“You were saying….” She prompts me to continue with the original intent of the conversation, so I do.
“Last night, we failed miserably. Every device we had gone haywire. I barely got out alive.” Her whole frame becomes very still as I speak, and I can tell she’s distraught. Perhaps I shouldn’t go into much detail about it, but it’s important for her to know. Also makes me feel slightly better that I can tell she cares about me. “Van got shot. I was carrying him on my back and didn’t see the bullet lines because, again, my tech was not working. It was ashitshow, and now we have, I don’t know how long before Vince wants to do a second test run to make up for this one. We can’t fail at that one, or else he’ll extend the project for an entire year. Maybe more than that.”
“Shit,” she scoffs, and I nod, agreeing with the absurdity that's only Vince trying his best. “I guess we should get to work now, then.” She sets her cup down and slides out of bed, causing my jaw to drop when I see the outfit she’s wearing.
Pink lingerie, silk, shining in the dim light of the fireplace. Her tiny frame sways with it as her bare feet step down to the lower section of the room.
I fold my hands behind my head and take steady breaths as I watch her pick out clothes. Holy shit, I’m getting turned on just by looking at her. She’s the hottest person I’ve ever seen, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.
She can sense my looking, and she only glances over her shoulder with a grin like she enjoys torturing me. I feel my chest rise and fall, and I try to focus on that as she pulls an outfit off the rack and drapes it over the back of the couch.
“You can leave now.” She laughs, and I lick my bottom lip as I close my mouth that's been open since seeing her this way. I swallow a knot in my throat as I stand, grabbing my coffee and attempting to hide my hardening bulge as I step out of her room.
Fuck, she’ll be the death of me, I swear. I grab my chest, so I can stop feeling like I’m going to go into cardiac arrest at any moment and stumble over to my room. One of my emerald silk suits passed down from Antonio is hanging up on a hook by my wardrobe, so I end up throwing that on. It's the first thing I see when I walk into my room, so it’s all I can think to put on, considering my brain is otherwise occupied by other things. Namely, Scout Summers.
After I’ve changed into it, I pull my hair back into a low bun and head out into the hall. Scout comes out of her room at about the same time as me. Her outfit looks adorable on her. Tan plain skirt and matching blazer with a white button-up and these black chunky closed-toe sandals. I don’t know what anything is or who it’s by, but I know it looks good on Scout. Anything looks good on her, though.
She sees me checking her out and blushes as she pulls her wild curls into a bun atop her head. We walk down the stairs together, and I feel her body moving next to mine. I don’t know what she meant earlier when it seemed like she regretted kissing me, but I don’t regret anything. Perhaps after we deal with more pressing matters, I can find out just what she meant.
We head to the front door, and one of the guys, Keenan, offers to drive us today. Van is still recovering from his injury. I agree, and we head outside together, following Keenan to the Rolls-Royce.
“I should take my car,” she whispers to me as we get closer to the one we’re taking.
“Why?”
“It might seem like favoritism if people think we’re….” She raises her brow implicitly.
“We’re what?” I pretend to be oblivious, and she grows flustered.
“You know…” she makes the same face, and I press my lips into a questioning frown. “God, Tito, don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?” I’m just being an ass now.
“I don’t want people thinking we’re having sex.” She blurts out, all frustrated, and Keenan looks back with a look of amusement on his soft-featured face.
“Well, good news. We aren’t.”
“But—” I open the car door for her that we’re now in front of, and she looks between my car and hers for a second before sighing and hopping into mine. I try not to laugh, but it slips out as I close the door, and I think I hear her huff. It’s a little fun messing with her; I get why she does it with me now.
After I climb into my side, Keenan heads out, knowing exactly where to go. I'm sure he and Van already communicated the directions. Van is always on top of things. The thought of him being hurt because of me, because of my inventions, only hurts worse when I look to the front seat and see Keenan in his place.
It could have been a lot worse last night, but it doesn’t matter what could have been, only what it will be from here on out. Today will be different. I will make this work, and we will figure it out without any further issues. My entire life’s work depends on it.
The moment we arrive, I hop out and help Scout down. Together, we talk to the front in the darkness of the early morning. I scan my finger, and she opens the door for us. After we get into the workroom and the robot voice greets me, we head straight over to the desk where a monster pile of failed tech resides.
“We should start by taking all the motherboards out and running diagnostics on each. I want to know exactly what went wrong and how we can prevent it from ever happening again.” She nods, knowing exactly what to do without further instruction. We work at it all morning, pulling everything apart and hooking them up to the processing cores of our main coding computers.
“It might be another hour before we actually have an answer.” Scout calls over to me from the other side of the room. I check the time to see it's already almost 7 a.m. Our team will be heading inside any minute now.
“Fine. So be it. We’ll figure out how to keep everyone busy and on task while their computers are being used.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“That we all failed last night?”
She pauses for a moment to process what I’ve asked before furrowing her brows and shaking her head.
“No, that you’re in the mafia.”