Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7), Jacki Delecki [polar express read aloud .TXT] 📗

life. He wasn’t involved now because he wasn’t the sort of man to cheat. And she realized at the moment how much she trusted him.

“I’m sorry, Darcy. I shouldn’t bring up Reeves’s past.” His smile didn’t meet his eyes. Was he testing their relationship, or was he as awkward as Reeves described? “I’m awful at chit-chat. I’m much better at discussing my work than … ”

She squeezed Reeves’s hand, which rested on the table. “I’m grateful that Reeves was unattached when I met him.”

She waited to see the glint of amusement in Reeves’s dark eyes. His eyes were shuttered. And she was surprised by her feeling of loss. She had gotten used to his openness. When he shut her out, it hurt.

He took her hand and placed it on his muscular thigh, then covered it with his.

“Today calls for a celebration. Not often I have one of my best students come to visit. I want to hear all the news about you and Tex.” Wainwright walked to the tall file cabinet, pulled out a drawer, and held up a bottle of Macallan scotch. He shoved aside a stack of papers on the top of the cabinet to find a place for the bottle before producing three glasses.

“Thank you, Professor Wainwright, but I must decline. I’m allergic to malt liquor.” Darcy wasn’t allergic to scotch and would have enjoyed the expensive blend. But she never drank on the job.

“What a shame. I’ve never heard of such an allergy.”

“It’s true. Darcy with hives is not a pretty sight. Isn’t that right, honey?”

She squeezed his thigh hard. Reeves stared at her hand before his lips lifted in a small smile.

Wainwright handed Reeves a very generous pour before he sat across from Darcy. His drink was less than half of Reeves’s.

“Reeves described how wonderful you were to him and his friends. Must have been a challenge dealing with these super-smart, arrogant men.” She paused to look closely at his face for a reaction. “What a tragedy with Charlie’s accident to lose one of your brilliant students. It must have been such a shock and a loss for you. Wasn’t he your top student in computational theory? I know Reeves and Tex were more into Lambda.”

“I always thought Charlie would be my protégé.”

“I’m surprised then that you didn’t stay in touch?” Reeves pitched his voice enough not to make it sound like a direct question.

Darcy repressed any smile from appearing. She and Reeves were a good team.

“We did for a while, but then he dropped off the radar. Just disappeared. I assume that was when he started using drugs.”

“Reeves never believed that Charlie would use drugs. Isn’t that so, honey? You thought the press just wanted a sensational story. A millionaire cocaine addict to pander to the theme of the excesses of the young and wealthy techies in Silicon Valley.”

“I can’t believe Charlie would use … especially cocaine. Our brains are already spinning faster than everyone else. You believed the story? Or did you hear something else?”

“Why all these questions now about Charlie? He’s been gone almost ten years.”

“I’m sorry, Professor Wainwright. It’s my fault, but I know how much Reeves has grieved Charlie’s death. I guess I was hoping he could find closure by coming back here.”

“Of course. Let’s talk about happier things. When are you getting married? And do you plan to have a family?”

Either the man was very skilled or completely socially inept. Who asked about children after just meeting a woman?

“Darcy wants an enormous wedding. She has a large extended family, so it’s going to be big and expensive.” How did he know about her family and what kind of wedding she always imagined?

“Now, Reeves, don’t start on the budget again. For all his money, he can be a miser. Do you have children? Is that why you’re interested in families?”

“No, I never married. Seemed I was destined to guide the next generation of mathematicians.”

Darcy couldn’t get a clear read on this man who Reeves esteemed. Reeves was very intuitive for a man. But he had been an immature and impressionable student when he formed his opinion of his mentor.

“Darcy and I want a large family. She wants to have a brood of little Reeveses, right, babe? She is tired of selling cosmetics at Nordstrom. It’s where I met her. I was shopping for my mom and sisters.”

Darcy didn’t know whether to laugh or throat punch him. She shouldn’t be entertained by his ability to lie with such facility. He’d be great in the CIA. And he loved teasing her, knowing exactly how to poke fun at her. He had only known her little more than twenty-four hours, but he was already more adept than her brothers at getting under her skin. And adept at unfreezing her libido, which had been in deep storage until meeting him.

“You must still be in touch with Tex since you have to communicate about your shared ownership of the game.” The professor looked over his glass at Reeves.

“Now that it’s managed by Rocket Games, Tex and I don’t have any reason to be in touch. And I haven’t heard anything from him in years. How about you? Any contact?”

“Nothing. I don’t even know who he’s working for or what he’s working on.”

Darcy pasted an interested look on her face as the men discussed their different colleague’s work. At least Reeves hadn’t given her a role that demanded that she had to pretend to understand any of the mathematical theories the men debated.

Watching Reeves sit forward, his face lit with enthusiasm by talking about programming and something about Turing complete, she understood his bond with Wainwright.

After fifteen minutes of the men’s shop talk, Darcy nudged Reeves with her knee. She was antsy to check in with her CIA support team and Nick Jenkins.

She felt unsure about the professor. He knew more about Charlie than he was willing to share. He was quite adept at changing the subject. But he gave them nothing to help with the