Page 22 of The Perfect Deception

“No, I didn’t. But I will not deny find­ing it amus­ing.”

Shak­ing her head, she drew the blan­ket closer around her shoul­ders. “I should go.”

“And miss my cof­fee? If I say so my­self, you’d be de­priv­ing your­self of some­thing amaz­ing.”

His green eyes glowed in the dim un­der-cab­i­net light­ing. For a mo­ment, Dina wasn’t pos­i­tive he was re­fer­ring to cof­fee. “Okay, I’ll try your cof­fee,” she said, mak­ing sure to be crys­tal clear in her an­swer, re­gard­less of what he was ref­er­enc­ing, “but then I re­ally need to leave.”

Adam walked to­ward her. He reached around her to open the cherry cab­i­net next to her head. This close to him, she was over­whelmed by his near­ness. Warmth ra­di­ated from him, his cot­ton T-shirt brushed her cheek as he stretched his arm be­yond her. His par­tic­u­lar scent—spice and soap and, for the mo­ment, sleep—bat­tled with the smell of the brew­ing cof­fee, mak­ing her dizzy.

He grabbed two mugs and handed her one. Their fin­gers touched. She swal­lowed. “You’re less likely to run into peo­ple if you wait un­til later, af­ter most peo­ple have left for work.”

“Work! Oy, I for­got. I have an eight-o’clock meet­ing.” She took a sip of the cof­fee, moaned as she sa­vored the nutty fla­vor. He was right, it was amaz­ing.

“Good, isn’t it?”

Her eyes flew open. Her cheeks warmed. His smile in­di­cated he’d heard her moan. She won­dered when he was go­ing to call her out.

“Why don’t you skip work and we can have an ad­ven­ture,” he said.

She raised an eye­brow over the rim of her mug. “Your dad would be okay with you play­ing hooky?”

Adam’s face lost all ex­pres­sion. “He prob­a­bly wouldn’t care,” he said.

He leaned against the black gran­ite counter drink­ing his cof­fee, but Dina wasn’t fooled. His shoul­ders were set, and his fin­gers gripped the mug so hard his knuck­les were white. This was the Adam she re­mem­bered from her apart­ment, back be­fore he’d dis­tracted her with other things.

Tak­ing a last sip of her drink, she rested the mug on the counter, walked over to him, and re­moved his mug from his hand. His look of sur­prise quickly shut­tered.

“What are you do­ing?” he asked.

“What’s go­ing on with you and work?”

“Noth­ing.”

“You and your dad?”

“You’re very nosy for some­one so short.”

“Don’t think you’re go­ing to dis­tract me by turn­ing this con­ver­sa­tion to­ward me. Talk to me, Adam. There’s no one else around.”

Stand­ing this close to him, she could see a vein pulse in his throat. His eye­lid twitched. He avoided her gaze. It wasn’t hard, she had to ad­mit. She only came to his shoul­der. But he’d never avoided look­ing at her be­fore.

“Adam.”

He sighed.

She watched his chest swell. Clench­ing her hands at her sides, she re­sisted the urge to run her hands over the mus­cles be­neath his shirt. She needed him to talk to her, but she also needed to get to work. She didn’t think touch­ing him would speed up the process.

“My dad is giv­ing me a hard time about some­thing and lim­it­ing the amount and type of work he’s giv­ing me. He’s mak­ing it harder for me to make ju­nior part­ner.”

She could see by his tor­tured ex­pres­sion it was a big deal. She could also see there was more to it than that.

“It must be re­ally hard work­ing for your fa­ther. Don’t give up though. Talk to him about it. Let him know how you feel.”

He looked at her as if she’d said he could fly. She waited for him to say some­thing, but he re­mained silent. Then, tak­ing her by the shoul­ders, he pushed her gen­tly away, grabbed his cof­fee cup, and walked out of the kitchen. As he left, he called over his shoul­der, “Don’t for­get to text me the in­for­ma­tion about your high school re­union.”

Crap.

Chap­ter Seven