When Helena finds a phone on the night train, she decides to text the first number in the list of contacts in order to figure out who it belongs to.
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Helena | Adam
I SPENT THE BETTER PART of my Sunday morning and afternoon slogging through my biomedical assignment while my sister marathoned Shameless on our second-hand TV.
Flipping through numerous textbooks and handouts, I willed my brain to keep working, to keep focusing, but the words were blurring together, forming jumbled sentences. And when I realized that I couldn't remember anything I'd read in the last chapter, I exhaled loudly, my gaze flickering to where Emmy was sprawled out on the couch.
"Are you getting hungry, Em?" I asked, twisting around and sitting cross-legged.
"Mmm," my sister mumbled distractedly.
With a roll of my eyes and another exasperated sigh, I diverted my attention to my darkened laptop screen. I pressed a key, waking it up from sleep mode, and began trawling the Internet for something simple—easy and inexpensive—I could fix us for dinner. I'd always been a better baker than a cook, but after losing our parents four years ago, I had no choice but to learn a few recipes that weren't a total disaster. Thankfully, Emmy never complained about my lackluster culinary skills.
One Internet search led to another, and I found myself typing Adam Bauer into Google, saying goodbye to my self-control and, ultimately, my dignity. Unable to take my mind off him since our last conversation, it had required supreme mental effort not to look him up sooner.
My brow curved, surprised when the search words returned a plethora of results. Clicking on the first link—AB & Consultants—it brought up what I could only assume was the homepage of his company's website, alongside a long list of the services they provided. From analytics to marketing and sales, AB & Consultants specialized in finances and helping their clients improve their business turnover.
Feeling like I was nowhere near smart enough to understand half of the legal jargon, I briefly skimmed the company's web page and all of their listed credentials. Various images of the tall building and the big, fancy conference rooms were on a timed slideshow, showcasing that AB & Consultants were in the big leagues. Huh.
Noticing the About tab, my finger hovered over the trackpad, and I pretended to mull it over and hesitate.
Who am I kidding?
When the page finally refreshed, my mouth fell open.
Staring back at me was Adam Bauer, AKA Clark Kent reincarnate. I felt my insides heat up, realizing that the guy I'd been texting since Wednesday night was Adonis himself and not some prepubescent boy. I didn't know what I'd been expecting to find, but it definitely hadn't been... him.
