“Of course,” Felicity said sarcastically.
“Can I come over?”
“No.”
“Babe,” he said pleadingly, “I’m really sorry about last night. It simply couldn’t be helped.”
“Sure, no problem. It won’t happen again.”
He shut his eyes. He couldn’t promise that. Not right now. “I will do my very best to avoid it happening again,” was all he could say.
“Oh, no need for that. We’re done, Aidan.”
“What?”
“I’m done letting men walk all over me.”
“But…sweetheart, I—”
“I saw you last night,” Felicity hissed. “I saw you get in a car.”
Fear clutched at Aidan’s heart.
“And, no,” Felicity continued, “it wasn’t a taxi or an Uber, because you got on the driver’s seat while she—whoever she is—transferred to the passenger side. And don’t give me the crap that it was your client picking you up. Who does that if it’s work-related? At ten o’clock at night!”
Aidan ran his fingers through his hair. This was worse than he’d imagined. “I can explain.”
“Really?” Felicity asked incredulously. “Okay, I’m listening.”
Well, what the hell should he say? What could he say?
Aidan opened his mouth to tell another lie, but no words came out. No fib would be good enough to help him right now. And, frankly, Felicity didn’t deserve another made-up story. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell her the truth, either.
“No answer, huh?” Felicity said in tearful anger. “Thanks for confirming what I think. I’m just glad it wasn’t Sophie. Go to hell, Aidan.” Then, she hung up.
Aidan looked up the ceiling, his eyes filling up. This couldn’t be happening.
He started sobbing quietly, his heart constricting like it hadn’t before.
He didn’t know how long he sat on his bed. When he had his emotions under control, he called Isla.
“Hey, Aidan,” Isla answered, speaking very softly.
“Hey. Did I wake you?”
“No. I’m up. Kallan’s still sleeping. Are we needed?”
“No,” he said. The couple had a very late night as well, surveilling Lydia.
“So, what’s up? Are you okay?”
“Could you call Fel, please? We, uh…” Emotions rose up his throat again.
“Oh, no,” Isla said sympathetically. “You had a fight?”
Aidan gulped down the pain that emanated from his chest. “She broke up with me. She saw me get in the car with Emma last night. She thought the worst.”
Isla let out a loud sigh.
“Just comfort her for me, please,” he asked.
“Aidan, I know this case is of particular importance to you. But there’s a reason why you decided to be inactive in the first place. You can take a back seat. We’ve got this. You can concentrate on being Fel’s boyfriend. Just be her personal protector.”
“I’m afraid she might not take me back.” He shook his head regretfully. “I guess I just didn’t know how to become inactive. I’m not used to it. I feel like I have to take part in the field operations, especially since it’s Fel’s safety at stake.”
“That’s understandable. I feel the same. But I don’t have to lie to her as much or as bad as you do. I don’t have to make excuses for my absences because it’s easy to arrange a catch-up with her when I’m available. But you—you don’t have a choice because you see each other a heck of a lot.”
“Used to,” he said despondently. “I don’t know how to explain what she saw. I don’t know how to make her trust me again.”
Isla was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know, either. But I’m sure you guys will find your way back together.”
Aidan smiled without cheer, wishing he had Isla’s positivity.
“You know,” Isla said, “I’ve been thinking, since Fel’s caught in this web, and since Maricar can probably convince the chiefs to do you a favour, maybe you can ask them to give Fel one of our new gadgets—that small IR call button that can be attached to our clothing? That’s tried and tested now, right?”
Aidan’s brows rose, his heart beating faster as Isla’s idea took hold. He’d been so caught up in the case that he hadn’t been thinking outside the box. “That’s a great idea.”
“How does it work, exactly?”
“It can be attached to any fabric so if thugs take our phones away from us, we can use it to call for help. The button itself is already fully functional, but our tech guys are still doing some final testing on the partner gadget, which is a tiny receiver that also attaches to clothing. Basically, if someone presses the call button, the receiver worn by the IR closest to the one in trouble will buzz. If that receiver isn’t turned off in a certain way—which would indicate that that agent is also in trouble—then the next closest receiver will buzz, and so on, and so forth. It has GPS and personal tracking, so Control will know who’s calling, who’s responding, and where they are.”
Isla whistled. “I love it when we get new gadgets. So, how do you think we can make the chiefs agree to give one to Fel when she’s not an IR? Honestly, I don’t think Fel would ever say yes to becoming one of us unless, perhaps, danger was staring her in the face. Even then, she’d probably call the police—or Sophie—first.”
“I know. I can probably make a case to the chiefs about giving Fel the button for an emergency if we can guarantee Fel definitely won’t use it to get us captured by the police.”
“I hate to say this, but we might need to resort to scaring Fel into believing that doing something like that would put her and her loved ones in immediate danger. Hey, come to think of it, that wouldn’t be a lie. If she does that, it will be putting you, me, and Kallan in immediate danger. Of course, we can’t say that it’s because we’re IRs—just that it’ll be some sort of punishment for disobeying the IR rules.“
“That could work since we’re very good at lying,” Aidan said dryly. “But how do we even explain that to her? Imagine her reaction if a masked person in an all-black outfit suddenly turns up at her apartment and tries to hand her a small gadget, asking her to wear it all the time? And then threaten her friends if she didn’t use it in accordance with instructions.”
Isla blew out a breath. “That’s the main problem, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I’ll still ask for a button for her so it’s ready when we figure out how to give it to her.”
“Okay, great.”
“And let me know how she is, please?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you. Are you going to ring her as soon as we end this call?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.”
“Aidan, we could be talking for hours. I promise I’ll call you back.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks.”
“No worries. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Aidan put the phone on the bedside table and lay back on the bed. As much as he wanted to solve the problem of how to give the call button to Felicity without her freaking out, he also needed to know how to get her back.
But that seemed as impossible as Fel becoming an Indie Rebel.
Chapter 18
When her phone, sitting next to her keyboard, vibrated, Felicity stopped the work she was doing. Her heart skipped when she saw it was from Aidan.
What the hell was wrong with her? How could she pine for this man while anger rattled her at the same time?
She wished time would hurry along. It had only been a week and a half since she’d broken up with Aidan, and she couldn’t wait to get to a point where he no longer affected her. She just couldn’t stand the conflict that raged inside whenever she thought of him—which was way too often for her comfort. Part of her wanted to believe his claim that he’d never cheated on her, and another part kept telling her not to be a fool.
Isla hadn’t been a help in that regard. While her best friend had been great at giving her solace for he
r broken heart, Isla had also added to her confusion. Apparently, seeing how broken Aidan was had convinced Isla that he was telling the truth. However, Isla had also said that if the way Aidan conducted his business didn’t inspire confidence in her, then it might be better to totally forget about him.
Her phone vibrated again as a reminder that she had a text waiting to be read. Perhaps she should block Aidan’s number, which she’d meant to do the last time he’d sent a grovelling text.
She picked up the device to do just that and ended up reading his message instead.
Hi, it’s me again. Just wanted to say hope you’re having a good day at the office. And that I love you and I miss you. Again, I swear there isn’t anyone else. It’s always been only you. Please, let’s talk soon.
Felicity blinked to stop the tears from forming. Damn him. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? And if he really wanted her to understand what had gone on that night, why hadn’t he provided an explanation? She was willing to listen to that, but it hadn’t been forthcoming. All he’d given were platitudes.
She deleted his message and the other four he’d previously sent. Immediately, she felt a pang of regret, but she pushed it aside. She wanted to move on. Hopefully, she’d be over him soon.
She went back to her task, only to be interrupted again by her vibrating phone. This time, the text was from Sophie, who wanted to meet up with her after work if she was free.
Well, she didn’t have a boyfriend anymore, so she had plenty of time to socialise with her other friends.
She texted Sophie back and agreed to meet at Sophie’s apartment for dinner. She’d never been to Sophie’s place before, and she was looking forward to having an in-depth, one-on-one chat with her police officer friend. It would be a good distraction from thoughts of Aidan tonight.
“Hey, Fel,” Sophie greeted as she opened the door.
“Hi. So glad to see you.” Felicity gave Sophie a hug before handing her a package. “I brought you the famous lemon curd tart from that bakery I kept talking about at the workshops.”
“Oh, thank you. It’ll be perfect for dessert. Lasagne’s already in the oven. We’ll have some salad with it.”
“Wonderful. Thanks for inviting me over. It’s nice to chat with just the two of us.”
“It is.” Sophie led her inside and gave her a quick tour of the one-bedroom apartment, ending in the kitchen. “Let’s have a drink while I make the salad.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“You can set the table, if you like. Plates and cutlery are in there.”
Felicity took plates from the cabinet indicated by Sophie. “So how has your week been so far?” she asked.
“Good, thanks. Still a bit time-poor because I’m still seeing my mum every day.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Much better. She’s a good patient, thankfully—always following nurse’s orders. And you? How’s everything going?”
“I’m okay,” Felicity said, trying to keep her tone light.
“Just okay?”
“Well… Aidan and I broke up a week and a half ago.”
Sophie’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t tell us this last Sunday.”
She smiled ruefully. “No. I didn’t want to talk about it at the time.”
“Of course. What happened?” Sophie poured them both a glass of white.
Felicity bit her lip. “He left Tessa’s party not long after you. Then, I saw him get in a car with another woman.”
“No,” Sophie said, eyes wide. “What did he say when you told him?”
She huffed. “He couldn’t explain it.”
“Oh, Fel. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Um…there’s something important I need to discuss with you.”
Felicity’s brows rose at the hesitation in Sophie’s tone. “Okay.”
“Let’s sit over there.” Sophie picked up their glasses and went to the living room.
Felicity followed, frowning. She had a feeling that Sophie was about to give her some bad news. She sat on the couch and gave Sophie a concerned, questioning look.
Sophie sat in the armchair next to her. “As you know, I’m off the Shannon West’s Missing Cash case. But I’ve been advised by my colleagues—Detectives Freeman and Kaur—that they believe Nolan was lying when he claimed you knew what happened to his father’s money. There were a lot of holes in Nolan’s story. In other words, he was making stuff up.”
Relief filled Felicity. “That’s great. Not that I’ve been losing sleep over it. I know they won’t find anything against me. Is that official?”
Sophie nodded. “You’re definitely no longer under suspicion. Even Volker didn’t find anything suspicious about you—he’s a private detective hired by Lydia.”
Felicity cringed. “Some guy had been following me?”
“No. He mainly interviewed your previous neighbours, Nolan’s friends, and Nolan himself. When I personally quizzed him, he said that what Lydia paid him didn’t cover hours and hours of surveillance,” Sophie said with a shrug. “Anyway, Freeman and Kaur checked out Aidan, too, to see if he somehow helped you launder Shannon’s missing cash. Even I tailed him before I was taken off the case. But nothing could be found against him either.”
Felicity blinked. “Was that why you made that comment about doing a background check on him?”
“Well, I was subtly giving you hints not to trust him fully, but not because of the Shannon West case. At the time, my colleagues were already saying that he was also in the clear, but wouldn’t give me any details. I was suspicious of Aidan for an altogether different reason. Remember when I said I thought he lived at Point Piper?”
“Yes.”
“I saw him go there on a Sunday while I was still on the case. He went inside like it was his property. That continued to bug me because from what you’ve told us about Aidan, he couldn’t have afforded that kind of place in that particular suburb. When I discovered you didn’t know anything about it, my suspicions heightened.”
Felicity frowned. “He goes to clients’ premises a lot, and he doesn’t have set working hours. Sometimes, he even gets called to work on urgent matters late at nights.”
Sophie smiled wryly. “That didn’t occur to me. So, I did my own investigations while I was on leave because I was worried about you, and the detectives on the Shannon West case weren’t pursuing any other matters not connected to that case. Anyway, not long after, my colleagues were able to let me in on the details. Turns out that the Point Piper property is owned by a corporation, and it looked like Aidan was merely doing some IT work for them. I guess if you have a big client like that, you will work on any day of the week—even a Sunday.”
“Yeah,” Felicity said with a smile.
Sophie paused for a moment. “My colleagues also believe that Nolan owes a criminal gang something, and they want their payment. To get them off his back, it seems that Nolan told the bad guys the same story he’s been telling the police.”
Goosebumps covered Felicity. “He told them I know where his dad’s money is?”
“That’s what my colleagues think.”
Felicity gulped, fear slowly spreading in her chest. “So, criminals are after me?”
“There’s no way to tell if they believe Nolan or not. But if they decide to test the validity of Nolan’s claims against you, then they might—and that’s a might—pay you a visit.”
Felicity's eyes widened. “What should I do then?”
“Unfortunately, the police currently don’t consider you as somebody who needs protection since no one’s actually been harassing you or threatening you or anything like that. But we want you to be extra careful—be a bit more aware of your surroundings. If you feel unsafe at any point, call the police or me directly.”
Felicity stared at her friend.
“Hey.” Sophie squeezed her hand. “I don’t want you to be so paranoid that you won’t go out of your apartment or that you’ll always look
behind to see if you’re being followed. That’s no way to live. Just be more aware, that’s all.”
It took a long while before Felicity could nod. “Thank you for telling me this.”
“I wanted to be the one to tell you. You’re my friend.”
Felicity gave Sophie a grateful smile.
“Okay, so that’s done.” Sophie stood and walked back to the kitchen. “Now, let’s talk about something more enjoyable. I don’t want you to worry too much.”
For the rest of the evening, Felicity tried to relax and put Sophie’s caution at the back of her mind. But when it was time for her to head home, she felt tense.
“I’ll see you on Sunday,” Sophie said as they said goodbye. “Take care, but don’t over-worry. If I were you, I’d get one of those personal alarms. If someone tries to accost you, you can press it and attract the attention of everyone around. That should scare them off.”
Felicity chuckled. “I still have my old one that Isla got for me after I left Nolan.”
“Great. Keep it with you again at all times until this is over.”
“Okay.”
“And anytime you feel scared, call me.”
She wrapped her arms around Sophie. “Thank you. I appreciate everything, including dinner.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Felicity waved goodbye and got in her car.
As she started to drive home, nerves attacked her. Damn it. Was she going to start feeling like this again every time she was out alone? She’d already experienced this kind of fear before—after Nolan had set fire to her old car and prior to him being caught by the police.
The dashboard flashed Isla’s name as her phone started ringing through her car’s speakers. “Isla! Hi!” she said with relief.
“Hey, are you busy?”
“I’m driving.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I just left Sophie’s place. She invited me for dinner.”
“That’s nice. Any occasion?”
“She told me something. Oh my God, Isla. You won’t believe this.”
“What?”
“Wait, were you gonna tell me something?”
Aidan: The Rescue (Indie Rebels Book 5) Page 17