He throws it at me, and I swing it on over the skin-tight leggings and bralette thing, fastening the middle button to keep it shut.
I see his smooth-skinned expanse of muscular torso and all my thoughts dry up in my mouth.
“Checkmate,” Aiden whispers at my back. I can’t help but agree. There’s no way I can avoid looking. He’s a perfectly carved distraction.
“Okay…okay,” Dax mumbles, sitting back down and motioning for me to do the same. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, I can tell he’s back to business. I keep my eyes trained above his neck and try to do the same.
“Are you okay?”
I take a moment to realise he’s talking about this morning. It’s surreal that we’re still on the same day. That only this morning Franz was metres away from grabbing me. I have lived weeks since. Running, Koko and Charlie, Ben, the goons, news of the baby, the ride home…so much for one simple day. Am I okay? I don’t know, but I give the answer I’m expected to. “Yes. Tired but okay.”
“Did you tell anyone about that meeting?” Dax asks.
God, these men are emotional yoyos. From ‘are you okay?’to ‘was this your fault?’ Ugh. “Am I being interrogated?”
“I just need to confirm how many people are in the suspect pool,” he explains. Which I guess is fair enough.
“Straight answer is no. I didn’t even know where we were meeting until Cas dropped me in front ofDeja Brew.”
“Cas has been cleared already,” Aiden notifies us both.
Thank goodness he’s okay. “What happened to him?” I ask, wondering where my security detail suddenly disappeared to.
Aiden fills in the blanks. “He came in looking for you when the HU rep left the store, but the guy from VCC…”
“Mr Trainor,” I supply.
Aiden nods. “He told Cas you’d already left. Cas checked the bathroom, but you weren’t there.”
“I was! I was standing in front of the damn mirror; I’d have remembered if Cas had popped his head in.”
“Hang on. Let me call him upstairs.” Aiden pulls out his phone and fires off a message. It takes less than a minute before Cas is standing there, ramrod straight, hands behind his back, eyes trained on the far wall.
“You said you checked the bathrooms,” Aiden fires at him, more accusation than question.
“I checked the ladies,” he confirms with a sharp nod.
“When? I was there. You would have seen me. I only washed my face.” Or patted it dry, but I didn’t think they needed to hear the details of my bathroom behaviour.
Cas shakes his head vehemently. “There was no one there! That weaselly fucker—uhhh—the VCC rep was outside the gents. He said you’d left. I figured I must have missed you when I went into the bathroom looking. I did another check around the store and took off on foot to look for you when you weren’t waiting at the vehicle.”
“How the hell did we miss each other? I wasn’t in the bathroom long enough for us not to see each other, surely?”
Cas shakes his head and doesn’t seem happy about the confusion. “I’m not sure, but I take full responsibility for the error, Sir.” He directs that last bit at Aiden, and again I’m left wondering about the exact nature of their setup here. Cas revealed some things worth asking about this morning, Koko too, but there are still so many questions.
Then I realise what he said. Full responsibility? For what? From the sound of it, he did his job. It was just some quirk of fateor, more likely, that VCC dickhead interfered. Not Cas’s fault. I can’t let him get into trouble. Not on my watch.
I wave my hand at him. “Chill Cas. What happened wasn’t your fault. If I was there and you say I wasn’t, then we were tricked somehow.”
Dax makes a huffing sound before asking, “Let’s assume you were both in the bathrooms at the same time. Did either bathroom have urinals?”
“Not mine. Single stall, sink and a mirror,” I answer.
“Same as the one I checked,” Cas confirms.
“If they were gender neutral in design, could the signs have been swapped?” Dax asks.
I see Cas’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to recall. I think back too. The bathrooms were small. The signs for ladies and gents were made of varnished salt dough and hung from natural rope on a hook in the middle of each door.Could they have been swapped?Absolutely. And if Trainor was hanging out there already, hoping to catch me, then it was highly likely.
