Chapter Eighteen #4
“Tax returns, not all the worksheets from the junior accountants that are only looking at their calculators, not what they were adding up. Do you think Lewis or Gina have any clue that ‘all’ of Mercier’s offices look the same?”
“No.” Nate smiled. “That’s my job.”
“Mercier seems the OCD type. I bet that décor isn’t the only place that is run exactly the same.”
“This is good . . .” Nate said, nodding.
“I wouldn’t have noticed this if we hadn’t come. And wouldn’t have looked at the line items for chandeliers and office furniture.” Luna sat back in her chair and swiveled from side to side.
Nate put his fist out.
Luna bumped hers with his.
Now that they knew what they were looking for, it was full steam ahead.
They knew how the money in the company was going out . . . now they needed to find where it was coming back in.
They brought in takeout on Thursday night, arriving back at the hotel only to drop and do it all again on Friday.
Luna put Lewis and Gina in charge of copying the junior accounting worksheets that hadn’t been part of the package they’d been given originally, while she identified the files that needed to be audited.
Nate organized Zoom interviews with a handful of offshore players. From management to manufacturing.
When it was time to say goodbye to Mercier’s Houston office, they were both riding pretty high on everything they’d found.
Luna was looking forward to locking herself in her office and using an entire wall to map out the flowchart to where the money was going and coming. This was what she lived for.
“There’s a steak house a few blocks from the hotel that was recommended,” Nate told her on their way back to the hotel Friday night.
“We had steak Wednesday,” Luna said.
“It’s Texas,” Nate said as if that was all the explanation he needed.
Luna laughed. “Fine.”
Luna expected a restaurant but was met with a club. Complete with a live country band, dancing . . . and barbeque.
Just because the establishment was in the city, didn’t mean there weren’t a lot of cowboy hats and boots.
And Luna and Nate were celebrating.
“Are we drinking?” Nate asked.
“I think so.”
Luna ordered a lemon drop, and Nate ordered some kind of whiskey drink Luna had never heard of.
“To a successful trip,” Nate said, lifting his glass.
Luna took a sip and set her glass down. “This is going to wrap up much faster than I first thought.”
“Marcus will be happy.”
“And have us on another case within a week if we let him.”
Nate set his glass down. “I can use the work.”
“Have you acquired any other cases?” she asked.
“More like firms. Elenore Prescott.”
“Oh. She’s a shark. Smart,” Luna told him.
“You’ve worked with her?” he asked.
“Couple of times. You’ll like her. She did try to talk me down on my rates.”
Nate laughed. “Me too. I didn’t budge.”
“Good. She can afford you.”
The band started, and Nate moved his chair a little closer to hers, making it easier to hear him.
Or maybe he just wanted to get closer.
There hadn’t been so much as a raised eyebrow or heated look since the night they talked about vegetable safe words. Because of that, Luna had managed a decent night’s sleep the night before.
“Have you heard from Miley?” Nate asked. “Any more ghost sightings?”
“We talked this morning. It’s been quiet.”
“Are you anxious about going home?”
“Not really. The family has insisted for years the house has . . . energy.” Using words like ghost or spirit gave the entire situation a label Luna didn’t want to use. “It’s never harmed anyone.”
Nate shook his head. “Maybe you need to give this energy a name. Like Ethel.”
“What makes you think it’s a woman?” Luna took another sip of her drink.
“She likes the kitchen.”
“That’s sexist,” Luna chided.
Nate smiled and leaned forward on his elbows. “If she’s been there since before your memaw, and she was familiar with the kitchen, it has to be a woman.”
“I see why they pay you the big bucks, Mr. Private Eye.”
Nate’s gaze bored into her. “You have beautiful eyes. They see a lot.”
Instant heat rose in her chest. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?” His gaze moved to her lips.
“You know exactly what.”
With his hand sitting on the table close to hers, Nate used one finger to run alongside her hand.
There wasn’t anything overtly sexual, or suggestive.
Just a simple touch of a finger against a completely unsuggestive part of her body.
Yet every sexual fiber of her being sprung to life.
Did he expect her to run away? Move her hand in retreat?
Instead, Luna looked at their hands, then met his eyes.
“I like watching you blush.”
“I am not,” she denied.
“Would you like me to prove it?”
Her back teeth clamped down on each other so hard to keep from smiling that her jaw ached.
The waiter arrived and broke the tension.
Pulling her hand away was less obvious when someone was placing a plate of food in front of her.
They dug into their meal, the first few bites without conversation.
The band entered another song much louder than the one before.
Nate scooted a little closer, leaned in. “Do you like country music?”
“It has its place,” she said.
“Any chance I can get you on that dance floor?”
Luna turned to look at the dancers. “The closest I’ve come to line dancing is doing the Macarena at weddings.”
“What about the two-step?”
She’d blacken his toes. And maybe if she did, he’d stop bringing up her blushing and the beauty of her eyes. “Do you know how to dance the two-step?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s two steps . . . how hard can it be?”
Once their plates were empty and a second drink was ordered . . . they both learned just how hard two steps were.
But the steps weren’t the point.
It was Nate’s hand on her waist, and the other holding her hand.
It was the way his body kept pressing against hers while they tried to stay away from the other dancers.
It was the two of them blowing off some much-needed steam after a week that started with a snowstorm and a ghost and ended on a dance floor in Texas.
And Nate talking into her ear. “We suck at this.”
“Fast, fast . . . slow, slow. Just count.”
They may have been doing the fast, fast, slow, slow . . . except at unequal times.
All they ended up doing was laughing at their efforts.
Luna noticed a few couples around them laughing at them, too.
Back at their table, Luna took the last sip of her drink and looked at Nate over the rim.
“Want another?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Tipsy is fine, drunk is not. And we have an early flight.”
Nate looked around them and signaled for the waiter.
Luna reached for her purse.
Nate placed a hand over hers. “My turn.”
She shook her head. “You paid for lunch.”
“If I let a woman pay for my meal and drinks in a place like this, they’ll revoke my man card.”
That made her want to pull out her credit card even faster.
Only Nate kept hold of her hand so she couldn’t dig for a wallet.
She wasn’t about to wrestle him for it.
Then she thought . . . maybe that was his goal.
The wrestling.
The cool winter air in Houston slapped them both as they exited the restaurant.
And the pounding beat of the music retreated as soon as the door closed behind them.
Luna gathered her coat around her to ward off the chill for their brief walk back to the hotel.
Nate moved around her, so he was walking on the street side of the sidewalk.
It wasn’t lost on her what that meant, but she couldn’t recall a time when a man had actually gone out of his way to be closer to traffic.
“Thank you . . . for dinner,” she said.
“Thank you for letting me keep my ego.”
She laughed. “Saving face amongst people you’ll never see again in this lifetime.”
“My mother would know.”
“How?”
“She’d ask. ‘Nate . . . you didn’t let that woman pay, did you? I taught you better than that.’” His voice rose an octave to mimic a female.
“It’s 2024. We’ve evolved. And we’re here on business,” Luna insisted.
Nate moved closer, placed a hand on her back, and gave way to another couple walking past.
His touch wasn’t expected, but not a surprise.
The man had made physical contact with her more in the last three days than all of them since they met.
“You can get the next meal,” he said.
“I will.”
He smiled at her.
And she realized he hadn’t taken his hand off the small of her back.
Their brisk walk back to the hotel had them shivering by the time they made it through the door.
In the elevator his hand slipped away, only to return as they were walking down the hall on the way to their rooms.
“You do know I noticed that, right?” she asked.
Nate looked at her from the side of his eyes. “You would have told me to stop if you didn’t like it.”
He was right.
Luna stopped at her door and removed the keycard from her purse.
Nate stood in front of her instead of moving one door down to his room.
She swallowed. “I . . . I’m not going to invite you in.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t accept, even if you did.”
She peered closer, looking for the lie that had to be there. He wanted to . . . the way he looked at her said he’d already been there in his head.
Or was that her projecting?
“Really?”
“Hmmm,” was his answer.
Nate took a step closer and slowly brought a hand to the side of her face.
She caught her breath.
Her lips parted.
A first kiss was seconds away . . . a couple of inches from wondering to knowing.
He leaned closer.
Luna’s heart thumped hard in her chest.
“Good night, Luna.”
Nate let her go, turned, and walked to his room.
It took her brain a minute to process what had just happened.
Nate smiled at her before disappearing into his room.
Luna slapped her keycard against the lock and pushed the hotel door open.
“What was that?” she whispered to the quiet room.
She tossed her purse on her bed. Her coat followed, and she kicked her shoes off before attempting to sit.
She stood the second her ass hit her bed.
He smelled like whiskey and really good bad decisions.
He had nice lips. The kind that would swallow her whole as she melted into him.
The images flowing in her head had her body responding.
Luna paced the room.
The view from the window looking out over the Houston skyline was filled with flickering lights. The perfect kind of light to get naked in.
And . . . what the fuck?
She wanted to get naked.
She wanted Nate to make her that way.
That was rude.
Thoughts flew as she paced the room wondering exactly what Nate was doing on the other side of the wall.
Luna grabbed the keycard to her room and stormed out.
The knock on Nate’s door was so loud, it hurt her own ears.
He opened the door, she stepped in. “That was r—”