She levered herself up, hoping her legs had the strength to carry her the fifteen or so feet. She could picture herself getting out of bed on wobbly legs and collapsing like a newborn colt just learning to walk.
She made it to the bathroom without injury. When she returned to the bedroom, she found Daniel sitting with his back against the headboard, a deep frown marring his brow as he stared at his phone.
Samiah stopped short. “Is everything okay?”
His head jerked up. “What? Uh, yeah,” he said. He set the phone on the bedside table and pulled the cover back, inviting her to join him. Her eyes went straight to the erection that was already growing thick again.
Her pulse started to pound as excitement skidded across her skin.
She was going to besosore in the morning. But she would be satisfied.
***
The faint scent of the sweet almond body cream Samiah had rubbed into her skin after their shower wafted up from where she rested, snuggled up next to him, her head nestled against his chest. Daniel stared straight ahead, his eyes set on the dove-gray clay pots that looked as if they were floating on air with the way they were lined along the glass display shelf above her chest of drawers.
His sated body should feel relaxed after a solid hour of starring inAmerican Ninja Warrior: Bedroom Editionwith Samiah, but rest continued to elude him. His muscles felt at ease, but his brain was hard at work, conjuring boundless nefarious scenarios ever since he’d read that text from Preston. Another two bank accounts had gone dark, and the subject they’d targeted in Belize had gone missing.
The window was rapidly closing. If whoever was behind this closed up all the bank accounts they’d been monitoring, tracking them would be almost impossible.
He had to infiltrate that database. In it lay everything they would need for a capture and conviction. Someone on the Trendsetters side was inflating the number of customers logging into Hughes Hospitality’s free Wi-Fi every month. Even if he wasn’t able to discover who was behind it, getting into their system would give him the raw data on the actual number of logins. Once they were able to show the discrepancy, that would be enough for a court order.
But none of that would happen if he couldn’t bypass their security and access the damn database.
Except now he could.
Daniel sucked in a swift breath, fighting against the wave of nausea that pummeled him. The thought had lingered at the periphery of his conscience since the moment he learned that Samiah’s security access had been changed. He’d quickly banished any notion of using her. This job was important, but it could not come at the expense of hers.
As he peered down at her face right now, the tension in his shoulders eased by a tiny degree. She was peace and fire and satisfaction and love all rolled into one. He couldnotdo this to her.
But would he ever have a better chance of getting into that system?
Weighing the costs of betraying Samiah versus not betraying her was a game he never wanted to play, but he didn’t have the luxury of not playing it. Not anymore. He’d wanted to give himself one more week to infiltrate the Trendsetters licensing database, but now Daniel wasn’t sure he had a week to spare. At the rate those bank accounts were closing, he might not have another twenty-four hours before the money-laundering outfit went completely dark.
The implications of that happening sent the tension shooting right back into his muscles. At last count, a little over eighteen million dollars had been laundered through the Trendsetters Wi-Fi payment system software. The money had been used to fund a chain of payday loan businesses, but the DHS had put Quentin on the case because they suspected those were just a front for other criminal enterprises. They had to put a stop to it now. Before more money could be funneled. Before more people met with “accidents” like the one Daniel suspected Mike Epsen had.
There wasno question thatMike’s accident was related to this case, not after discovering the man had been on the initial rollout team. The fact that the anonymous tipster had been uncommunicative since the accident only proved that those behind the money-laundering scheme who wanted to silence Epsen had accomplished the mission they’d set out to achieve when they ran him into that city bus.
But what if their mission had been something more sinister than a broken leg and a few cracked ribs? What if their target who’d gone missing in Belize had met with a more lethal fate? Could Daniel live with himself if, months from now, it was revealed that what they first thought was a simple white-collar case had a much darker side? That the money laundered through Trendsetters’ WiMax software had somehow made it into the hands of a hardened criminal and led to even more crimes?
And because he hadn’t been able to complete his mission, even more people were harmed? The answer was simple: He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
This case would haunt him no matter what; the choice before him was one he would give anything not to make. Sacrifice the woman he could very likely see himself falling in love with, or sacrifice the principles that drove every aspect of his career, of his life. Losing either one would send him into his own personal hell. He just had to decide which hell would be worse.
Daniel closed his eyes. His throat felt raw as he tried to swallow past the anguish clogging it.
There was no going back from this. If he went through with his plan, it would obliterate any chance he could possibly have with Samiah. She would hate him forever. And he wouldn’t blame her.
But he had no choice. The stakes were too high.
Daniel pulled in a deep breath and opened his eyes. He knew what he had to do.
As gingerly as possible, he slipped his hand underneath Samiah’s head and gently shifted her from his chest to a pillow. She stirred and mumbled something unintelligible, but then she turned her head and, moments later, her soft snore started up again. Daniel slowly eased out of the bed and pulled on the sweats he’d left here the last time he’d come over. He padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, heading straight for the counter where Samiah had left her purse.
He didn’t touch it. For several moments he just stood there staring, and hating himself.
It didn’t have to go down like this.
He should come clean to her. Right here, right now. He could reveal the real reason he’d come to Austin, stress the importance of keeping his undercover work under wraps until he could figure out who was behind the money-laundering scheme. He could underscore the potential danger Samiah could face if word ever got out that he wasn’t who everyone at Trendsetters believed him to be.
