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I stood up without even thinking about it and approached her where she stood digging in her enormous shoulder bag for something. Sam was making her a sandwich behind the counter.
“I got this, Sam,” I told him.
Holland’s head snapped up, and I was caught in the traction of her crystalline gaze. “You.” She spit the word out. But before the irritation had slid into place, smoothing her features and making her face an impenetrable mask, I’d seen something else flit through those eyes. The tiniest glimmer of interest. There was hope.
“Me.” I tried a grin, but it had been a while since I’d used that particular expression. It might have been more maniacal than charming.
She put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and glared at me before pointedly turning her back to me. “Here you go,” she said as Sam came back to the register, her plated sandwich between them. She pushed the money across to him as his eyes flicked to mine. I shook my head.
“This one’s on Hale,” he told her, nodding toward me. “He insists.”
She turned her head to narrow her eyes at me over her shoulder. “I can buy my own dinner.” Her voice was low, even.
“I’d like to make up for being rude the other day,” I said. “Please accept my apology. In the form of…” I glanced down at her sandwich. “Roast beef and more avocado than any one person should be allowed to eat.”
A hint of a smile flickered across her lips and a faint blush crept up her neck. I wanted to chase it with my tongue, feel that warm heat with my lips. “I like avocado,” she said, her voice less thorny. “It’s a superfood.”
“So you’ll let me buy your super dinner?”
“Fine,” she said. She picked up the plate and carried it to a table against the wall of windows that faced the quad between the towers. “Thank you,” she tossed back at me as she sat.
I shot a smile at Sam and then followed Holland to her table, pulling up the opposite chair without asking permission.
She raised an eyebrow, the sandwich poised at her lips. “Seriously?”
I shrugged and sat, leaning back to watch her eat.
“I can’t even eat dinner in peace,” she grumbled, angling away from me again and staring out the window.
She didn’t demand that I leave, so I waited, studying her as she ate. She was beautiful, but I already knew that. Today I wanted to learn what it was about her that compelled me. I scanned her face and her body for clues but came up short. I glanced at the pile of paperwork she’d dropped on the tabletop, and was surprised to see the StrokeStat schematics on top of her pile.
“StrokeStat,” I said, thinking aloud. “I thought that technology was pretty much dried up after the efforts to repurpose it outside swimming got shelved a couple years ago.”
Her head swiveled to me, and she picked up the schematics and put them facedown, tucking them under the other papers on her pile. She gave me a once-over, taking in the scruff on my jaw and my questionably clean T-shirt and jeans. “Do you even work here? This coffeehouse is for employees, you know.”
I bobbed my head, trying to cover my amusement at her fierce response. She obviously didn’t recognize me as the CEO of Cody, which was nice. It was rare to have the opportunity to talk to someone who didn’t know my background, my baggage. “I used to,” I told her.
“Did they forget to take back your badge?”
“No,” I said. “The security guys out front remember me. Sam knows me.”
“Clearly,” she said.
She went back to her sandwich and then polished off six slices of avocado. Finally, she put the plate aside and turned to face me. “Let’s just get this done,” she said. “What the hell do you want?”
“I’m trying to figure that out, too.”
“Well, I can’t help you. And I don’t owe you a damned thing—I didn’t ask you to pay for my dinner. So maybe you could take your deep thoughts over there.” She pointed to a far table. “And let me get some work done here.”
“Tell me what you’re doing with StrokeStat first,” I suggested.
She scowled at me, wrinkling her freckled nose adorably. “Why would I do that?”
“Maybe I could help.”
“I seriously doubt it.”
“I used to work on it,” I told her. “When it was first developed. I know it inside and out. Better than most of the development team, probably.” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t even a stretch. Adam and I had begun the company with StrokeStat, which was the idea I’d had when I was swimming in high school—a way to measure the speed and water displacement of a swimmer’s stroke, the results of which could be extrapolated to predict heat times and help in training. Using that idea, many other technologies had been developed for other sports, and many of them were now being used not only for training, but also to set odds for bookmakers.
