“What kind of surprise?”
She thought about not being there, in that house she had explored and found comfort in, and realized that sounded just awful. “A happy one. Very happy.”
Yes, that felt right. The hollowness had eased. Saying the words, making a commitment to him, made her feel lighter not weighed down.
His frown only deepened. “Okay, so is that a yes?”
The poor thing. “I love when you stumble over people stuff.”
His expert fingers kept skimming over her skin. “I know it’s annoying,” he said.
“It’s actually pretty cute.” It no longer bothered her. She wasn’t sure it ever really did. “I love that you try.”
“Did you answer my question about the house?”
She’d ducked it. Brushed past it hoping a half answer was good enough. Maybe it was fear that had her stalling. She wasn’t sure since she didn’t feel any hesitation on the inside. And he deserved to know that.
“I don’t understand how it happened or why it did, but I know that I’m comfortable here. I feel at home and welcome. Bigger than that, I want to be with you. No matter where we are.” The words tumbled out of her. Instead of measuring them and protecting herself from future heartache, she didn’t hold back. “So, that’s a yes.”
Satisfaction flashed across his face. “Good, since I know I’m not really great at dating.”
“Wrong.” She gave him a small kiss. Then another, this one a bit more lingering and with a slip of tongue.
He pulled back and stared at her. “What?”
“You’re very good at it.”
“Are we talking about sex?” His hands were more insistent now.
He cupped her breasts and gently massaged them. Brought her body screaming back to life.
“We’re talking about everything. The things you said to Tyler today.” She couldn’t think about that meeting without feeling conflicting emotions. Her heart expanded after listening to Wren. It broke for Tyler.
“He needed to know he wasn’t alone.”
Wren got it. He totally understood all the insecurities that went along with being in this horrible exclusive club. “You don’t think he has anything to do with Tiffany’s disappearance, do you?”
“Probably not.” Wren put a hand on each of her cheeks. “I think everything that happened messed him up as a kid and he never got past it. Maybe his parents were too busy trying to protect him legally to see that he needed something else.”
“You could have been a dick and you weren’t. You made a difference.” She leaned in and gave him a real kiss. Long and sexy enough to have her squirming on his lap, and when she pulled back he looked as dazed as she felt. “You should see your expression.”
“The conversation is jumping all around.”
“No, it’s not.” It totally was, but she didn’t care. “We’re talking about us and how much I enjoy being with you.”
He nodded. “That all sounds good.”
“I don’t date much either. Haven’t had time, but I want to find the time. With you.” She waited for him to panic, but he just sat there. “I need you to commit to the same.”
“Done.” He started speaking almost before she stopped.
He was so clear. So sure. And she believed him. Still, she needed more than a quick one-word answer. Romance dictated that he at least show some excitement. “Really? That’s all you have to say?”
He cleared his throat. Also sat up straighter, taking her with him and making them both groan.
“Except for Shauna who already knew it, I’ve never told another woman my real name. Never set out all the details of my past. Certainly never admitted to almost killing my father. With you, I felt like I could. After only a few days, I opened up and I don’t regret it.” He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I trust you. Weirdly enough, I also really like you.”
Other men might have said it prettier and skipped the word weird, but he found the perfect words for him. They actually choked her up a little. “Believe it or not, that worked.”
He winced. “It did?”
“Honesty is hot.”
Interest sparked in his eyes and he started getting hard again. “How hot?”
“Hot enough to start round two.”
“We’re going to need to buy more condoms.” With that he turned them over. When the room stopped spinning she lay under him with his rock-hard body pressing against her, over her.
“How could a woman resist that line?” She couldn’t and she was done trying.
CHAPTER 28
Wren barely had been in the office for two days, which never happened. No one said anything because they wouldn’t dare. He ran the office with an iron fist. It was not a democracy. His poor personal assistant handed him a stack of messages then scurried away, clearly afraid of his wrath over the pile of work ahead of him.
No one said anything to him about his absence except Garrett. Now he stood on the other side of Wren’s desk still talking. “You looked pretty cozy with Emery the other night.”
“We were eating.” Wren kept on signing the paperwork that needed his attention. Contracts, checks. People deserved to be paid and the work needed to keep moving. He also hoped half ignoring Garrett would make him go away. Not that the option had ever worked before.
“Together. At the table. At home.”
With an extra person. That’s the part Wren remembered and wanted to forget. “I’m told normal people do eat dinner.”
“But you?”
Wren put his pen down and sat back. Garrett clearly wanted his attention. Now he had it.
“I take it you don’t like Emery.” Which sucked because, despite the back and forth, Garrett was his best friend. Wren never had a brother, but he guessed the bond they shared was about the same.
They’d been through some terrible shit together. They both had histories they wanted to forget. He talked tough, but no one else could take a shot at Garrett. Wren would do anything for him. That was the unspoken promise.
“Oh, I do. A lot. I like her in general and I like her with you.” Garrett moved up until his legs almost touched the edge of the desk. “Some of the questions she asked made me laugh. I love how interested she was, how engaged in the topic. Of you, I mean.”
That all sounded good, but Wren sensed a change in mood. Something was coming. Either in what Garrett said next or in the file he kept tapping against the side of his leg. “Okay.”
Garrett nodded. “So, there you go.”
What the hell did that mean? “I’m assuming you’re trying to make a point.”
“You have it bad for her.” Garrett stopped tapping the file and the strange scratching sound in the room ceased.
Wren would have preferred some background noise. Anything to cut through the tension and help with the sudden tightening in his gut. He’d always been so clear—no relationships. Not after he blew the last one so badly. He didn’t want any woman to go through what Shauna had to endure with him.
Yeah, he was different now. The anger had subsided, or at least he managed to control it. But he lived in a web of secrecy and danger. The idea of pulling anyone into that mess with him struck him as selfish. No matter how much he wanted to be with Emery, and that feeling kept growing, he couldn’t imagine her agreeing to live his life. Even if she did, she’d grow to regret it. He knew that from experience.
He was not a forever guy. No question.
Still, the idea of saying “no” out loud to the question made bile roll in his stomach. It felt like a betrayal of Emery in some way.
“I don’t . . .” Jesus, he couldn’t even deny it. Garrett stood there, his friend and a person Wren never lied to, and the words sputtered out on Wren.
He did have it bad for her. How had that happened?
Garrett put a hand behind his ear. “Huh?”
“Yeah.” Fucking damn. He did not mean to let that out. The plan was to change the subject, throw his boss-weight around. No
t to answer and certainly not with such a weak word.
Garrett’s eyes widened. “You’re admitting you have big-time feelings for her?”
Wren grabbed on to the armrests of his chair then let go. The tiny indents from his death grip stayed behind. He had the sudden urge to walk around, maybe somehow exercise this feeling away, but he didn’t.
He opened his mouth then closed it again. Okay, yeah. He felt it now. This huge zoom of unwanted emotions. He wanted to write it all off as attraction, but they went so much deeper. He worried about her. Liked being with her. Felt better when he saw her. Even enjoyed arguing with her.
She challenged him. She made him hard.
God, he was in love with her. Like, right on the verge of losing it over her.
“I moved her into my house.” That had been the major step. The one that should have tipped him off since it was a pretty huge clue. It wasn’t as if he moved people from other cases into his house. “Even I have enough self-awareness to know that was big.”
“I thought that was for her safety.”
“That’s how I sold it, yes.” But he knew better. Not then, but now. It was so clear to him. Hell, he even liked the sound of her voice.
“You really have a problem now.” Wren was about to answer when Garrett dropped the file on his desk. “Here.”
Wren didn’t pick it up. That’s how they operated. Garrett gave oral reports with backup documentation. The system had worked from the beginning, and Wren didn’t mess with success. “What’s this?”
“It’s on her father.” Garrett glanced at the cover then back to Wren. “Actually, it includes some intel on Tyler, too.”
“I thought we agreed he likely wasn’t involved.” Last thing they needed to do was waste resources on a job where they weren’t getting paid. Wren also wanted to give Tyler some space.
“Emery’s dad has been poking around, asking about you. Doing internet searches.” Garrett didn’t explain how he knew that. Didn’t have to because the office had protocols for this. Ways of tracking keystrokes and getting into other people’s computers.
Okay, that was annoying but not really a big deal. “Is that really a surprise? I’m sleeping with the man’s daughter.”
“So you’ve said.”
Funny how easy that was to admit now that he’d admitted the rest. “Even for a mediocre father it’s probably natural to want to know who has walked into his daughter’s life.”
Garrett shook his head. “You’re not getting this.”
There was nothing light or joking in Garrett’s tone. No amusement. None of the usual crap he liked to say to drive Wren to frustration. He didn’t even smile.
Wren knew that was really bad. “Explain.”
“He’s searching for Wren. He’s been obsessively trying to track you—the Wren, you—for days.”
He got this part. He didn’t understand why Garrett kept dwelling. “Right.”
“He should only know the name Brian Jacobs.” Garrett hesitated for a second then continued. “You told me you didn’t give him your name on purpose, yet he knows to investigate the name Wren. He’s been looking into it since the night the boxes were stolen out of Emery’s apartment.”
The words came together in Wren’s head. Her father knew more than he should. There were a limited number of ways that could happen and Wren hated them all. “Shit.”
“I talked with the senator and the detective. Neither of them gave him your real name. You said no one else knows it except Caroline, who promised not to repeat it.” Garrett sighed. “I mean, I guess it’s possible but—”
“He got it from the boxes he took from her apartment.” He wasn’t having the man followed back then, but that was the answer. They could dance around it and try to come up with convoluted explanations or wrongly blame someone, but one answer rang true in Wren’s mind. He broke into his daughter’s house while he thought she was staying with Caroline and then he took papers about Tiffany’s case.
“We know Emery had a piece of paper with your name on it, part of it anyway,” Garrett said.
“She would have checked it everywhere. She’d have had files and a paper trail.” Because that’s what Wren would have done. He had some memory of them talking about this.
Even if she hadn’t told him, he’d expected the first thing she’d do with the name was check the name she’d found. The same was true of his birth name. By now she’d looked up every detail of the case against his father.
Garrett cleared his throat. Looked every bit the professional giving a presentation. “There’s more.”
Wren flipped the cover open, but the words blurred in front of him. He looked up at Garrett again. “Of course there is.”
“In the original detective notes from his meeting with Emery she talks about being at home that night. She never mentions her dad being there or hearing him.” Garrett walked around to the other side of Wren’s desk and started typing on the computer keyboard. “That piece comes in later and seems to be taken as gospel.”
“That doesn’t sound like evidence Rick Cryer would get wrong.”
“I watched the interrogation tapes. We have them.” Garrett cued up a tape and then paused it. “The first time there’s talk about her dad being home it’s raised by Rick’s partner during the questioning. Everyone runs with it from there. Rick watched with me. Neither of us saw it until the fourth or fifth run-through. It looked inadvertent, but it happened.”
“Fuck me.” Wren didn’t need to see the tape. Not yet. If Garrett said that was on there then it was. Part of Wren didn’t want to watch. Once he did he wouldn’t be able to go back to not being sure.
The break-in. Michael Finn’s shaky alibi. The fact he stopped Emery from going out that night and kept her busy. All those years of being angry. His insistence the investigation stop. The tape of the questioning. The timing. It all piled up until Wren was pretty sure he knew at least some of the answers about Tiffany.
Garrett folded his arms in front of him. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Wren really didn’t. His mind went blank. The only thing in there was the image of Emery’s face. Hearing the accusations from him would destroy her.
“I don’t think she’s in any real danger.”
“But that’s not the point, is it?” Wren dropped his head in his hands and tried to think. Tried to reason it all out. But he didn’t need much time because the answer was all too simple. He looked up again. “Who am I kidding? There isn’t a choice about what I have to do next. Like it or not, I promised her answers.”
“Let me ask her questions. Let me be the target,” Garrett said. “It’s okay if she’s angry with me.”
It was an easy solution to an impossible problem, but it likely still wouldn’t work. It also ignored who Wren was and how he lived his life. “When have you ever known me to duck a hard task?”
“I’ve never really known you to be in love before, so I don’t know what the rules are now.” Garrett’s eyebrow lifted as he stood there not saying anything. “You’re not denying it.”
“There’s no way I can be after only knowing her a short time.” Right? That was the rational answer. It was too soon. They barely knew each other . . . but she did know almost everything about him. Despite that, she hadn’t run.
“Yet, you are.”
Yes, he was. “And now I have to blow it all up before we can figure out what we have. There’s a missing girl out there.”
“I think we both know that’s not true.”
Wren didn’t even want to think about that part of the puzzle. The how and why and what really happened out on that street that night. He couldn’t even let his mind go there yet. “I never should have gone to that coffee shop that first morning.”
“I warned you.”
“Remind me of that the next time I try to fire you.”
Emery heard Wren come in. He’d called to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Since it was almost nine, she’d eaten long
ago, but she hadn’t expected him to be this late.
“Keith played chauffeur today. Not a bad way to come home.” She peeked around the corner to welcome Wren. That’s when she saw it. The stern expression and clipped walk. “What’s wrong?”
His footsteps thudded against the floor. He kept walking until he hit the kitchen and put his briefcase on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “You’re going to hate the next few minutes. If it’s any consolation, so am I.”
She tried to remember if she’d ever seen him like this. All clenched and bubbling with fury. “What are you talking about?”
“You searched the name Wren once you spotted it in Gavin’s file, right?”
“Of course.” There was no way that could be a surprise. Any normal person would do the same thing, even him. “God, this is why you look like that? Come on, Levi. You investigated me, too.”
“I’m not upset about the search. It was smart. Expected.” He took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator then put it back in.
He seemed to be wrapped in a weird haze. Walking around. Doing odd things then turning and walking again. Tension radiated off him. She could feel his anxiety. It pinged around them. And she’d never seen his eyes so lifeless.
Something terrible had happened. She was terrified to ask what. “Then what’s the problem?”
“Did you keep a file on that name?”
“Yes.” Wait . . . she thought back to the boxes. That only mad her angry, so she tried to block the break-in out again. “Well, I took notes and kept the searches so I wouldn’t repeat them and waste time.”
He swore under his breath as he closed his eyes. “And all of that information was in the files missing in your boxes.”
That was it. Someone figured out who he was. That was the only explanation. She didn’t remember writing anything down that would logically trace back to him, but maybe.
Guilt crashed into her from every direction. “Oh, my God, did someone come after you?”
She took a step toward him, thinking to touch him. Give him some sort of support. He backed away. Actually circled around until the entire breakfast bar sat between them. The move sliced into her. Cut right through.
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