From Ashes of Scandal to His Embrace (Laurinda) novel Chapter 275

Locke watched the way Laurinda’s mood shifted. He let go of the idea of teaming up with FarrVector for now. The urgency in his voice faded, and he spoke with a lazy drawl.

“So, you’re this brat’s girlfriend? Do you even know what my relationship is with him?”

Laurinda caught the change in Locke right away, and a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She glanced at Adolphus and tossed the question right back to him.

“Adolphus, aren’t you going to introduce who Locke is?”

Adolphus couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the way she put it, like she’d just made Locke out to be his dad. He slid an arm around Laurinda’s waist and pulled her gently against him.

“This is my brother, Locke. Locke, this is Laurinda, my girlfriend.”

Laurinda’s voice was soft and sweet as she greeted him.

“Hi, Locke.”

Locke nodded, looking pleased.

“There you go. That’s better. We’re all family, but you were acting all business-like. No need to be so stiff with us. Even if we’ve got some work to talk about, there’s no reason to keep things so formal. I promise I won’t let you guys get the short end of the stick. You just let me know when you’re free, and we’ll sit down for a proper chat about working together.”

Laurinda grinned.

“No problem. Since we’re all family, I can have my team set things up for you first. Try it out and see how it works. We’ll talk details after. It’s our first time using this software in a real operation, anyway.”

Locke hadn’t expected he could actually get a trial run. That settled it for him. He and Laurinda quickly settled on a time for installation and testing, and he made up his mind on the spot. He was taking Laurinda to the Flame Training Base today.

He told Adolphus and Laurinda to wait a minute, then hurried off to find Abigail. Together, they went to wish Raines a happy birthday and hand over their gift.

“You’re always blaming me. Your ex-wife insulted you right to your face and you didn’t even defend yourself.”

Patten’s face darkened.

“Don’t bring her up. You two have done nothing but make me look like a fool.”

He didn’t want to argue anymore. He shook off her hand and stalked off, unable to stand another minute at the party. He could feel the other guests whispering and staring.

By the time Laurinda and the others reached the Flame Training Base, the whole team was already in bed. Locke barely gave Laurinda a chance to look around before leading her straight to the engineering department. He’d already arranged a private workspace just for her.

“Laurinda, let’s skip the formalities. We’ve got a drill coming up in a week. That gives us the perfect window to test your software. If it performs well, we’ll roll it out and finally ditch all that old, outdated tech.”