Page 56 of Out of the Shadows

He eyed her. “Whose side are you on?”

“Just messing with you, boss.” She chuckled and jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “The woman’s a vulture.”

He made a face, shaking his head. “We’re here to relax. Let’s not talk about her.”

She smothered a snort. He was adorable when he was all irritated and bothered. Though she did prefer him getting bothered for completely different reasons. In fact, maybe she could distract him?—

She came to a halt and gasped.

The trail had cut abruptly to the right, and the Pacific Ocean was laid out in front of her, its waters calm with an occasional whitecap dotting the expanse. The gray, overcast skies met the water at the horizon. “Holy crap, Gavin. It’s gorgeous.”

“Sure is,” he said. “Absolutely breathtaking.”

She glanced at him, and her face heated when she saw his focus was entirely on her. Biting her lower lip to keep from grinning like a loon, she nudged him with her hip. “Aren’t you a charmer?”

“Nah, honey, just being honest.” He dropped a kiss to the top of her head again and then tugged on her hand and continued down the trail. Gesturing to the view, he said, “It stays like this for about a half-mile, then it snakes back into the forest and there are some switchbacks to the trailhead.”

They walked a little longer, and she was mesmerized by the view. And by the man beside her holding her hand.

After a few minutes, Gavin cleared his throat. “So... how did you come up with Sabrina Marie?”

She stilled. A chill ran through her body that had nothing to do with the crisp temperatures. She’d secretly hoped that in all the mayhem of the past few days, he’d forget about that whole you-have-an-entirely-different-name thing. Apparently, she was wrong.

“Well, as I’m sure you gathered, Sabrina was my original middle name. It wasn’t like I had a problem with the name Florence. It was my grandmother’s name, and from what I recall of her, she was nice. But I was never just Florence. My parents insisted on calling me Florence Sabrina, and it was...” She wrinkled her nose. “A lot. Especially when you added in Buena Ventura as the last name.”

“It’s quite the mouthful.” He winked at her, squeezing her hand. “Was Bean a nickname for Sabrina?”

She nodded. “I was sent to this fancy boarding school forthe gifted when I was four. When I was around eight, there was this one cook that started calling me Flo Bean. After a while, it was just Bean. Marie was really nice too. She made cookies with me on the weekends and holidays I didn’t go home.”

“You didn’t go home for the holidays?”

She shook her head. “Not usually. My parents traveled a lot. They did host a few big Thanksgiving events, and I went home for those. They liked to parade me around at those parties.”

“Why would they do that?”

She scoffed. “You met my mother. It’s safe to say they aren’t exactly the humble sort. So if they could show me off to their colleagues, they did. After all, their colleagues’ kids didn’t graduate from high school at twelve. They didn’t get a double bachelor’s degree at fifteen from Cal Poly or two master’s degrees from Stanford at eighteen.”

He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Bean. I knew you were crazy smart, but I didn’t realize you were a bona fide genius.”

“Child prodigy,” she clarified with a wink. “Not genius.”

He chuckled. “Well, I beg to differ. The fact you know there’s a difference between the two means you’re a million times smarter than me.”

“Only when it comes to computers, Gavin.” She waited for the party trick request. Or for him to ask her questions that would prove her intelligence. When they continued to walk in silence, she glanced up at him.

“That’s pretty cool.” He met her gaze and smiled. “So when did you decide to change your name?”

“After I graduated. My parents wanted me to continue to get my doctorate, but I was done. At that point, I had some pretty big companies trying to recruit me. All that sounded so much more exciting than continuing on with school. So, for once, I told my parents no. Suffice it to say, they were notpleased, so I walked away and didn’t look back. Changing my name was my little act of rebellion.”

“Good for you. I can’t imagine it was easy.”

She shrugged. “I’d been on my own for so long already that it didn’t really matter. I got scholarships for all my schooling, and it included boarding. And the private firms threw big money at me.”

“You worked for Orion, right? Digital security?”

She smiled and nodded. “That was a lot of fun.” She’d dabbled in hacking before, but once she started working at Orion, one of the world’s trillion-dollar online retail companies, to hack into their various systems, there had been no stopping her. “I was really good, and it wasn’t long until I was on the FBI’s and CIA’s radar.”

“They recruited you hard.”

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