to weasel some clues out of him.
“It’s your company. Your game! And players have been working on that quest chain for months. There are entire wikis and databases full of clues.”
He grinned, looking off to the side, as if remembering something funny. “Yeah. Half of that stuff is pure bullshit. Some of it was planted by our own developers.”
I sat back and groaned. “Pretty please?”
“Emilia, you can bat those gorgeous brown eyes at me all night and I won’t tell you. I am sworn to secrecy.”
I sighed, surprised at the heated flush crawling up my cheeks. I’d been told before that I had pretty eyes. They were large, round, dark and my lashes were thick. I suppose people found them attractive and I usually accepted the compliment with a self-deprecating smile. No one ever told me that I had a gorgeous butt or lovely breasts. Thank God for that because it probably would have made me die of embarrassment. But it was something about the way Adam complimented my eyes that made me react so strongly. It was so nonchalant. He didn’t throw out the compliment as a way to score points with me or butter me up. He stated that I had gorgeous eyes as if it were a well-known fact—and that no amount of batting them (and for the record, I never bat my eyes!) would get me what I wanted.
I wanted his secrets. The game secrets would be great to start with but as I had come to spend more time with this man throughout our day in Amsterdam I found myself wanting to know all of his secrets. What drove him to be so successful in his business, to enjoy the trappings of his money without being so ostentatious as to fly in a sandwich for his lunch? What was his family life like? Why hadn’t he slept with anyone in eight months and why wasn’t he with someone now?
And who was Sabrina? Why did he have her name tattooed over his heart—a man who seemed the very antithesis of making such a sentimental gesture? Perhaps he’d had it done when he was very young or drunk. She was the lost childhood love who broke his heart by moving on to someone else once college came along. Or maybe she was a college sweetheart.
I remembered reading that he’d dropped out of college. He’d already made his first couple million by then. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t finished what he’d started—especially when he seemed to be such a driven person.
As I was musing over this, he asked me about my own college plans. “So Heath mentioned that you had finished your BS in biology early and are taking the semester off.”
I took a sip of wine from my other glass. I shot him a look. “Yes. I’m calling it a ‘gap year’ without the Europe experience, but this might well count for that, even if it’s only for two days.” I sipped again. There was no reason to tell him I was an utter failure and waiting to retake the damn test that was the bane of my existence. I affected a nonchalant shrug. “I’m taking next year off and then on to med school.”
He nodded. He already knew that, obviously. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?”
I hesitated, as I often had since I’d done so horribly on the MCAT the previous year. Since that afternoon when I’d stared at those results, slowly watching my dream twist down the drain in a whirlpool of suck. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “An oncologist.”
He tilted his head towards me, focusing his attention. “Really. Hard stuff. That would take a special kind of strength to deal with cancer patients all day.”
“Cancer is a bitch that needs to get the crap smacked out of it. I intend to stand on the front lines with a big-ass bat.”
He watched my fist clench on the tabletop. “Sounds like it’s very personal to you.”
I took another sip of wine, studied his strong hand resting on the table next to his dinner plate. “It is. My mom had it.”
“She’s okay now?”
I nodded. For the moment. But as close as I came to losing her, there was always
“It’s your company. Your game! And players have been working on that quest chain for months. There are entire wikis and databases full of clues.”
He grinned, looking off to the side, as if remembering something funny. “Yeah. Half of that stuff is pure bullshit. Some of it was planted by our own developers.”
I sat back and groaned. “Pretty please?”
“Emilia, you can bat those gorgeous brown eyes at me all night and I won’t tell you. I am sworn to secrecy.”
I sighed, surprised at the heated flush crawling up my cheeks. I’d been told before that I had pretty eyes. They were large, round, dark and my lashes were thick. I suppose people found them attractive and I usually accepted the compliment with a self-deprecating smile. No one ever told me that I had a gorgeous butt or lovely breasts. Thank God for that because it probably would have made me die of embarrassment. But it was something about the way Adam complimented my eyes that made me react so strongly. It was so nonchalant. He didn’t throw out the compliment as a way to score points with me or butter me up. He stated that I had gorgeous eyes as if it were a well-known fact—and that no amount of batting them (and for the record, I never bat my eyes!) would get me what I wanted.
I wanted his secrets. The game secrets would be great to start with but as I had come to spend more time with this man throughout our day in Amsterdam I found myself wanting to know all of his secrets. What drove him to be so successful in his business, to enjoy the trappings of his money without being so ostentatious as to fly in a sandwich for his lunch? What was his family life like? Why hadn’t he slept with anyone in eight months and why wasn’t he with someone now?
And who was Sabrina? Why did he have her name tattooed over his heart—a man who seemed the very antithesis of making such a sentimental gesture? Perhaps he’d had it done when he was very young or drunk. She was the lost childhood love who broke his heart by moving on to someone else once college came along. Or maybe she was a college sweetheart.
I remembered reading that he’d dropped out of college. He’d already made his first couple million by then. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t finished what he’d started—especially when he seemed to be such a driven person.
As I was musing over this, he asked me about my own college plans. “So Heath mentioned that you had finished your BS in biology early and are taking the semester off.”
I took a sip of wine from my other glass. I shot him a look. “Yes. I’m calling it a ‘gap year’ without the Europe experience, but this might well count for that, even if it’s only for two days.” I sipped again. There was no reason to tell him I was an utter failure and waiting to retake the damn test that was the bane of my existence. I affected a nonchalant shrug. “I’m taking next year off and then on to med school.”
He nodded. He already knew that, obviously. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?”
I hesitated, as I often had since I’d done so horribly on the MCAT the previous year. Since that afternoon when I’d stared at those results, slowly watching my dream twist down the drain in a whirlpool of suck. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “An oncologist.”
He tilted his head towards me, focusing his attention. “Really. Hard stuff. That would take a special kind of strength to deal with cancer patients all day.”
“Cancer is a bitch that needs to get the crap smacked out of it. I intend to stand on the front lines with a big-ass bat.”
He watched my fist clench on the tabletop. “Sounds like it’s very personal to you.”
I took another sip of wine, studied his strong hand resting on the table next to his dinner plate. “It is. My mom had it.”
“She’s okay now?”
I nodded. For the moment. But as close as I came to losing her, there was always
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