by Lexi Blake
Rage choked him. He stood there in the doorway, his mind racing, trying to find a way out. The trouble was Ian never left a way out. Ian would do it. Sean could do nothing but take his brother’s offer. He had to protect Grace. She wouldn’t be able to handle prison, even for the short term. His brother was a righteous bastard. “I will never forgive you for this, Ian.”
“I know, but if I’m right about what’s going on, then at least you’ll be alive to hate me.”
Sean strode out the door, glancing back only momentarily. His brother stood there like a chunk of granite, completely immovable and without a bit of emotion. Eve tried to stop him, but Sean pulled away from her. “Can’t stay for a therapy session, Eve. I’ve got to go sit in a van and listen to our ‘prime suspect’ take a shower in the morning. I wouldn’t want to miss that. I’m out when this is over, Ian. Do you understand that?”
Ian nodded, as though Sean’s resignation had been a factor he’d weighed and found an acceptable loss. “It’s for the best. You’re not cut out for this.”
Sean slammed the door behind him.
Chapter Eleven
Grace came awake in a bit of a haze. She sat up in bed and looked around trying to get her eyes to focus. Her mouth felt a bit dry. How much wine had she had last night? She thought it was only a glass, but she had to be wrong, right?
There was a glass of water on the nightstand. She smiled a bit before drinking a good portion of it down. Sean was a thoughtful man. The memory of last night washed over her like a cold rain. Now she was awake and just the tiniest bit mortified. What had possessed her to tell him she loved him? Grace let her head fall to her hands. She knew why she said it. She’d said it because she meant it. She loved Sean Johansson. She also knew that he was leaving, and that would be the end of their relationship. The most she could hope for with him was a few hot weekends, and then he would find someone younger and fall in love and get married. He had that whole phase of his life ahead of him.
Grace shook it off. He’d been sweet. He’d told her he was crazy about her. She remembered that much. He’d made love to her again. It was okay. They could move on and pretend like she’d never said it. They could enjoy the rest of the week.
She breathed in deeply, wondering if he was already in the kitchen making something scrumptious for breakfast. She didn’t hear the shower running. Tossing off the covers, she reached for her robe. Every muscle in her body protested. And she was sore in places she had never been sore in before. The floor beneath her felt wobbly. She wasn’t drinking again. She couldn’t handle it apparently.
“Sean?”
No one called back. Grace padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. No Sean there and no signs of an impending breakfast cooking session. The kitchen was pristine. Every dish had been washed and put away. The whole house was silent as a grave.
A sinking feeling threatened to overtake Grace. She turned back to the bedroom and, sure enough, his small suitcase was gone. When she looked at the bar, his keys were missing. He’d placed them beside hers the night before. She’d stared down at those side-by-side keys, a sweet intimacy invading her veins. Now tears filled her eyes. He wasn’t out getting something or taking a jog. She felt it. He was gone. He’d left in the middle of the night without even waiting to say goodbye.
All because she’d been dumb enough to say I love you? That seemed a bit harsh. Grace managed to find the edge of her bed. She sank down as the tears started to fall. She knew Sean didn’t love her, but she’d thought he’d liked her enough that he wouldn’t just walk out. She sat on the bed for the longest time, going over everything she could remember about the night before. In no way did he seem like a man who was ready to run. He’d been sweet, and he’d made love to her like she was the last woman on Earth. It had to be because she’d said she loved him. He probably envisioned a clinging vine pulling him down. Of course he didn’t want a declaration of love from his weeklong fling.
Grace forced herself to move, to turn on the shower, to brush her teeth. She walked through her morning routine like an automaton. Her legs worked, her arms functioned, but her brain was somewhere else. It was stuck in a loop of regret, recrimination, and no small amount of self-loathing. What had she been thinking? She’d thrown herself into a D/s relationship with a man she barely knew. She’d let him do things her husband hadn’t even done to her before, and she’d begged him to do it. She’d been a complete moron.
And worse, she already missed him.
The phone rang after she’d dressed for work, and her heart leapt. For the first time that morning, she moved with purpose. She grabbed the phone. Relief felt like a drug in her veins.
“Hello.” Of course he would contact her. He’d just gotten called away. He had a job after all and a life in another state. He didn’t want to wake her. He was probably calling her from the airport.
“Hey, mom.” The sunny voice of her youngest son filled her ears.
Normally it would buoy her spirits. Now she found herself forcing a light response out of her mouth as her heart fell. She stood there murmuring all the right things, but she wasn’t really there. After listening to a couple of stories about what was going on in Austin, she promised to send him some gas money and hung up.
That was when she saw it, a small piece of paper hanging from a magnet on the refrigerator. Grace pulled it off with shaky hands.
Grace – Got called back to Chicago. Had a great time. Thanks for everything. Sean.
Fourteen words. No promises to call. He’d been the one to say their relationship could go beyond the week he was here. He’d been the one to point out that he would be back. Why had he done that?
To make it easier to get you in bed, idiot. He wanted you compliant and you were. You were everything he wanted right up to the point when you said you loved him. No guy that hot really wants a forty-year-old girlfriend.
That awful voice filled her head. It whispered to her. It spouted its terrible doubt all the way to the office. She heard it when she sat in on a meeting with Matt. She heard it through her coffee break with Kayla. It roared at her every time she passed a mirror. She skipped lunch, preferring to work at her desk.
“Hey gorgeous, are you going to happy hour with the rest of us losers or are you meeting that hottie of yours?” Adam Miles sat down on the edge of her desk looking young and filled with an energy she couldn’t even comprehend today. She’d been hanging out with too many young people. That was the trouble.
“No, I have some work to do.” Her voice sounded flat to her own ears. She forced a smile on her face. “Some other time.” In the very, very distant future.
Adam’s eyes seemed to bore through her. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a headache. You know we old ladies get those.”
He paled visibly. “You’re not old, Grace.” His hand reached out, grabbed hers, tangling their fingers together. “You’re the loveliest woman I know. Hell, I’m thirty. I’m not that much younger than you. And you know women outlive men by like seven years or something. That makes me practically perfect. And Jake. He’s thirty-one. We’re the perfect age for you.”
It was the first thing she’d found amusing all day. “That’s good to know. If I ever need a gay husband, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
That seemed to startle him for a moment. He looked thoughtful as he stared at their entwined hands. “Doesn’t every girl need a gay husband? And hey, sometimes Prince Charming comes in a strange package. You never know what’s around the corner, Grace. Come out with me. Look, I’m wounded. You can’t deny me.”
Grace took a long look at him. He seemed to have tried to conceal it, but sure enough his eye was slightly swollen, and his nose looked rough, too. Her self-pity took a momentary backseat. She put her hands up to frame his bruised face. “Oh, sweetie, what happened to you?”
“I got mugged. I got mugged by a stupid, overly-possessive asshole.” His sensual mouth was pouting a little. He really was heartbreakingly attractive. He was l
eaner than Sean, but there was no doubt Adam Miles was fit.
Someone had gotten him good. “How do you know if your mugger’s overly possessive? The asshole part is obvious.”
“Well, he seemed awfully possessive to me when he was beating the crap out of me over something that doesn’t really belong to him. Anyway, let’s forget about him, love. Come out with us. If we can tempt you away from that big hunk of man meat, I promise to show you a civilized time. We’ll get a couple of drinks and then go heckle some romantic comedy at the theater. It’ll be fun.”
She shook her head and then stopped. What was she planning on doing anyway? Was she planning on going home and crying her eyes out? Yes. That had pretty much summed up her plans for the evening. She would go home, stare at the television for a while and then try to eat something. After that she would go to her empty bed, if she could stand to sleep there, and cry. Couldn’t she go out with her friends and then go home and cry her eyes out? Maybe, if she spent some time with the boys, she wouldn’t need to cry. Maybe she wouldn’t feel that overwhelmingly oppressive loneliness that threatened to swamp her. Maybe that damn voice would go away.
And why should she cry? It wasn’t like Sean loved her. He’d made that plain last night. No man who really even cared about her would have left without saying goodbye. That stupid note didn’t count.
“Okay.” She was hesitant, but she managed to get the words out. Before Sean, she’d been forming a nice little friendship with Adam and his boyfriend, Jake. It would be comforting to not spend every evening alone. Sure she was the third wheel with Adam and Jake, but at least she wasn’t alone, crying into her wine glass.
Adam’s face lit up, and he looked younger than his thirty years. “Awesome.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I’ll go make reservations. I’ll be back here at five, okay?”
Reservations? “I thought we were going to happy hour.”
“We will. Some place nice. Now that we have you all to ourselves, we should celebrate.” A long, slow smile crossed his handsome face. He reached out and touched her nose playfully with his index finger. “It’s all going to be okay, Gracie. It’s for the best, you’ll see.” He winked and strode from the room, already on his cell phone.
What had that been about? What was for the best? Men. She didn’t understand any of them. Gay, straight, vanilla, Dom. She would never be able to get into those odd brains of theirs and come out with any form of logic. Saying I love you wasn’t like asking for a commitment. She hadn’t asked him to marry her. She’d just muttered something affectionate in the middle of some truly filthy, mind-blowing sex. It shouldn’t have sent him scurrying halfway across the country just to escape her.
Damn it. She was going there again.
Matt’s head popped out of his office. Grace noted that his eyes were bloodshot again. She would have sworn that he was wearing the same suit he’d worn the day before. Unlike Adam, Matt looked far older than his years. “Could I see you in here for a minute?”
Grace picked up a notepad and followed her boss into the office. Her heart hurt as she remembered the last time she was in here. Sean had ordered her to lean over the desk, and he’d had his way with her. Of course, he’d pretty much had his way with her any way he’d wanted. She could still feel his hands on her hips as he pushed that big dick of his into her pussy. He’d filled her up until she couldn’t remember that she’d felt lonely before. It had been so much more than sex for her. That was what hurt. It hadn’t meant the same thing to him. Not even close. She would remember him forever, and he’d probably already moved on to the next woman.
“Are you working on the party? I’d like to see the plans.” Matt’s voice brought her out of her memories.
She tried to shake off the vision of Sean’s big body taking hers. She had a job to do. She needed to concentrate on that. “I called a caterer.”
“And the venue?”
“I thought we’d use the Ashton.” It was a gorgeous Art Deco hotel in the heart of downtown. The ballroom was the perfect place for corporate parties. Grace had thrown the Christmas party there two years before.
Matt was quiet for a moment, his eyes still as he seemed to consider her plans. “All right. That’s a nice place. Close to the freeway. That will work.”
Grace wasn’t sure why he cared, but the street the hotel was on was close to I-35. “Yes. I got a good rate. I’m using their kitchens. Luckily they had a cancellation, so they could fit us in. I thought it would be nice to do an Asian buffet.”
His nose crinkled up in distaste, but he shook it off. “I don’t care about the food, just make sure everyone comes. Send out invites to everyone and their significant others. And invite the other tenants in the building. This is a big deal, Grace. This is going to take us to a whole different level.”
“I understand.” The Bryson Building deal was big. It made sense that Matt wanted to celebrate. It was just that he said all the right things, but Grace could see he was unmoved on an emotional level. He seemed so very disconnected.
“Good.” He sat back down at his desk and started to go through the papers there. Grace waited for a moment. He didn’t look up at her when he spoke again. “I got a call from Kelvin. They decided to go another way.”
Sean wouldn’t be coming back. He was gone. “I’ll cancel your meetings with Mr. Johansson.” The words tasted like ash in her mouth, but she managed to get them out.
His eyes came up to search hers. “And what about your meetings with him?”
“I didn’t have anything scheduled with him.” She hadn’t thought she needed to. He was living at her place.
“All right. It’s for the best, Grace. You’ll see. We don’t need that contract. We’ll be rolling in money, now.”
She was happy he was sure of it. She still hadn’t seen the contract and wouldn’t hold her breath. He hadn’t put it on her desk this morning. He was holding it close to his vest for some strange reason. A couple of questions started to play at the back of Grace’s brain.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t get serious about that playboy, isn’t it?” Matt had a superior little smirk on his face.
A flush stole across Grace’s skin. It was a damn good thing she hadn’t run around the office proclaiming her conquest. Only Adam, Jake, and Kayla knew she’d been seeing him away from work. At least she thought that was all. God, she couldn’t handle it if everyone knew she’d played around with a younger man and got dumped after only a few nights. It was a good thing he wasn’t coming back. She didn’t think she could handle seeing him back in the office, potentially hitting on someone new.
“Yeah. It was just casual.”
He pinned her with a glare that made her wonder how much he knew. “I’m glad. Maybe now you can concentrate on work. Let me know how the party planning comes. I want this to be perfect, Grace.”
Grace nodded and was relieved to find herself dismissed. She slunk out of Matt’s office. It wasn’t surprising that he would call her out. He’d been against her relationship with Sean from the beginning. He’d been the one to tell her she should be cautious. Cautious? He’d told her flat out Sean wouldn’t stay, and he hadn’t.
The rest of the afternoon centered around calls to caterers and plans for the big party. At three, Evan Parnell strode into Matt’s office after giving Grace a smirk. He’d never actually looked her straight in the eyes before. The contact unsettled her. It also made her remember that slip of paper he’d dropped the day before. Following her instincts, Grace looked up the address on the Internet. It was to a mail facility that offered safety deposit boxes as well as mail collection services. She thought about that long list of numbers. Some of them she recognized now. She’d checked them against bank accounts that Wright Temps used and matched three of the numbers. One of them, though, was too short to be an account number. Grace wondered if it was a box number or a locker code.
When Evan Parnell left Matt’s office, Grace was a minute behind him.
It
was stupid. She knew it as she followed him out to his truck. She had zero business playing the private eye, but the longer this thing with Parnell went on, the more she suspected he was blackmailing her boss. Matt was getting markedly worse, and he almost always went on a bender after meeting with Parnell. Logic told her Matt should have dumped him as an employee long before. So why was Parnell still around?
Grace tried to follow at a distance. She lost him twice, but caught sight of the black truck at the bank. Parnell parked in the parking lot and went in. He was in the bank for ten minutes. He came out holding an envelope and immediately crossed the street.
Grace checked the name of the street. Mount Dale Avenue.
Grace put the car in park and slipped out to follow Parnell into the Addison Mail and Storage Center. The storefront was new, and the center appeared to take up most of the small strip it was located on. From the street she could see that Parnell was talking to the clerk. They spoke for a moment and then Parnell was allowed behind the desk and led to the back of the store.
What did Evan Parnell need with a storage locker? He had a large storage facility for his janitorial supplies. She doubted he was keeping mops and brooms here. Now that she knew the name of this place, she remembered the check she had written out. Matt had told her to pay it. It was for a small locker here. She’d paid for the full security package for a year. She’d assumed it was for Matt. Why was Matt paying for Parnell’s storage with Wright Temp funds?
Grace glanced down at her watch. She would have to hurry to meet Adam and Jake. She briefly considered canceling on them, but decided not to. The thought of going home to her lonely little house and thinking about Sean all night was too much.