam being interested in my existence, he would try to bribe Adam to marry me, just so he could have a son who was into building things.

“Beauty and brains,” I said. “Lucky you.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Is your mum okay?” I said, fidgeting. “She’s doing well?”

“She’s doing great. Loving life. I’m here to slow her down and stop her taking on too much too soon, really.”

I nodded a few times, oddly reluctant to leave. I wanted to know more about Adam. I wanted to know everything. I was fairly sure he had my number by this point, especially after last night. He, on the other hand, was still a mystery.

He was watching me, his eyes thoughtful and assessing.

I should go.

I didn’t. “Um. So. End game. What does that look like?”

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Things have a way of changing unexpectedly, you know?”

“No,” I said, deadpan. “I have no experience of that whatsoever.”

He huffed a laugh. “Do I do a post grad? Apprentice? Do I want to be an architect, or do something else entirely? Whatever I choose, I need to build up some capital.” He tapped the desk. “Hence working here.”

“You could probably build enough capital in a week to buy a yacht if you modelled again.”

“Yeah.” His face shuttered. “I could. Except I don’t want a yacht. And I prefer this.”

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