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“I’ll take your word for it.”
She returned her eyes to the menu in front of her without answering my question, but I couldn’t let it go so easily.
“Can I ask you one personal question?” I pressed. “And then I promise I’ll leave it alone?”
“You can ask, but no promise that I’ll answer,” she chirped.
I snickered again, marveling at how easily she made me laugh.
“What’s your ethnic background?”
Again, that little smirk formed on her lips. “Isn’t that an HR violation?”
“Only if you go to HR… and they know who the hell you are,” I replied slyly.
Now it was Mylee who laughed.
“My mother was from Cuba. My father…?” She trailed off and shrugged. “I’ve changed my mind.”
My brow furrowed. “About what?”
“You can order for me, after all.”
I nodded and turned my eyes to the menu as the server returned to the table with our drinks, but my mind was whirling over what she’d just said. The Cuban side of her certainly shone through in those soulful dark eyes and that gorgeous gloss of hair. I wanted to ask if she was from Chicago, but I already knew the answer to that. Kai had done a full background check on her, and her history in foster care had spoken for itself. Just like I’d known she had no formal education outside of high school. In fact, it was a miracle she had finished high school at all, given her moving around.
Ten homes in fifteen years. How does a kid ever live like that?
If I’d only been reading about Mylee on paper, I would have expected her to be a rough-around-the-edges punk who kept getting removed because of a bad attitude, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
She was warm, even if a bit guarded, and oh, so lovely. Why hadn’t a family snatched her up and kept her forever?
I ordered our meals, and we made small talk until the server brought our plates.
“How do you feel about traveling?” I asked on a whim.
She raised her head and eyed me warily. “Am I required to travel?”
I shrugged. “Not yet,” I replied. “But we do a fair bit of traveling. It’s the nature of our business.”
“I haven’t done any traveling,” she answered bluntly. “I’ve barely been out of Chicago.”
That didn’t surprise me in the least.
“If you could go anywhere, where would it be?” I pressed. She put her fork down and stared at me skeptically.
“Really?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know enough geography to answer that properly,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing a mountain once in my life.”
I made a moue of my lips. It wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.
“What was this lunch about, Lincoln?” she asked, polishing off her steak and vegetable plate with such gusto, that I was impressed. “Are you feeling out my social skills?”
“In part,” I agreed, setting my napkin on my plate. “But I was hoping to get to know you a bit.”
It was apparently the wrong thing to say, her face shadowing. “Why?”
