Tectonic (Double Blind Study Book 3)

by Heidi Hutchinson

  “You're falling for me?”

  His mouth tugged up on one side. “No. In full disclosure, I'm already gone.”

  Greta's heart decided at that moment to start pounding like a jackhammer in her chest. It hurt in the same measure that it felt fantastic.

  “Well then, in full disclosure,” she licked her lips and watched as his eyes heated, “ditto.”

  Then his mouth was on hers and her hands were in his hair. Her back hit the wall and he pressed against her as the kiss went wild.

  When his mouth broke free from hers to travel across her cheek to her ear and down her neck, she gasped against him.

  “Shane!” she exclaimed, gripping his shoulders with her hands.

  “Right here, baby,” he responded. His voice was so deep she felt it vibrate in her sternum, and it almost made her lose hold on the piece of information that had launched into her brain seconds before.

  “No, Shane, wait,” she breathed and pushed against him.

  His head came up immediately and he looked at her with confused concern. He really liked her. Like really liked her. And she loved that. But they could make out later, this was important.

  “You said Ted Trippy is your board builder?” she asked quickly.

  His frown deepened. “Yeah.”

  “Harmony's dad owns the bank that owns the loan for Trippy Incorporated.”

  Understanding and disbelief dawned simultaneously on Shane's face. “How do you know that?”

  Greta rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “The Jeffords like to brag. They also like to push people around. Ted's sister is a pretty regular coffee customer. Iced caramel macchiato with extra whip.”

  She waved off his confused expression.

  “She comes in all the time. I overheard her telling Laura, who has Fresh Pots' loan through the same bank, to get it moved, before Old Man Jeffords started twisting the screws like he was with her brother. Something about increasing the interest and not applying payment until after the due date in order to rack up fees. I'm not a big finance expert, but that sounds shady as hell.”

  Greta stopped speaking then, a stray memory flickering through her mind. She could make a phone call. One phone call and all of this would be cleared up.

  “Would Harmony be able to do something like that?” Shane asked carefully.

  Greta refocused on him. If she made that phone call, that could make things with Shane cool off in record-breaking time. No, they could figure this out together.

  “What do you think? Has Harmony ever been happy with losing something she wants?” Greta returned.

  “But I never had anything serious with Harm. It was just sex.”

  “Ew, thanks for that,” Greta muttered dryly and then pushed on. “I don't know if she would or wouldn't do that. All I'm saying is, the girl has her poison in people all along the coast. It took me months to eradicate her from your inner circle and I don't think it's any kind of a coincidence that she's connected, even marginally, to your recent troubles.”

  His body tensed while she was speaking and since it was still mostly pressed to hers, she felt it right away.

  “There is a lot there we need to go over,” Shane stated seriously.

  Greta nodded, “I agree. But we should probably go over it when you don't have me pinned to the wall in my hotel room.”

  Shane's serious look melted into a sexy half-smile and his eyes roamed her face and hair. “Yeah,” he whispered roughly, “totally gone for you.”

  Greta's jackhammer-heart stopped and she had to swallow the lump that was now in her throat.

  He let her go before she really had a chance to respond. But if he had given her just another moment to get her thoughts in order, she would have told him how she really felt about him. She would have said that she had been gone for him the moment he cornered her with his drunk, sloppy grin in a loud bar named Pauly's. That, for the first time in her life, she realized what all the fuss was with falling in love. She'd never felt it before. Now, she had no doubt that that's exactly what this was.

  Shane crossed the room and pulled open the door to the hallway.

  “C'mon, crazy girl, let's get some hot chocolate and we can go over all the information you have stored in that fantastic head of yours.”

  Greta pulled in a deep breath, smiled brightly, and joined her guy at the door.

  Someway, somehow, in one of their next conversations, she was going to slip in the invitation for him to come home with her for Christmas.

  Chapter 13

  Faster

  The hot chocolate was good. Not too creamy, not watered down, just the right amount of chocolate with the proper ratio of marshmallows.

  Shane and Greta sat close on an overstuffed loveseat in an alcove with a window to the white world outside.

  Greta's dark hair was untangled from her hair-tie, her fingers twirling through the ends absentmindedly. Her faded blue jean-clad legs were folded and her knees pressed to her chest as she sat sideways facing Shane. The snug sky blue thermal she'd chosen to wear, along with the light reflecting off the snow outside, made her eyes glow with intensity.

  It was after the chocolate was gone and the mugs set aside. It was after she'd given a very detailed explanation as to why the chocolate to marshmallow ratio was so important. After their talk turned serious and they began to focus on his issues at work. After she'd listened for a long time, her blue eyes thoughtful and earnest.

  She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down, drawing a careful breath before resting the side of her head against the back of the seat. She wrapped her arms around her legs and proceeded to rock Shane's world.

  “Someone is messing with you.” Her lips hardly moved and he wouldn't have heard her at all if the lobby had had any kind of a crowd in it. She kept going, “I mean, I have no proof or anything, but from what you're telling me and my own personal beliefs... someone is totally screwing with your life, Shane.”

  It's exactly what he'd been thinking, but was afraid to say out loud to anyone for fear they'd think he was being paranoid. Sort of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf scenario.

  His past actions and his subsequent attempt at putting the blame on those around him had earned him a reputation such that no one would take him seriously when crap started falling from the sky. He had milked Lenny's accident to get pity for himself, disregarding the fact that he had contributed to her injuries in the first place. Whenever he placed lower than expected in an event, he put blame on the board, his team, the landscape itself, instead of owning his own inability to perform that day. By now, he had gotten used to people rolling their eyes when he even sort of alluded to something else being the cause of any of his own misfortunes.

  And weren't they right? Wasn't his life his own to screw up? Who else could really be held responsible for what was his?

  He had finally recognized a couple of years ago the knowledge that he had taken the people around him for granted enough that he would be facing most obstacles alone. The day-to-day struggle of building a future, his tenuous dreams of business ownership, his inner desire to excel at his chosen profession. All of that he knew he'd be facing by himself.

  It was what he had earned.

  But this was Greta, the most gorgeous and straightforward person he'd ever known. The girl who had no issue taking his back whenever she felt it was warranted, verifying his unspoken suspicions.

  Her words stirred something intense inside. He felt it settle deep in his bones.

  He'd carried around his guilt over his misuse of Lenny's heart for years now. He'd betrayed her as a lover, as a friend and finally as a fellow sportsman. Belligerently denying any wrongdoing in his actions, he would have continued down that path, crushing more people along the way.

  Lenny's open confrontation during the X-Games had been the wake-up call he'd deserved. And really, it was the only thing that probably would have gotten his attention. He hadn't even realized how much she had changed with him until he saw her that day in the
interview and her fire was back. She lit up the tent like a beacon and he was blinded by her confident radiance. He had stalked out of there not mad at her. No, he was furious. At himself.

  That's when he'd started to turn things around, not with a small amount of guilt and self-castigation. Lenny was amazing, always had been, and he'd abused that trust. That was when he'd decided that if he ever got a shot at something beautiful and pure like that again, he wouldn't drag her into his selfish ambition. He wouldn't sully his gift.

  Which is probably one of the many reasons it would never have worked out with Lucy. He never planned on sharing with her details about his life goals, his dreams for his business and what he would consider a professional success. He was so intent on not treating her like he had Lenny that he had compartmentalized his whole life. Lucy was in a box all by herself. He had separate boxes for work, his friends, and his fears. His intent had been to never let the boxes bleed into one another, with the exception of Lucy being around his friends occasionally.

  But here was Greta, reshaping what he considered “right-thinking.” Not only bleeding into the other boxes of his life, but full on mixing them into brand new colors, her touch evident throughout.

  He liked it.

  That was when he realized what he'd been missing in his life. Not just someone to keep his bed warm and make him laugh. Greta gave him more than that. She took his back, listened to him, supported his ideas, shared in his worry, shared in his excitement, shared in his life.

  He didn't just like all that. He freaking loved it.

  “Do you have any idea who would want to mess with your business?” she asked softly, staying focused.

  He shook his head and looked out the window. “No, I'm not big enough to be a threat to any competitors, and most of them have contributed to where I'm at now anyway. I haven't burned any of those bridges, so I can't see anyone in the industry having that kind of an issue with me.”

  “Then that leaves Harmony,” Greta said to her knees.

  Shane frowned. “Except that doesn't make sense to me.”

  Greta's eyes met his and she scrunched her nose. “Before you came back she was sleeping with two doctors where I worked and trying to move in with Adam.”

  Bile crept into his throat at the reminder that he'd had that in his bed. He pushed it down with a swallow. “That doesn't do much but make me nauseous, sweetness.”

  “My gut tells me that she's trying to get herself a rich husband.”

  “Hers or someone else's?” Shane quipped sarcastically.

  Greta's lips tipped up slightly but she remained serious. “She's the commonality, and I refuse to believe in coincidence.”

  Shane felt the smirk happen before he could stop it. “I don't either.”

  Her eyes focused on his mouth and her cheeks turned a brighter hue of pink.

  “Is it wrong that I just want to kiss you all the time?” she asked, catching him a little off guard.

  “No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that,” he answered quickly with a grin.

  “It's just that you're handsome, and smart, and I really like the beard. Plus, I like to watch your mouth when you talk. I like the way it moves and the words that come out of it.”

  He watched her face as she spoke, noting the soft and sweet, creating the perfect combination. She wasn't trying to flatter him. This was one of those Greta moments where she blurted out exactly what she was thinking and damn the consequences.

  “Not to mention you're really great at the whole kissing thing. I may have told you about my less-than-stellar past experiences, but you have never come close to disappointing,” she blathered on.

  As she spoke, he stretched his arm along the back of the loveseat until it came to her face. She lifted it, letting his hand glide across her cheek, his thumb resting on the apple, the rest of his fingers sliding into her hair.

  She fell silent.

  “You know, I don't care too much to hear about any other guys who've had your mouth on theirs,” he said, his voice rough. “But it is kind of nice to know they were all idiots. Because I can't imagine any man worth his mettle having an opportunity to give the world to you, and not spending his entire life trying to do just that. Especially if it meant having your sweetness by his side.”

  Her lips curved into a shy smile; he felt that settled feeling in his bones take a firmer hold.

  ***

  Harmony tapped her pen on the top of her breakfast bar impatiently. “You're absolutely sure you did exactly as I instructed?”

  “Yes,” came the answer, along with a heavy sigh that Harmony did not find helpful. She should be the one sighing. After all, it was her future happiness on the line, not her nearly incompetent cousin's.

  “If you screw this up, Geoffrey, so help me...” She didn't finish her threat because she didn't need to, and Geoffrey knew it.

  Geoffrey Jeffords hadn't been blessed with a lot of things in life, starting with his unfortunate name. But where he was lacking in any charming physical and social attributes, he made up for it in an enormous brain and the ability to put it to use for whatever needs should arise amongst family members. He was the go-to guy for all the things they needed done under the radar. He handled everything from hiding assets in offshore accounts to changing the grades of the younger cousins in school to ensure the Jeffords stayed firm in their hard-earned social status for years to come.

  Right now he was confirming that the shipping errors for Soaring Bird would be tracked back to faulty inventory checks made by warehouse employees. And the money Harmony had used to bribe Ted Trippy into halting manufacturing would look like it came from Greta's personal savings account still in Boston.

  The shipping issue alone would look like a fluke, an oversight, bad management. But the issues with Trippy would cause a huge mess.

  Bribing Ted Trippy was one of the hardest things Harmony had ever done. For one, the guy had a fairly strong moral compass and had flat-out refused to even entertain her idea. But when she mentioned that his difficult-to-pay bank loan would be giving him a lot less leeway each month, he began to cave. Then she sealed the deal by using his sick daughter's expensive medical treatments as incentive to give her exactly what she wanted.

  It wasn't cheap. It pretty much took everything she had to pay for the kid's treatment for the next eighteen months, with the additional amount he would be losing when he cut Shane off temporarily.

  But that's exactly what this was supposed to be.

  Temporary.

  As soon as Shane started to feel it get tight, Harmony would step in and save the day. Reinstating Shane's business and revealing Greta to be the mastermind, while shoving her back down the social ladder that she'd had the audacity to attempt to climb. If Harmony had as much influence on Shane's dick as she used to, she might even be able to convince him to press charges.

  Putting an O'Neil in jail would be the cherry on top. Her mother would be so proud.

  “And there is no way the money can be traced back to me?” Harmony didn't even try to disguise the fact that she believed Geoffrey was an imbecile. A useful one, but still.

  “Geez, Harm, what I do for uncle Hal and his cronies in Washington is harder than what I had to do for you,” Geoffrey added. Harmony didn't appreciate his tone, but she decided not to address it.

  “Good.” Harmony disconnected without saying goodbye.

  “Good,” she repeated to herself as she stared off, letting her mind wander to what kind of dress she would buy for the wedding.

  She'd always been very fond of an empire waist, but she looked better in a sheath. And she really didn't care about tradition, she was wearing white and not awful ivory. Besides, any bride who claimed to be a virgin on her wedding day was a lying little slut.

  ***

  A day later, Mike joined the group. If Greta hadn't been so distracted with how much fun she was having, she would have noticed that Mike was a little withdrawn. She would have pulled him aside and asked what was on
his mind.

  But she didn't.

  Because after she had settled with Shane her inner insecurities with regard to Lucy's presence, and they furthered their relationship when he opened up to her about work, she found herself in the peculiar place of being delightfully distracted from the things that usually took her interest.

  Like the emotional disconnect of one of her brother's oldest friends.

  “Have you discussed plans for Christmas with your fella?” Greta's mom asked from her end of the phone call.

  “Not yet,” Greta answered, leaning into the mirror while putting her mascara on with one hand and holding her phone in the other. “I will, I just don't want to spring it on him is all. We've only been dating for a couple of weeks.”

  “Your brother made it sound like you two have known each other a lot longer.”

  Greta considered how to respond to that because it wasn't wrong. “It's complicated, Ma.”

  “I'm so sure.”

  Greta grinned, straightened and switched hands to apply mascara to her other eye. Being ambidextrous was so advantageous.

  “It hasn't been lost on me that you have never brought a boy home to meet your father and me. Even when you lied about going to prom just so that you could sneak out and meet up with that Henderson boy.”

  Greta pulled the wand away from her eye so she could smile at the memory. “That 'Henderson boy' had a muscle car, and I knew Papa would never let me out of the house if he saw it. I never brought boys home because they were never important enough to meet you guys.”

  “Stop trying to flatter your mother. I can see right through that.”

  “I would never,” Greta pretended to be affronted even as her smile grew in the mirror.

  “Well, I'm really hoping I get to meet your young man soon.”

  “You will, Ma,” Greta promised softly, wondering how Shane would feel about being called a young man.

  “And don't forget to be here the twenty-third to make the cookies,” Ma reminded quickly as she wrapped up the conversation.

  “I won't. Cross my heart.”