Page 49 of Hacking His Code

Her brow draws in skeptically. “Really?”

“Really.”

She blinks half a dozen times like she’s trying to register that she’s holding winning lottery numbers. I’ve never met a woman so easy to please and can’t even imagine how she’d act if I actually bought her something of value, like a car.

Her thumbs move over her phone, and a minute later, my own vibrates. She’s sent me a link to a treat basket with various chocolate-covered fruit.

“I’ll have it delivered this afternoon, but I’m ordering one that’s double the size. She’s going to go through those rather quickly, I presume.”

“Oh-okay!” Arinessa says, her voice ripe with hope.

And just like that, the two-hundred-dollar gift basket I purchased for Arinessa’s mother has brought me more joy than anything money has afforded me in…years.

Arinessa pulls the towel from her head, tossing it into the hamper. Damp waves of hair cascade down her back, soon to be a mess of tangles if history is any indication.

Arinessa reclaims her seat from yesterday. “Let’s get down to business.”

I most definitely agree that we should be getting down to business, though my idea of how we should do that would differ vastly from hers.

Calm yourself. This is a professional acquaintance you’re seducing in your head.

She logs into the mainframe, her fingers never slowing. Everything she does is so laser-focused that she doesn’t realize how closely I’m watching her, how I’m studying her jaw as it shifts when she’s reading, how her brow lifts when she’s puzzling together information. I want to remember every part of her.

Without taking her eyes from the screen, she says, “Your aunt was way ahead of her time.”

“She had quite a brain on her, or so I’ve been told.”

“This damn folder holds up to every attack I throw at it. She didn’t just think about infiltration in her time. She looked to the future and the technology that was probable and protected against it.”

“In the tech world, you kind of know what’s coming, but even I wouldn’t be able to account for the factors my aunt did.”

Her fingers fly over the keyboard, typing at least ninety-words-a-minute as she enters data into various screens, trying to find a backdoor into the file my aunt named: Rand.

But my mind is lightyears away from where it’s supposed to be and entirely focused on the problem-ladened beauty before me.

I have to tell her.

“Ari…” I say, my voice trailing off as I try to gather the courage to say words I’ve never spoken to a woman.

“Yeah,” she replies, eyes glued to the screen.

“We are a lot more alike than I could have ever imagined.”

She chuckles dryly, casting me a sardonic look.

“Hear me out,” I implore. “We are good at what we do, and we have a hard time trusting people.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Maybe you’re good at what you do, but I’ve yet to have any real wins.”

She goes back to the computer screen, and I notice that her hands are shaking ever so slightly.

I can’t let this moment get away. Not when I’m just now beginning to accept my feelings and what they mean.

“I don’t think you understand the point I’m trying to make.”

Arinessa turns back to me, and unruly strands of her hair break free from behind her ear. I long to get close to her, to tuck those strands back into place.

“What are you getting at?”