Chapter 18
Chloe: I’m finally ovulating.
Mia: Wahoo!
Mia: Unless it’s twins.
Chloe: I’m thinking that’s unlikely.
Mia: Tell that to my uterus.
Chase: Do I really need to be here?
Teddy: You wanted to be one of the girls.
Chloe: Yeah, this is part of the deal, Baby Walker.
Emily: Are you going to tell me who you were photographed with in the paper?
Chase: Just someone I’m working with.
Emily: Oh yeah, I look at all my colleagues like that…
Chase: Like what?
Emily: Like she’s sitting on a ballistic missile with a cold beer in each hand and hot dogs strapped to her naked body
Chase: I don’t even know what that means.
Emily: You know, boy stuff.
Chase: ???
CHASE
“I need to sit this next one out, I’m too close to it.”
I hesitate outside the door, Pepper’s voice leaking through the open crack where it sits ajar.
“Does Sunny know?” a timid voice asks quietly.
“No, and she’s not going to.” Pepper’s response has some bite to it.
“But we’ve never done this without you,” a voice I’ve heard somewhere before replies.
“This guy is a real piece of shit, Kathy. He deserves it.” Another voice enters the fray—all female.
“I know this one is personal for you, Pepper. Perhaps we should wait until your trial is over?” another voice laden with sympathy cuts in.
“We’ll do no such thing—”
“Oh, hello!”
I spin around, my stomach bottoming out when I see a woman I recognize all too well.
I don’t know her name, but she was part of the painting group that I got roped into modeling for, albeit she only showed up at the last minute.
Loitering around Pepper’s door is hardly how I want to be found, and for the first time in years, I feel my face heat.
The woman’s rosy-red cheeks fall to the open door and I see the beginnings of a frown form.
I muster up all the casual confidence I can manage and slam them into my explanation. “Didn’t want to disturb them, is all.”
“Uh-huh,” she says skeptically, adjusting the jaunty pink bow that sits on top of cropped bottle-blonde hair. “Well—” She bustles past me, flinging open the door. “Pepper, you have a man outside your door.”
I cringe as the chatter falls silent inside the apartment, bracing myself for the onslaught that is a fired-up Pepper Quinn.
Except, the version of her that comes to the door is distinctly sheepish.
This aside, it takes me a moment to notice what about her is so different.
And then I realize that she’s devoid of the smoky little lines that usually tip the corners of her almond-shaped eyes.
In fact, not a stitch of makeup resides on her striking features, and somehow she looks even more beautiful than usual, with her pearlescent hair piled up on top of her head in a claw clip
“Thanks for coming.” She holds a small paintbrush in hand, white flecks splattered up to her slender wrist.
My dick throbs uncomfortably against my zipper at the sight of her standing there au naturel in denim dungarees and a long-sleeved grey T-shirt that does nothing to hide the curve of her chest. I clear my throat and pull myself the fuck together. “You said it was urgent?”
“Yeah, I found something.” She gestures for me to follow, and I let myself into the eclectic apartment after her—this time making sure the door is shut.
“It’s the sexy feet guy!” a woman with wild ginger curls cries, sticking a purple-tipped paintbrush my way.
I offer the room at large an easy smile, taking in the women all sitting behind easels spread out around a spindly-legged table piled high with a fruit arrangement, the bitter scent of oil paint in the air. “Otherwise known as Chase.”
“Hey, I recognize you from somewhere…” Another woman bedecked in a floaty skirt and bangles presses glasses further up her nose to peer at me.
“Excuse us, we’ll be back shortly.” Pepper grabs my sleeve and hauls me across the room with more strength than I would expect.
I don’t miss the intrigue shared between the women in the circle as we pass through them, and I can’t help but wonder why she’s trying to keep me away.
It’s not like I’m wearing a neon sandwich board that says She Blackmailed Me in big flashy letters.
As we reach a dim hallway, I hear a quiet beep and I’m tugged through a doorway into another room, this one lit by six flatscreen monitors on one wall.
A large pin board takes up most of the adjacent wall, covered with pins and slips of paper, some housing pictures and others writing.
I’m just trying to follow some of the strings that crisscross over certain points when a roller blind snaps down to cover it.
I lift one brow and turn slowly to face the woman who is now chewing her thumbnail as she watches me take in the room. “This is your den?”
“You showed me yours, so I figured I’d show you mine.” She shrugs it off and goes over to the desk placed behind the monitors, bringing up a password screen.
“That is my favorite deal structure, so remember that won’t you, Peppercorn?” I watch for her eye-roll and catch the exact moment it begins, a haughty little scoff escaping her at my suggestive tone. Riling her up might just be my new favorite pastime.
“Do you ever give it a rest?”
“No, but I’m told it’s quite endearing if you lean into to,” I respond easily, my gaze falling to an open diary on top of a cabinet. It’s laying open on this week’s dates, and I can’t help but notice the bright highlighter blocking out four days annotated with a neat “Holiday with Sunny.”
“Whoever told you that lied.” Her fingertips clatter across her keyboard, confirming that she is still otherwise engaged.
A colorful picture sits in the crease of the spine, folded in two and with several lines of text underneath. When I realize what it is, I swipe it and slide it into my inner suit pocket, a guilty weight sitting in my gut.
“Here it is.” She straightens, wiping a stray strand of hair from her eyes and picking up a square touchpad which she uses to guide the mouse pointer with her finger. “I searched your system and found forty-seven other IDs that are AI-generated images.”
It takes every ounce of control not to let my mouth drop open.
My company’s systems are sitting behind so many firewalls I lose count, so it’s entirely abnormal that she can access them at the drop of a hat.
I make a mental note to check later for any back doors she might have left purposefully open.
“These IDs were used all around the world at different facilities, a lot of them on US soil, and they typically tend to sign in between two and three a.m. when your security is more lax.”
“I should just give you all my passkeys at this rate.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling that familiar lick of anger spring to life as she displays all of the images across the screens.
“Nah, it’s more fun this way.” Pepper grins, sliding gold-flecked mahogany eyes my way.
I suddenly fight to keep down a breath, because her free and pure smile is the most bewitching thing I’ve ever seen.
She looks great when she’s all moody and sharp, but she looks downright angelic when she smiles.
I can almost hear Gabriel himself twanging on his harp.
“It’s a network.” I state the obvious in an attempt to disguise the fact that all of my brain power is focused on the small dimple that appears only in her left cheek.
She nods, her cheeks flooding with tawny copper. I wrench my eyes away, forcing myself to focus on the screen.
“Show me that bottom one with the brown hair.” I take a step closer behind her to get a better look.
“This one?” She clicks on the wrong one, bringing up a list of authorization and entry data.
“No, here.” Without thinking, I reach my arm around her and use the touchpad to go back and select the image I had been referring to. I find myself suddenly brushing her shoulder blades with my chest, her sweet scent so close it’s almost overpowering.
Electricity crackles in the air surrounding us as she freezes, so thoroughly I could swear she stops breathing.
My gaze falls to the soft flesh of her neck, the baby hairs there standing to attention.
Fuck. I know women, and I know when a woman is attracted.
I grapple with something inside, a war raging between what I know is sensible and what I want.
God dammit, I want to sink to my knees, spin her around, and hook her leg over my shoulder.
“Chase.” The breathy little sound almost translates as a whimper.
“Sorry,” I manage to choke out, swiftly withdrawing from her orbit.
This is fucking insane. The last person on this planet I should have in my bed is Pepper Quinn.
She hates me. More than that, she tried to sabotage everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve.
And yet, it’s her warm brown eyes and sharp tongue that haunt my brain every time I take a fist to my dick in the shower.
“This one looks similar to the original.” I shove my fists deep into my pockets, looking anywhere but her warm face.
Pepper clears her throat and swiftly turns her back on me. The subliminal message couldn’t be clearer: do not touch. “Well, you would be right. Look at this.”
She taps a few buttons and the images all flood the system in a grid formation, the system grabbing features from each into the center and grouping them together to show the overlap. The same noses, the same ears, the same eyes but a different color.
“What software are you using?” I ask, distracted by the ease in which her system picks out these similarities.
“My own,” she says simply, and my eyebrows rise slowly.
This time, I indulge myself with a glance at the back of her head, silvery pink tendrils grazing the delicate arch of her neck.
I knew she was a tech whiz, that much is apparent, but if she’s able to code and scale her own intelligent systems, why the heck is she wasting that skillset at a digital marketing job?
Focus, Walker. You can add information to your embarrassingly large mental shrine of this woman later—and take that fact to the grave.
“We need to poke the system.” I start to pace, focusing my attention on the wiry brown carpet beneath my feet.
“Flag a fake shipment, or alter a tracking code and see what happens.”
Pepper makes a small sound that indicates her agreement. “How quickly they act will be very telling.”
I run a hand through my hair and squeeze the follicles together.
She can say that again. I hope with everything I have that it will be a sluggish reaction.
Anything other than that means someone central to my organization is in on it.
I come to a rest in front of the covered cork pin board again, something niggling at the back of my brain.
“I trust you can handle that from here.” Seeing as she has free reign of my systems, apparently, I might as well delegate.
“Already on it.” The words come out mumbled, along with the elevated dull thuds of finger pads tapping away at her screen.
I roll my eyes, beyond allowing it to irritate me at this stage.
Tilting my head at the manual pull tie that would release the roller blind, I remove my hand from my pocket to give it a swift tug.
It snaps up with a vibrating whir, and my eyes quickly find the cluster of images I’m after.
“Hey! That’s private!” Pepper snaps from behind me.
Ironic from her.
“You’re investigating my friends?” I turn around to face her, a deep protective weight twisting in my chest. Because behind me, pinned to this board, are pictures of those I hold dearest. Zeke, Chloe, Mia, Mason, even Jackson made the cut.
“I’m just having a look!” Defensiveness rears up in her stubborn features, her shoulders back and square. “If they aren’t up to anything untoward, they have nothing to worry about.”
“They aren’t up to anything untoward, I can guarantee you that.” I take a step toward her, glowering. Clearly, she isn’t willing to take my word for it. “God dammit, woman!” I let a slice of that anger I carry around show, unable to keep it back. “You make it near impossible to get along with you!”
It’s like she has some last line of defense stubbornly etched into her personality that needs to vet anyone who comes into her space.
She can frame it as sensibility all she likes, but I see it for what it truly is.
A misguided defense mechanism that keeps her segregated from people who could truly care for her.
Am I putting myself in that category?
She tilts her chin, taking the last two strides to close out the distance between us. “Well I’m sorry that I don’t devote my time and effort to being palatable to other people. Least of all, people like you!”
She lands a pointed finger in my chest, and something in me snaps.
The endless taunts, the prissy attitude, and the constant awareness that despite all rhyme and reason, Pepper is my exact brand of poison.
I'm done being the nice guy. I’m done pretending this invisible line of tension that connects us doesn’t exist, and I’m done resisting it.