Page 8 of The Billionaire's Secret Heart

CHAPTER FIVE

JOSEPHINE

Irushed down the concrete and brick sidewalk on Cherry Street, my eyes on my feet, ignoring everything around me. I was hung over. A shower and breakfast had brought me from miserable to moderately human, but I still felt like crap, and I'd had a knot in my stomach ever since I'd left Holden's place that morning. I'd run out of there like a thief, and I hadn't done anything wrong. I'd gone home, hoping Emily would tell me I'd done the right thing, but she'd shaken her head and said I should have stayed.

"Jo-Jo," she'd said, "when was that last time either of us met a decent guy? Holden sounds like a fairy tale. You should have at least gone back for one more roll in the sheets before running off like the ho you are."

I'd thrown a pillow at her and escaped into the shower. Her teasing had struck a nerve. I should have stayed. I was trying to shake it off—nothing I could do about it now. I didn't even know his last name.You know where he lives, I reminded myself. True. I did know where he lived. But the vision of hanging around in the coffee house in his building, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, was too pathetic for me to consider. At least, not yet.

Annoyed with myself, I pushed thoughts of Holden from my mind and walked faster. I was never late to lab, but between my hangover and throwing pillows at my roommate, I'd have to run to get there by three. Since there was no way I was running anywhere with my post-hangover headache, I picked up my pace and prepared to be a few minutes late.

"Jo!" I turned my head to the familiar voice calling my name and slowed my pace to let my teammate, Darren, catch up. "Damn you're walking fast," he said. "It won't kill you to be a few minutes late."

I shrugged. "I know. It's a habit."

"I think Angie wishes you'd rub off on the rest of us."

I laughed. Angie was the leader of our project, and she made me look like a slacker. She probably did wish my habitual punctuality would rub off on the rest of the group. All of us were smart—you didn't get into our program or this research project without being very smart—but we all had a habit of getting caught up in our work and forgetting meetings and deadlines. I had a thing about programming alarms into my phone each morning to force me to stay on schedule. Without that, I'd be perpetually late like Darren.

"So what's your vote?" Darren asked as we walked. "Hardware or software?"

In between my awful date and my erotic dream of a night with Holden, I'd been mulling over this exact question. "I'm voting for both."

"Oh, she goes for the hard shot," Darren said in exaggerated dismay. I laughed and nudged him with my shoulder.

"I think we need to re-check the placement of the device on the glasses, but I also think I messed up the code in the interface."

"Not possible," Darren said, laughing.

"Very possible."

We were working on a project to help the vision impaired—a pair of glasses that could perform spatial mapping and communicate obstacles via Bluetooth to the user's phone. If we could get it to work, it could replace canes for the blind.

If we can get it to work.

The bridge between theory and execution was the most complicated part of developing new tech. I hadn't been surprised when we'd fired up the glasses the day before and gotten a dead screen, but I'd still been disappointed.

We rounded the corner to the door of the building, and I came to a dead stop. Lounging on a bench beside the main entry to the Psychology building was Holden.

He got to his feet in a fluid, predatory surge that sent a hot tingle straight between my legs. He paced toward me, his hair gleaming in the sun, his tall frame athletic and graceful, the muscles in his broad shoulders apparent beneath his worn t-shirt. Yum.

I was crazy. I had to be crazy, because instead of waking the man and doing deliciously naughty things to his body all morning, I'd run away like a coward. How had he found me? I opened my mouth to ask, but the hot look in his dark eyes stopped my words.

I was suddenly aware I was not the girl he'd met the night before. Gone were the spike heels, designer dress, and artfully arranged curls. Standing before the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, I was wearing worn jeans, a t-shirt that saidReaver's Barbecuefrom my favorite sci-fi TV show, and the ubiquitous hoodie, this one in navy blue. My hair was in a messy bun held up by takeout chopsticks, and I didn't have on an ounce of makeup. Not even lip balm. I was shocked that Holden recognized me.

"Excuse me?" Darren said, startling me out of my shock. Holden had come to a stop directly in front of us, and I was staring up at him, jaw dropped, eyes wide. "Who are you?" Darren demanded, moving as if to shield me from Holden. Holden blocked him easily, sliding between us and curling his arm around me.

"Is this guy bothering you, Jo?" Darren asked, sounding like he was ready to start something with Holden.

I shook off my daze and said, "No, I'm good. I'll meet you inside." Darren made as if to lay a hand on Holden, and I said, "Really, Darren, I'm good. I'll see you in the lab in a minute."

Darren scowled at Holden for a moment, then left. At a loss for anything meaningful to say, I asked, "How did you find me?"

Holden reached into his back pocket and produced a familiar wrinkled note. I remembered my purse, open and on its side beneath the bench. I took the note from his fingers and glanced at it. "Good detective work," I said. Holden plucked the note from my fingers and put it back in his pocket.

"Why did you leave this morning?" he asked.

"I thought you'd want me to," I said.