Cracking the Dating Code by Kelly Hunter Read Free Book Online

continued presence in the outer office as he spoke on the phone only made it flutter more. She heard him asking for details, and she got up and put Tomas’s headphones on and caught Seb’s eye as she half shut the door.
    Shutting it completely was a very bad idea given the hardware in the room and the potential for overheating, but an earful of music she could do, and in doing so give him privacy in which to work and hopefully make him feel happier about her continued presence.
    Easy to lose herself in her own work after that, and the challenge of a cipher that wasn’t designed to be broken without the right key.
    The solution was very simple.
    All she had to do was figure out what that right key might be.
    It didn’t seem more than twenty minutes before Seb was knocking on the half-closed door, and Poppy looked round at him with a frown.
    Seb rolled his eyes and approached her chair. Lifted one of her earphones and said in her ear, ‘It’s six o’clock, Poppy. You planning to work through the night or are you going to come and eat?’
    Well, when he put it like that…
    Poppy stood and stretched, and decided to let her latest attempt at cracking this thing keep on running. As for her hyper-awareness of Sebastian, it was still there, but running alongside it now was the surprising notion that she felt quite comfortable in his presence, in the same way she felt comfortable around family.
    Not shy or awkward, or worse, trying not to be shy and becoming even more awkward. Just… he was treating her as if he already knew her ways and didn’t find them odd. No comment, no questions that made her feel like a freak—he just took her in his stride. How long had it been since anyone other than family had simply taken her in their stride?
    Points for Seb. Especially seeing as shehadn’t taken his eccentricities—like swimming with sharks, for example—in her stride at all.
    ‘What happened with the oil spill?’ she asked.
    ‘Not a lot. AMSA’s going to try and contain the slick but there’s no getting back onto the rig to do any assessment at the moment. It’s too dangerous.’
    ‘Who’s AMSA?’
    ‘The Australian Maritime Safety Authority.’
    ‘Will you get involved at a later date?’
    ‘Probably not. This particular parent company has the resources to do their own dirty work. We’re closer, but no one’s getting near the leak any time soon anyway. Cheaper for them to mobilise a drillship and a crew out of Singapore, even if it does take five weeks for them to get there. We’ll stay in the loop, though. Could be we’ll be needed. How’d your work go today?’
    ‘Bad.’ They’d reached the kitchen and suddenly she was starving. ‘What are you cooking?’
    ‘Fish stew.’
    ‘Like last night,’ she murmured.
    ‘Not like last night at all,’ he said, deadpan. ‘I added beans.’
    Poppy smiled as she peered into the pot of fragrant, coconut-milk-laden stew. Man was a comedian. ‘What else do you do around here for entertainment?’
    ‘Are you flirting with me?’
    ‘No.’ Her powers of flirtation had always been non-existent, ask anyone.
    Not that Sebastian needed to know any of that. He was to some extent a clean slate. He didn’t know much about her at all.
    ‘Because you can if you want.’ He shot her a crooked smile. ‘Feel free.’
    ‘You want me to flirt with you,’ said Poppy slowly.
    ‘Only if you feel like it. Something to pass the time. Besides, it’s good practice.’
    ‘Practice?’ The beginnings of an idea flitted through Poppy’s brain. Poppy prided herself on being good at what she did. The best. And when it came to her work, a combination of natural aptitude and a great deal of practice had put her at the top. Could her uselessness at flirting really be addressed that simply? ‘You think I need practice?’
    ‘Hard to say,’ he murmured. ‘Do you?’
    ‘Maybe.’ Maybe a lot. ‘My sister, Lena, tried to show me how to flirt once. It didn’t end well.’
    ‘For