In some ways, that had likely been to his benefit for a lot of his service, but Mason wished he was a little easier to read.It would help right now if he wasn’t so closed off.
On the other hand, he couldn’t really blame the guy.
Either he was being set up and was indignant about being mistrusted, or he was actually working for the other team and needed to act like he was being set up and indignant about being mistrusted.
Sunday turned into a workday.
With the cameras looped, everyone had to check everything.They had no idea what the intruder had gotten into, where they might have gone.The whole afternoon was spent going over the office with a fine-tooth comb.Everyone was grim, Zeus particularly so.
If anything, he’d become more closed off than ever after this incident.
At this rate, even if the guy was innocent, Mason wasn’t sure how long he was going to last at Black Fox.This was a hell of a lot of pressure to work under, with everyone mistrusting him.
The most unnerving part was that no one found anything.Nothing had been taken that they could tell.Lincoln and Harris had double-teamed Devlin’s old office, even taking the paintings off the walls in case he’d hidden something behind them.No one could figure out why there might have been an intruder, which meant that they were all feeling particularly paranoid.
For all they knew, the only reason had been to set Zeus up.
Which was a suggestion Jensen made while they were eating dinner around the conference room table.It was clear, he wanted to believe in Zeus’ innocence.Mason and Drew were more skeptical.David and Claudia were hard to read, though Mason had a feeling they both were swayed more toward his and Drew’s skepticism; they just did a good job of hiding it.
“What if—” Claudia was just starting to talk—probably to present another option of why someone might have broken in, since that’s all they’d been talking about, round and round—when Mason’s phone blared.
Loudly.
His heart jumped into his throat as he jumped to his feet, shoving his chair back and leaving his half-eaten dinner in front of him.
“What the fuck is that?”
“The bakery alarm!”Mason was already on his way out the conference room door when he heard David roar behind him.
“The what?”
ChapterThirty-Five
Audrey
Audrey was just flipping the sign on the door to closed, feeling exhausted to the bone, when a man suddenly appeared on the other side of the glass.She squeaked, jumping back—instead of locking the door, which would have been the smart thing to do.But he’d startled her.
And when she got a good look at him as he came into her bakery, shereallywished she’d managed to lock the door.
“Cash.”She blinked in surprise, shaking her head, like he might disappear if she did so… because surely she had to be imagining him.
“In the flesh.”He grinned at her, the way he always did, as if she should be flattered that he was gracing her with his presence.
Or maybe she was projecting, because she used to like the way he smiled at her, but now… that’s what it looked like.And maybe that’s what it had always felt like, and she just hadn’t been able to acknowledge it until now.
He looked exactly how she remembered—wavy blond hair, hazel eyes full of confidence, wearing a navy-blue coat that was fashionable but expensive enough to be functional, too.The Burberry scarf he wore was only partially wrapped around his neck, hanging on like an afterthought—a concession to the weather rather than protection against it.
He dripped with upper-class breeding and arrogance, a reminder of everything she’d run from.
And not just because the last time she’d seen him, he’d been in her mother’s coat closet, balls deep in Becky Gray.
“We’re closed,” Ashley said from behind the counter, sounding suspicious.The fact that Audrey hadn’t greeted him with enthusiasm must have gotten her guard up, even though Audrey had never mentioned him before.She didn’t exactly like bringing up her ex or how foolish she’d been to have stayed with him for as long as she did.
He wasn’t the entire reason she’d fled Philly, but she wasn’t sure she would have gotten up the courage to leave if she hadn’t discovered his infidelity.It had been her parents’ reaction to their breakup, as much as anything, that had finally pushed her out the door to follow her dreams.
“Oh, that’s okay, I’m not here to buy anything.”Cash grimaced, stretching upward and patting his stomach.“I’ve gotta protect the integrity of the abs.”
Ashley snorted, clearly unimpressed.Which wasn’t surprising considering that her husband had a nice set, and he was almost twice Cash’s age… plus the whole security firm that he owned could have filled a sexy calendar.
