Page 146 of Penny For Your Thoughts
He closed the door behind us.
Aaron settled, sitting on the edge of his desk, crossing his ankles and bracing his palms on the surface as he watched me play the role of conflicted attraction, hovering near the door. He let me stew in my feelings for a while before speaking.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No. I… That would be weird.” I laughed self-deprecatingly. “I shouldn’t be here… like this.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t be coy, Aaron. You’ve been flirting with me for weeks.”
“Guilty. There’s an attraction here.” He waved a finger between us. “Don’t say there isn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, still aiming to be the man with one foot out the door.
“He’s a brute. He doesn’t deserve you.”
Fuck you, I thought. Out loud, I said, “He’s not so bad.”
One Diem was worth a thousand Aaron’s.
“You don’t seem happy.”
I shrugged noncommittally. I’d never been happier, but Aaron couldn’t know that. Even if I told him, he would never understand. When you were loved by a man like Diem, a man who, up until a year ago, didn’t even understand the concept of love, you didn’t need anything more. His love was quiet and often misunderstood, but its roots ran deep, and nothing,no onewould take him away from me.
Especially not a sleezy, underhanded flirt like Aaron.
But I had a job to do, so I fixed an appropriate expression on my face and played a part.
“I have an idea,” Aaron said. “Let me take you for coffee. We can chat. Get to know one another. It doesn’t have to be anything… unless you want it to be.”
“I can’t.” I checked the time on my phone for show. “I have that lunch meeting with my lawyer client, who would not be happy if I canceled.”
“Right.”
But I didn’t shut him down completely. I wanted to show willingness. Give him hope. “Um… maybe another time?”
“Oh yeah?”
I gnawed my lower lip before responding, meek and mild and manipulative all rolled into one. The Tallus concoction no one saw coming until they were in too deep. In my years as a single guy at the bars, it had worked wonders. I was the player. I always got what I wanted. Aaron was no different than the men I picked up, high on lust and looking to get laid. I was always in control.
“Why not? Give me your phone.” It was standard protocol. The exchange of numbers. Hopefully, Aaron was too caught up in apotential hookup that he wouldn’t think of the consequences of letting me handle his device.
He blindly reached for his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. The poor guy’s sex-addled brain seemed to have forgotten about his friend Lukyan. Or perhaps our scam-artist millionaire hadn’t relayed the severity of his problem to an underling.
I maintained eye contact as though truly deciding my fate before exchanging a wicked grin with Evergreen’s coordinator and accepting the offered phone. “I hope I don’t regret this.”
Aaron’s charmed smile suggested he thought he’d won. “You won’t.”
I located Aaron’s contacts, but instead of creating a new one, I searched his recent text exchanges, unsurprised to find Luke’s name at the top. Their most recent correspondence had happened ten minutes before I arrived. A text sent by Aaron.I’ll see what I can find out. X
Wait…. Aaron sent kisses? But that didn’t… No, I didn’t have time to process it. Later. The fact that they had communicated at all in the past twenty-four hours already told me enough. Aaron thought I was nothing more than a piece of ass with no brain.
Be insulted later. Focus.
I scrolled back, skimming their previous messages—messages that alluded to a not-so platonic relationship—while pretending to insert my details. With seconds to browse, I skipped the nonsense filler, searching for keywords, locations, or addresses, while noting the time stamps so I didn’t scroll too far back.
A few messages sent during the night stood out.
