“That must have been awful…. Now that you mention it, I think I do remember seeing your story on the news. What did your parents think?”
“They were horrified that I’d broken the law, and they thought I deserved whatever punishment the court gave me.”
“That’s harsh.”
“That’s my good old ma and pa. Always on my side through thick and thin.”
“You get along better with them now?”
“Not exactly. We have our arguments, but mainly I’ve never totally forgiven them for not being a little more supportive back then.”
They walked in silence for a short while, and Yasmine began to wonder if she’d freaked him out to the point of silence.
Finally he spoke up again, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you ever think about not becoming a programmer—maybe doing something outside the technical industry?”
Yasmine shrugged. “No. I applied to what felt like a hundred companies, and Virtual Active is the one that hired me.”
“No surprise there. For an office full of guys who sit around creating virtual sex games all day, you provide some pretty hot inspiration.”
“Ew.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never realized that.”
“I did—I mean, I do, but I try not to think about it.”
“What about the heroine in Jungle Honey? Don’t you think she looks eerily similar to you?”
Yasmine laughed, her cheeks burning at the sudden realization that he was right. “Oh…my…God. We came out with that game about six months after I was hired.”
“You see? It was just a matter of months before they put you in a furry leopard-print bikini and had you tying unsuspecting tourists up with vines in the jungle.”
“And acting out kinky sex acts with them.”
“And with bananas.”
“Crap.” She covered her face with her hands and tried not to remember who exactly had been on that software development team.
“You don’t plan to spend the rest of your life creating virtual sex software, do you?”
“What’s wrong with that? Maybe it’s my calling.”
But it wasn’t. She had no idea what her calling was. She could only say what it wasn’t.
“You’d be wasting your talent.”
“Hey,” she said, forcing her face into a serious expression. “We create products that touch people’s lives.”
“Especially horny, dateless people.”
“It’s meaningful work.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Kyle said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Nobel Prize people figure that out and create a new award for work in simulated sex experiences.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Sorry, I had no idea you took your work so seriously.”
“You’re new to the business. You don’t have a clue how much time and effort I’ve put into creating realistic-looking male members.”
“Mmm-hmm. You’re right, I have no idea. That must be something you’ve had to study extensively firsthand.”
“Truth be told, I haven’t had nearly enough up-close, hands-on experience with real-life models lately.”
“Maybe you’ve been spending too much time working, not enough time researching.”
“Mmm. Want to be my research buddy?”
“Only if I get to do my own research, too,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “So you’ve been at Virtual Active since college? About four years?”
“Five years. I made it through college in three years instead of four.”
“Oh, yeah? So you’re a genius or something?”
“I’m just impatient, that’s all.”
“And modest. I’ve heard through the grapevine that you can write circles around all the other programmers in the office.”
“Who’s been telling lies about me?”
“You’re like an urban legend. Yasmine Talbot, code-slinging superbabe.”
A bubble of laughter burst out of her. “Stop. That is not how my co-workers see me.”
But she knew he was right. It wasn’t hard to become legendary among a bunch of guys whose lives—and in some cases sex lives—existed mostly within a computer.
“So what do we tell everyone at this party about us? That we’re shacked up for the weekend?”
“How about that we’re co-workers, and this is our second date—on Christmas Eve because we’ve both been orphaned by our selfish vacation-crazed families.”
“Is that what we call this—dating?”
“We could say we’re just screwing, but…I don’t think there’s an actual word for what we’re doing—or if there is one, it’s not something we should be saying in polite circles.”
“So this Cass? She’s your best friend?”
“Yes, and she’s also on my shit list for making me leave my apartment tonight.”
“I promise we can make up for lost time later.”
She smiled. “I guess there’s really no hurry, right?”
“Right. If we don’t slow down a little, I’m going to be useless by tomorrow,” Kyle said.
They reached Cass’s building, and Yasmine led the way up the steps. They were ushered inside Cass’s apartment by a woman Yasmine didn’t recognize, and the place was filled with merry-looking couples.
Cass immediately spotted them hanging up their coats and headed over. “Hi! Nice to meet you,” she said to Kyle, her smile plastered on and her tone relentlessly cheery.
This was a sure sign that she intended to corner him before the night was through and grill him about his intentions and his pedigree and pretty much anything else she could find out. Later, she’d spill it all to Yasmine like a cat bringing home a prize rodent for its master. Cass did this to all of Yasmine’s dates.
Kyle smiled and shook her hand. “Thanks for having me over,” he said, and it was clear Cass would have no trouble getting him to confess his entire history.
For now, though, she excused herself and hurried off to the sound of crashing pans in the kitchen.
“That better not be my bûche de Noël,” Yasmine called after her.
She spotted a few friends talking near a sparkling Christmas tree and led Kyle in their direction. Would everyone be able to tell right away that they were imposters as a couple? That they were more familiar in bed than out?
She smiled and tried to think happy couple thoughts.
“Hey, Yasmine, I’m on your team for Trivial Pursuit,” a woman she knew as Nora, from Cass’s office, said. “She’s a total brainiac,” she added to her boyfriend, Lionel.
“I was hoping in the spirit of the holidays, we could skip the Trivial Pursuit for once,” Cass called from the kitchen.
“With Yasmine, that’s simply not an option,” Nora said, and she was right. A party was not complete without at least one Trivial Pursuit game, and usually a major argument breaking out over a Trivial Pursuit game.
She introduced Kyle to the group, carefully avoiding giving any more information than his name. Everyone’s gaze raked over him, and she could see a few of them trying to decide which question to ask first.
Nora, never one to tiptoe around the subject, dove right in. “So you two are dating?”
“Um, sort of,” Yasmine said.
“How long?”
She glanced at Kyle, hoping he’d have a good lie for an answer.
“Just a short while,” he said, smooth as could be.
He was cuter than her last boyfriend by a mile, and his casual J. Crew catalog style was far cooler than her previous guy’s affection for black leather pants—which, for the record, could never be removed quickly enough in the heat of passion.
All her friends would probably size up Kyle and deem him the catch of a lifetime, The One, and when he disappeared from Yasmine’s life in another few days or weeks, they’d spend the next ten years shaking their heads and secretly speculating on the exact reasons Yasmine was unable to hold on to men.
Likely they’d deem it
related to her sordid past.
She could hold on to any guy she wanted, she supposed, if she actually wanted to keep him around. She glanced at Kyle and wondered if he had potential for more than just a weekend fling. He could hold a conversation, and he was smart and funny and great in bed, and her cat liked him. But there was that whole coworker issue. And the fact that something about him haunted her, left her feeling as though she was hanging out with a ghost from her past.
It was one thing to have hot sex with a co-worker and then have to go about pretending it never happened. But it was quite another matter to get real emotions involved, have a relationship, let the world know they were a thing, and then break up and have to live with all that emotional baggage sitting in the middle of the office between them.
And could he see her as something more than a pretty face? Could he care about her as a person as much as he cared about the way she looked? Did she even care?
No, she’d take the weekend fling and be happy with that. Yasmine knew that complications were to be avoided whenever possible, and that men were attracted to her for one reason alone.
But she watched and listened as Kyle launched into conversation with her meddlesome friends, fielding their nosy questions and behaving like a relaxed boyfriend rather than a guy she was screwing for the weekend, and he almost convinced even her that they were an item.
“Where did you two meet?” Nora asked.
“We work in the same office.”
“Ah, an office romance! I had no idea Yasmine worked with any cute guys. To hear her talk—”
“We’re all a bunch of pasty-faced geeks.”
“I’d hardly call you pasty-faced,” she said, and Lionel cast her a look.
Kyle shrugged. “I do some surfing, get some fresh air now and then.”
Across the room, Cass caught Yasmine’s attention and waved her toward the kitchen. She slipped away from the group and followed her friend.
“What’s up with you?” Yasmine asked as she surveyed the hors d’oeuvre tray Cass was preparing to take out to the crowd for something that didn’t look burned.
“Try not to look too smug, but that guy Drew is what’s up with me,” Cass said as she tried to hide the burned spots on the finger foods with a layer of spray cheese.
“You like him!”
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t like him, but I don’t know him well enough to know if I like him. What I do know is that there’s definitely some chemistry going on.”
Yasmine settled for an overdone mushroom and chewed it up fast to avoid experiencing too much of the flavor. “Let me just say for the record that the spray cheese isn’t going to fool anyone.”
“Aren’t you going to comment on the chemistry thing?”
“I’ll reserve my enthusiasm for your engagement announcement.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Okay, I’m glad you’re giving Drew a chance. He’s one of the nicest guys I know, and he deserves a good woman. So that means no stomping on his heart.”
“Well, I can promise him some good sex, but that’s about it.”
She decided not to argue. Cass had been more into her ex-boyfriend than she had any other guy, and being dumped out of the blue had hit her hard. Even harder when the dumping happened over another woman. She was well past the rebound period though—it was time for her to move on to a guy who deserved her affection and get over her fixation on pretty, shallow men.
The acrid aftertaste of the mushroom hit Yasmine and she thought twice about bringing any of the cheese-sprayed mushrooms back to Kyle.
“I’d better go rescue Kyle,” she said. “Soon as you’ve had your date with Drew, I want all the details.”
“You’ve got a deal, so long as you give me a full report on Mr. Gorgeous out there.”
“There’s nothing to report. We’re just being weekend sex buddies, I guess.” She shrugged and turned away to avoid any further scrutiny.
Yasmine wandered into the living room, pausing near the doorway to watch Kyle interact with her friends. He was as relaxed as if he were among his own friends instead of a bunch of people eager to find out if he was his date’s soul mate or if he had some monstrous flaw. And she marveled that for once, she didn’t feel on edge introducing her date to her friends. She somehow felt just as relaxed as Kyle looked.
Bizarre, considering how little they knew each other, and how he could still reveal himself as an utter and complete nutcase, and she wouldn’t have any right to act surprised.
In fact, any second now, Yasmine fully expected she’d wake up and realize Kyle Kramer wasn’t nearly as great a guy as he seemed to be.
8
ALEX SIPPED his after-dinner eggnog and watched the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree. Around him, the ebb and flow of conversation lulled him into a half trance, the sort he remembered from his childhood that only came with being content and surrounded by family and friends.
He’d enjoyed hanging out with this group, talking over dinner and watching with detached amusement as half of them got into a heated debate over Trivial Pursuit. He was even having trouble remembering he was supposed to be someone else. Sure, there was the lying he’d had to do about his career, but he’d rehearsed that story so many times he’d almost started believing it.
And now, here with all Yasmine’s friends, he felt as if he belonged, as if he was with a woman he really cared about and not one he was secretly trying to gather evidence against. It occurred to him, when he finally remembered his situation, that his life had gotten seriously screwed up.
Not only did he think Yasmine was the hottest thing since the discovery of fire, he was pretty sure he liked her just as well outside of bed. So far, she hadn’t done a single thing to make him feel justified in secretly investigating her.
If she didn’t start acting like an obnoxious criminal soon, he was going to develop a guilty conscience. Okay, who the hell was he kidding? He already felt guilty, and if he didn’t find some solid evidence against her, he’d feel like the world’s biggest jerk for ever having lied to her in the first place.
The Trivial Pursuit game ended with a resounding victory for the women—owed entirely to Yasmine’s amazing wealth of useless knowledge—and she flopped down next to him on the sofa where he’d been sitting content to watch, not contributing much to the game.
“You’re looking awfully contemplative. Ashamed that your team lost so badly?” she asked, her dark eyes sparkling.
“You know more than any normal human should about American history.”
“Side effect of attending expensive boarding schools.”
Which must have made going from a stimulating intellectual environment to a youth correctional facility an even bigger shock for her. He’d blocked out that fact before, but now, sitting here with her, he had a pang of empathy for the spoiled little genius girl who’d been locked away thanks in part to him.
“Did you get to wear hot little plaid skirts and white tops knotted at the waist?” he half whispered.
She laughed. “Yeah, and we dressed in little pink teddies on Saturday nights and had all-girl pillow fights.”
“A guy can dream, right?”
“And you’re also pretty good at evading questions. What’s with the brooding expression you were wearing a minute ago?”
“Seriously? You want to know the truth?”
Yasmine leaned in close and propped her head on her elbow against the back of the sofa. “Absolutely.”
“I hate eggnog. Why on earth do people drink this crap?” He gazed down into his cup as if worms were emerging from it.
She laughed and swatted his thigh. “You’re a freak.”
“Only in the bedroom.”
Around them, people were donning coats, gathering purses and unwrapped gifts, saying goodbyes. Alex realized, out of the blue, that as much as he loved Yasmine’s company, this was truly an awful way to celebrate Christmas Eve, spending it deceiving a woman he didn’t want to deceive.
He was so far removed from the spirit of the season that he might as well have donned a devil costume and called it Halloween.
“Let’s go,” Yasmine said, “before you do anything violent to your eggnog.”
“Definitely.”
The darkest, ugliest part of him had brought Alex to this point, and he realized now his mistake was in thinking that a good end justified dishonest means.
Five minutes later they’d said their goodbyes and were outside, walking back to Yasmine’s apartment. She was tucked into his side, her hip bumping against him as they walked down the street.
“I hope my friends didn’t drive you crazy,” she said.
“They were great. I had fun tonight.”
“Thanks for being my date—and for keeping me company over the holidays, too. You’re still staying the night tonight, aren’t you?”
“Truckloads of eggnog couldn’t keep me away. And I’m the one who should be saying thanks.”
“We’d better stop the lovefest before we make each other sick, don’t you think?”
“I think if you show me any appreciation, it should be for sharing my piece of Yule log with you.”
“Oh, right. My dear friend Cass is many things, but talented chef is not one of them. That Yule log tasted like—”
“Like something better used for kindling?”
Here he was again, nearly forgetting that Yasmine wasn’t his girlfriend or even his date. She was a woman whose company he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying, and damn if he could help himself.
Focus. He had to shove aside his feelings of pleasure, of guilt, and focus on the task at hand. Time to dive into his investigation headfirst. He couldn’t change his plan now, regardless of how underhanded it might be. “It’s great that you’ve moved on from your time in juvenile detention and built a new life for yourself. Your friends seem really nice.”
“They are. I’m lucky I have people who don’t judge me.”
“Except when it comes to Trivial Pursuit.”
She smiled, and he could sense her relaxation. “Right,” she said. “I like them because they don’t care what I can or can’t do with a computer.”
Any Way You Want Me Page 9
