Page 39 of She Was Made for Me

She frowns. “I enjoy working, being busy. I get bored when I have too much free time.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, but yeah, I know what you mean. My life used to revolve around work too.”

“Used to?”

I nod, wondering how much to share. “Until a health scare forced me to realize there was more to life.”

She glances up in concern, looking as though she wants to ask me for details, but she doesn’t, and I’m glad. I’m not sure I’m ready to share that part of my life with her. God knows how she’d see me after that.

I reach for my beer. “I’m more careful now to choose jobs I know I can handle, and set my own work hours, taking it a lot easier than I used to.”

She looks thoughtful. “But don’t you miss challenging yourself?”

I turn this question over as I twist my beer bottle. Since arriving back in the city to tackle this huge house project, my stress levels have been higher than I’d like, but now the work has actually started, I feel better. With the support of the crew, and Violet overseeing the details, it hasn’t been as overwhelming as I’d worried it would be. In fact, I’m enjoying the challenge of a more complex project.

And then there’s seeing Violet everyday. That has been an unexpected, sometimes frustrating, but very enjoyable, distraction.

“I think it’s good to get a sense of purpose and satisfaction from work,” she adds. “That’s important to me.”

“Sure, I get that.” I dip some bread in olive oil. “But you deserve a life outside of work too. Who are you when you’re not working?”

She glances up from her plate, looking mildly shocked. Her mouth opens, then closes, and her frown deepens. It doesn’t surprise me that she has no answer to that question. For most of my working life, I didn’t either.

“Well, who areyouwhen you’re not working? What do you like to do?”

“All kinds of things.”

“Like what?” she presses.

Warmth spreads through me at the curious expression on her face—as if she really wants to know more about me—but I quickly tamp it down. “Hiking, reading, cooking…” I think for a moment. “Ice fishing, in winter. I kayak on the lake in summer. Things like that.”

She nods, her expression clouded in thought. “I honestly don’t even know what I like to do outside of work. My life revolves around my job. That’s why I took it so hard when I was let go from DigiSwap. I’m sure you remember I wasn’t at my best the day we met.”

She’s broken our unspoken rule—not to talk about the day we met—but I nod anyway. “I remember,” I murmur.

“I wouldn’t have taken this job with Dad if I wasn’t desperate. As you made clear at the start, I didn’t know anything about the industry. And then there’s the fact that—” She snaps her mouth shut, fixing her gaze intently on her wineglass.

“The fact that?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

I study her curiously. There’s something she’s not sharing with me, but I know better than to push her right now. I decide to take a different tack.

“Why did you get into project management?” I ask, spreading hummus onto a piece of pita bread.

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, nibbling on the plump flesh, and I smear hummus across my palm.

Dammit. Why is it so sexy when she does that?

I reach for my napkin, wiping my hand clean, and she sighs.

“I wanted to get into law, like Dad, but…” She shrugs as she dips some bread in the olive oil. “It didn’t work out.”

“What do you mean?”

She chews her bread slowly, avoiding my gaze. “It’s hard to explain. I did a week of pre-law, but… I had to switch my major.”

There’s something about the change in her tone, the shift in her posture, that makes me set my drink down. “What happened?”

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