See! Trinity wanted to blurt out that it wasn’t her fault. It was someone else’s fault. But she was a supervisor, she’d been late, and she had no doubt a note was somewhere in her cubicle.
Leaving Mr. Wanamaker’s office, Trinity marched back to her cubicle. Where could it be? She sifted through her in-basket. Not there. She ruffled piles of paper. No note. Then she stopped, stared. One crumpled bit of paper lay forlornly at the bottom of her trashcan. Gritting her teeth, Trinity picked it out, smoothed it on the desktop, and read.
“I’ve already downloaded the bank data. Don’t do it again.”
Her blood ran so hot, it scorched her veins. She didn’t make scenes. She was better than that. Instead, she entered Inga’s cubicle quietly, a smile on her lips and fire in her eyes. Setting the note on Inga’s keyboard, Trinity was gratified the way the woman jumped.
“That,” Trinity said, her voice low, “was in my trash.”
Inga recovered. “You shouldn’t have thrown it out.”
“That’s where you put it.” She didn’t raise her voice.
“I did not.” Inga snorted and brushed the note aside.
“I supposed it crumpled itself and fell in the trash.”
Inga trilled her fingernails on her keypad, then slowly rolled her chair back and rose to her full stiletto-heeled height. “I left it in your cubicle like I said I did.” Folding her arms beneath her breasts, she straightened her shoulders. “Everyone can hear you trying to foist the blame off on me.” Then she smiled. Like Eve’s snake offering the apple.
They both knew she was lying, yet Trinity couldn’t prove a thing. She could only make herself look worse.
How did you deal with a woman who lied even when openly confronted?
IN the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains where he lived, it didn’t rain more days than over the hill in the Bay Area. It simply rained harder, pounding on the roof, dumping it down until the eaves overflowed and created a waterfall out in the atrium. Yet the lush green after the wet season was one of the reasons Scott loved it here, and you had to love the area to justify the trek over the hill every day. In the summer, the fog rolled off the ocean and cooled everything down, while in Silicon Valley, it could be stifling. The view out his floor-to-ceiling living room windows was of the forest, pine, redwood, oak, liquid amber. At night, the coyotes serenaded him to sleep. In the morning, chattering squirrels woke him.
Scott poured himself a finger of scotch and lit a fire to ward off the rain’s dampness and the chill of the February evening. He booted up his notebook on the coffee table.
She hadn’t left a message at work, nor had he checked his e-mail all day. It felt like the early days of college courtship, who’s going to call who, who’ll make the first move. He was more than twenty years past that, yet he’d never dealt with a woman who wouldn’t give him her name even though she’d fucked him.
Maybe that fact was why he’d needed the scotch. He was man enough to admit he couldn’t wait until Friday to check his e-mail. Maybe she’d relented . . .
The back of his neck prickled. One message remained after he’d deleted the spam. It wasn’t her. The same address as before, an attachment, the subject line reading, “Caught you again.”
This time, there was a message. “You are a very naughty man.” Despite himself, he got a chill. Jezebel had called him a naughty man.
Could this all be a blackmail setup orchestrated by her?
Not likely. He’d knocked on her hotel room door.
The creamy skin of her exposed thigh was the lightest tone in the photo. The dark alcove obscured the rest of her, though there was no doubt his hand explored the mysteries beneath her skirt. Like an ingrained memory, her scent filled his head. His fingers could almost feel the silk of her skin. And he had to stop the obsessive thinking. Everything came back to her.
Mark was a wizard. Could he track the e-mail address and see who originated it? Then again, Scott didn’t want to take Mark’s work time for a personal matter. Checking on the badge could be accounted for as a security issue: There had been an unclaimed card key out there. Tracking back this e-mail, however, couldn’t be justified. The alternative was to admit to Mark the personal nature and ask him to research in off hours.
If Mark could find out who’d sent the JPEGs, he could also get to Jezebel’s real identity. The thought spiraled Scott down into a world filled with her scent, her textures, her voice. The detective work was a slippery slope to violating her privacy.
One thing was for sure: Whoever had taken the photo was probably in the theater as well. He was being followed, watched. Threatened? He couldn’t be sure, but he did send out a test.
“If this is blackmail, you should know I don’t give a damn what you do with those pictures.” Then he hit Send.
Hell, there’d be no more public hanky-panky. Hotel rooms were a possibility, but preferably his house.
Maybe the e-mails could actually work in his favor. If he told her about them. Yet, tracking her down, either through her e-mail or her license plate, scaring her with the threat of blackmail, was a shitty path to take.
Jesus. How low would he sink to get what he wanted?
“THANKS for inviting me to dinner, Daddy.” Trinity had actually avoided the country club since she’d kicked Harper out.
Her father was already seated, and she bent to kiss the top of his head. He’d ordered a fried calamari appetizer.
“Should you be eating that?”
He shot her a look as he popped one of the morsels into his mouth. Ooh-kay. She’d keep her trap shut about his dining habits. It was just that he’d undo the good habits he’d started.
Trinity primly perched on the seat next to him. “Thanks for ordering me a lemon water.”
“You can have some calamari.” He stabbed one of the squiggly little things with his fork.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” She sipped her water.
Early on a weeknight, the country club’s dining room wasn’t full. Maybe it was the rain, too, beating against the garden windows. People wanted to get home. Despite the candles against the white tablecloths, the rain made everything seem dark and oppressive. But there were the Plumleys and a few others she knew. Trinity waved and smiled, praying no one came over.
She opened her menu.
“I ordered you spinach salad with no dressing, bacon bits, or egg crumbles.”
Which made it a bowl of spinach instead of a salad. How had she managed to eat like that all these years? She flipped a menu page. “Thank you, but I’d like something more substantial.”
Daddy touched her forehead. “Are you all right?”
Suddenly she wanted to tell him everything, how her new flame needed a respite from her and her new job was getting old fast. “I’m fine,” she said instead. “I just forgot to eat.” She’d finally remembered when her temples began to throb with a hunger headache.
Their French waiter arrived, and even his flattering glances didn’t make her feel any better. So she ordered the mushroom crepes with a creamy sauce. She’d always wondered how good they’d taste. “You can skip the spinach my father ordered.”
He scribbled on his pad, then smiled beatifically. Daddy ordered the salmon. Good. It had lots of omega-3 fish oil. Very healthy.
“How’s the job going?” he asked when they were alone.
He didn’t call her sweetie or honey or any endearment at all. “Well, I did have a little issue today,” she admitted.
He polished off the last bite of calamari, and Trinity wished she’d shared. His mouth closed, he picked his teeth clean with his tongue, then casually said, “So I heard.”
Mr. Wanamaker had probably run straight up to executive row. The reason he didn’t have his office up there himself was so he could keep an eye on his harem of accountants.
Gosh, that sounded bitter. She had to stop that brand-new tendency she’d developed. It was very unbecoming.
“I understand,” Daddy went on, “that there was a half-
day work stoppage.”
She cringed. “Everything was back up by eleven so it wasn’t a whole half day.”
He ignored the correction. “All because you were late?”
“Actually it was because I didn’t see the note Inga left telling me she’d run everything.” Now that wasn’t casting blame.
“But if you never saw the note, Trinity, how did it come to be crumpled up in your wastebasket?”
Mr. Ackerman had come looking for it so she’d had to show him, and darn it, Daddy had heard, too. “I don’t know how it got there.” She would not fall into the trap of complaining to her father about a problem she had to solve on her own.
Her father swirled the ice cubes in his glass of tea. At least she hoped it was tea and not something stronger. “When you asked for this job, I was happy to give it to you.”
“I know, and I appreciate that.”
“But I thought you’d take it seriously.”
Her ribs hurt as if someone had kicked her. “I am taking it seriously. I’m doing everything I can to learn the procedures. I even suggested we put in safeguards to ensure a duplicate download can’t happen again.”
He circled his hand in the air. “Big whoop-de-doo. Plug the hole after you make the mistake.”
His words sliced her to ribbons. She didn’t even have a come-back. Daddy had never talked to her that way, at least not before she started working for him.
The French heartthrob arrived with their meals, bending at the knees to slide her plate in front of her. The crepes were swimming in all that creamy sauce, the air laden with the overpowering scent of garlic. No longer hungry, she pushed the china away with her thumb.
“You don’t like?” her waiter asked after setting down Daddy’s salmon.
“She just doesn’t eat, that’s all.” His tone denigrating, her father grimaced.
This wasn’t her father. This wasn’t even her life. It was someone else’s life, as if she were playing a part in that Freaky Friday movie and switched places with . . . a nincompoop.
“It’s a lot of garlic,” she tried to explain.
“Would you like the spinach salad instead, no dressing, no bacon bits, no egg crumbles?” The poor man remembered. Probably because he thought she was a total freak.
“Yes, please.” She sounded like a child, though not Daddy’s perfect little girl.
Will the real Trinity Green please get her head out of her—She didn’t finish the thought. Instead, she pulled the crepes right back in front of her. “I’ve changed my mind. My olfactory senses have gotten used to the garlic, and this is what I want.” She’d eat the crepes. She was not a child.
When the waiter was gone, she put her hand over her father’s, stilling him before he reached for his fork.
“Daddy, you’re right. I have improvements to make in my work attitude. If you’ll have a little more patience with me, I will not make the same mistake again. I won’t be late, either.” She’d put the alarm clock across the room so she didn’t accidentally push Snooze. “I will be the best Accounts Receivable supervisor Green Industries has ever had.”
“We’ve never had an Accounts Receivable supervisor before.”
“See?” She beamed. “I’m already the best, and I’ll keep getting better.”
She would not let Inga Rice get the better of her. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter, and her mom would not have given up without a fight.
14
BY Friday, Trinity was heavy into withdrawal. Her hands shook, her face felt flushed, and her nighttime Scott dreams flashed before her eyes at odd times. Especially in boring meetings. It had been three days, sixteen hours, and thirty-six minutes since she’d seen him, talked to him, touched him, kissed him, and she was going crazy. And it wasn’t the sex she missed.
In the break room, she set the coffee brewing for her umpteenth cup of the day, and it was only one thirty. If Scott didn’t e-mail today—he’d said Friday, right, and it was Friday—she wasn’t sure how she’d make it through the weekend.
“Trinity?”
Boyd had sneaked up on her. “What?” It came out far too harsh. “I mean, what can I do for you; I’m making coffee, and you’re more than welcome to have a cup when it’s done.”
“Actually,” he said, “I wanted to apologize.”
The rich coffee scent in the air made her light-headed. Boyd was a good-looking young man. He was tall—he’d have been taller if he didn’t slump—with a full head of hair and a sweet smile. He might be good for Josie. Except that Josie could be a little dominant, and that might not be so good for Boyd. On the other hand, a dominant woman could be exactly what he needed.
“What on earth do you have to apologize for?” Putting her mug near the coffee stream, she switched out the pot for her cup, filling it with the brew. Over the last three days, sixteen hours and change, she’d perfected the maneuver.
“For Tuesday?” Boyd’s rising tone made it a question.
Tuesday? Two days, sixteen hours, and—oh stop?!—Tuesday was Inga-debacle day. She held up a hand. “You don’t need to.”
“I have to explain. I should have figured out the issue with the negative cash balance before I went racing over to Inga. I thought it was her fault, and—”
“And you wanted to cover her butt before anyone found out.” Oops, had she said that? She almost put her hand over her mouth, but she was tried of watching what she said so no one got pissed off at her. Pissed off. It was a new phrase for her lexicon.
“No.” While Boyd talked, Trinity expertly replaced the coffeepot and poured flavored creamer—another addiction—into her cup. “I sort of went over there to lord it over her that she’d sent out too many checks with last Friday’s run.”
Oh. That was a horse of different color. Maybe red, signifying anger. Boyd didn’t like Inga. She thought everyone, certainly all the males in the vicinity, liked Inga.
Boyd shot a look over his shoulder as if to make sure they were still alone.
“I’ll tell you if anyone’s coming,” she offered.
“Inga was the one who insisted I tell Ackerman. She said she hadn’t printed anymore checks than he’d approved, and that maybe someone had given him incorrect cash numbers.” He glanced at his shoes sheepishly. “I have to admit I was trying to cover my own ass at that point.”
Well, well, well. “And who thought Mr. Wanamaker needed to know?” She held up a hand. “Nope, don’t tell me.”
“Inga,” he mouthed, then used his voice. “If I’d figured out the problem, I would have come to you first, then Ackerman, and it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.”
So, she’d gotten into the crosshairs of Boyd’s little tiff with Inga. Inga had engineered it, though, first the note in the trash instead of on Trinity’s desk, then she sicced Ackerman and Wanamaker on her. Oh, how Inga must have beamed when the whole thing got blown out of proportion.
The question was what to do. Trinity hadn’t figured that out. Maybe if she wasn’t so busy counting the days, hours, and minutes since her last Scott encounter . . . She didn’t realize she’d made a horrible face until Boyd’s eyes widened.
She patted his arm. “I appreciate the apology. It’s not necessary, though. I learned a lot from my mistake.” Yes, she’d been instituting checks and balances, writing procedures, etc., yadda yadda, ad nauseam.
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