Merry and Bright(60)

“You might have heard of it. It’s called dating.”

She gave him a long look. “I wasn’t under the impression that you understood the word exclusive. ”

“I understand more than you think.” He kissed her just beneath her ear, enjoying the way she clutched at him and shivered. “Watch out, I just might convince you to believe in this. In me.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” Pushing away now, she turned to the computer. Then, after a moment, she glanced back at him, looking uncertain. “What I’m going to do here is a bit of an invasion of privacy. You might want to go home and pretend you never saw me here tonight.”

“You’re going to look through people’s e-mail files. Specifically, the e-mails sent to the newspaper.”

“Yes.”

“You really think someone is stupid enough not to have deleted the correspondence?”

“I’m banking on it.”

He smiled. “E-mail files here at the city offices are public records. So technically, there’s no invasion of privacy, because there is no privacy. Scoot over.”

She looked surprised. “It might take a while.”

“I realize that, Sherlock.”

“Don’t you have a date or something?”

“Two things, Cami. One, not all men are scum. Two, I just told you I wanted to date you. And only you.”

She never took her eyes off him as she absorbed his words, looking so bewildered. And so heart-breakingly unsure, as if no one had ever made her such a promise.

Hell, he’d never made such a promise himself. He should be the terrified one. And there was some of that, but also an inexplicable sense of hope. “Scoot over,” he said again, gently.

After a moment’s consideration, she made room for him at her side. Just where he wanted to be.





5


By two A.M. they’d gotten through half the offices and had found something both shocking and morbidly interesting. There wasn’t just one employee e-mailing information to the newspaper, but a spattering of them, none from the same department, and none who had any obvious connections to each other.

Was everyone in this building losing their minds?

They were missing something big here, Cami knew it, and because she did, she refused to give up.

Oddly enough, so did Matt. He’d benefited from what had happened to the town council more than anyone. He’d become mayor because of it. It would be further to his benefit to leave it all alone.

And yet he stayed, brow furrowed in concentration, fingers clicking across the keyboards as fast as her own, concentrating intently on everything they went through.

He was on her side.

They’d been on the same side before, and they’d been on opposite sides. He was a fierce competitor, she knew this.

And also fiercely loyal.

The combination, the dichotomy of him, fascinated her, when she didn’t want to be fascinated.

And now he’d said he wanted to date her. Imagine that. She and Matt. The problem was, she couldn’t imagine it. So she organized her thoughts like she did everything else and put them out of her way for now, to be obsessed about later. Far later.

Matt suggested they wait until they finished going through all the rest of the computers before making their findings known, which would take at least one more night, possibly two. They went to the employee break room for food, and Matt came up with a package of donuts. “Probably stale, but chocolate is chocolate.”

Cami stared at the donuts, mouth watering as she went to war with her old fat self.

Eat them, that old fat self begged.

You might as well just spread them over your hips, sneered her new, thinner self.

“Split them with me?” He was already breaking into them, sending the scent of sugary sweet chocolate wafting across the room.

Her stomach growled. “Um . . .” Get some control, woman. “No, thanks.”

“Sure?” He shoved one in his mouth and moaned unapologetically. His tongue darted out to catch a crumb off his lip. “Nothing like the rush of sugar at two in the morning.”

He was smiling, his eyes filled with pleasure. He found pleasure in everything he did, whether it was working, laughing, arguing . . . She imagined he’d be like that in bed, too. Her belly tightened.

He caught her looking at him and smiled. “Change your mind?”

Had she? He was cocky, edgy, at times arrogant, and then there was the fact that she couldn’t outwit him like she could most others. Which in effect meant she couldn’t control him, or how she felt about him.

Just like she couldn’t control the urge for donuts.

“Cami?”

“No, I haven’t changed my mind. Not about anything.”

Without looking too disturbed, he popped another donut into his mouth and brushed the sugar off his hands. “Your loss.”

It didn’t matter to him either way, she knew that. He’d probably already forgotten he’d said he wanted to date her. Exclusively. Men like him said stuff like that all the time just to get laid.

At least she hadn’t fallen into that trap.

“You have a thing against stuff that’s good for you?” he asked.

“The stuff you’re referring to is bad for me.”

“I wasn’t talking about the donuts.”