Laura stuffed another truffle-soaked wedge into her mouth.

Charlie was wrong about many things, and she would let him take his time making it up to her.

For now, she was willing to admit that he was right about the fries.

Leaning in his chair, he watched in amusement as she unabashedly gobbled down the last treat in the basket.

"How did I get so lucky?" he quipped.

"What?"

"How did I get so lucky guessing that truffle fries were your vice?"

She rolled her eyes. "It was a cold read. Who doesn't like fries?"

Their mains were taking a while, and Laura had run out of truffled appetisers to keep her brain occupied. Now, the threat of uncomfortable small talk was creeping in.

Eyeing the rhythmic tap of his veiny hand on his beer glass, she contemplated her choices.

Option One. She could hurl her entire arena of awkward questions at him like a skunk kicking up a stink to scare the predator away.

Option Two. She could play dead.

Charlie's blue eyes bore into hers. "Are you single?"

She stared back in shock.

Option Two it was.

He chuckled at her appalled face. "Are you single, or are you married to your work?"

This bastard.

She bit back defiantly. "Yes."

His lips curled into an enigmatic smile, and for a moment she could almost catch what looked like humanity in him. She scrapped Option Two – she'd never been good at bending over. Her lips met the cold kiss of her bottle as she found bravery in her lime-infused beer.

"Do you even want this job, Charlie?"

He held his gaze on her. "Ever since I was a boy."

"Well, you haven't exactly been a stellar Spectre. Henry always said you weren't serious about the business."

"I wasn't. Not for a while. But now I want this..." He leaned in. "More than anything."

His cobalt eyes burned with hunger as his thick voice flowed like velvet and wrapped around her iron heart.

She drowned the fuzz in her chest with another gulp of beer.

"What changed?" she asked.

He shrugged, and as quickly as it appeared, the fire in his gaze extinguished. "I graduated and realised I was unhappy. Like I said, better late than never."

He leaned back, just like her clients did when they prepared to raise their defences. Laura couldn't blame him; she could barely read his face from behind her own brick wall.

The waiter swung by to set their plates before them, and the savoury aroma of duck confit revived her senses. She eagerly greeted the meat with a stab of her fork.

"Laura," he spoke, hardly glancing at his steak. "I meant what I said. I want to apologise. Whatever happens in the future, I will look out for you."

"How gracious of you," she muttered.

"You can bite me all you want, but it's not going to change the fact that my father has his own stubborn way of dealing with things. The least I can do is make things easier for you when it happens. Perhaps we can make you a director at one of our sister companies."

She chewed on his offer. Like the fat of the duck that clung to her throat, his words lingered enticingly – but suspicion nagged at the back of her mind.

A Spectre would never ink a one-sided deal.

She prodded. "What do you want in return?"

"Just... train me." Charlie finally picked up his knife and sank the silver into his steak. "Go as hard and fast as you want, but do it right."

It was very odd. One week he was making her leave him alone, and the next he was insisting on hurtling through the full Laura Rain Obstacle Course.

Something in his past must be weighing on him, and that was one wall she was itching to tear down.

"You said you graduated." She dug into the tender meat. "What did you study?"

"Computer science."

Her knife hit the bottom of her plate.

"Computer science?" Laura glanced up. "So you can do programming?"

He snorted. "I only built an app for our provost as my final thesis."

"You can do apps?" Her eyes widened. "Why didn't you say something? Do you know what this means? We can get a tech team to help the company modernise. We can finally go digital! We won't have to deal with flaky freelancers who can't code this or can't customise that. We can work the app on our own terms!"

Cynicism settled onto Charlie's face. "Hold on, don't get your fries all twisted. It would take a whole team to pull off your kaleidoscopic vision. I'm not certain my father would be so receptive."

He licked his lips, and Laura battled the desire to taste his... steak.

His eyes snapped to hers. "Unless you pitch it to him."

"Me? You're his son. You're the one with the programming degree."

"Computer science."

"Yes, that." She waved her fork. "He'd be more likely to say yes if his son asked for it."

"You're joking. He wouldn't trust me to turn on his bloody computer. He only listens to you."

As suicidal as the idea was, Laura turned it over in her mind until it was suitably coated in a palatable glaze.

"We'll both talk to him tomorrow. Together."

He studied her intensely, then offered a small nod. "Deal."

♥

Daylight filtered through the blinds of the old office as the faded spines of encyclopaedias cracked in the sun. Henry's eyes flitted between Laura and Charlie like a perplexed hummingbird.

"Well, I must say I'm shocked to see both of you back here so soon." He frowned. "This had better not be another one of your kerfuffles."

Charlie opened his palms. "Do we look like we're kerfuffling, Dad?"

The old gent sighed. "Well, what's this all about then? And get on with it, I have golf at ten and my bones aren't growing stronger."

"I know you didn't agree with my choice of study, but it can work for us now," Charlie started. "Laura suggested that we form an in-house team for PillBox."

Henry's brows sank lower. "I thought you'd gotten that app out of the way with the freelancers."

"We did, but it's not enough," Laura insisted. "We were pulling in money by the skin of our teeth. If we want to invest in e-commerce, we should spare no expense. With Charlie's skills, we can greatly modernise Spectre Corp."

He tossed her a flippant chortle. "Greatly modernise – listen to you. This is the way we've always worked, Laura. There's no sense in changing things. The status quo has served us well. I do not plan on endangering that for some gimmicky gizmo."

He sank back into his chair, which groaned under his stubborn heft. Laura loathed the status quo. It was as comfortable as a couch that had endured the weight of a thousand asses.

Charlie piped up, the blue flame reignited in his eyes. "Dad, I can't tell you how many times our clients have compared us to Flaco –"

"Not another word about those imbeciles. They're the only maddening thing people are talking about."

"Well, don't you want Spectre to take that place?" Laura retorted – perhaps a little too insolently, because Henry now glowered at her from his seat.

But she refused to back down. "Remember what happened on Black Friday? Our system could barely handle the scramble – and those were just physical sales. Also, from analysing our figures, we aren't getting our money's worth with those freelancers."

Like a dark cloud hovering above a fuming volcano, a menacing shadow descended over Henry's face. Laura didn't know whether to pull out her signature saccharine smile, or to recoil in utter terror.

After a torturous eternity, he spoke.

"You have two weeks to build a roadmap for this new platform. Do not waste my time."

♥