Follow Me (Corrupted Hearts) Read online

  “Oh? What’s her name?”

  Why would he assume it was a girl? “His name is Clark.” There may have been a note of affront in my tone.

  “So you have a date?”

  If I said it, that made it official, right? “Um, I guess so, yeah.”

  “And he just moved in?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Wow. That’s quick. You don’t find that at all . . . strange?”

  I turned to look at Jackson, replaying his words in my head. Any way I looked at it, technically that was an insult.

  “It’s strange that a man would ask me out on a date?” It hurt somewhere inside my chest when I said that.

  “Of course not,” Jackson said. “But . . . he just moved in and already asked you out?”

  “Technically, I guess I asked him out first. He had dinner with us last night.”

  “Are you always so forward with strangers?”

  Forward? What was this, the fifties? “He literally lives right next door. We were being neighborly.”

  “Just keep in mind, you work in a very important position in a highly secretive field, and getting close to you would be a coup.”

  I went from zero to hurt and angry in two seconds flat. “Are you accusing me of discussing my work with outsiders?” Because that would not only be questioning my discretion, but would also be impugning my honor, and I wouldn’t stand for that.

  “No, I—”

  “Because I would never do that,” I interrupted. “And I greatly resent your implication.”

  “I’m not implying anything,” he said, pulling into my subdivision.

  “Yes, you are.” I was incredibly hurt, but it was easier to handle and voice anger than hurt. Hurt implied vulnerability. Anger was going on the offense. “If you have a problem with my personal life, then take it up with HR. I’m sure you have plenty of lawyers at your disposal.”

  I was up and out of the car like a shot, too upset to care that I might be overreacting and he’d think I was nuts. I’d worry about that tomorrow.

  Mia was waiting for me. “It’s about time,” she said. “C’mon. I’ve got your clothes ready. I only have a few minutes to do your hair and makeup.”

  Wait a minute . . . hair and makeup?

  She dragged me into the bedroom before I had a chance to complain and whipped off my T-shirt.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting some fabric into my hands. “Put this on.”

  It was some kind of black shirt, but it looped in wraps and I couldn’t figure out how to get it on. I fumbled for a couple of minutes before she grabbed it back from me.

  “For goodness’ sake,” she muttered, holding it open for me.

  I pushed my head and arms in. “It’s not my fault it’s a weird shirt,” I said, my voice muffled by the fabric over my head.

  “It’s reversible, and it has side wraps that help push your boobs up and pull your waist in.”

  My head was out and she began fidgeting with the fabric, pulling it this way and that. I noticed a problem right away.

  “I can’t wear this, it’s cut way too low.” The deep V-neckline plunged between my breasts, nearly exposing my Very Sexy Flirt Demi bra in purple rapture.

  “Which is exactly why you’re wearing it,” Mia said, stepping back to take a look. “Perfect.”

  “It’s too small,” I complained, pulling at the fabric. She brushed my hands away.

  “It’s not too small. It actually fits you, for a change. And it’s supposed to be tight.”

  I wasn’t sure about that, but Mia was the expert on fashion, not me. My ponytail had come loose so I reached up to redo it.

  “Nope. No ponytail tonight,” Mia said, knocking my arms aside and pulling out the elastic band. “Wow, you have awesome hair.” She started running her fingers through it, fluffing it. “Not even a ponytail dent. Sheesh.”

  “It’s a pain when it’s down,” I said. “It gets in the way.”

  “Of what? Being pretty? Please. And look at all the waves in it. Damn, Aunt Chi. You look totally hot right now, and I haven’t even done your makeup.”

  I pushed my glasses up my nose, wondering if bad vision ran in the family and Mia needed to have her eyes checked. I’d have to make her an appointment with my optometrist.

  “Do you have contacts?” she asked.

  “I can’t wear contacts. My eyes are too sensitive and dry. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  “Okay, well, it doesn’t matter. They’re such a pretty blue, you just need some mascara and eyeliner to make them pop.”

  Making my eyes pop didn’t sound pleasant, but before I could respond, the doorbell rang.

  “Stay here,” Mia commanded me. “I’ll be right back.”

  I did as she said, chewing my nail as I heard her answer the door, then the deeper voice of Clark. My stomach lost touch with gravity as nerves assailed me. Was I really going on a date with someone I hardly knew?

  Which is exactly what I said to Mia when she came back in, closing the bedroom door behind her. She gave me a strange look.

  “That’s kind of the whole point of a date,” she said.

  Oh.

  “C’mon,” she tugged on my hand and pulled me into the bathroom. “I have a great sparkly topaz cream shadow that will look awesome on your eyes.”

  She sat me on the toilet lid, took off my glasses, and proceeded to open several fabric makeup cases, revealing an alarming amount of brushes and gizmos and palettes. I couldn’t tell which was for cheek, lip, or eye. They all looked the same. Mia obviously knew what she was doing, though, because she said, “Close your eyes,” and that was that.

  Ten minutes later, she said, “Open,” and handed me my glasses. I’d tried valiantly not to twitch during her eye makeup application, but the tone of her mutters was decidedly irritated. I slid my glasses back on.

  Mia scrutinized me, then smiled broadly. “I am so freaking awesome.”

  “What did you do?” I stood up and looked in the mirror.

  Wow. She was good. The woman staring back at me had artfully tousled hair with thick bangs over her forehead, smoky blue eyes that looked almost mysterious, glistening pale-pink lips and a flawless ivory complexion. The shirt she’d given me made my waist look tiny, and I even had a bit of cleavage.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “It’s not like you’re a troll,” Mia said with a snort. “You just need to accentuate the positive and wah-la.”

  “It’s voila,” I automatically corrected.

  “Whatever, and you’re welcome.”

  I smiled, impulsively giving her a hug. “Thank you.”

  Mia’s cheeks pinkened and she looked pleased. “Not a big deal. Now go, he’s waiting. Have fun and don’t worry about me if you don’t come home until morning.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  “Mia!”

  But she just laughed at me.

  I couldn’t even imagine . . . Clark and me . . . until morning—

  Nope. Not going to go there. This was dinner. That’s all.

  Mia remained in the bedroom, giving me a firm shove out the door and closing it behind me. I stood for a minute, my stomach doing somersaults, then took a breath and walked into the living room.

  Clark was sitting on the couch, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, watching whatever Mia had playing on the television. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt the precise blue of his eyes. His shoes and belt were both the same honey-brown leather, and his jaw looked freshly shaven.

  Wow.

  As if he’d heard my unspoken thought, he glanced over and our eyes caught. His mouth fell open slightly and he didn’t move for a moment, his eyes tracking me from head to foot and back. It felt like one of those movie moments, where the librarian lets her hair down and suddenly she’s this bombshell—only it wasn’t a librarian but just me, a nerdy IT girl—and I certainly wasn’t a bombshell just because I had on eye shadow and for once wasn’t wearing my hair in a ponytail.

  But it
felt nice, all the same.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said, heading toward him. “Work took longer than I expected.”

  He smiled broadly as he got to his feet. “It was definitely worth the wait.”

  A charmer, too. Not surprised, though, with his looks, I wondered how often he had to use charm to get a date.

  I cleared my throat, unsure what to say to the unexpected compliment, nervously tucking my hair behind one ear. This was why I always wore it up. There was just so much, it was constantly getting in my way. “You look really nice.”

  “Thanks,” he said, standing. “I hope you like Italian.”

  “Italian” was basically flour with sauce and was my least favorite ethnic food. But I smiled and said, “Sounds great.” I could eat salad. Every Italian place had salad.

  Clark led me to his car—a ten-year-old Honda in sky blue. Not what I would have pictured him driving, that was for sure. A glance at the odometer when he opened the door for me said the car was nearing one hundred and fifty thousand miles. Wow.

  “Sorry it’s nothing fancy,” he said as he slid behind the wheel. “I used to drive something nicer, but had to downsize recently.”

  “Oh?”

  “I had my own real estate business, but when the market crashed, it did, too,” he explained. “It’s taken a year or so to get back on my feet, but I finally sold the house and got this job, so I moved here.”

  “Where did you live before?”

  “Wakefield Estates.”

  I knew that was a really nice area in Wake Forest that catered to the superrich. Jackson lived there. Clark must have lost quite a bit when his business went under, which explained him moving into a duplex, and the car.

  “And you’re in HR now?” I asked. He nodded.

  “Not exactly what I was doing before, but it suits me.”

  I was awful at small talk and we fell silent after that. My nerves were still on edge and I fidgeted with the neckline of my shirt, trying and failing to expose less skin.

  “So how was your day at work?” Clark asked.

  It flashed through my mind what Jackson had said, but I dismissed it. Asking about someone’s day was perfectly normal chitchat. Or at least, that’s what Mom had always drilled into me.

  “It was all right. I’ve started a new on-site consult.”

  “Oh, you’re a consultant? I thought you were a programmer.”

  “I am, and sometimes our contracts don’t require an on-site presence. This one does.”

  “So which company do you work for?”

  “Cysnet.”

  Clark frowned slightly. “That sounds familiar. Why does that sound familiar?”

  “You’ve probably heard about the owner, Jackson Cooper,” I said. “He’s one of those self-made billionaire-genius types.”

  “Ah. Yes. That’s why. So you work for him? What’s that like?” He sounded impressed, which made the butterflies in my stomach land temporarily.

  “It’s interesting. And a challenge.”

  “I bet you’ve got to be really smart to work at a place like that,” he said.

  I felt my face get warm at the unexpected compliment and I didn’t know what to say. Yeah, I am, just sounded wrong.

  “So you have to be on-site somewhere else now?” he asked. “Where?”

  “I’m doing a project for Wyndemere.”

  He issued a low whistle. “Wow. I definitely know who they are. And you’re consulting for them? That’s pretty cool.”

  It wasn’t often that anyone knew or cared what I did for a living, much less thought it was “cool.” The butterflies in my stomach went away completely and I felt myself relax.

  “Do you know anything about computers?” I asked “Or coding?”

  Clark shook his head with a small laugh. “What I know about computers could fit in a teacup. Maybe you could put it in layman’s terms, what you do.”

  “We basically write custom software,” I said. “Businesses have problems or need a better fit for their niche and we come up with the best solution for them, then write it from scratch.”

  “So that’s what you’re doing for Wyndemere?”

  “Something like that.” No sense getting technical. “I’m not really supposed to discuss our customers.”

  “Oh yeah, sure, sorry. Wasn’t trying to pry.” He smiled at me again as he pulled into a parking lot.

  “Not a problem.” I got out of the car, looking around at the restaurant he’d brought me to. It was a chain, but a nice one. A typical middle-class working-family establishment.

  The hostess couldn’t have been older than twenty and could barely take her eyes off Clark as she led us to a table.

  “Can we have a booth instead?” Clark asked.

  The beaming smile on the hostess’s face faded a bit, but she reluctantly led us to a booth. I slid in one side, Clark the other. She handed us menus and drifted away with one last longing look in Clark’s direction. To his credit, he didn’t seem to notice.

  “What do you like?” he asked me. “Is wine your thing? Or do you want to start with a cocktail?”

  “A cocktail sounds nice.” So long as I sipped it.

  “What’s your poison?”

  “Um . . .” Since I rarely drank, I had no idea what to order. But I had read an article on classic American cocktails one time. “A sidecar,” I decided, scanning the article in my memory and choosing the one with the prettiest picture. “Please.” That sounded sophisticated, right?

  Clark’s brows went up. “A sidecar. Really?” I nodded. “Okay, sounds good.” The waitress came by and he ordered me a sidecar and himself a gin and tonic.

  I glanced at the menu, scanning the columns for something without noodles. They had chicken and beef, too, and I went with the chicken marsala.

  “To new neighbors . . . and new friendships,” Clark said, raising his glass.

  I clinked mine against his, then took a sip of my cocktail. It had a sugared rim, so how bad could it be? It was ice-cold and tart and I liked it right away. I took another sip as I turned over his toast in my head, knowing I shouldn’t read anything into it. But the way he was looking at me with those eyes, intent and unblinking, made my heart skip into overtime.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem awfully young for that kind of job,” Clark said.

  Ah, the age question. I got it a lot. It’s what happened when you graduated MIT at nineteen, which is what I told him. Clark was chewing some of the bread they’d left on the table and he paused.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I’ve always been a little bit . . . precocious,” I said. Which was a nice way of saying smarter than anyone in a thousand mile radius.

  Clark frowned. “It must’ve been really hard for you when you were young.”

  That was putting it mildly. Bullies had nothing on how mean “nice” girls could be.

  I didn’t know what it was—maybe the way Clark was looking at me with sympathy rather than pity. Or maybe it was the atmosphere in the half-empty restaurant with the dim lighting and candles on the tables. Probably it was the brandy in my glass already flooding my nervous system. Either way, I found myself talking.

  “One time, I was invited to a sleepover,” I said. “I was thirteen. I’d never been to a sleepover before. They said it was a dress-up party—come in costume. I was so excited, I could hardly wait.” I remembered it as though it had just been yesterday. I’d been so proud to tell my dad that I’d been invited to a real high school party.

  “I dressed up in my favorite costume—a Star Fleet science officer. Even took along the tricorder I’d fashioned. It beeped and whirred the real noises when I pressed the buttons, I made sure of it. My dad dropped me off, told me to have fun, and that he’d be back in the morning to pick me up.

  “I walked up the sidewalk and I could hear the music inside and people talking and laughing. For once, I was going to be one of the cool kids. Maybe I’d find someone who liked the things I liked. S
omeone I could talk to and laugh with. So I rang the doorbell.” I paused. The pain from that night still ached even after all these years.

  “What happened?” Clark asked.

  “They opened the door and I saw it not only wasn’t just a handful of girls at a sleepover, but most of the high school was there. The next thing I noticed was that it wasn’t a costume party.”

  Clark winced.

  “They laughed, took my tricorder, and locked me in a trunk. You know, one of those old-fashioned, traveling-type trunks?” He nodded. “Anyway, they were drinking and forgot about me. I spent the entire night locked in there. It wasn’t until the next morning that the parents got home and let me out.”

  I’d been shaking with fear and had wet myself because I hadn’t been able to hold my bladder any longer. They’d tried to apologize and wanted to call an ambulance, but I’d run out the door. I’d walked the three miles to my house and snuck in the back. I’d cleaned myself up before my dad saw me. One look at my face and he hadn’t asked how it went.

  “Oh my God,” Clark murmured, looking stunned.

  I’d almost forgotten that I was telling the story, rather than reliving it. And here I was, sharing one of the most shameful things that had ever happened to me, with the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, on what could possibly be argued was our first date.

  Nice way to break the ice, Chi.

  “I know, right?” I said, forcing a laugh. “Kids are mean. But to answer your question, yes, it was a bit difficult when I was young.”

  It appeared I’d struck Clark speechless, because he seemed utterly at a loss as to what to say next. Ah, knowing when was the right time to say things and when it would be a really bad time—I needed to work on that. I tried to think of some way to get back on chitchat footing.

  “I mean, it’s okay,” I said quickly. “I got the last laugh, right? I have three degrees from MIT—two undergrad degrees in computer science and biological engineering plus a master’s in engineering—and make more money at twenty-three than most of them will probably see by the time they’re fifty.” I forced another laugh that kind of petered out when Clark didn’t laugh with me. I took another nervous sip of my sidecar.

  “What they did to you was awful,” he said at last, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I can’t imagine.”