Chapter 7
S he was still here, and she was driving me crazy.
It wasn’t that Gray was constantly finding reasons to go up to the front to flirt with her, or that Briggs was yelling at him throughout each day to leave Chloe alone. It wasn’t even her bubbly personality that, with each passing day, I was more sure was just a front.
It was her .
Her hazel eyes that unsettled me with their secrets. Her long, red hair that was almost as distracting as her curves. Her smiles that always seemed to widen at my attention, even though I was almost always asking if she was ready to quit yet. Her scent that was driving me crazy in the best way, even though I really hated coconut.
I had a very specific type: slender blondes with blue eyes and so much makeup, you knew they had daddy issues and didn’t care for relationships that lasted longer than an hour. There was nothing about Chloe that should draw me to her, and yet, I’d thought about nothing but her since I’d had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting her four days ago.
I’d told myself it was only because she was the current threat to my family.
But as my heart faltered in my chest before taking off when she came around the corner into the main office, I knew I was only lying to myself.
I let myself take in the way she’d dragged her waist-length hair over one shoulder and was nervously playing with the ends, all that thick hair nearly hiding her funny graphic tee of the day— Star Wars today, The Hobbit yesterday...not that I’d been paying attention—for only a second before forcing my attention back to my desktop. To the work I needed to get started on, but had been struggling with all week because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the infuriating girl whose high heels had just stopped beside my desk.
“The day just started, Bubbles,” I began, letting irritation color my tone. “If you’re finally quitting, you probably should’ve just skipped coming in.”
A hesitant laugh left her before she said, “No, I, uh...I actually need your help.”
At the soft yet overly happy words, my attention drifted Chloe’s way in time to see her gaze snap away from where she’d clearly been studying the tattoos decorating my arms and hands. I didn’t let myself focus on that as I pointedly told her, “You don’t need my help to quit either.”
Her eyebrows lifted as her stare fell to the floor. “You’ve made your point, Superman. Still not quitting.”
Yet.
I shifted at the uncomfortable feeling that abruptly unfurled in my chest at the thought, gripping tight and making my next breaths feel strained.
Almost as if needing to prove to myself that the unfamiliar feeling had nothing to do with the girl beside me—that I didn’t care about her—I forced in a slow, deep breath before releasing it with the words, “What do you need?”
Her gaze lifted to me, hesitation and sadness filling those eyes and spearing me in the chest. Before I could do something stupid—like apologize—understanding and dejection replaced the former as she resolutely said, “I’ll ask Hudson.”
She turned, and without making the conscious effort to move, my hand shot out, grasping hers and stopping her from leaving.
The shock on her face didn’t come close to the shock coursing through my body, nearly drowning out the ugly feeling twisting through my chest. Something I would’ve sworn resembled jealousy and possession if I didn’t know better—if this wasn’t Chloe we were talking about.
Releasing her hand as if she’d burned me, I repeated, “What do you need?”
“Um...” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and her head faintly shook before she gestured behind her. “I still need to learn how to organize client files.”
I should’ve reminded her she wouldn’t be here long enough for it to matter. I should’ve sent her back to the front alone. I should’ve given her another encouragement to quit. But I found myself pushing from my desk as I said, “Let’s go.”
Frustration rippled from me as I followed her to the front because I’d given into this threat of a girl. Because I hadn’t wanted her to go to Gray. Because she was getting in my head and under my skin, when I knew I couldn’t let that happen.
“Get online,” I ground out once we were rounding the large front desk.
Once again, hesitation darkened that joy as she looked back at me. “Really, I can ask Hudson. Or Cameron. It was just that you?—”
“Get online,” I repeated over her, prompting her to hurry for the desk chair.
As soon as she had the browser open, I gestured to the page already set to pull up—our website. “Again, Ada could only remember so much. Or, at least, she pretended to. The first part of all our emails is our first and last names. The domain is shadow industries dot com . The first part of Ada’s email was admin .”
“So, mine is?—”
“The one for this desk is admin ,” I said over Chloe.
At that, she whirled around in the chair and looked up at me, her joy only slightly dimmed when she said, “I’m sorry. I’m seriously so sorry I hurt you when I first met you—it was obviously unintentional. I don’t know how to make up for that, but I think it’s a little ridiculous and completely immature for you to be so against me working here because of that.”
I’d never had such a happy person rip into me with so much joy. It was...odd.
I bent low, placing my hand on the main portion of the desk until my face was directly in front of hers. “And I think I told you on Monday that isn’t what this is about.”
She studied me for long seconds even after I stopped speaking before hesitantly asking, “Then what is this about?”
And, man, if I didn’t forget what we were talking about because her voice had gone all breathy, and those eyes were now just wide, vulnerable spheres as they waited for my response.
As if my eyes had minds of their own, my gaze once again betrayed me as it dropped to her pouty mouth and lingered for a second too long before I managed to tear it away.
Clearing my throat, I straightened and mumbled, “Password’s admin again.”
“You can’t be serious,” Chloe said on a delayed laugh, then turned toward the computer again. “Doesn’t seem very secure for a security company.”
“Trust me, we’re aware.” Once she’d logged in, I gestured to the tabs on the side and had her click on the one where it said Clients . “For the most part, this is where you’ll be. As security details happen, you’ll add files to client folders and make new ones.” I hesitated for a moment before reluctantly saying, “We might need to make a new one actually. Back out of here.”
Once she was on the main screen of our site, I muttered, “Click on Donuts .”
She stilled before slowly looking over her shoulder at me. “Is this a joke?”
“Not at all.”
The only show of hesitation was in the length of time it took for Chloe to focus on the computer again. Other than that, it was still all bubbles and rainbows and excitement as she clicked on the Donuts tab.
I glanced through the files on there before quickly realizing there wasn’t a folder for the Donut we’d begun at the beginning of this week. Not that I should’ve been surprised. Ada was the only one who made the folders.
“Back out again and go to Files .” As she did, I told her, “As we get information, we drop that information into a system that automatically sends it here . It’s nice for us because it stores all the random things in one place, then Ada goes through and combines them into folders that we can go back to.”
I caught myself after finishing the sentence, belatedly remembering Ada had finally made good on her word and retired, but I didn’t bother correcting it.
Pointing at the screen, I said, “Some of these will be reports from details we did this weekend, but the rest should be for a Donut we started on Monday.”
A startled sound burst from her, her hands flexing over the keyboard for a moment before she twisted fully to look at me. “With all this donut talk, I really feel like you’re trying to get back at me for the donut-choking incident.”
Grabbing the back of her chair, I turned her back around as I explained, “ Donuts are our special cases. The ones the outside world doesn’t know we do, but they’re more important than what we outwardly show of our services.”
Her head shifted just slightly to make me think she was going to look at me again, but she stopped herself. “I see,” she murmured, but she sounded unsure of herself. “Why are they called ‘Donuts?’”
Because Gray nearly choked to death on a donut trying to claim lead on one.
Something I could no longer hold over him because of the infuriating threat in front of me.
“No reason,” I lied. “You’ll make the folder in the Donuts tab, but you need to send the files there first. Open the first document so we can see if it’s a file for the Donut or for the security details this weekend.”
The document opened, and after a quick scan, I realized it was from one of the security details. After showing her how to send the documents where they needed to go, I said, “You’ll need to take information from the documents to know where to file them. Next one.” After she’d sent another two from the same security detail to be filed later, the fourth was opened, showing details of the superintendent we were looking into.
“Here’s the first,” I informed her. “Pull details on the guy so we can start a file on him, then send it to Donuts .”
“Okay, let’s see...” she whispered to herself as she leaned closer, even though the monitor was massive enough that I could read all the details from where I stood.
And then she forcefully shoved away from the desk, sending the desk chair straight into me, nearly toppling me over as she scrambled to standing.
“What—”
“Sorry!” she cried out, but she was still standing there, facing away from me, hands out at her sides as if she was afraid she was going to fall.
And it had every protective instinct rising and clashing with all those red flags she’d been throwing out in the few days I’d been around her.
I wanted to pull her away from whatever had clearly scared her. I wanted to hide her from whatever could steal away all that joy so rapidly. I wanted to force her back into the chair and demand to know what she was hiding.
But before I could settle on any one of those, she whirled around as if she wasn’t balancing on the high heels she always wore and forced out a stuttered breath. “Uh...sorry. Spider.”
Even though the words had clearly been a lie, even though she was staring unseeing at some spot on the floor, my gaze still swept over her, checking for an eight-legged creature I already knew wouldn’t be there.
“I, uh...” she began again, then quickly shook her head as a strangled laugh left her. “Bathroom. I’ll be back.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered, watching her intently as she nodded unsteadily and shakily moved past me and toward the back of the office.
Once she was around the corner, I slipped into the chair and started reading over the file. None of the information was new—this was a file Briggs had sent me that first day. But for it to create that kind of reaction in Chloe?
I swept over the details again.
Owen Vance. Sexual harassment against teachers and staff in his school district. Sexual assault on teachers and staff. Blackmail against teachers and staff.
I read the woman’s name who’d filed the complaint, the school she worked for, and the school district. But none of those things meant anything to me.
None of it meant anything to me, unless this Owen Vance actually ended up being some kind of creep—not that we’d found anything on him yet. In fact, it’d been the opposite. People idolized him. Honestly, it was unsettling how much people seemed to love and practically worship the ground a school district superintendent walked on.
But my reservations and suspicions were my own, and they didn’t explain Chloe’s panic when she’d opened the document.
Unless . . .
I opened Employee Records in a new tab, then pulled up Chloe’s. Glancing over the only thing Asher had put in there—her employment papers—I skimmed the details to see if Chloe’s last name might be an indicator, but Whitlock didn’t match our potential suspect or the person filing the report.
Just as I started closing out the document, my gaze caught on Chloe’s prior employment, and I stilled.