would have ignored her utterly if she hadn’t felt threatened.
This man already zeroed in on a weakness Noelle herself hadn’t realized she had.
“I’ll remember that.” She wasn’t going to give in to the need to spar with him.
The grin disappeared. “I know you’re independent and that’s important to you, but someone absolutely is spying on you through your computer. I found some sophisticated software that was uploaded five days ago. What else happened that day?”
A chill crept across her skin. “Madison died. All right. I can make connections when they’re that obvious. So I’m supposed to tell my coworkers we’re high school sweethearts who reconnected and now we’re together again?”
“How close are you to your coworkers? Have you talked a lot about your past?”
She could lie and tell him this plan of his would never work. She should have told him she already had a boyfriend, but she’d lost that chance. And yet she found herself leveling with him. “I’ve got a couple of people I have lunch with at work. Sometimes we go to happy hour. I’ve spoken very little about my past. I find coming from a small town puts me in a box with a lot of people in my industry. I talk about my time in Austin. I talk about the awards I’ve won and the papers I’ve written.”
“So they don’t know much about your life,” Hutch mused. “I promise I can handle this. I can handle your friends and make them believe I’ve cared about you for a long time. I can make them comfortable, and I’ll make you comfortable, too. I’m sorry we started off the way we did.”
Something about the words put her on guard. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”
Hutch shrugged. “And I’m not looking for a relationship either, so we’re good.”
“But you’re flirting with me. I don’t like it.” It threw her off. No one in her life flirted with her. She got asked out from time to time, but the men who asked her always seemed serious. Hutch was different.
“It’s a part of who I am,” Hutch conceded. “I’ll try to not do it outside of our cover. I’m sorry. I think flirting is a coping mechanism. I spent a lot of years surviving by making people like me. I did some time in foster care and on the streets as a teen. I’m only telling you because you should get to know me. I’m not trying to get sympathy.”
“Yes, you are.”
The slight grin was back on his face. “Is it working?”
“Is it true?”
The smile faded again. “Oh, yes. I don’t lie about my childhood. My scars are all on the inside, but they’re there, and they affect every part of me. I’ll lay it on the line. I’m a man who’s been in therapy for a decade. I go almost every Thursday. My therapist is on vacation right now, but I have an appointment next week. Unless it’s dangerous for me to leave you, I’ll make that appointment.”
“You don’t have to justify your therapy. It’s good and healthy, and I’m happy it works for you. I’ve done some myself. After the car accident. I still struggle to drive. Anyway, your healthy attitude toward therapy is okay with me.” More than okay. He’d been vulnerable in the last couple of minutes, and she had a hard time shutting him out. They would be working together for a little while. “Do you want to start over? Like pretend the whole morning didn’t happen?”
He stood, his eyes warm as he held out a hand. “I’m Hutch. It’s nice to meet you, Noelle.”
She took his hand, and she could have sworn she felt freaking sparks. Warm and true. He enveloped her hand and she had to remember to breathe. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Hey, MaeBe says yes. She can take us. I call shotgun.” Kyle was smiling and looking way less broody than he had before. And younger.
She felt younger standing there looking at Hutch like he was the lead singer in a boy band. She forced herself to take her hand back. “We should go then. I’m late.”
She would focus on work and not the man waiting for her at the end of the day.
He wouldn’t be there for long. That was the truth she had to remember.
Chapter Three
Twenty minutes later she made her way to the parking garage, Hutch at her side. She’d noticed he’d matched her stride, which was much slower and shorter than his. It was only polite,