Page 15 of Head Over Heels

“Where’d you go to school?” I asked.

“Gonzaga for undergrad, and I just finished at Stanford and Indiana University for those two slacker master’s degrees. Online for all of them, not that that makes it any easier.”

My eyebrows rose slowly. Smart girl. “My almost brother-in-law went to Stanford. I think I forgot to mention him in the count.”

“I’d need flashcards and a spreadsheet to keep track,” she told me.

“I take it you don’t have a big family.”

“Just me and my father.”

It sounded lonely, but I decided to keep that nugget to myself for the time being.

“Gonzaga,” I said quietly. “Does that mean Spokane is home?”

“No. My dad went to Gonzaga, so … you know how it goes. I’m from Seattle actually. It was more convenient to do my schooling online, so I could stay home with my father. It’s just the two of us.”

She was younger than me then, by a solid handful of years. And she lived nowhere close to the place I called home.

Not that it mattered where she lived, I told myself firmly.

“What about you?” she asked. “Where did you go to school?”

With a self-deprecating grin, I shifted on the floor too. Our knees brushed. I didn’t move, and neither did she. “This will horrify you, but I didn’t.”

“Oh.” She blinked a few times. “I suppose it was rude of me to assume.”

I waved that off. “It’s fine. College wasn’t for me, and I knew that in high school. I hate being stuck inside, and the thought of working at a desk would have me losing my mind.”

She cleared her throat, which was a prim, uncomfortable sound, and it made me grin.

“Don’t feel bad,” I told her. “I learned by doing, you know? My dad taught me and my sister everything we needed. No classroom in the world could’ve done what he did half as efficiently. I took over our family business with one of my siblings. We’ve been running that for the past … ten years or so.”

“That’s wonderful. I plan to take over my dad’s business someday, so I can appreciate that.”

“Without the arranged marriage this time,” I said.

She laughed. “Yes, precisely.”

I liked that she wasn’t actually engaged. Or actually about to walk down the aisle to someone.

In fact, every single aspect of how we found ourselves here just lent weight to the fleeting nature of it. I already found myself wondering if she’d get a drink with me once we were out. Sit somewhere quiet, where the lighting was low enough to be romantic, high enough that I could actually see her clearly.

“What about you?” she asked. “You mentioned your sister would be worried. There’s no one else wondering where you are?”

My mouth curled in a satisfied grin. “That your way of asking if I’m single?”

For a moment, I wondered if I’d screwed up by saying it out loud, because I caught a glimpse of her mouth falling open in surprise.

Then she cleared her throat again. “Yes,” Ivy said. “I suppose I am.”

She moved again, our legs now touching beyond just the knees. I kept my gaze on her face, waiting for her to look back at me, and after a prolonged beat, she did.

I smiled.

“Married to my work, as it were,” I said. “Not sure there’s a woman who’d want to deal with the hours I keep because my family takes a lot of my time too.”

“You don’t get lonely?”

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