Hide and Seek - Lara Adrian Page 0,59

country that didn’t extradite to the US.

“You work here in D.C.? At the university?” he asked.

“At the university?” Her eyebrows snapped together.

He motioned to her computer bag. “You look like you could be a lecturer or something.”

She smiled. If only she had a harmless job like that. “I think you need to work on your detective skills a little more,” she joked. “I could be a student.”

Flashing his white teeth, he said, “But you’re not. Not that you look old, but you look a lot more serious than any student I’ve ever met.”

“I could be a graduate student or a resident.”

“Yes, but they are generally too tired to stay awake.” He pointed at the young female doctor napping in a chair across from them. “Or too focused on their thesis.” Nick pointed to a young man typing away on his laptop so furiously that she was wondering if either he or his computer would start smoking soon.

“Point taken,” Michelle admitted, enjoying the little game they were playing more than she should.

“You’re gonna keep me guessing, aren’t you?”

“You seem to have fun. Don’t most men like a challenge?”

“Guess so. But I’m just a country bumpkin from Indiana. And you’re a sophisticated woman from the Capital. I’ve got the feeling you’d just be playing with me.” He winked.

The country bumpkin routine she didn’t buy at all, though it was cute, she had to admit. “You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you? Is that why you moved to D.C.? To try out your country charm with city women?”

“Something like that.” He reached for his mocha and took a sip.

“So what do you do then?”

“For a living you mean?”

“Yeah, for a living. Unless, of course, you’re independently wealthy and are just mingling with the working masses for kicks.”

“I wish.” He grinned. “But I’m a working stiff.”

“And you’re not gonna tell me what you do, right?”

“You strike me as the kind of woman who’d rather find out for herself. Am I right?”

“Are you trying to make yourself more interesting than you are?”

He leaned over the table, lowering his voice. “Is it working?”

She met him halfway. “I’ll tell you once it is.”

“Well, I’d better leave then, before we become too familiar and all my mysteriousness is going out the window.” He rose quickly and grabbed his backpack. “It was nice meeting you, Michelle. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

She watched him as he marched toward the entrance door, his gait determined. His butt muscles flexed with each step, and she wondered what other moves he had. Moves she didn’t mind him using on her. Moves of a more intimate nature. She licked her lips at the thought. It had been a while since she’d been with a man. Maybe that’s what she needed to unwind: a passionate fling. It didn’t have to mean anything. In fact, it was better if it didn’t. Her life was too much of a mess already anyway. She didn’t need a relationship to add to it.

At the door, Nick stopped, but before he pushed it open, he looked over his shoulder, grinning straight at her.

Embarrassed that he’d caught her staring, she took a sip of her lukewarm latte, pretending she hadn’t watched him. But they both knew she had and with undeniable desire. Because, despite the brief interaction, there’d been a spark.

And maybe that spark could ignite something.

A quick fire.

A flame that would burn brightly before it fizzled out again just as quickly.

5

Nick had waited for the right moment for several days. It was time.

He’d done his homework and had found out where Michelle lived, what her routine was, who she met, where she shopped, and what she ate. Most of the information he’d gathered simply by following and watching her without her noticing him. The rest he’d gleaned from internet searches. There wasn’t much online about her, almost as if somebody had taken great pains to wipe out her digital footprint. Either she’d done it herself or somebody in a high enough place had done it for her.

In either case, Michelle was on the path to becoming a ghost. Here today, gone tomorrow. Instinctively Nick knew he didn’t have much time to make a move. Today he’d go to the coffee shop and ask her out. He’d use all his charm to get her into bed, and then he’d look at that precious computer of hers, the one she never left home without, the one she never let out of her sight, not even when she used the restroom at