by Brynne Asher
“He reports to me daily. But he hasn’t found anything yet. He specializes in cybercrimes and has been given the access he needs. I’m confident he’ll find something.”
I get up from the big leather conference chair and grab my jacket and bag. “I’ve got a meeting to prepare for. Let me know if you need anything from me.”
“Will do, Jenny. Go do what you do best and kick some ass.”
I thought I could kick some ass last night before Eli got me on my back in under a second.
The man has me questioning absolutely everything.
*****
Bree Newman
Well, fuck you, Elijah-the-goddamn-saint-Pettit.
“Your desk gonna jump out and bite you, Newman?”
I fist my messenger bag to control my temper and look over at the new agent. I can’t even remember his name. He’s fresh out of the academy and, so far, he’s nothing but a little prick, kissing everyone’s ass but mine.
I raise a brow. “Heard you got burned on surveillance the other night. Good job, asswipe.”
That strips the smartass right off his face and he swivels back to his cubicle. I take two steps and toss my bag to the floor but can’t take my eyes off the two trackers sitting on my desk. The same trackers that stopped moving sometime Saturday until early this morning when I saw they both came back to the office—at the same damn time.
He showed up in court today looking more smug than my boss after I blow him.
Oh shit. Pettit even asked about White Rock Lake.
No.
My ass falls to my chair. I can’t catch my breath.
I need to tell Larry. But if I tell Larry, he’ll find out I was tracking Pettit and who knows what else. Then again, Eli has to be consorting with Montgomery. Why else would he be leaving the private garage of her building. He’s new here. No way would he know anyone swanky enough to live in a place like that. I need to figure out why he was there. I even checked his phone tolls. He never hit any number that was connected to Montgomery or that beast of a company she thinks she’s gonna run someday.
I lean back in my chair. I can do this. I can still make this happen and get the kind of case I need under my belt for a promotion. No clue where I’ll have to move to do it, but that’s okay. It’ll be a new start. The only person here who tolerates me is Dean, anyway.
And now, Larry.
Sitting up quickly, I yank open my bottom desk drawer that’s littered with paper and junk and toss in the trackers. They land, metal hitting metal, with loud clanks.
I’ll watch Pettit for now until I figure out how to track him again.
If I have to follow him myself, I will.
Chapter 13
Sexting and Arrabbiata Sauce
Jen
Tuesday, 4:23 am
Eli: Good morning.
I rub the sleep away from my eyes so I can halfway focus to respond.
Me: Morning? It’s the middle of the night. We’re in the same time zone. Why are you up?
Eli: Going for a run.
I flop back down to my pillow.
Me: Don’t ever ask me to run with you.
Eli: That’s fine. But I will ask you to do other things with me.
Holy shit. I’m not awake enough for this.
Me: It’s a little early for sexting, don’t you think?
Eli: Look at you, thinking about my cock again. I was just going to suggest grabbing Italian for a change, but if you’d rather focus on my cock…
I don’t know what to say because now all I’m thinking about is his cock.
Eli: I’ve gotta get going. Take on the day like a badass, Jensen.
I roll to my side, trying not to be turned on by his unsexy speak and him thinking of me.
Me: Don’t call me Jensen.
*****
Wednesday, 6:12 am
Eli: Hey.
I set down my mascara and pick up my coffee.
Me: Hey, yourself. I see you slept in. Slacker.
Eli: Woke up thinking about you.
I start to take another sip of my coffee but put it down. I’m feeling warm all of a sudden.
Me: And manicotti? Lasagna? Maybe a spicy arrabbiata sauce?
Eli: I don’t even know what the hell that is. What I woke up thinking about wasn’t spicy. It was scorching hot.
I bite my lip as my fingers hesitate over my keyboard. Today he seems patient, so I finally answer.
Me: Be careful. You don’t want to get burned.
Eli: Too late for that. Already said you were a bad situation. I’m past the point of getting burned. I jumped into the fire that night on the dance floor.
Me: Eli.
Eli: I’ll be back Saturday.
Me: I told you my brother’s wedding is Saturday.
Eli: Don’t worry. I’ll find you.
I look into the mirror. With half my makeup on, my hair up in a towel, and a meeting I’m expected to be at across town in an hour, all I want to do at the moment is dip my fingers between my legs and think of nothing but Eli Pettit.
Damn. Choices … priorities?
Fuck.
I toss my phone to the marble. I wonder if anyone has ever gotten violent with mascara because they were sexually frustrated? Because right now I either need an orgasm or to poke someone’s eye out.
*****
Thursday, 8:23 pm
My phone dings from across the gym.
No, the phone he gave me dings from across the gym.
I’m breathing hard when I pant, “Hang on, Jase. I need to get this.”
I’m way too excited by a text. I’ve been waiting all day like a lonely puppy dog. I hate myself at times.
I unlock the screen.
Eli: It’s been a day.
I shouldn’t be happy that he’s had a day. My last couple weeks have been a day but it still makes me feel better that maybe he’s been busy instead of not thinking of me like I’ve been thinking of him.
Obsessing might be a better word but that detail is miniscule at this point.
Eli: You busy?
Me: At the gym.
He doesn’t respond but I do see the bubbles appear and disappear, off and on and off again.
Me: Sorry you’ve had a day.
Eli: Are you fucking kidding me?
Me: Excuse me?
Eli: With that trainer?
I glance back over my shoulder at Jase. “One second. I have to take care of something.”
Me: Yes, with my trainer.
Eli: Jensen.
Just for calling me Jensen, he’s going to get it.
Me: Don’t worry. He hasn’t flattened me to the mat and kissed me. Or even dry humped me. But we’re only thirty-five minutes into the workout. Who knows where the next twenty-five will take us.
Eli: Fuck me.
Me: Or, dry fuck you.
Eli: You’re a piece of work.
Me: On a stinky, dusty mat. I haven’t forgotten about that.
Eli: I’m going to text you for the next twenty-five minutes.
Me: But he’s on the clock. I’m paying him by the hour.
Eli: Are you shitting me? I’m pretty sure you can afford to waste the last third of your workout.
Me: You’re jealous, which is sort of cute over text, rather than annoying. That surprises me.
Eli: Do NOT work on self-defense.
Me: We’ll see.
Eli: Jen.
Me: Gotta go.
Eli: Fuck.
Me: You keep saying that. I’ve got abs to work on. My dress for the wedding is tight.
Eli: You’re killing me.
Me: Until we dry hump again…
Eli: He’d better not touch you. No self-defense!
This could go on for the next twenty-five minutes, so I toss the phone on my bag with a spring to my step I haven’t felt since … I don’t know when.
“Emergency?” Jase asks. He’s used to me interrupting our workouts to take calls.
“I guess you cou
ld call it that.” When I reach him, I sigh and can’t believe I’m doing what I’m doing. “Let’s skip the defense stuff for today. I’ve got a dress I need to squeeze into. I need to burn some more calories.”
Jase shrugs. “You’re the boss.”
Well. He’s right about that.
*****
Friday, 7:43 pm
Eli: Did he touch you?
Me: You’re giving me whiplash. Are you a morning person or an evening person?
Eli: Did he touch you?
Me: I can’t chat right now. The rehearsal is done and dinner is about to be served. I’m trying to learn the names of my brother’s new in-laws. There’re a shit-ton of them.
Eli: You can memorize numbers but not names?
Me: Right. It’s totally different.
Eli: Just tell me if he touched you. Because all I’ve been thinking about for the last twenty-four hours is him touching you and it’s making me crazy.
Me: The smoked salmon torte appetizer was just served but since I don’t want you to go crazy, I will tell you that there was no dry humping.
Eli: There better not have been. That sounds like some fancy food.
Me: My sister-in-law-to-be is a caterer. She likes food.
Eli: I’m hungry. And, for once, not for food.
Me: I’ve got to go. I’m being rude.
Eli: I miss your ass.
Me: Eli!
Eli: Do you miss my hand on your ass? I think you like it there.
Me: OMG.
Eli: I bet you’re wet again.
Me: No. I’m eating a salmon torte and trying not to be rude.
Eli: Then put the phone down.
Me: Quit sexting me.
Eli: It all comes back to my cock, doesn’t it?
Me: Stop.
Eli: I’m catching the first flight back in the morning.
I lick my lips and it has nothing to do with the lemon and dill sauce with capers.
Eli: Be ready.
I turn off the phone completely because he’s right. I’m wet but I’m also surrounded by Carpinos.
Damn the man with the badge.
*****
“You should get to bed. You’re getting married tomorrow.”
Cam texted me and told me to meet him by the pool since Paige fell asleep as soon as they got to the guest house. He’s changed into sweats and is sipping a bourbon as I drown myself in sauvignon blanc.
He looks over at me. “At this point, you should grab a pillow and hit the sofa. It’s late and you shouldn’t drive.”
I sigh and pull my blanket tighter around me. Cam’s right. I have no business driving and it’s too late to call Donny, plus he has the weekend off for the wedding.
It’s been a rather uneventful week since my hearing. Besides a few meetings with Lehmans and a secret meeting with the private investigator who had questions for me about some employees in our IT department who would have no reason to frame me, it’s been business as usual. I took today off to spend it with Cam, Paige, Jordy, and Cara before tonight’s rehearsal.
What my week did not consist of was late night visits from my secret special agent. He’s texted me daily but has never mentioned what he was doing and I haven’t asked. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious as hell, though. And, if I’m honest with myself, I miss his visits and smorgasbords of food he brings me. I’m back to hunting down snacks in my barren refrigerator. If I were as diligent about ordering groceries as I am clothes and shoes, I wouldn’t have that problem.
But right now, I roll my head to look at my big brother. Cam has always been larger than life in my eyes. He was a football star in our small-town high school and went on to make a name for himself as a wide receiver at the University of Nebraska.
It wasn’t an exaggeration the other night when I told Eli that Cam was the one who helped me feel safe in my own skin again after the incident on our property. That’s when we became close and have stayed that way even though he never returned to Texas. I respect that about him more than anything. He’s always gone his own way and has never bent to our parents.
Our mom and dad are used to getting their way and I had a feeling it was always the plan for Cam to take over Montgomery Industries. He’s the oldest and the only boy. My dad gave up that idea only because Cam decided it wasn’t for him. He wanted something different. He has his trust and shares in the company but, after the way we grew up, I love the fact he wants a quiet life.
Cam had it tough for a few years when his first wife, Bekki, went off the rails. She was a bitch. Ellie and I never liked her. But now he has Paige and, even though they had a rough patch, he finally figured his shit out, knocked her up, proposed, and somehow put the wedding of all weddings together in record time.
I take a sip of my wine. I lost count a couple hours ago how many glasses I’ve had about the same time I gave up trying to remember the names of Paige’s family members. Cam told me how many Carpinos there are and, once they arrived, it felt like they kept coming out of the woodwork. If the rehearsal dinner is a prequel to the wedding itself, tomorrow will be off the charts.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa in the study and get up early. Mom will never know.”
“Good. What’s up with Ellie?” he asks and takes a sip of his drink.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s quiet. Quieter than she was the last time I was here. I could tell, even through all the chaos. You’re closer to her than anyone.”
I shift sideways in my lounge to face him. “She told me last week she’s bored. I told her to come and work for me, part-time, but she’s like you. She wants nothing to do with MI. I even offered her a job to work in philanthropies and community outreach, which she’d be good at. She shot me down and said she wants to teach.”
“Really?” Cam sounds more surprised than I was. For someone who loved her art so much, she became bitter to it.
“I really hope she goes through with it. With Robert reporting to me now, I feel bad that she’s lonely even though I shouldn’t. I don’t demand the hours he puts in. I think things have gotten worse for her since he started with MI. She rattles around that house of theirs. She’s lonely.”
Cam’s face tightens and he looks back to the property in front of us that’s lit by the swollen moon hanging high in the sky, casting an eerie light through the clouds. The land, that’s usually wide-open, dipping and curving with the Texas hills, is now decorated with enormous white tents, a custom altar my dad had crafted just for tomorrow, and antique pews from a dilapidated church in the Hill Country. “Robert’s an asshole. I don’t give a shit if he’s good at his job—I’ve known it from the first day I laid eyes on him. Now my baby sister is suffering because of it and Griff’ll probably have an absentee father. Dad built that company and was still around to teach me how to throw a pigskin. It’s not impossible to do both.”
“Calm your muscles there, big man. You and I will never know why she married Robert the Robot. Lord knows I did everything I could to stop her.”
Cam ignores my sass because he’s used to it and takes another drink. “I hate seeing her like this, that’s all.”
“She’s been like this for a long time—long before Robert. She mentioned opening a studio and I encouraged it. She needs something for herself. You did that with The Shed after you kicked Bitch-Face out. It worked out okay for you.”
Cam is a math teacher, a football coach, and owns a sports training facility in Omaha. The Shed has taken off and is more than a side business now. It’s thriving.
Cam turns to glare at me. “I’m marrying the woman who changed my life tomorrow and you had to bring her up?”
I laugh, but it comes out as a hiccup. “You know I’m happy for you. Why Paige puts up with your shit, I’ll never know, but at least you got your head out of your ass in time.”
He shakes his head like he always does before tipping it to throw back the last of his bourbon.
I go on because I’m tipsy and nothing’s more f
un than getting Cam’s goat. “Maybe that will be my toast tomorrow at the reception. I’ll name it, ‘Cam got the girl in spite of being an ass’.”
He shifts to face me, sitting sideway on his lounge. Leaning his elbows to his knees with his empty crystal-cut highball glass dangling from his fingers, he levels his blues on me. “And how are you?”
That sobers me in a way that has nothing to do with the wine. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“Ellie’s not the only one I can read. I come home to get married and both my sisters are lookin’ about as happy with life as a bull whose balls are gonna be served up as Rocky Mountain oysters for dinner. You keep telling me you’re fine so I’ve had to get all the news from Dad. He said the hearing didn’t go your way this week.”
“No.” I sigh and put down my wine because my head is starting to spin. “It didn’t. Thanks for reminding me and knocking me back to reality. I worked hard to drown that out tonight.”
“Patrick needs to get his shit together and put this to bed.”
I frown because Patrick works for me now and no one—not even my brother who I love and is usually larger than life—can demean him. Not when I know he’s doing everything in his power to clear my name. “You know, you can talk about our brother-in-law being a shitty husband, but don’t you dare attack my staff. Patrick is on it, Cam. He’s working angles no one knows. He’s been with MI forever and would do anything for our family. He’s the best, not to mention Lehmans is the largest and strongest firm in North Texas. Sure, it’s a stressful situation, but I don’t plan on wearing orange anytime in the future.”
Cam rubs his face. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You work yourself ragged as it is without this shit weighing you down and it’s showing.”
I narrow my eyes and glare at him. “Thank you for that. It’s lovely to know I’m wearing the stress all over my face. It’s amazing Paige is marrying you. You’re a real charmer.”
