And as I stood in the center of his dwelling with my hands on my hips, my eyes flittering around with a frown on my face, my heart sank. I spent the better part of an hour looking for a clue and found nothing.
With a light sigh, I made my way over to the desk and sat on the computer chair, using my toes to spin me around as I leaned back and considered where I might find answers.
My brow creased in thought as my eyes slid over to the laptop.
The laptop I knew the password to.
Without reservation, I quit spinning, moved close, and lifted the lid of the laptop. When it came to life, I typed the password and lifted my finger to hit Return but stopped just as my finger came to rest on the button.
This was a huge invasion of privacy. It was psycho levels of overstepping.
My mouth pulled down as I thought about that. I thought hard.
A minute went by, and I pulled in a deep breath, exhaling slowly as I made my decision.
After all, no one accused me of being sane.
I hit the Power key and watched the screen light up again. I took in a shaky breath, typed in the only password I knew of once more, and waited.
I was in.
And as I moved the mouse, hovering over the colorful icons, my first stop was the internet browser. The second I hit it, it shot up from its sleeping position, and when I took in what I was looking at, my face bunched in confusion, and I spoke quietly to myself. “What?”
Once I read everything on that page, I moved to the next, and that only made my confusion grow. I went through each tab, one by one, and twenty minutes later, I unexpectedly had more questions than what I arrived with.
But the last tab had me pausing.
It was a bank statement. Vik’s bank statement. And when I looked at the balance, my brows lifted in shock.
That was the moment his voice cut through the stillness. “Find what you were looking for?”
My heart stopped beating, then started again with a bang. I jolted and put a hand to my chest in fright.
Damn it. I must have been so engrossed with my task that I didn’t hear him approach.
When I twisted back to face him, I saw him watching me with darkness in his eyes and a rigid jaw.
Oh yeah. He was pissed.
But because I was me and he was him, I responded through my confusion in a way that said I wasn’t all that sorry.
“Well, I might’ve if you organized your tabs a little better.” I was really pushing it when I added an annoyed, “And what’s with your filing system?” He approached slowly, like a lion waiting to pounce on a gazelle, and my mouth went dry. I watched him close the distance between us, and when he sat himself at the edge of the desk, blocking me in, I blinked up at him and let out a hushed, “Not everything needs to stay in your downloads folder.”
His thick brow lowered, and he moved languidly, folding his arms over his chest, his intense gaze rattling my head.
Crap. I was in trouble.
But curiosity had me asking a quiet, almost uncertain, “You want to go to college?”
A slight pause, then his jaw flexed. “I do.”
My stomach dropped.
Why hadn’t I known that? Why hadn’t he told me?
I jerked my chin toward the open bank statement. “Is that what the money is for?”
Vik’s rigid stance began to loosen some, but his brow remained as severe as his stare. “It’s not that much.”
In all the time I’d known him, Vik was not a big saver. Sure, he had money, but never the amount I’d seen on the screen just minutes before.
Was he joking?
My eyes widened, and I fought a laugh, then scoffed. “It’s not nothing.”
“Yeah, well, college is expensive” was the rough reply I got, and when he shuffled on the spot, I could see this was not something he wanted to disclose.
I did not like this feeling. This cold feeling of having been apart, of my not knowing. It was a noose around my neck worn tightly enough to be uncomfortable but not enough to suffocate.
Just enough to torture.
With that response, I pondered what else he neglected to tell me. It broke my heart to be left out of the know. My only thought was to remedy that. To close the gap in the connection we’d almost completely lost.
I fought through the overwhelming feeling of loss and asked quietly, “What do you want to study?”
He stared straight ahead. I hadn’t expected an answer. “Business management.”
That noose tightened a notch. “Business management?”
“Yeah.” He dipped his chin and did not spare me a glance. “You tend to need it if you want to run your own business.”