Page 6 of His Bride Bargain
“Huh,” is all he says as if he has to truly sit and contemplate my words. “That must be nice for you.”
“It is.”
What must his home life be like? I can’t imagine getting this far without my parents’ support. It reminds me I have to call them, to tell them how cool it is here, to see how they are. I guess Aiden mustn’t be close to his parents at all. Everything he says makes his life more of a mystery, and the more I talk to him, the more I want to untangle it.
But before I can ask anything else, he changes the subject. “How’s the reading going of the documentation for the talk app? You’re on that team, right?”
Much as I want to interrogate him more, it’s probably best not to rile him up too much. I might never get anything out of him if I push too hard. “Yeah, I am. It’s good. Interesting. Dense, though.”
“I bet!” he chuckles. “My— This company always writes stuff in way too much detail.”
“More detail’s better than too little,” I argue, letting myself smile at his stutter. He does that quite a lot, stumbles over words and cuts himself off halfway. It’s kind of endearing. He’s way smarter than he’s letting on, and the others are definitely overlooking him as competition. They’re mistaken to do that.
Aiden is incredibly sharp. That’s why I’m trying my best not to get involved. But it’s hard when he wears shirts that fit him so well that I can see every inch of his outline in perfect detail. It’s hard when he’s so genuinely kind to me as well as so manifestly handsome.
“True,” he says. “But don’t you find that sometimes you get too bogged down in fine detail to move forward?”
“Details make up the whole picture.”
He smiles in a way I’d almost call adoration if I didn’t know better. He is my rival. I cannot get involved in this. Even if he has gorgeous wide eyes. “You’re going to go far, Candice.”
What am I meant to say to that? We’re competition and yet he treats me like any other person, like one of us isn’t going to come out the loser and be disappointed. We’re in a race, but it’s like he’s slowing down on purpose to let me overtake.
How am I meant to not fall head over heels for him?
CHAPTER5
CANDICE
With a sigh, I lean back in my chair, its joints creaking and bending more than I’d like them to. Grimacing, I press the heel of my hand into my forehead, squeezing my eyes shut tight. I think I’m getting a headache. Again.
It’s all the staring into computer screens and living in windowless rooms with buzzing fluorescent lights. My head and my eyes are paying the price.
Worth it to be doing this, though.
I’m working with Blair and Aiden, troubleshooting some of the code that’s going to go into the new Fletcher operating system. The others are taking it seriously, but they don’t seem to beexcited. Every time I look at a new line, I get a thrill, a little electric buzz — because this is it. This is as high-end as code gets, andI’mallowed to stick my hands in and play with it. I expected this internship to be all carrying and fetching, but they’re trusting us with so much. How can it not be sacred to them?
I’m also writing a meticulous technical document that I volunteered to do when none of the others wanted to. Really, we’re supposed to be doing it all together, but delegating is a part of group work, and I’m a good writer.
“How’s it going, Candy?” asks Blair, leaning around my screen to look at me.
“Don’t call me that,” I glare. There’s nothing I hate more than sickly sweet nicknames, and my name is the worst for them. “It’s good.”
“You sure?” he asks.
I nod, giving him my very bestwhy don’t you leave me alone?look. “Yeah. How’s it on your end?”
Either he doesn’t get the cue or he’s being deliberately obtuse. “Oh, good, yeah. It’s easy, not as technical as your section.”
We have a huge chunk of code that we’re supposed to go through, and we split it up into thirds between us. And because I’m wrangling our notes into real words, I got the shortest section. Maybe Blair wants to do less work. It wouldn’t surprise me; he strikes me as the lazy type. I can imagine him as a boss very easily, the kind of manager who barks and snarls because he has no real power and wants to feel good about himself.
“Cool,” I reply, not really sure what he wants me to say. Deliberately, I sit back up and turn my attention to my screen, the little white symbols dancing like spots on the black background.
To my frustration, he doesn’t move. “Yeah, I’m actually nearly done.”
“Okay…?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe you’d want to swap. You know. In case it was too hard.”