“Just being friendly. So, I’m guessing that working for Grafton Techs was never your childhood dream job, huh?”
She turned to face him. “I live in one of the most expensive cities in Europe; I need to pay my rent.”
“Sure. But you’d prefer to be doing something else instead, right? Something meaningful. Something creative.”
Amy stalled. How did he know all this? It was as if his touch had drawn out the darkest secrets from her heart. For a guy who didn’t seem to wear his own feelings on his sleeve, he certainly seemed good at reading hers.
“I don’t know.” She mumbled.
“You don’t know what you’d rather be doing?”
“Well, I’ve always loved art – painting, you know. But that doesn’t pay the bills.”
“You paint as a hobby?”
“Sometimes. When I have time.”
He smirked suggestively. “We should make time for the things we’re passionate about, right?”
She suppressed a grin and looked away. “Work needs to come first. This is how life is when you don’t have rich parents to fall back on.”
Amy swallowed her emotion. She’d intended her last comment to be a dig at Adam’s wealth, but it’d actually just reminded her of how much she missed her mom.
Adam gazed deeply into her soul. “I’m sorry for your loss, Amy. It’s always hard to lose the ones we love.”
“Don’t pretend to know anything of my pain, Mr Quinlan. You don’t know me.”
“Maybe not. But I do know how it feels to lose someone I love.”
“A woman left you?”
He smirked. “Course not; that would never happen.”
Amy chuckled. She was starting to see through his act, and she wondered whether there was a man worth knowing underneath all that charming cockiness.
“Who then?” she asked.
“My brother died a month ago. The eldest of us all.”
The gears in Amy’s heart crunched as the atmosphere shifted. “I’m so sorry… Oh, wait, was it something to do with Tariq Shard then?”
“Yes it was. He killed my brother.”
Amy’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Tariq was responsible for starting the fire that killed Ivan. Dylan’s sure he’s a murderer. The courts think he’s an arsonist. Apparently he’s out on bail now until his trial.”
“And he got disfigured like that in the fire?”
“Yeah. Both our families are devastated. Mine and the Shards.”
“Your families know each other?”
“My dad and Tariq’s dad grew up together, so we knew Tariq like a brother. He’s a computer genius, and my eldest brother – Ivan – he was into data analytics. They were always cooking up schemes together as kids, so I guess they just ended up working together.”
“Like you and Dylan?”
“Yeah, exactly.”