Page 23 of Hacker Heart

I cringe. “That’s umm, unsettling.”

“You’re telling me,” he agrees. “Anyway, I’ll take cash, check, or direct deposit.”

I glare at him. “You won’t be getting a cent from me. Not yet anyway,” I mumble the last bit.

His gaze turns deadly, and he sits forward in his chair, bringing his elbows to the edge of his desk. “Explain.”

Crap, maybe I should have just given him the damn money. Clearing my throat, again, I tell him. “We didn’t… umm… really discuss much this morning. Val’s coming over tonight for the umm, talking portion of our… umm…” I wave my hand in the air searching for a word, any word that will end this mortifying conversation once and for all.

“I get it,” Dad grumbles, squeezing his eyes shut. “You can pay up tomorrow, then.”

My shoulders slump as relief sweeps through me, then I get to my feet and hightail it out of there without a backward glance.

ChapterNine

It tookme two hours to decide if I should bring flowers for Belle tonight. In the end I hit up the farmers market on the outskirts of Shiloh Springs and picked up a fresh bouquet from the florist who runs a stall there. She put together a stunning arrangement with flowers sourced from local farms.

When I pull into Belle’s drive, I’m not the slightest bit nervous. I thought I would be…was expecting to be. But all I feel is complete calm. Nothing has ever felt more right. She’d kill me if I said that out loud, the grammar Nazi that she is. I grin as I climb out of the car and head for her door.

She swings it open before I even get there. She’s changed into a pair of jeans that hug her curves impeccably, and a lightweight pink sweater that hangs off one shoulder. Her hair is in a knot atop her head, and I know she probably spent at least fifteen minutes perfecting that artfully messy look.

When our eyes meet, everything else fades away. It’s just her and me, and we’re finally, fucking finally, exactly where we’re supposed to be.

“Hey,” she murmurs, her shiny pink painted lips pursing as they take in the bouquet in my hands. “You didn’t need to get me flowers.”

“Yeah, I did. These are the first of many to come,” I tell her, stepping into her space, then brushing my lips over her flushed cheek.

“Thank you,” she breathes. She takes a step back, welcoming me inside. “I ordered food, It’ll be here in…” she glances at the clock on the wall behind me. “Forty-five.”

“Works for me,” I tell her, kicking off my shoes and putting them on the rack by the door before heading to the kitchen. I open the cupboard under the sink and pull out a vase, fill it with water, then put the flowers in. Spinning around, I find Belle watching me with her elbows propped on the counter, chin resting atop her hands. “What?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Is it weird that I never noticed before how you justfithere? You know my house, you know me, you just… fit.”

I grin and shake my head. “Sometimes we deliberately don’t see things we don’t want to acknowledge. Now, where do you want these?” I ask, holding up the vase.

“The table, please.”

Placing them in the center of her long dining table, I turn back to see she’s wandering over to the couch. I follow her, taking the other end of the sofa when she sits. She swivels around to face me as she tucks her long legs underneath her.

“So, where do we start?” she asks.

“Saturday?” I hedge.

She scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “No. How about last Monday…” she gives me a pointed look and I chuckle.

“All right, what do you want to know?”

“What were you trying to hide from me?”

Not exactly how I wanted to kick this off, but if it’s as good a place as any I suppose. Clearing my throat, I throw an arm over the back of the couch and hook my ankle over my knee as I angle my body to face hers. “It was a story. You know I’ve always liked to dabble here and there.”

The look she gives me says she knows it was much more than just a random story. I narrow my eyes. “What do you know?”

Her cheeks flush and she gnaws on her bottom lip. Christ, I love when she does that. It’s sexy as fuck and makes it hard to concentrate on anything but her mouth.

“I might have seen a bit of it…”

“A bit?”

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