Chapter 27
Ford
The best kiss of my life.
Six of the most glorious words I’ve heard, which are the only explanation for my lighter mood over the last few days.
I’m starting to think that bugging Gen’s phone was beneficial, even if I haven’t actually gotten any useful information other than her commentary about our date when speaking with her friend.
It doesn’t hurt that I’ve taken on more of the Crawford Enterprises duties now that we’ve closed on an acquisition deal, and I haven’t heard from Jackson in two days.
It’s felt like a glimpse through the window of what my life could’ve been like if Genevieve and I had met in an alternate universe. Now that I’ve taken a peek at what could’ve been, I’m struggling even harder with reality.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I somehow know that this call will pop my bubble of reprieve with the sharpest needle on the market.
Fishing the phone from my pants pocket, I curl my lip. I was right.
With a groan, I swipe to answer, snapping, “What?”
“Where are you on her dossier?”
I lean back in my desk chair, a headache blossoming at my temples. “Why are you calling me right now? I’m at my fucking job, Jackson. We agreed that we’d schedule calls or that you would only call after eight in the evenings.”
“Can you talk now or not?” Asshole.
Jackson and I have never gotten along, but that’s worse than ever these days. I blame him for my last op going south. He should’ve given me the updated intel instead of deciding to sit on it until he thought it’d be relevant. It nearly got me killed.
While it’s not his fault that Madam Allison is my current assignment, he’s been a bigger dick than usual.
And the callousness in which he treats everyone is irritating.
He’s not a nice guy, which is probably why all four of his ex-wives left him.
What I can’t figure out is why they’d agreed to marry him in the first place.
Just then, there’s a knock on my office door, and my assistant enters, dipping his chin curtly as he places a folder on my desk and leaves, shutting the door softly with a snick.
“Make it fast,” I grit.
“Can you get to her little black book, or wherever she keeps a list of those damn secrets?”
“Maybe.” I don’t know where she keeps her secrets, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s not at her office. I’ve been hoping to stick to my less-risky approach to this op, but it’s clear that’s no longer an option.
“Have you fucked her?”
Jesus. “No, and I’ve told you a million fucking times, I am not fucking her.” Not like this.
“Look, I get it. You don’t want to be where a thousand men have been before you, but you need to have sex with her so we can nail her for solicitation. Right now, everything is circumstantial. We can probably piece together who the clients are, but we need the sexual encounter either way.”
Rage rattles my hands, and if I could reach through the phone and rip out his throat, I would. He’s obscenely offensive.
It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with Genevieve, it’s that I want her to want me without being paid. I want her on her knees for me of her own volition, willingly submitting to me.
What Jackson doesn’t know is that I’ve been crafting a plan, something ironclad. But the solution I’ve been working on is something she’ll be decidedly unhappy about.
But I won’t be. I’ll enjoy every second of it.
I’ve made mistakes, done countless things I regret, but this won’t be one of them, even if she hates me for it. I won’t be satisfied until she’s permanently at my side, in my bed, kneeling at my feet.
Rubbing at my jaw, I resist the urge to kill this cocksucker. Fuck it, I still might, who knows.
“I’ll see if I can dig up some dirt on a few of her other clients, but I’m not fucking this woman on behalf of the government.”
I’ve already killed for them; they can’t control where I stick my dick, too.
“Whatever you dig up, better be good enough to hold her tight little ass,” he warns, and I swear my mandible nearly cracks in half with the force in which I grind my teeth. “Otherwise, your dick better find its way inside her.”
“You’re a goddamn asshole, Jackson.” I hang up before he can retort.
“Thanks for doing this,” I mutter into the comms unit.
“This is way more interesting than the paperwork I’m supposed to be filling out,” Drake remarks from the nondescript van across the street. “The lights are out, and her phone isn’t picking up any audio. Nick in cyber remotely hacked into her cameras, and her kitchen is dark.”
“It is three forty-five in the morning,” I mumble, kneeling as I make speedy work of picking the lock on her front door.
I have a reputation with the Bureau for doing things by the book, keeping things above board. I’ve never entertained anything like this before, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
If this works out, and I’m praying it does, I’m going to have to scramble to try to pass this very illegal action off as legal, but that’s doable. It’s not as though there aren’t corrupt judges who I could get to backdate a warrant.
“Security system disabled,” Drake announces in my ear. “Notification of front door entry on her phone has been erased.”
Probably the same way I declined Henry’s calls the other day and deleted Julien’s email about having her attend a cocktail party with him.
“Nick says he’ll wipe the footage as soon as you’re out.” Drake doesn’t seem to have the same qualms with doing things the sketchy way, so I wasn’t all that surprised when he jumped at this opportunity. If anything, I suspect he’s enjoying this.
“Copy,” I whisper, carefully turning the doorknob and slipping inside.
Your confidences are nothing compared to the others in my vault. That’s what she’d said to me when I’d asked about them, and something tells me she’s referring to a real vault, not a metaphorical one.
Even through my black mask, Genevieve’s floral scent swarms me, filtering through the fabric covering my face and seeping into my skin.
As I step into her modern kitchen, designed with sleek, clean lines, curiosity leads me to open her refrigerator, noticing that she has several pre-made meals stacked in glass Tupperware as well as seemingly endless bowls of fresh berries.
There’re also three white boxes featuring the logo for Morton’s Bakery.
Cracking open the lid of the one on the middle shelf, I smile to myself when I find cake inside.
Everything is perfectly organized, and even the eggs are in those glass containers, not the cardboard cartons from the store.
She must have a chef, or perhaps a housekeeper. Or both.
“According to the floor plan, her office is that first room to your left,” Drake tells me as I leave the kitchen.
Stepping into the office, I find it oddly impersonal, and it takes me about five seconds to assess that the vault isn’t here. It doesn’t look like Gen actually uses this space much, if at all. There’s not even a computer. I shake my head, knowing Drake’s watching.
He guides me through the rest of the house, and I rule out all the rooms except her bedroom—the most likely candidate. “There’s no camera in her bedroom, but the one in the hallway indicates that she’s asleep on the side of the bed farthest from the door.”
My black boots are silent as I stalk across the pale hardwoods, entering her dark room. Her curtains are open, casting the room in a moonlit glow that makes my night vision practically unnecessary.
I find Genevieve instantly. She’s nestled in her bed, her right hand resting by her chin.
Her lips appear even poutier than usual, her lashes fanned across her cheeks, her short hair splashed about her face like spilled milk.
She looks undeniably gorgeous, and I have to fist my gloved hands at my sides to keep myself from touching her.
She’d look even better in my bed.
Forcing my legs into action, I enter the bathroom and start poking around. When I don’t feel or see any hidden doors, I move to the closet.
I slide my hands along the seams of the wood behind the long racks of blouses, dresses, pants and suits, coming up empty.
There’s a vault somewhere. I fucking know it.
I’m just about to resign myself to having to break into her office downtown when I catch sight of her shoe rack. Tilting my head to the side, I study the floor-to-ceiling display of shoes—everything from boots to stilettos and sneakers—and step toward it as if it calls to me.
“Are you exploring a somnophilia kink? What’s taking so long? You’re pushing nearly half an hour in this house. Tick, tick, motherfucker.”
Rolling my eyes, I glide my hand up the side, and my glove catches on something. Looking closer, I find a hidden hinge. Adrenaline sizzles in my veins as I open the hidden door that is the shoe rack, revealing a large, black vault.