Rebound (Boomerang #2)(17)

There are half a dozen different emotions in her voice, and I can’t put my finger on a single one. I’m intrigued. More than intrigued. I want information—and I know where I can get it. If she went on a date, then she’s in our database.

“What about you, Adam?” Alison says. “Have you done the dates?”

Amazing. Four years of owning a business and this is the first time anyone’s asked me that. “No. Actually, I haven’t.”

She waits for me to explain. I can’t avoid it. It’s my business and I am trying to convince her of its appeal. Explaining why I don’t use it myself only seems fair.

“I don’t have any trouble getting dates.”

“Neither do I.” Alison’s gaze on me holds steady, a silent challenge.

“Are you saying I should do the three dates?” I ask.

“From what I’ve heard, they’re not mandatory. But they seem like a good way to learn, first hand, the service you provide your clients.”

I have to smile at that. “You raise a good point, Quick. All right. I started a profile years ago. I’ll fill out the rest this week.”

It’s the last thing I want to do. Our profile can get pretty personal, and I don’t want anyone nosing around into my past. Or my present. But I can handle adding a few superficial details about myself if it scores me points with the moneyman’s daughter.

“How about we take care of it right now?” Alison reaches into her purse and produces her iPad. “I’ll help.”

“Sure,” I say. “Great.”

Shit.





Chapter 9



Alison


Ladies first,” Adam says. “Let’s see your profile.”

My throat tightens. I could kick myself for goading him to do this now, but I couldn’t resist throwing his challenge back at him. More than that, I can’t resist finding out his answers to the Boomerang questions. Even though I can’t have him, I want to know him.

Still, if I let him poke around in my account, he’ll come across Ethan. I can’t have that conversation, not on my first day at Boomerang. And not after the night Adam and I shared.

“Hold on,” I tell him, stalling. “Let me pull it up for you.”

He holds out a hand, grinning. “I’m pretty sure I can navigate the site myself.”

“I’m sure you can . . .” I pull up my account, scroll over to Matches, and with a quick swipe, delete all traces of Ethan. I feel a pang, like I’m deleting the actual person, even though I know that’s silly. “Here you go.”

Handing over the iPad, I feel unaccountably nervous and exposed. Right away, I want to snatch back the tablet and make sure I like the photos I used, that my answers to the hundred or so questions are good ones.

As he scans the page, his lips quirk into an amused curve. “Great Kierkegaard quote.”

I groan. “That was Philippe’s way of making me look deep.”

Adam glances up, his keen gray eyes locking onto me for just a second and then darting away. “I think you’re plenty deep,” he says. “So you don’t think there are two ways to be fooled?”

I read upside down: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

The quote started out as space filler, nothing more. But now it seems loaded with a meaning that eludes me.

Shrugging, I say, “I imagine there are more than two ways to be fooled, but it’s a great quote.”

He grins at the image of me astride Zenith, pounding through the Santa Barbara surf after one of our last competitions. Seeing my horse, the best I ever had, makes me want to rehabilitate another one, to try to re-create our almost magical connection. I love Persephone, my current rescue, but she won’t let me ride her, and I miss that feeling of being so in sync with another living thing.

I try not to squirm as Adam takes in the rest of my profile, but finally I reach for the iPad. “As you can see, Mr. Blackwood, I’ve already fulfilled my professional obligations and filled in a profile. Let’s do you.”

He arches an eyebrow. “By all means,” he says, grinning. “Let’s do me.”

I feel myself blush. “Well, at least you let me go first,” I say, thrilling a little at the feeling of walking up to some line. Flirting. It feels safe, because I know it can’t go anywhere, and dangerous, because I so wish it could.

“I like to think I’m a gentleman.” Again, his gaze falls on me, giving me a little jolt, and then it moves away to focus on the iPad. He swipes around a bit and then slides the tablet over to me.

His profile’s up, but he hasn’t added photographs. It’s just his name, the default image of a blue boomerang to denote his gender, and a dozen generic details on the page.

“Well, you certainly didn’t apply the famous Adam Blackwood determination to this profile,” I tell him. “Why not?”

“Like I said, I don’t have trouble getting dates.”

“So I’ve read. But still, as president of the company and the creator of the Boomerang brand, I’m surprised that you haven’t filled out a full profile. Not even a photograph.”

He grins. “People know what I look like.”