Chapter18
Portia’s assistantwaved Ash through the moment he stepped off the elevator. He studied her expression as he passed, but she was already focused back on her task. His stomach was a mass of knots as he pushed open the doors to the inner sanctum.
The head of Tremaine Corporation sat at her desk, her attention focused on the computer screen on her desk. He might have laughed that she was ignoring him so studiously, but sending security guards to pull him out of his shift had knocked him off-kilter.
“You didn’t show up for your shift.” Though she still didn’t look at him, the chill in her voice indicated that he had the full attention of the Ice Queen.
His brows furrowed in confusion. “Yes, I did. That’s where I was when Security found me.”
“Thisshift,” Portia said. “The project you’re supposed to be working on for me.”
That’s what this was about?
“We never discussed an actual schedule,” Ash countered carefully.
“I told you to make this a priority.” She looked up, her blue gaze piercing him.
He still feared what she could do to him, but he wasn’t going to take the blame for something that wasn’t his fault. “You never told me not to show up for my usual shift on cybersecurity either.”
Instead of taking his seat at the desk she’d procured for him since their last meeting, he sat in the chair in front of her desk. A small rebellion, but he wasn’t falling into the role of Portia Tremaine’s personal hacker until they set some expectations. He couldn’t afford to piss her off, but he also couldn’t allow Security to pull him away from other activities, like freeing his sister.
“Am I going to be working here all the time?”
Portia cocked her head, thinking over his question.
Before she could say anything, he continued. “I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing, but you’re not worried about how it will look?”
She blinked. “What do you mean, ‘how it will look’?”
He had to carefully tread the line between convincing her and not pissing her off. “Well, if I’m supposed to keep this super-secret project super-secret, people are going to wonder what I’m doing in here all day long with you.”
“They’ll just think you’re working for me.” Her tone said she thought he was an idiot.
“Sure, some of them might believe I’m working for you. Others might think I’m ‘working.’” He put air quotes around the word.
“What?” She paused. He saw the moment his meaning registered. “Ew!” She reared back.
“Wow, I’m offended,” he said before he recalled that he wasn’t talking to his team but to the woman who held his sister’s life in her hands.
“You’re joking, right? No one could possibly think that you and I would possibly...” She waved her hand between them.
Yeah, he was offended. She probably didn’t mean it that way—and he wasn’t interested either—but it still stung. “Why not? I’m a decent-looking guy and you’re a lonely widow.”
Horror, shock, and sadness flickered over her face in quick succession.
It was the sadness that cut him to the core. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” For all he wanted to poke at her, his apology was sincere. Especially since her loss was partially his fault. “I shouldn’t have said that. But there are people who will.”
She turned away to look out the window, but not before he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes. Her pain pricked his conscience. He couldn’t afford to feel badly for her—but he did.
The silence between them grew and Ash made no move to break it. Let her have all the time she needed to patch the cracks in her armor. “What do you suggest?” she asked finally.
“Since I’m supposed to be looking for the person who helped your father’s assistant,” his stomach turned at the words, “I should probably spend part of my time out there. If anyone asks, I can just tell them that I’m working on a special project for you. If they want to know more, I’ll direct them to you. That should be the end of that.” He chuckled darkly.
She seemed to be considering his words.
The silence finally got to him and he blurted out the question he’d been dying to ask since she called him to her office and demanded his assistance. “Why haven’t you just asked Leopold Brunswick who helped him?” Her father’s weaselly assistant had struck him as the kind of man willing to sacrifice anyone for his own gains. Just look at the New Amsterdam Hotel bombing.
Portia blinked at him as she processed the change of subject. “Do you really think I didn’t? He was asked several times,” and the way she said “asked” sent shivers up Ash’s spine, “but he never broke. Said it would be a cold day in hell before he helped a Tremaine.”
