Page 5 of Kiss Kiss Bang
“Good times, huh?”
He heard her chuckle as he worked. “For some it will be. For others . . . not so much. I’m pretty sure I’ll be pissing off about half the room tomorrow.”
He looked up, and this time it was him who was surprised. “Really?”
“Yep.” She gestured toward her laptop, which was now in pieces. He put the small screwdriver he was holding in his mouth and ripped open the box he’d just grabbed from the warehouse. “I’m supposed to be sticking to the party line. But on a few issues, I’ve apparently veered and some of my supporters aren’t too happy about it.”
“But you’re doing it anyway.” It wasn’t a question. He was surprised that a politician would go against the grain. It made him like her even more.
“Of course I am. I would never do something I didn’t believe in. Anyway, it’s all boring stuff, but boring or not, I really really need the data that’s in my computer in order to make sense tomorrow.”
He tossed the box aside and continued to work, plugging the hard drive into another computer and typing, all the while wondering why he didn’t know more about her. How could he have overlooked her when he’d seen the list of invitees tomorrow. It wasn’t supposed to be his gig, otherwise he’d have been more aware of all the guests—especially this one. Currently he had three big jobs he’d been working on. One involved recovering some “questionable” photos off the internet that had been leaked from a celebrity’s personal iCloud. He needed to wipe them all off the web, which was not an easy feat. Next, he had to check the integrity of the cybersecurity of a job up in Tallahassee, and finally he had a big project that he’d been contracted to do, off the books, for the feds. Working on Olivia’s computer tonight—or the gala tomorrow—was absolutely not on his agenda. But, he had agreed to do it, so he, of course, would. “Your computer definitely crashed. Well, I mean, before you dropped it. You got the blue screen, right?”
“Yeah. I was typing and then blue. It made a little click clack noise first.”
She was fucking cute. She was gnawing her nails again.
“So you have computers just hanging around?” She gestured to the new computer he’d just taken out of the box.
“Actually, yes. I do.”
While the data transferred, he moved to his personal computer and ran a query for Olivia Russo, but then thought twice about it. He wanted to get to know her the old-fashioned way. Talking. He could talk. He knew words that didn’t include Java SQL code.
“I really appreciate this. And even though I look like I’m in a rush, really, take your time.”
“I’m done.”
“What?” she said, her eyes opening wide and those green eyes . . . damn they were gorgeous. She was fucking gorgeous. Her skin ivory, and her lashes and hair dark, which made her eyes look like they had emeralds in them.
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“So then what are you doing?”
“I was going to look you up.”
She yelped. “What?”
“Yeah, I need to know a little about you before I ask you out. But then I changed my mind. I’d rather learn it directly from you.”
Her eyes were the size of saucers and now there was a tinge of pink on her cheeks. Then she sat back, crossed her arms, and tipped an eyebrow upward. “I feel as if I’m at a disadvantage, then. All my information is in the tips of your fingers and I’ll know nothing about you.”
He sat back comfortably and opened his arms. “Ask away, darlin’.”
“Uh . . . okay.” She bit the bottom of that delectable lip. Goodness, had he ever had such a visceral reaction to a woman before? “How old are you?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Are you married?”
“Nope. No girlfriend or significant other.”
“Okay . . . children?”
“None.”
“Your favorite vegetable?”
He chuckled. “Vegetable?”
