“Did you already eat?”I dare ask, interrupting the quiet moment.
“We bring our own food.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He gives me an asymmetric grin as my spoon tinks against the bowl and I finish the last of my breakfast.
“Not yet. I’m waiting on Damon, you met him yesterday.” When I nod he continues, “Once he’s in, I’ll be on my way.”
There’s no explanation for the reason I suddenly feel loss. I ask, “So you stayed last night?” and he nods. “What did you even do? Watch me sleep?”
The sexy smirk he gives me is utterly sinful. It’s wrong that it sparks what it does inside of me. He nods and attempts a swig from his coffee cup but finds it empty.
I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling him that’s what he gets. It’s in this moment that I’m acutely aware of the attraction between us and how very wrong it feels. It’s in the way he looks at me. How his stare seems to sink through me, anchoring me to him and holding me steady. He doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t hesitate, and there’s a knowing challenge in his gaze. One that feels familiar although the man himself is very much a stranger who has piqued my curiosity.
My dry humor slips out in a deadpan mutter. “That’s not creepy at all.” I anticipate him laughing but he doesn’t. I wish he would, I want to know what it sounds like from his lips.
I change the subject as quickly as I can, gesturing to his empty cup. “You sure you don’t want to make another cup?”
Peering down at the nondescript cardboard cup, he hesitates.
“I don’t mind giving to the needy.”
He questions with humor, “Now I’m charity?”
I give in to the small laughter that comes with it and shrug. “Your words, not mine.”
Instead of answering, he asks, “Cade said last night that you do charity work?”
The mention of Cade and the fact they were talking about me last night makes my throat go dry.
Nodding, I answer, “Kam says it’s good for my image and I love it, so …” With a familiar hollow sensation filling my chest, I take the bowl to the sink and pretend I’m all right. It’s back to real life and no longer getting lost in the handsome stranger seated so close I can inhale his masculine scent. It’s something woodsy yet fresh. Like a forest that rises above the coldest depths of the ocean.
The thoughts leave me without conscious consent as I say, “It’s incredible the things people do. All they ask for is a platform, a chance. I’m grateful I can give them that.”
“So you do charity? That’s your … thing?” I don’t miss how his gaze sweeps over the expansive kitchen and past that to the sitting room.
“I don’t make money from it, if that’s what you’re thinking.” My brow knits and I question, “You haven’t read the file.”
“You know what’s in there?”
I answer without hesitation, “Of course I do. Kam makes sure I approve it all.”
Shock lights his hazel eyes, brightening them but he doesn’t say a word.
Curiosity eats away at me until I ask him, “What do you know about me?” The suspense heats every inch of my body as I wait for an answer.
“Only what I’ve seen in the courtroom and at the briefing yesterday,” he admits.
“And what Cade told you last night,” I point out. I don’t know why I feel so at ease knowing he doesn’t know. I shouldn’t feel relief, but I do.
“Yes, and that.”
Something compels me to tease him as I make my way to the hot water spout, in desperate need of morning tea. “So you don’t read the file and instead flirt with me in my kitchen in the early hours before anyone else is awake … None of this sounds like conflict of interest at all to me.”
The very moment I begin to second-guess myself, I feel his dominating presence behind me and when I turn to face him, I’m disappointed he wasn’t there caging me in. Instead he stands two feet too far from me, tossing away his trash. A sharp tension snaps between us as the implications of what I’ve said hit me. The front door creaks open, alerting us to someone else’s presence and Zander ends the conversation succinctly by saying, “So many interests. So many conflicts.”