Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

Chapter 7

Jasmine had just about convinced herself that he wasn’t coming after all when the doorbell rang.

“I bet it’s him. I bet he expects to be fed. Well, he’s going to be disappointed when I point out that Aunt Della makes one person servings for me. And it will serve him right, don’t you think, Lucy?”

The ginger cat didn’t even give her the “meooowwrrr” she’d come to expect.

“If you like him, you can jolly well go home with him,” informed Jasmine sternly before walking to the door, taking her time, and opening it.

The fact that Anthony Malone was standing there was not a surprise. The fact that he was holding a six pack of Tsing Tao and cartons of Chinese takeout, though, was.

She was shocked enough not to stop him from brushing past her breezily into her apartment.

“You must be Lucy. Your Aunt Della has told me all about you. Apparently you like tuna. Isn’t it handy that I happen to have a can of it with me?”

“She’s on a special diet,” interrupted Jasmine.

“I had a feeling she’d say that, the spoilsport. That’s why I stopped by pet supplies and got you these special treats. They tell me that it’s going to taste almost exactly like tuna. How about some, then?”

He wasn’t even looking at her, damn it. She could be petty and tell him not to feed her cat, but just look at Lucy! She was sitting down, her tail still and steady, and looking at him with those big, serious green eyes. Jasmine had no problems being mean and petty with Malone, but with Lucy – no, she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling when she saw Lucy rise up on her hind legs to get the treat, take it so daintily, and dart away to her bed to sit and savor it properly. Lucy wasn’t even batting it around like she usually did with her treats!

“She seems to really like that. I’d appreciate it if you could write down the name of the treat and the shop for me. I’d like to get it for her.”

“Sure, but I have what I think is probably a year’s supply here for her, so you don’t have to rush out for it. Now, Della told me that you’re partial to seafood. I noticed it myself, so I got you shrimp noodles, crab spring rolls, and shrimp in some soy-chili concoction that’s apparently very popular.”

Jasmine’s stomach growled right on cue. Well, there was obviously no point in pretending not to want it. She’d forgotten her hunger thanks to the nerves. And those nerves were thanks to that man! But she couldn’t hold on to the resentment as her cat padded over to him and glared at him in expectation of another treat. She couldn’t seem to hold on to the resentment when he smiled like that.

He really did have a beautiful smile. Like a fallen angel’s, thought Jasmine, and she stopped herself, wondering when she had gotten so fanciful.

It wasn’t her.

“Thank you. I like all of that. But you shouldn’t be talking to Aunt Della about me.”

“Well, if it’s accepted that I have my eye on you, Jasmine, don’t you think it would become easier for you to drop by the office often? Visiting your perfectly sharp and capable aunt multiple times would seem a little odd. But if it got around that we’re dating, well, you’d be able to come and go as you pleased. You could make whatever tweaks and modifications you might want to make.”

Jasmine frowned.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I promise not to ravish you on the reception table, Jasmine. Your reputation will still be intact when I’m gone.”

When he was gone.

Why did those words feel like she’d been punched in the gut? Of course he would go. This was not his home. This was not his place.

This was her home, and her place.

She’d do well to remember that. How had she come so close to forgetting it? Jasmine was beginning to feel like she no longer even recognized the woman that she was.

“I haven’t done much with the data yet. The surveillance software is working just fine.”

“I didn’t doubt that for a moment, Jasmine, but I’m here because I want to have a meal with you and your cat. And I brought your favorite takeout. So sit down, let me open you a beer, and let’s have a meal.”

“I…”

“Sit. I’ll get what we need from your kitchen. I know the layout.”

She wondered for a moment how he knew the layout, and realized that it would be part of his job and his research. Well, fine, so he knew the layout. He could do the work, and she would sit and have a meal. How bad could it be?

An hour later, Jasmine could hardly breathe from laughing.

“You didn’t.”

“We did. Roger and I, we had to sleep in the Dean’s mud room – and his mud room lived up to its name – all night. It would’ve been very cold except that they didn’t take the coats inside, so we hunkered down under these old and rather smelly coats. We got up at the crack of dawn and pretended to be just piles of cloth until somebody opened the door. We stole a coat each to run away without being identified. We would’ve been expelled for sure if we had been.”

“Yes, I just bet you would have been. I can’t believe you’d do that. Roger, too!”

“He doesn’t look like the kind to get into trouble like that, does he?”

“You don’t, either. You don’t look like you’d let yourself be silly enough to get into trouble like that, either.”

“It was nearly a lifetime ago.”

“But the two of you are still as close as you were then.”

“Sometimes, we choose our family.”

“Sometimes they’re chosen for us and it works out well, after all.”

“Della isn’t really your aunt.”

“Did you dig into me? I don’t have much to hide. No, she’s not really my aunt. I’m not her blood. But it doesn’t matter. She’s mine in every way that really matters.”

He nodded, and she knew that he understood.

“Well, shall we get to work?”

“Oh.”

“Much as I’m enjoying myself and the evening, we do have work to do.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Let’s get this done, then.”

She’d gotten started on the data she’d collected, and she had some to show him.

“I think, at this point, I’d focus on Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. They’re the ones who are poking around in the network the most. I don’t know if their jobs require that or not, but they’ve been looking through all the folders. I assume they don’t technically need to do that to do their job.”

“I can’t tell from that. But they do seem unlikeable. Terminal 1 is Joshua Harris. He came to us highly recommended. Terminal 3 is Antoinette Mathers.”

“Oh.”

“By tomorrow, the scheduler will be on all the phones, including the local staff. This is just the team that came down with me.”

She frowned.

“You don’t like that.”