Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

Grief on his part, maybe? And the shock of being thrust into this seemingly alternative reality on hers? This ruffling and needling and poking at each other should feel stressful, fraught…nerve-racking. It didn’t, though. It felt enlivening…energising.

For a moment earlier she’d even thought Owen had wanted to kiss her. It had sent a thrill of something gloriously reckless powering through her veins and—

Don’t even go there.

She wasn’t getting involved with anyone at the moment. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to start a relationship, so what was the point?

Fun? The word had some of the hardness inside her wanting to soften and thaw, but she refused to let it. That kind of fun would distract her from working on the things that really mattered—work and stability. The distraction might look tempting, but it wasn’t worth it. Not in the long run.

She tossed her head and forced herself back to the conversation. ‘The downside of working from home, of course, is not having workmates,’ she said.

She missed her work colleagues. Not Dominic and the Head of Faculty—she didn’t miss them one little bit. But the rest of the staff in the history department had been a fun bunch. They’d welcomed her, advised her, and on occasion challenged her. They’d taught her so much about becoming an efficient researcher and a good teacher. She missed them. She missed her students too. She’d hate to work from home like Owen did.

She glanced down to find cool grey eyes assessing her. He leaned back in his chair, the poster evidently forgotten. ‘You miss the people you work with, Callie? I’m guessing you’re not a computer nerd. What is it that you do?’

‘Did,’ she corrected. ‘Past tense. I was a junior history lecturer at a university back home.’

‘You were fired?’

‘Nothing so dramatic. I was “let go”.’ She made air quotes. ‘My contract wasn’t renewed.’

His eyes gentled. ‘Downsizing?’

‘The powers that be are always trying to downsize the arts.’ Not that she’d really been a victim of downsizing. She’d been a victim of sexism and an old-style boys’ club mentality. It wasn’t a mistake she’d make again.

She glanced around his office. ‘It must be nice to be so good at something and to be valued for it. I envy you.’

‘I’m sure you were very good at what you did.’

She’d thought so too. She’d thought she was safe. ‘Maybe if I’d been better at it I wouldn’t have been let go.’

‘We both know that workplace politics comprise so much more than a worker’s individual worth, Callie.’

‘Truer words…’ she quipped, refusing to dwell on her sense of injury and the stinging injustice of it all. She’d keep her eyes firmly fixed on the main prize. ‘Currently I’m between jobs, but there are prospects on the horizon—’ good prospects ‘—and I’m quite sure work colleagues will feature in my future.’

‘Good for you.’

‘What about you? Don’t you miss having work colleagues?’ she asked as he turned back to the screen. ‘Though I suppose you’re an island complete unto himself.’

His lips twitched, and she had the oddest feeling she could stare at those lips all day.

‘I might not go into an office on a daily basis, but I’m not a hermit. I have online meetings, brainstorming sessions with other programmers. And outside of work this apartment block is a little community in itself.’

One she was currently excluded from. Being excluded sucked. She needed to do something to change that.

‘I also see my family and friends regularly,’ he said.

She held up a piece of sporting memorabilia—a pewter man swinging some kind of bat mounted on a shiny walnut base. ‘And who do you attend ballgames with?’

‘Don’t drop that—it’s a limited edition. Not cheap.’

She very carefully placed it back on its shelf. ‘What sort of ballgame…?’

‘Baseball. And the fact you had to ask tells me you know nothing about ballgames.’

‘Not a thing.’ And, strangely enough, her life didn’t feel the poorer for it.

‘And sometimes,’ he continued, ‘when I’m wrestling with the logic of a particularly difficult piece of code, I’ll work at a nearby coffee house.’

She clapped her hands beneath her chin. ‘Like the one in Friends?’

He laughed. ‘It looks nothing like the one in Friends. It’s larger…more beaten up…no sofas.’

‘It sounds kinda cool.’

‘It is. You’d probably like it. Lots of guys in high-powered suits.’

‘Oh, I’m sold! Address, please? I’ll make sure to drop by.’

His hand stilled on the keyboard. Above the photo of Barney that was centred on the page he’d written Found and beneath that he’d written Answers to the name of Barn.

‘You want to meet someone while you’re here?’ he asked.

A temporary fling with a like-minded guy would be the perfect way to drive Dominic from her mind and her heart once and for all—that and the job. Her heart pounded up into her throat. The job… She had to convince the producers of that show that she was the perfect candidate.

She released her breath and shook her head. ‘I can’t afford the distraction of a fling at the moment.’ She pointed to his screen. ‘It’s Barney. With an E-Y. B-A-R-N-E-Y.’

He typed E-Y. ‘Distraction from what?’

She couldn’t work out if he was grilling her or if he was genuinely interested. ‘When I told you I didn’t know what my plans were, I meant about my inheritance and this building.’ Now that she knew he lived here and worked from here, his concern made more sense. ‘But I have a job plan I’m working on.’

He spun around on his chair. ‘Which is…?’

She gestured to his spare chair, silently asking if she could sit in it.

‘Knock yourself out.’ He grabbed the pile of files on it and set them on his desk.

‘Have you heard of the TV programme Mystery Family Trees? It’s a British TV series that’s proved so popular in the UK they’ve made an Australian version too.’

His brow creased. ‘The show where they trace a celebrity’s genealogy?’

‘That’s the one. Well, they’re now in the process of putting a team together to make an American version of the show.’

‘Uh-huh…’

‘And I’m