“Hi.”
One word, in that voice, and I was glad for the wall I was leaning against as I tried my best to look anything other than giddy with excitement.
“Hi, yourself. You find the place okay?”
A small smirk curved Rafael’s lips as he took in the cavernous underground and nodded. “Yes, surprisingly. But I think I had a little help with that.”
My eyes swept up his long legs to his trim waist, where his black shirt was neatly tucked in. He would’ve fit in perfectly down here, if it wasn’t for the sliver of white at his neck, but I could overlook that. He was here. That was all the mattered right now.
“Maybe a little, but don’t tell anyone.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“I know.” I pushed off the wall and walked over to him. “I’m glad you came.”
Rafael’s tongue slid over his lower lip, and it took everything I had not to reach out and pull him to me so I could do it myself.
But I’d made a promise; I just wanted to see him. I’d keep things platonic. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him off when he’d finally come to me.
“Would you like a tour?” I held my hand out, and, without a moment of hesitation, he took hold of it.
“I’d love one.” My stomach flipped at the sincerity behind his eyes as he interlaced his fingers with mine. “Show me.”
I tried to speak, tried to answer him, but couldn’t seem to talk around the lump in my throat. My emotions were wreaking havoc on me now that Rafael was finally standing here in my world, asking to be shown around.
It was unreal. Everything I’d ever wanted.
I turned away from him—knowing the only way I’d be able to move, to function again, would be if I wasn’t staring at him—then led him through the tunnel and to the office that was my home away from home.
“This is?—”
“Yours,” Rafael said, his voice full of wonder and awe as he let go of my hand and stepped past me to look at the wall of monitors and shelves of gadgets and tech that had yet to hit the market, and cameras—lots and lots of cameras. “This is your space. Your world. I can imagine you here,” he said, more to himself than me, as he ran his fingers along the desk and moved behind the chair. “Watching the screens, deciphering code.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You still write it too?”
“Code?” I stood tall, puffing my chest out a little and crossing my arms. “Best in the business.”
Rafael’s lips crooked into a grin. “If you say so yourself.”
“Well, so do political leaders, crime syndicates, and?—”
“I believe you.” His eyes trailed down over me in a way that felt a lot more than the platonic. “You always did love working with computers.”
“I did.”
“And swore never to go boring corporate.”
“Couldn’t get less boring than here.” I winked at him. “But don’t tell my parents. Dad thinks I’m a system programmer.”
Rafael turned back to my setup, making his way over to where the camera screens hung on the wall. A couple monitoring the outside of Libertine, one on the secret church entrance and tunnel system that Rafael had just walked through, and then?—
Fuck.
“Is that the church gardens?”
Why in the hell didn’t I turn that off? Stupid. Stupid. Stu?—
“Alessio?” Rafael turned to face me. “Is that?—”
“Yeah, I… Fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair, more embarrassed than I could ever remember being. “I just like to?—”
