At Any Price

Page 51

“This looks just like the notebook you were using in Holland. ”

“It’s close. Not quite as mighty. It’s my backup but I never use it. ”

Nevertheless, I noticed there was no log-in for him. He’d already reconfigured everything for me, even created an account. “What password did you set?”

He shrugged. “Magnus rules. You can change it later, if you must. ”

I smirked. “Oh, I think I must. ”

The machine was gorgeous, and easily came with a several-thousand-dollar price tag. I knew I should refuse it. After all, if we were never going to see each other again after tonight, how would I even return it to him?

So I asked him. “How would I get this back to you?”

He paused and I couldn’t tell whether he had no answer for the question, didn’t wish to answer the question or hadn’t even heard the question. His fingers were flying over the sleek backlit keyboard.

I was just about to repeat myself when he said, without looking at me, “Just give it to Bowman. He can bring it down to the complex. I promised him a tour, anyway. ”

Shit, a tour of Draco Multimedia headquarters? Lucky bastard. “That asshole didn’t even tell me,” I grumped.

He glanced at me. “You can have one, too. ”

Our gazes held and my heart pounded. That couldn’t be possible. If tonight we were going to—then I shouldn’t go anywhere near his workplace after that.

I swallowed. He must have known what I was thinking. I think he was waiting for me to say something, maybe expecting me to back out of tonight. I straightened. I wasn’t going to back out. I couldn’t. So I just shook my head.

He looked away, features clouded, but I couldn’t tell whether he was troubled or just preoccupied. I was starting to feel both—troubled about our inevitable farewell after this evening and preoccupied with how everything would go, finally, tonight.

If things had gone according to plan, this would have been over with a week ago and by now, we’d be strangers once more. And before, I’d felt like that was absolutely the right thing to do, but now…It was weirdly illogical. I wanted to know all about him before we never saw each other again.

Alex showed up just as we were descending the stairs to leave less than an hour later. When she looked up and saw Adam, her jaw dropped and her gaze shot to me, eyes rounding. Subtle she was not. I wondered how she’d managed to get over here so fast from her apartment in Fullerton once her mom had called to tell her he was here.

I sighed and made introductions. “Good to meet you,” Alex smiled, leaning to shake his hand and bat her big eyes at him. “Mia’s told me so much about you!”

My lips pursed. What a little liar. Adam smiled and shot a sidelong glance at me. I shrugged, throwing my hands up. “We gotta get going. ”

Alex watched us go and when I looked back, she waved her hand in front of her face to fan herself—a clear indication that she found him hot. Then she put her hand to her ear, mimicking holding a phone and mouthed an exaggerated Call me.

We hit the road and I breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a close call. The more I kept Adam separated from my friends, the fewer awkward questions I’d have to answer later. When I glanced over at him, he had a grin on his face.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ve told her all about me, huh?”

I looked away, cheeks heating. “She’s a hopeless liar,” I muttered.

The day was truly beautiful. I was convinced there was no more gorgeous weather on this planet than what we enjoyed in Southern California in May. The smells of the white jasmine bushes that were planted everywhere combined with the blossoms on the orange trees and imbued the air with a honey scent. It was too early for the June Gloom, where mornings were overcast until they burned off into hot afternoons. In May, every day was fresh, crystal clear and sunny.

And in his convertible—a dark blue vintage 1950s Porsche—we zoomed down the freeway in the carpool lane, bypassing Saturday beach traffic.

I’d bundled my long hair as best I could into a ponytail band, making a messy bun. Still errant strands of hair whipped around my face and into my eyes as I squinted through my cheapo drugstore sunglasses, tapping my foot in time with Depeche Mode’s “Pleasure Little Treasure” on the stereo. So he liked his music like he liked his cars—classics. I was beginning to realize that Adam was the rock star of computer geeks. And apparently a lot of the tech magazines agreed with me.

Adam parked at a small underground garage a few blocks away from the bridge and we walked the rest of the way—he insisting on carrying my bag, which wasn’t heavy at all. I resisted at first, but he practically yanked it out of my hands.