“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It must be difficult, adhering to all the forum’s rules and keeping those naughty traders in line.”
The way he whispered naughty traders sounded dirty. “Yeah, naughty.”
“And yet a beautiful woman like yourself offers herself up as a volunteer for hours every day.”
Beautiful? She wasn’t, but he shouldn’t know whether she was or not. “You can’t see me.”
“That’s an interesting veil you’re wearing. The jewelry underneath suggests you participate in the lifestyle.”
The lifestyle? He must have recognized her Bene Gesserit witch costume from Frank Herbert’s science fiction book and the movie Dune, and the lifestyle must mean nerd culture, and she did participate. Colleen geeked out about science fiction at every opportunity. “Um, sure.”
“I can see the curve of your cheek through your veil from the backlight, and your voice is as sweet as caramel.”
“That’s not—I don’t think—that’s not really seeing me.”
Twist continued, “And I see what you write on the forum, kindly instructing people, keeping the newbies safe, helping people set up trading accounts, and warning them off taking advice from the killer whales.”
She squirmed in her chair at the unsolicited praise. “Anybody would do that.”
“Nobody else does. Your reverse-condor tutorial is literally impeccable. I think you’re beautiful.”
The way he said literally was perfectly British: LIT-trill-ee.
The American pronunciation, LITTER-uh-lee, would always be inferior in her head now.
LIT-trill-ee.
Maybe she could weave the word aluminum into the conversation.
Or Detective.
Light dawned inside her head. “Oh, you’re just saying that. I mean, thanks for the benefit of the doubt, I guess. But you’ve never seen me. And you can stop complimenting me. I can’t take the moderation off your account now that it’s on, no matter how much you butter me up.”
His low chuckle sounded like it could have come out of the dark in a bedroom. “I haven’t begun to ‘butter you up.’ Let’s stop talking about the account moderation. It doesn’t interest me anymore.”
“Well, I see you trying to save the starfish, too.” On the stock market forum, starfish were below minnows, bottom-dwelling creatures who sometimes got themselves stranded on the beach and had to be rescued, the opposite end of the income scale from the killer whales. “The other mods think you’re covering the killer whales’ butts by giving contrarian advice. They call you the Killer Whale King.”
He chuckled and then asked, “What do you think of me?”
Colleen sighed. “I think you’re usually on the side of the angels, but finance and stock trading are dirty business.”
“Yes,” he said. “So dirty.”
That drop in his voice sounded made it seem as though he liked the word dirty, and he spoke so slowly that he nearly paused between his words.
Colleen continued, “But no one knows for sure. I mean, your forum name is TwistyTrader. Everything you say seems to mean one thing but might mean something else. Everything you say might just be contrarian advice meant to invoke plausible deniability.”
He lifted one shoulder as he laughed softly again. “I suppose it could seem that way.”
“Like when you said dirty—”
Oops.
Twist’s silhouette lifted his head. “Yes?”
Oh, wow. His voice had made that low growl again. “It just seems like you could have meant anything by it.”
