“Shorter than you, stocky with a paunch, bald. He wears cheap suits with satin shirts unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and he has this ugly gold ring with a black onyx stone surrounded by tiny diamonds that he wears on the pinky finger of his left hand.” She rolled her eyes. “The man is a walking, talking cliché.”
Her description matched the man sitting in the SUV across from her house.
“Our people are already doing a deep dive on him and all of the names on that list.” Hawk opened a text to Luna, typed the physical description Charlotte provided and asked her to confirm his suspicions. “When we get inside, I want you to assume they’re listening to everything we say until I confirm otherwise.” He didn’t want to scare her, but she needed to be prepared.
“How will you know?” she asked.
He waggled his phone in his hand.
“Seriously?” she said. “Your phone will tell you that?”
“Yep.” He clipped Remy’s leash to his harness, placed his hand on her lower back, and the three of them walked the rest of the way to the elevator.
His dog remained at his side as he pressed the call button. The doorsswishedopen a moment later, and they moved inside. She pressed the number three button, and the elevator hummed and bumped slightly.
A minute later,ding, the doors opened and they stepped into a small foyer. She pulled her badge from her bag and tapped it on the scanner. There was abeepfollowed by a loudca-thunkwhen the magnetic lock released, and she turned the knob and pushed the door inward.
“I was worried they would’ve cut off my access.” Charlotte tucked her badge into her bag. “My office is over there, on the far wall.” She led him around copiers and cubicles, and they walked by what looked like a break room.
Heads popped up from behind multiple cubicles, and her coworkers craned their necks to watch them and whispered as they passed.
She leaned close and kept her voice low. “We don’t get many visitors here, and they’re all trying to figure out who you are and what you could possibly be doing with me.”
He was about to tell her exactlywhyhe would be there with her—and it wasn’t just because she was in danger—but he was interrupted by a woman’s sultry voice behind them.
“Hello, Charlotte.”
Charlotte groaned low enough only he could hear, then turned toward the voice with a forced smile. “Hey.”
“I thought you weren’t going to be in today.” A tall blonde with the figure of a forties pinup girl sashayed up to them.
“Oh, yeah, um, well, I—”
“She had some car trouble last night, so we were dealing with that this morning.” Hawk put his arm around Charlotte’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. “She’ll be without a car for a few days, so I get the privilege of being her personal driver.”
The woman looked back and forth between them as if assessing the truthfulness of his statement. Remy shook his head, and his tags clinked. Her gaze dropped to him, and she wrinkled her nose like he was some sort of filthy mongrel off the streets and not a highly trained canine—totally ignoring the camouflage-print working vest he was wearing.
“So, Charlotte.” She looked up from Remy and fixed her gaze on Hawk. “Are you going to introduce me to your … friend?”
She twirled the end of her hair, and her eyes assessed him from his head to his toes and back up again.
“Oh, yes, sorry.” Charlotte’s body was tense.
He lowered his hand from her shoulder to her waist, gave her a reassuring squeeze, and was pleased when she relaxed against him.
“Patrick, this is Helene Wagner, Mr. Pennington’s executive assistant.” She smiled up at him and rested her hand on his abdomen, and fire shot straight to his crotch. “Helene, this is Patrick, my boyfriend.”
“He’syour boyfriend?” One eyebrow plucked with the precision of a surgeon’s hand rose high, and she let loose a snide chuckle as her gaze lowered to Charlotte’s hand where it rested against his midsection.
It hadn’t been a question so much as a statement of disbelief.
Charlotte’s chin fell ever so slightly, and when she started to pull her hand away, he covered it with his own and held it in place.
“What’s funny about that, Ms. Wagner?” His words were intentionally sharp—he wanted there to be no doubt that she’d crossed a line.
“What … no … it’s, of course, there’s nothing funny about that.” She fumbled for words. “It’s just that, um … Charlotte and I are friends, and we hang out sometimes, and she’s never mentioned she was seeing anyone. That’s all.”
Total bullshit response.
