Authors: Kyra Jacobs
She laughed. “It has felt like forever, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t want to hear it, lady. I’ve been missing you for a
month
. You’ve been lonely for a few days.”
“Well, not completely lonely. I mean, my mom’s been here a ton. And my dad. And Matt’s been stopping by and bringing me lunch every day. Was
he
ever a sight for sore eyes.”
I made my way over to the bed and took a seat. “He was miserable without you, you know.”
“That’s what he kept telling me. You kept him in line while I was asleep, right?”
More like he kept me in line
.
“Of course.”
She sighed. “You know, I should probably call in to work. Let Michael know I’m back among the living.”
“No!” I launched myself off the bed and began pacing around the room. How could she possibly be thinking about work already? “I mean, no, you don’t need to. I’ve…I’ve been communicating with him for you. While you’ve been off.”
Silence.
Please buy into it, please buy into it…
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. See, your cell phone rang a few days after your accident. And so I answered it.” The lie rolled off my tongue as easy as butter off a hot ear of corn. “Poor Michael was an absolute mess.
So
concerned. He, uh, he’s been sending flowers, even. Did you see the ones in your room?”
“Aw, what a sweetheart he is. Yes, they’re beautiful. Maybe I should call and thank him for that.”
“No!”
Damn it!
How was I supposed to keep her from calling him? And then another lie popped into my head. One I hoped,
prayed
, would seal the deal. “You can’t. See, when I called him Monday with the news that you were awake, he said that he and, uh, what was his secretary’s name?”
“Vanessa?”
“Oh, yeah, Vanessa. He and Vanessa were on their way to the airport. Had some big conference to go to. Out in Vegas. Would be gone until next week sometime. But he promised they’d come see you after they got back.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll just look forward to seeing them next week, then. Thanks, Jess, for keeping him in the loop.”
Or keeping him out of it. As far out as possible.
* * * *
I found Nate in the living room, standing before the picture of him and Charlie from their hiking trip to the Rockies.
“Whattcha doin’?” I wrapped my arms around his waist.
He reached down and pulled me closer. “Daydreaming.”
“About you and
Charlie
?” I said, unable to contain the giggle that followed.
Nate threw me a look. “No.”
“Then…about what?”
“About how, when this is all over, I’m going to take you out there.” He tipped his head toward the picture. “So we can spend some time together, just the two of us. Away from all this chaos.”
I turned my head toward the picture and tried to imagine sleeping under the stars on a mesa in the middle of nowhere. Population: two. But I knew better than to get my hopes up just yet. Who knew where we’d be when this whole undercover mission ended?
“We’ll see.”
His hand cupped my chin, bringing my eyes back to him. He stared down at me for a moment, searching. “You don’t believe me.”
“Believe what?” I tried to look away, but his hand held my chin still.
“How is it you can trust me with your life, yet be so afraid to trust me with your heart?”
“I’m not afraid.” I pulled away. Pretended to find another framed portrait interesting.
He came to stand between me and the wall. “Liar.”
This wasn’t exactly a conversation I wanted to have right now. Heck, I’d just come to accept that moving on was a good thing, a doable thing. Would I ruin it all if I shared with Nate my doubts of ever finding true love? That those doubts haunted me each and every day?
He gazed down at me, the look in his eyes begging me to trust him. But could I? His hand came up to smooth the worry from my brow, then trailed down my cheek. Without another word, he closed the gap between us and pressed his lips gently into mine.
The ice around my heart, previously thick and virtually impenetrable, began to melt.
“Stay here with me tonight,” I whispered.
“Of course.”
Nate pulled me in close and planted a kiss on the top of my head, then recoiled with a cough. “But only if you promise to comb out some of that damned hairspray.” He shook his head. “Remind me to have Marissa find you a hairstyle that requires less product next time.”
Chapter 29
“So, I promised Grace I’d come by and see her tonight.”
It was 4:30 Thursday morning, and Nate had just made his sweep through my house again. I’d waited until this morning to bring up my plans, in the hopes that he’d be less likely to dismiss the idea in his not-quite-awake-yet state. Though, since we’d
behaved
last night—Charlie was in the next bedroom over—maybe that hadn’t been the best idea. The sexual tension between us this morning was wound tighter than the strings on a tennis racket.
“Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“Jess, it’s too dangerous. They know she’s there, and they’ve tried following you home. Hell, that’s probably why they didn’t follow you yesterday—they were probably sitting outside Metzler, waiting for you to show up so they could bust your kneecaps.”
I looked down at my knees and cringed. And here I’d been all worried about my nose.
“Well, what if I don’t go straight there? And maybe had a police escort?”
He cast a glare in my direction.
“What? You look dashing in your uniform. And it’ll make one hell of a first impression with Grace.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes.
“Come on. You can walk me to the door, stake the place out while I get her all prettied up—she’ll freak if you walk in and she doesn’t look her usual, fabulous self—and then you can come and meet her. Maybe even show her a picture of Mr. Phil-whatever-his-name-was and see if she’s ever seen him before.”
The name butchering finally got Nate to crack a smile. “Alright. But if I get the sense that something’s amiss, we’re leaving. No ifs, ands, or buts. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said with a salute.
Nate shook his head, planted a kiss on my cheek, and headed for his car.
* * * *
“Michael, can you tell me something?”
He looked up from a red ink massacre on the document he’d been proofing and smiled. “Sure, what’s up?”
I gave him a gracious smile and took a seat across from him, a notepad and file folder in my hands. “Well, now that I’m paying invoices, I thought it might be helpful to understand what each of them are for.”
A look of confusion crossed his face.
“You know, in case someone from any of these companies calls with questions.”
“Oh,” he said, the proverbial light bulb now glowing brightly over his head. “Excellent idea. I’d be happy to give you an overview of our suppliers. Which ones did you have questions about?”
I flipped open the folder and read from the first invoice in the stack. “Paper Depot?”
“We order paper for all our printers, scanners and plotters from them.”
I made note of that and flipped to the next page. “Safety Supplies?”
“They come in and restock all our First Aid kits each month. And check our fire extinguishers.”
“Okay…” Getting paid to restock medicine cabinets? Sounded like easy money to me. I made a note and moved on. “Steuben Environmental?”
“That’s our after-hours cleaning company.”
I nodded and jotted down another note. The words ‘after hours’ caught my attention. I glanced back to the invoice.
The lettering was maroon.
Steuben? Steuben
County
? Home of Angola, Indiana?
I looked closer at the document. The cleaning company’s billing address was a PO Box, and listed just above it were the words,
Attn: M. Phillippe
.
My mouth went dry.
“Any others, Jessica?”
I jumped in my seat. My pen skittered off my notepad and fell onto the floor.
“Um, yes. Sorry, hang on.” I slid off the chair to grab my pen, then resumed my seat and flipped to the next page. Looked down at the next vendor and swallowed hard. “Morrisson Consulting Group?”
Michael leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Morrisson Consulting... Oh, you mean MCG?”
“Sure?” Maxwell Office Solutions and their damned acronyms.
“Yes, they do market analysis for us.”
“Market analysis?”
“You know. Comparisons between us and our competitors. Surveys. Things like that.”
Damn. I’d been hoping for something that sounded less…legitimate. No smoking gun there. “Do we use them fairly often, then?”
Michael shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Two, maybe three times a year.”
I jotted that down, and made a mental note to call my mother again later. See what Angola dirt she might have on either of the two companies. Then I turned to the next vendor in my stack, determined to dilute my line of questioning. “Budget Saver Rentals?”
* * * *
I spent the rest of the day fretting about M. Phillipe and his potential role in all of this. It wasn’t until I was on my way out that night, that I realized I hadn’t seen Vanessa all day. As I came upon her desk, I began to wonder if I would have recognized her even if I had. Her beautiful caramel curls hung limp around her face, which was glued to her computer monitor. Gone was usual armload of accessories, and her usual porcelain complexion was dotted with not one, but two angry-looking blemishes.
“Vanessa? Are you alright?”
Her eyes darted to my face. “Fine. Yes, everything’s fine. Of course it’s fine. Why do you ask?”
Fine? She was jumpier than a mouse in a box full of traps. “You just look a little more stressed than usual.”
“Ha!” She kept her eyes from mine, and her hands in constant motion repositioning anything within reach on her desk. “Stressed? Me? I don’t get stressed, Jessica. Especially when there’s nothing to be stressed about.”
It
had
to be PMS.
“Well, then I hope you have a wonderful evening. See ya tomorrow.”
“Okay then,” she said. “Goodnight.”
I passed through our department’s main door and headed down the hall toward the elevator. As I waited for it to arrive, I spun off a text to Nate letting him know I’d meet him at the curb shortly. No worrying about being tailed tonight. Not unless they wanted to get themselves in a whole lot of trouble.
I couldn’t help but smile.
But that smile faded when the elevator arrived and I caught sight of its lone occupant: Mr. Milo Finnegan. The stairwell was out of the question—this was my only option. I swallowed hard and stepped inside.
“Evening,” I said with a polite nod.
Milo’s face lit up. “Well good evening, Miss Hartley.” The elevator doors closed. Milo shifted in his stance. “And how is Michael treating you? Fairly, I would expect?”
“Yes, I—”
Milo reached over and pushed the stop button.
My skin began to crawl. “He’s treating me quite well, thank you.”
Milo dropped his arm and moved away from the panel of buttons. In my direction.
My palms got clammy. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Finnegan?”
He studied me for a moment, then took a step closer. “Yes. Yes there is.”
I reached up and put a hand around my pendant. Hoped to God I’d remembered to flip my barrette on this morning, and that Nate was listening from the parking lot. “What is it?”
He reached out and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “That a young,
talented
woman such as yourself is being absolutely wasted in Michael’s area.” His hand dropped to my shoulder. Then began to move down the outside of my arm. His eyes followed the movement. “Why, with your…talent…I’m sure we could have you moving up the ladder in no time. If, that is, you just ask for a
leg up
.”