If she still wanted him, he wasn’t letting her go without a fight.
* * *
Three hours later, Kathryn slid into the booth across from Quincy. “How long did they keep you?”
He grinned and waved at their server before holding up two fingers. For two drinks, she assumed.
“I hope you ordered something for me too,” she said, laughing.
“Yeah, I told him what to bring when a pretty redhead got here. And to answer your first question, they just let me go half an hour ago.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Dang.”
“Technically I could have left at any time but I played nice since they never called the cops—and I just acted stupid. Their security had a bunch of questions and I’m pretty sure someone on their security team tried to follow me, but I lost them.” His grin widened, revealing a dimple.
She snickered. “What was up with the bubbles?” He hadn’t told her about that part of the distraction.
“I decided to mix things up a bit. Oh, and I saw you talking to Daniel Mac-Hottie-Arthur. I thought we were screwed when I saw that but then he let you go. What did the big man want anyway?”
She’d worked with Quincy on and off for two years. For the most part she kept her work and personal life separate—though she and Quincy had always been open about their personal lives. Until she’d started dating Daniel. She adored Quincy but Daniel had been this huge force of nature and she’d kept Daniel’s name private for the three months they’d been together. Well, with the exception of her closest friends, because she had confided in her book club about him. But that was different. “Ah, well, remember that whirlwind relationship I had that ended two months ago?”
He blinked once and then his eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? You and MacArthur?”
“Yep.”
“Wait, doesn’t he know what you do for a living?”
“Sort of. If he guessed at why I was there, he didn’t let on. And honestly, when he saw my engagement ring, I think it threw him off more than anything. He might realize the truth later. Either way, we did a good job.”
“That we did.” He took the beer the server dropped off and clinked the top against Kathryn’s.
“We kicked ass,” she added, feeling a little smug. Infiltrating his system had taken a certain amount of finesse.
“So why didn’t you tell me about him before?” Quincy asked before taking another sip of his beer.
“I wasn’t sure where the relationship was going.” And it turned out the answer was nowhere so she was glad she’d kept it to herself.
At the time she’d liked having him all to herself—though her brothers had known because they were nosy and knew everything. But she and Daniel had managed to keep all mentions of their relationship out of any sort of society rag. He hadn’t cared about the gossip stuff, but she’d wanted to be damn sure they had a future before she was publicly linked to him. She hadn’t wanted any sort of media scrutiny.
Sure, it would have been on a local level, but that was too much for something that wasn’t serious. Now she was glad she’d listened to her instinct and insisted on keeping things quiet. The breakup had been one of the hardest things she’d ever dealt with. If she’d had to do it while being watched by the media, it would have been a hundred times harder. “But it’s all fine between us. He was perfectly polite when we ran into each other.” He’d also been looking at her with that familiar hunger. Which just made the ache in her chest even worse.
Quincy snickered at that. “There’s got to be some cosmic justice in that, you getting a fat bonus from this job.”
She didn’t bother hiding her smile. “Maybe so.”
“So…you’re not going to give me any juicy details? Like why y’all broke up?”
“Not unless you tell me why you and Mr. Bartender broke up last week.” Unlike Kathryn, Quincy told her every single detail of his dating life. And she knew this would be the perfect distraction.
“Oh, I’ll tell you. I thought he was pretty cool so I invited him to a house party—where he proceeded to pull his dick out.”
She blinked. “What? I’m going to need way more details than this.”
Quincy took a sip of his beer then set it down. By his expression, she knew she was in for a good story. “A bunch of us started playing poker. Then someone of course suggested strip poker. So Mr. Bartender pulls off his pants, then his boxers when he loses a couple rounds. I mean, who does that? You start with your shoes or shirt.”
She snickered at the image. “So he was just sitting around with a shirt on and his dick hanging out?”
“Yep. My friends thought it was hilarious but I was a little horrified. I mean, I still slept with him, but—”
A laugh burst out of her. “Seriously?”
He shrugged, his grin widening. “I’d already seen a nice preview of what to expect.”
“Impressive?”
“Oh yeah.”
“But you still ended things with him?”
“Yep. He tried to get me to do CrossFit with him. I do not need that in my life.”
She laughed even harder. “You’re ridiculous!”
Quincy shrugged, but still grinned.
“Your dating stories are always so much better than mine.”
“This is true,” he said, waving off their server and declining another drink since his was still half full.
“My last date was kind of a nightmare too.”
“Ooooh, are you getting personal with me?” He raised his eyebrows.
She shrugged. “There’s not that much to tell. He was just a jackass. He talked the whole time, and when he would ask me a question I would start to answer it, but he’d cut me off before I could finish. Like every single time. It was all I could do not to run out of there.”
Quincy shook his head. “You can’t even give me a teeny bit of details about you and MacArthur? That man is seriously fine.”
“No,” she said quietly, and the pain must have shown on her face because his eyes widened slightly.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were really into him. Damn, so does that mean I need to make a voodoo doll of him tonight and set it on fire?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe… No, he wasn’t that bad.” He’d just thought she was after him for his money.
“Well I’m guessing he wasn’t that good either, if you’re sitting across from me looking all sad. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t destroy his life with your hacking skills.”
“Hey! I only use my skills for good.” Mostly anyway.
He simply lifted an eyebrow. “If in like a month or two I read about him losing millions of dollars in some freak banking error, it’s not you?”
She laughed at Quincy’s antics and shook her head. “I will not be getting any sort of revenge. Trust me. I just want him out of my life.” It was the only way she’d get over her heartbreak. Because after two months, her heart still wasn’t healed.
“Well, I’ll be your alibi if you do get revenge.”
She just snorted as their server returned to the table. They grabbed a couple appetizers and water. Half an hour later, she said goodbye and headed home. It was pretty late for her to be getting home anyway. Most of her jobs ended by five or six o’clock but no way would she have headed home after this one without seeing Quincy in person. She’d wanted to find out how things had gone once she’d left. And okay, she’d wanted to know if anything had happened with Daniel.