Hardwired (The Hardwired Series 1)(24)

Blake was completely out of his element in the market. I’d never understood why mothers failed to teach their sons how to at least prepare basic meals for themselves. I felt him out for likes and dislikes, and then collected all the ingredients for one of my specialties, linguine and clams, one of the first dishes my mother had taught me to make.

Since I still lacked basic household items, like pots and pans. I set to work preparing the meal in Blake’s gourmet kitchen, while he stood on the sidelines. I felt out of practice, but gradually I found my bearings. After four years of communal living with bare bones kitchenettes, I missed being in a real kitchen, and Blake’s lacked for nothing.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me?” I asked, only half serious.

He joined me at the counter, and I gave him his first task.

“Here, dice this.” I handed him an onion. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, pretending not to notice as he blinked away the tears.

I made myself at home, narrating along the way for his sake. Though mostly silent, Blake was an attentive student. A little too attentive at times—I caught him staring at my ass when I went hunting for a strainer in his cabinets. I took full advantage of the power swap, schooling him on a few pasta cooking basics, like identifying al dente pasta and the critical difference between freshly grated versus jarred parmesan cheese.

Once finished, I prepared two plates, and Blake carried them into the dining area. We sat at the distressed wood farmhouse table, a beautiful and expensive piece of furniture. Admittedly, I was beginning to get used to the finer things when in Blake’s presence.

We dove in and were silent for a few moments.

“I approve.” He nodded and twisted some more pasta onto his fork.

“Thanks. The good news is that the leftovers will be even better.”

“How can leftovers be better than this?”

“The pasta absorbs all the clam juice. It’s divine.”

He moaned an affirmative as he finished another mouthful.

I smiled, content and maybe a little empowered.

“Are you all set for your meeting with Max?” he asked. His plate was already clear while I had barely made a dent in mine.

“Not entirely. I’ve been running around with the move and tying up loose ends. I plan to work through the details this week though.”

“He’ll want to know more about your conversion statistics.”

“Okay.” I nodded, making a mental note to try to flesh that out more.

“And you’ll need a specific breakdown of your expenses now, and what you expect them to be after funding. With Alli out of the picture and your personal expenses changing, you need to start thinking about what the financial landscape will look like if you get funding.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Do you have any stats on your marketing efforts? What’s working, what’s not?”

“Um, a little bit.” I said. “I have analytics, but I haven’t really crunched those numbers in a while.”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Sounds like I’ll be doing my homework.”

“Why don’t you stop by my office for a bit, and I can help you break down some of this. You’ll get funding faster if you can answer all of these questions right off the bat. Otherwise it’ll just lead to more meetings. There are only a few questions you need to answer to get a deal, but you need to know every angle of the answer.”

If anyone could nurse me through this process, Blake could. Turning him down would be rude, not to mention downright foolish. Still, I was dubious about further involving him in my affairs, not that he’d given me much choice.

“Is that a conflict of interest?” I asked, trying to think of any legitimate reason refuse his help. I hated that I needed him right now.

“No, Erica. I already told you, I’m not investing in your project.”

“I appreciate the offer, Blake. I really do, but I don’t want to put you out.”

“You won’t. My office is right across from the clock tower.” He pulled his card out of his wallet. “Meet me there after lunch and we can go over figures.” He picked up his empty plate and headed into the kitchen.

“When’s the last time you ate?” I asked when he returned with another heaping plate and a frosty bottle of a local microbrew.

“I’m a sucker for a home cooked meal.” He grinned and took a swig from the bottle. “What’s on the menu for tomorrow night? Let me know and I’ll stock the kitchen.”

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t realize I’d need to subsidize my rent with cooking services.”

“I think I’d be content to let you live here rent free if you fed me like this every night.”

“Tempting,” I teased, though I would never consider it. Blake had obviously taken extreme measures to position me here in his building, available at his leisure so it would seem. Sweetening the deal with gourmet cooking was probably counter-intuitive. Perhaps I could stave him off with food in lieu of sex though. Could be a good plan, though I had an even better one.






CHAPTER EIGHT





We cleaned up from dinner and settled next to each other on the couch facing out the bay windows, much the same way we had in Vegas. Committed to a very different outcome for the evening, I was not so subtle when I shimmied away a few inches, making his physical proximity slightly more bearable.