Gone - Part One Read Online Free PDF Page B

few months. If I'm not going to get my dream job, I'm going to focus more on developing my own apps. Right now, the ones I do have available are bringing in a few hundred extra dollars each month. I need to increase that tenfold if I want to give up my job at the café.
    I spend the next hour organizing my files, saving the important ones on flash drives and tidying up my room. In less than an hour I need to be at work which means now is my chance to have something substantial to eat. I try to avoid the sugary pastries that are brought in for the display case each day. It's a temptation that is often too hard to resist but I'm working on rediscovering the willpower I seem to have misplaced when I started college. I decide on a turkey sandwich on rye and a glass of juice.
    Just as I'm settling next to the kitchen table to enjoy my modest feast I hear movement outside the apartment door. For someone studying for a career in law, Roni isn't the most organized person I know. She's dragged me out of class more than a handful of times over the last two years because she forgot her keys in the apartment. I race to the door to let her in, knowing that she likely bought way more groceries than either of us will be able to consume in a month's time.
    "You can thank me later for rescuing you," I say with a smile as I swing open the door.
    "I'll thank you now." His mouth curves into a grin as his eyes skim over the red boy shorts and tank top I'm wearing.
    "Mr. Parker?"
    "Lilly Randall." His voice is deep and seductive. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"
     

Chapter 7
     
    "I wasn't expecting you," I mutter as I walk back into the main room after excusing myself to get dressed. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a back sleeveless turtleneck sweater before freeing my long red hair from the ponytail it's been in all morning. "I don't normally answer the door like that."
    "I should have called first." He turns from the bookcase he's been standing in front of for the past few minutes. "I was at MIT and decided to take a chance that you'd be home."
    "You were at MIT?" I don't even try to veil the surprise in the words. I'm still reeling from the shock of seeing him standing in my doorway. Add to that the sheer horror of again revealing my underwear choice to him, and it's a wonder I didn't climb onto the fire escape outside my bedroom window. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that he was at my alma mater to confirm I graduated from the computer science program with honors.  I'm hopeful that was part of his visit though.
    "I had business in Boston today," he stops before he corrects himself. "Personal business and I thought I'd stop in there and catch up with an old friend."
    The fact that he's talking to me at all isn't lost on me. "Why are you here?"
    "I spoke to Rowan after you left yesterday." He pulls on the fabric of the pants covering his thighs before he lowers his tall frame into a beige rocking chair. "She showed me some of the emails you'd sent to us over the years."
    I had hoped for a very brief moment in time on the train ride back to Boston that he'd discuss me with her. The optimistic part of me wanted to believe that she'd convince him that my technical ability trumped everything else. The more realistic part of me knew that she'd likely tell him that I used my brief encounters with Parker to get my foot in the door.
    By the time I finally got off the train after the three and half hour ride, I felt despondent. I'm not a foolish person. The knowledge that I may have lost the promise of a fulfilling career because of a mistake I made online is devastating.
    "Have you spoken to Parker at all since you saw him at the bistro?" he asks softly.
    I shake my head faintly. "No. I don’t have his number and I haven't emailed him. I regret what happened with Parker."
    "How did you initially connect with him?"
    I swallow hard. It's not a question that has a simple answer and it's going to bring back to the surface a topic I'd rather