Chapter Eight
Hours had crept by, and giving up on her work, Grace set her computer and stylus to the side. She’d stared at the screen, and nothing interesting had come to mind. There was so much work to be done on the book cover that she absolutely adored, but she couldn’t even work on the shading.
This had to be like writer’s block. A total distraction had sucked the creative energy out of her like a workflow vampire. She didn’t know whether Dominic or Callum was to blame.
Probably Callum.
Definitely Callum.
Callum, who still saw her as a pain in the ass, not to mention the eternal title of Hayden’s little sister who always needed help. More than that, now, he likely saw her as a liar who had put her family through unneeded pain.
And… She sighed. He probably hated her. She couldn’t blame him if he did. Her lies were impossible to come back from, and he was one of those born-to-protect types who always did the right thing.
God, she had always wanted so much from him and now couldn’t even have his respect.
Alicia’s familiar footsteps climbed the stairs and snapped Grace from her pity party. She picked up her computer to at least pretend that she had been working, but set it down again before another lie fell from her lips. She hadn’t lied to Alicia and wouldn’t start tonight.
Alicia knocked.
“It’s not locked.”
She opened the bedroom door and held an oversized lemon-yellow tray with two cornfield blue plates stacked with food. “You have to be hungry. Chicken thighs and rice.”
The bright colors were one of Grace’s many favorite things about Alicia’s house. Books. Plants. Bright colors. Cute furniture. Delicious food. Oh, and an unbelievable rock of a friend. “Were you seriously cooking down there while,” she circled her hand overhead, “people are searching your house?”
The sweep team had been efficient if not invasive. They’d torn Grace’s room apart twice before they’d left her to work in peace.
“How hard’s rice?” Alicia shrugged.
“Compared to how I make rice? Much harder.” Grace washed the rice, boiled the water, and presto. Normal, everyday rice. Alicia did that too, but tinkered and worked her magic, and when she said presto, the rice was enough to make angels sing.
“The chicken was in the deep freeze. Quick and easy in the cast iron.” She set the tray at the foot of the bed. “Don’t tell me you didn’t smell dinner cooking.”
Apparently not. She’d been struggling with her book cover, daydreaming about Callum, and lost to the world until Alicia walked in. “I’ve been distracted.”
“I bet.” Alicia scooted the chair from the desk and set two spots on the bed with linen napkins and silverware before positioning the tray between them. “It’s like a picnic without the mosquitoes.”
Grace laughed.
“Now, there’s a sound I haven’t heard all day.”
She smiled. “It’s been a strange day.”
Alicia lifted her fork. “I made a plate for Callum, and he looked at me like he hadn’t seen a homemade meal in his life.”
“That’s not true. His mom is a great cook.”
She pointed the fork at Grace with a little bounce. “That’s quite the personal detail to know about someone.”
The things she knew about Callum would be embarrassing to list. She’d once known the sound of his footsteps in her home and the way his car revved before he drove away.
In hindsight, teenage crushes could be incredibly cringy.
Still, college and after weren’t any less humiliating.
She had memorized the curve of his ass, the cut of his jawline, and the width of his chest. Grace struggled to keep from blushing. “Like I said. Known him my whole life.”
“You ever sleep with him?”
Her jaw fell slack. A red-hot flush rocketed up her neck and into her cheeks. “Oh, my God. No. He’s Hayden’s best friend.”
Alicia snorted. “That’s a horrible reason not to sleep with someone.”
I would never almost fell from her lips, but she’d sworn not to lie to Alicia. “There are a lot of valid reasons I never slept with him, starting with the fact that he has never seen me as a woman.”
“Huh.” Alicia cut her chicken with the side of her fork and mixed it with rice. “He doesn’t like it when I follow around his coworkers and make suggestions.”
Grace snickered. “I bet not.”
They both heard heavy footsteps ascend the stairs before a knock sounded against the partially ajar door. He stepped in.
“Speak of the devil.” Alicia grinned, then gestured toward the floor. “Any updates from the nosy Nellies paging through my romance novels for secret cameras?”
“Actually, I have good news.”
Hope swelled in her chest. “They didn’t find anything?”
“Not a damn thing. At least on the inside. Outside will take a while longer.”
Relief flooded Alicia’s face. “Good. I didn’t want to burn my house down and salt a circle around it. How was dinner?”
“Unbelievable. Thank you.” He stepped into the room and eyed the bright walls and frilly curtains. Sherlock followed him and jumped onto the bed beside Grace. “He’s been keeping an eye on me the whole time.”
“As he should,” Alicia said. “But if he didn’t trust you, or he sensed I didn’t, he wouldn’t just follow you. He’d be making your life miserable.”
His eyebrows arched, as if he couldn’t fathom how that would work. He said to the cat, “Guess I’m glad we’re good, little guy.” He wandered over to the floating bookshelf. “That’s a wild range of books.”
Romance novels. Hardboiled mysteries. Children’s classics.
New age nonfiction. None matched in genre, size, or color, yet somehow looked as if Alicia had handpicked each book for its aesthetic quality.
He pulled The Wind in the Willows off the shelf and ran his thumb over the worn pages. “Ever read it?”
“Of course,” Alicia said.
Sheepishly, Grace laughed. “Not me.”
Alicia studied the book for an extra second, took another bite of her chicken, then scooped Sherlock into her arms. With her free hand, she stacked her silverware and grabbed her plate. “I’m going to let you two talk.”
He returned the book. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You don’t have to—”
“I have a couple of things I need to do after your people touched every single thing I own.” Alicia shut the door behind her.
The bedroom suddenly felt too small for her and Callum. Somehow, sitting on a perfectly made bed covered with her computer and dinner felt too intimate. Grace focused her attention on the chicken and rice and toyed with her fork.
“Can I sit?” He gestured to the chair Alicia had abandoned by the bed.
“Sure.”
He inched it back and sat at ease with everything around him, the counterpoint to the anxious, exposed energy that vibrated inside her.
His knees pressed against the covers. She noticed the powerful muscles in his thighs and the way his shirt clung to his stomach.
Callum stretched, tipped the chair onto its back legs as he inhaled so deeply she saw his chest expand. “It’s been a long day.”
Tongue-tied, she blinked at a loss for words. His tight muscles didn’t match his casual demeanor. She could think of nothing except how she would fit so perfectly in his arms. Grace pulled in a shaky breath and dropped her gaze back to her dinner. “Not even a full day since I maced you.”
Callum laughed and rubbed his face as though the mere mention of their run-in brought tears to his eyes. “Hayden will get a kick out of that.” He brought the chair back to four legs and leaned forward, an earnest expression on his face. “Look, Grace, I need you to trust me.”
“I do.”
“The way you say that…” He shook his head. “It’s almost like you’re saying that because it’s what you’re supposed to say.”
“Well, I am, aren’t I?”
“I want you to trust me like you trust Alicia. Trust me like, hell, I don’t fuckin’ know. Like the person who will get you out of this mess.”
Whether she wanted to admit it to herself, she trusted him entirely. But she still didn’t think he understood the complexity of the problems she’d created. “You shouldn’t say you’re going to do that until you actually know what it entails.”
“I don’t need to know all the details to know what I’m going to do. I’ll fix it. I promise.”
“Cal, I’m not some pain-in-the-ass kid who got herself in trouble at school. You can’t simply fix—”
“The hell I can’t, and trust me, I don’t picture you as a pain-in-the-ass kid. I haven’t in a long time.”
Her stomach lurched. She lifted her gaze to his, and it lurched again. The intensity of his stormy bourbon gaze shivered down her back. “I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.”
His expression only intensified. “Like what?”
“Like I’m a headache.”
The corners of his eyes tightened, but he shook his head. “I moved my truck down the block. As long as the sweep team finds nothing, my involvement likely remains unknown.”
“That’s good.”
He pulled out his phone. “Headquarters sent over a few more questions and a couple of items to clarify. Are you okay with another round of questions?”
She shrugged. If she had questions to focus on, maybe her brain wouldn’t remind her how he had just made her stomach flip twice. “Sure. Shoot.”
“Our data analysis guy can find intel anywhere it hides. He’s mapping your business and personal connections. That includes people you relied on. It would make his job easier if you could provide a list of names.”
“I can do that.”
“You said that you had a few close friends like Alicia. Is that right?”
She nodded and gave him names and contact information.
“He’ll want to know anyone you’ve dated, slept with.” The slightest hint of a blush colored his cheeks. “Hookups. Friends with benefits. One-night stands. That type of thing. If you don’t know names, then a location, date, and time.”
“Why?”
Callum grimaced as though the idea of her dating someone actually pained him. “I guess he looks at that person more thoroughly. I don’t honestly know. Loose lips sink ships and pillow talk and—”
“Oh my God, Cal. Stop talking. There’s no one like that.”
He swallowed hard. “Not just now. The entire time you’ve been gone.”
Now it was her turn to blush. “Got it. No one. Can we move on?”
His eyebrows arched. “None?” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“None. All right.” His forehead furrowed as he swiped open his phone and thumbed the screen to the list he’d been reading.
“All right,” he repeated. “Where was I?” Callum set his phone down.
“Grace…” Concern darkened his expression. “You’ve been incredibly alone.”
“Well, yeah. Sorry, I thought I had made that clear.”
“An unhealthy amount of alone.”
“No one asked for your commentary.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out. “All I meant was—”
“You don’t have to explain what you mean. What other questions do you have for me and my nonexistent sex life?”
“Grace—”
“I’m serious. Spit them out. Let’s get this over and done with.”
With one last pitying glance, he swiped his phone open and returned to his list.
The questions weren’t as intrusive. Most of them, she didn’t have answers to. She wasn’t sure Callum believed her, but that wasn’t her problem. Callum would feed her answers to Dean, and Dean could confirm what she said.
“That’s it.” He returned the chair to the desk and gestured to the tray with her half-eaten dinner. “Are you done?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take it downstairs.”
“Thanks.”
“For what it’s worth, if I could have seen into the future, I would have done something to change your trajectory. You wouldn’t have landed here if I could have helped it.”
“Hayden had made a joke the night before I married Dominic that he was going to pull the fire alarm right before the I do’s.” She half-laughed. “Not that a hiccup like that would have kept Dominic from getting what he wanted.”
“Well, I didn’t even go to your wedding. I don’t know what that says about me.”
How horrible had she been to wish the man she’d always dreamed of would attend her wedding to another man?
Everyone she’d ever known had been there.
Everyone Dominic had met, done business with, or had hoped to had been there.
The night had been a spectacle. She never should have walked down the aisle, but at that point had been too scared to unwind herself from the mess.
“Why weren’t you there?”
Callum rested his hand on the doorknob for a long moment before he turned around.
“You could see the future dumpster fire that was my life.” She let out a heavy breath and shook her head. “You don’t have to say it.”
He just watched her. She kept waiting for him to agree, for him to pity her all over again.
“I didn’t want to watch one of the kindest, most beautiful women I’ve ever known walk toward a man who didn’t appreciate a thing about her.”