by D. D. Ayres
On their way back to their suite, in defense of his scathing review of her poor performance, she’d burst out with, “Unlike some of those women I’m not a whore.”
“True,” he’d answered. “You’re not skilled enough to survive as one.”
Shay rubbed the too-tight sensation between her brows. There were so many memories she wished she didn’t have. Then, using two fingers, she picked up and flipped the brochure into the wastebasket. If only she could lob Eric in there with it.
To distract herself, she pulled open a drawer to survey its contents. There was a half-eaten bag of chips, a partially eaten power bar, and three pieces of candy that were at least eight weeks old. She tossed them after the brochure.
The tactic didn’t work. Memory ambushed her a second time before she could steel herself.
One second she was sitting in her cubicle, the next her world was imploding, sucked into the deep shadows of an unlit apartment bathroom on a night when she was fourteen years old.
She began to vibrate as the memory moved and settled with disturbing familiarity into her psyche. Fingernails bit into her palms as her stomach cramped in fear. The phantom smells seemed to fill her nostrils until she was near suffocating.
She was alone in a new place, an apartment over a Chinese restaurant. Years of orders of stir-fried vegetables and General Tso’s Chicken had soaked into the carpeting and drapes. The odor made her feel either constantly hungry, or queasy. It was supposed to a short-term solution, until her mother got established in Raleigh.
Her mother, an LPN, was working extra shifts at the senior care nursing facility so that Shay could finish another school year without needing to get a job, too. “You make the grades that will take you out of this life, Shay. I’ll support that.”
Always a sensitive child, she locked her bedroom door when her mother was away at night and never ventured out until dawn. But tonight that extra large Slurpee she’d insisted upon with a burger dinner was pressing hard on her bladder. She needed to go. Bad.
She slipped out of bed and turned the knob.
The bathroom floor was cool under her bare feet. She didn’t turn on the light, feeling her way along to the toilet. It was ugly, cracked on the rim and stained in ways her mother couldn’t scrub away. Better to pretend it was okay than to see that it wasn’t. She had finished her business and reached for the handle to flush when she heard it.
Heavy footsteps stopped before the bathroom. Not Mom.
“Ms. Appleton?”
Shay jerked upright and twisted in her seat toward the opening of her cubicle.
Perry Deshezer, entrepreneur and owner of Logital Solutions, stood there in a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, cords, and Nikes, his standard office attire.
“You okay?”
Shay blinked. The solid world disappeared for a nerve-racking fraction of a second before returning. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Good.” He sounded unconvinced. “How was your vacation? Catch any fish?”
“What?” Shay focused on the items on her desk. In my cubicle. In my office space. Grown-up Shay is here. “Oh, I don’t fish.”
“But you enjoyed yourself?”
“Yes. Why—” She glanced up into his slight frown. Then she remembered what Angie had said about the bags under her eyes and used the same excuse. “I, ah, lost Prince.”
“Oh no, Shay. What happened?”
She gave him the sanitized version of Prince’s return to his rightful owner. By the end of it he was shaking his head. “That reeks.”
She looked away, feeling a little ashamed for having manipulated his sympathy. “I just need time to get over it. To work.”
“You’re in luck. Halifax Bank’s IT customer service person went on maternity leave last week. It’s way beneath your skill set but they asked for you by name.”
Shay had begun to recoil at the beginning of his speech, her stomach clamping down hard on her coffee-only breakfast. “They asked specifically for me?”
He nodded. “I told them you were out until today. They said they’d wait. You must have impressed the hell out of them when you worked there last year.”
“Un-huh.” Shay avoided his eye, her stomach roiling.
Eric was a regional manager for Halifax Banking Corporation. They’d met while she was temping as a techie at the main branch. Now Halifax Bank had asked for her again. Coincidence? Or part of Eric’s new scheme? “Who exactly asked for me?”
“The HR person.”
Shay glanced guiltily at the brochure sticking out of her wastebasket. “No one came in person?”
Perry chuckled. “Who would send a messenger to hire a temp?”
“I just wondered.” She looked up. “I’d rather not take this one.”
He crossed his arms. “Shay, you’re one of my best workers but that doesn’t benefit either of us unless you’re earning an income. We don’t have anything else that fits your skills at the moment.”
“Right.” Shay looked away from him. Perry was a stellar boss. He tolerated a lot, but when it came to the work ethic, he was all business. As for Eric …
She felt good old reliable anger coiling inside. Eric worked out of the main branch in downtown Raleigh but his position as a regional manager kept him on the road. She might not even see him. And if she did, it would be in a public setting.
You don’t have to be afraid. James saw Eric in action. Eric won’t want the police involved again.
Of course, Eric wouldn’t know getting in touch with James was the last thing she planned to do. But more than that, she needed to prove to herself that she was once again in control of her life. She couldn’t do that by hiding.
“I’m just bummed. The job sounds like a bore.” She gave an elaborate shrug and rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”
Perry glanced at his watch. “You can start today, then, say by 10 A.M.?”
Her gaze strayed to her computer where the time displayed was 8:41. “Sure.”
He gave her the once-over, taking in her jeans and sweater and unmade-up face. “Enough time to stop by home and change?” He never missed a thing.
“On my way.”
“The paperwork is done. It’ll be at reception. Just sign it on your way out.”
“Oh, I have a new phone number. I lost my phone.”
Perry frowned as she handed him a slip of paper. “Isn’t that the third time this year?”
Shay shrugged.
As he walked away, Shay grabbed her tote, the tremor in her hand the only giveaway of her state of mind. All she had to do was sit before a computer and talk to customers on the phone all day for six short weeks. She wouldn’t even interact with most of the other employees.
I can do this.
The shiver working its way down her back was only anticipation, she told herself. Then her gaze slipped sideways to the brochure.
Eric had set this job up. She was certain. That meant he had something in mind.
So what?
She’d be in a public place, doing a job she could handle in her sleep. If he did come near her she would show him that she was no longer afraid of him. He had more to lose than she did if their relationship became public knowledge.
Screw him! He wouldn’t be allowed to keep her from making a living.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mumbling something about “shit for brains,” James corrected a mistake he’d made in his daily report. Paperwork was his least favorite part of the job, even if it was done on computer. He hit ENTER then massaged his eyes with his fingers.
Asleep beside his desk, Bogart stirred and growled, deep in doggy dreamland.
A smile tugged at James’s mouth. After four nights on patrol, he felt they were back on top. But that wasn’t his call. Instead of heading home to sleep, he was about to go home to pack. He’d gotten his orders for a week of training not far from Raleigh, beginning on Monday.
If he left early, he could spend the weekend in Raleigh. He needed a little R & R where no one knew h
im as a cop. It was just lucky coincidence that Raleigh was where Shay lived. A coincidence he had every intention of exploiting.
Yes, she’d tossed him out and told him never to come back. But he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. It wasn’t just the sex. It was her loneliest-soul-in-the-world gaze. For a few brief hours, she’d let him in, and it had been magic. He needed to know if their connection was as real as his gut told him it was. Or, just a strangers-in-the-night fantasy.
He pulled a thumb drive from his pocket. He had only one other thing left to do before his shift ended. That was to file his report on Bogart’s disappearance. Every officer in his unit would recognize the description of the suspect as his ex. That was going to be damned embarrassing, but he could tough it out. The department would make the decision to file suit. If so, Jaylynn was about to be hit with a shitload of trouble. On the other hand, the chief might decide to avoid calling attention to potentially embarrassing publicity for the department. Either way, it wasn’t his call.
He pushed the drive into his computer to upload it, needing only one more bit of information to make the report complete.
“Here’s that info you asked for.” Dwight Meyer handed him a folder. Dwight worked fugitives, which specialized in finding people and mining information.
James nodded. “Took a while.”
Dwight shrugged. “Ms. Appleton’s got the lowest social profile of any twenty-something woman I ever came across. Practically off the grid. You’d think she was on the job. No social media pages, no tweets, no blog. Not even a regular cell number. Bet she uses disposables. Yet she jobs for a high-tech temporary employment agency.”
James frowned. “Really?”
He nodded. “First flag, Cannon. She changed her name at eighteen. Legally.”
That didn’t totally surprise James. He had run into a wall trying to track her information down on his own. Shay wasn’t in the Raleigh phone book and had no police record that he could locate, not even a traffic ticket. Was that even possible?
Then there was her almost paranoid need to reveal nothing about herself.
An uneasy feeling moved through him as he indicated the folder. “What’s the second flag?”
“You tell me.” Meyer didn’t like to categorize his finds. “She’s got a sealed juvie file. That’s all I could find out without a warrant.” The final word vibrated in the air between them. Meyer was willing to go deeper, if asked to.
“It’s not that kind of case. Thanks.”
James picked up the folder, unusually slim in that it contained all readily available information on an adult woman’s life. It was also a concrete reminder that he had already behaved unprofessionally with her, in more ways than one. They’d met under extreme circumstances, known each other only a day and one hell of a memorable night. But once back in Charlotte he realized he knew squat about her. Not her full legal name, home address, phone number, or where she was employed, all information needed to complete his report.
What he did know was that they fit together like Legos, even if she had decided to toss him out despite it. Or, because of it.
A lewd grin tugged one corner of his mouth. When he was balls-deep in her neither of them had cared about anything else.
“You hearing this?”
James looked up. “What?”
Sheila Hooper, another K-9 officer, pointed to one of several TV monitors in the report room. “Your ex is going to make a big announcement, right after the commercial break. You aren’t getting married, are you?”
“Fuck that.” He said it without heat. All the same, he moved toward the nearest TV monitor where the local morning news show was on the screen.
Jaylynn appeared on-screen. She sat behind the news desk dressed in uncharacteristic somber shades of navy and gray, usually reserved for when some prominent person had died. No megawatt smile today. She made eye contact with the camera and began speaking, her voice tight with emotion.
“It is with deep regret that I announce today that I am temporarily leaving my position as co-anchor of Charlotte’s top-rated morning show. I’m making this selfless gesture in order to address the vicious campaign of false accusations that have begun to circulate about me.”
Tears welled in her eyes as the camera moved in for a close-up. James knew they’d never be allowed to fall. Jaylynn had told him that welling worked on camera. Tears made mascara run, a no-no.
“As a celebrity, I am aware that some people think I’m fair game, but they forget that lies can tarnish a person’s reputation, even if they are completely false. Therefore, with the help of the legal team I’ve assembled, I intend to get to the bottom of this and clear my name.”
Sheila elbowed him. “What’s that about?”
Game face in place, James shrugged.
Jaylynn has gone on the offense!
Legal team? Was she serious? He doubted it. Yet she had turned a strategic retreat into a fake noble ride into the sunset. When the truth got out about what she’d done, half the town was primed now not to believe it.
That was slick, and so Jaylynn.
He glanced down at Shay’s file and shoved aside the uncomfortable feeling of having her investigated. He had the best of motives.
Right. Dudley Do-Right to the rescue.
His father didn’t give a lot of advice, especially about women and relationships. Most of that was about navigating a household where the women outnumbered the men 4 to 2. What advice he did give lingered in his son’s mind.
Once when he was twelve or thirteen, while they’d been camping out under the stars, his father had waxed philosophical. “Some women smell like forever. You don’t get a whiff of it often. Once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. If you’re ever lucky enough to get a whiff of that kind of woman, Jay, stop. And think. ‘Can I live without this fragrance for the rest of my life?’”
At the time James had thought his father was talking about the smell of a particular perfume or lotion or conditioner. Now he knew better.
Shay’s skin in the soft folds and hollows of her body captured and held the scent of her. There were no words really to describe that womanly perfume. The impressions that came to his mind were of warm buttered bread, caramel apples, and a faint pleasant musk. Shay smelled uniquely female. It was a fragrance he couldn’t get out of his mind.
He knew that beneath her prickly armor was a woman capable of real and deep emotions. She had good instincts, had developed a deep attachment to Bogart even after being warned he was dangerous.
And she made love like she had invented it. That was the woman he wanted to get to know better. If she’d let him. But first, he needed to file his report on Bogart’s disappearance.
He opened the folder again, typed in the pertinent information from the first page into the report on his computer, and hit upload.
After he was home and had taken care of Bogart, and showered and packed, he turned to page 2 of Shay Appleton’s folder.
When he was done, his world was a lot more complicated.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Yes, Mrs. Stockton. You get to choose your password. No, I can’t keep it handy in case you forget it. It’s very important that no one else know it.”
Shay listened for a few seconds, closing her eyes so no one would see her eyeballs rolling back in her head.
“No, ma’am. Using ‘password’ for your password is a very bad idea. It’s the first thing thieves try. Yes, they’re clever. Do you remember your first phone number? No, don’t tell me. That’s not your number now, is it? Great. Use that as your password. You’re welcome. Thank you for banking with Halifax Second Bank and Trust.”
Shay glanced at the phone bank. For the first time all day, there were no calls waiting. Fridays were the worst. People still tried to do last-minute banking before the weekend, as if online weren’t 24–7.
She whipped off her headset and reached for a bottle of water she kept close at hand under her desk. As she lifted her bottle for a first swallow
, Eric Coates passed through her peripheral view. The bottle paused, suspended at her lips.
Unable to take her eyes off him, she could feel her heart thumping heavily beneath her suit jacket. For the past five days she had been waiting and dreading the possibility of this moment.
He sauntered over to her cubicle, pausing here and there to shake hands with one customer and pat another on the back. She tried not to fidget as nerves made a double-twist pretzel of her insides. He was deliberately prolonging the moment of meeting, making her aware of his complete control of the situation.
No. This was different. They were in a workplace environment. Besides, everyone knew he was engaged.
The official announcement had been in the Monday morning online Bank Weekly distributed to all Halifax Bank employees. There was even a picture of Eric squeezing the waist of a pretty blonde in a silvery cocktail dress. Underneath were the words “Felicitations to the Happy Couple.”
He came right around the corner of her glass partition. “Hey, Shay.” His voice was pitched in the low intimate register she once thought he reserved for her alone. Now it sounded rehearsed.
Shay raised her voice. “Congratulations on your engagement, Mr. Coates.”
The smile pleats at the corners of his eyes deepened. “Just because I’m engaged doesn’t mean we can’t still have some fun. We just need to be more discreet.”
Shay lowered her gaze, trying not to choke on her disgust. How she could ever have been so blind? He was a total douche. “I’m seeing someone.”
“The cop? Drop him. I’ve upgraded your tastes beyond his pay grade.”
He leaned in, a casual brace of his hands on her desk as if they were colleagues discussing an issue. “We’ve got a sweet little deal going here for the next five weeks. My office is right over your head.” He glanced up. “I like the idea of that, you beneath me.”
Aware of the people moving past them in the lobby, Shay leaned in before she looked up into his face. “Fuck off, Eric.”
He leaned in a fraction closer, too. “I’d rather fuck you.”
Shay waited until he was out of range before she took a deep breath.
