“Thank you for dinner.” She directs this at all of us, her smile bright, professional, and completely fake. “And for the job offer. My answer is yes. I accept.”
She disappears into her building without looking back.
Joshua pulls away from the curb, and I can feel Enzo’s eyes on me from the seat in front of me. “So, how badly did you just fuck that up?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to.
CHAPTER 8
Enzo
Remy’s been at Jacobs Security for six weeks, and I’m losing my fucking mind.
It’s not just me. A few times, Ansel has stared at her in meetings until I kick him under the table. Breck finds excuses to stop by her office at least three times a day. And me? I’ve taken to working late to catch glimpses of her when she’s too focused on code to notice I’m staring.
We don’t talk about it. The three of us have this unspoken agreement to pretend like we don’t want her.
The almost-kiss at the bar between Remy and Breck changed everything and nothing. Remy accepted the job, threw herself into work with single-minded focus, and maintains professional distance from all three of us.
She’s polite, brilliant, and completely untouchable.
It’s driving me insane.
We’ve restructured Damon’s projects to minimize his contact with Remy. He’s been sullen about it, making snide comments when he thinks we’re not listening. But watching how he treats her—the barely concealed hostility, how he undermines her in meetings—has started to shift my perspective.
Maybe she wasn’t the problem in their relationship. Maybehewas.
Remy’s waiting outside her building when Joshua and I pull up at five a.m. for the business trip we are taking together. Alone.
Even in the pre-dawn darkness, I can see she’s dressed in dark jeans and a fitted blazer, laptop bag already slung over her shoulder.
She climbs into the SUV, sitting next to me, stifling a yawn. “This is inhumane.”
“Blame Montana.” I pass her the extra coffee I brought. “Black, no sugar.”
Her fingers brush mine as she takes it. “Thanks.”
One of our largest clients in Montana has a potential breach in its financial systems. The contract is too valuable and the problem too complex to hand off to our team, so Remy and I are flying out to handle it.
This should be a quick trip—fly out, assess the breach, and fly back tonight. In and out.
The drive to the airport is quiet. Remy reviews the client files on her tablet while I pretend to check emails. Really, I’m hyperaware of every movement she makes, every time she moves in her seat, how she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s concentrating.
It’s been weeks of this tension, and I still haven’t figured out how to turn it off.
The regional airport in Montana is so small it barely qualifies as an airport. One runway, one building, and a parking lot with six spaces.
Our pilot, Tomas, checks the weather on his tablet as we prepare to land. He glances back at us. “The storm system is moving in faster than predicted. We’ll need to leave by three at the latest to get ahead of it.”
Remy nods, already pulling up the meeting schedule on her phone. “We can make that work.”
The client meeting goes smoothly. Remy walks them through the breach assessment with her usual combination of technical brilliance and accessibility. She doesn’t talk down to them, and she doesn’t make them feel incompetent for missing the vulnerability. By the time we’re done, they’re looking at her like she’s their personal savior.
And I get it.
We’re back at the airport by two o’clock, ahead of schedule. Tomas is already doing pre-flight checks when we arrive. Then he emerges from the cockpit, his features grim.
“We’ve got a problem.” My stomach drops. “Hydraulic fault. The gauge has been fluctuating all day, but now it’s showing critical. I can’t fly like this. I’ve already called for a mechanic, but with the storms coming in, nobody can get here until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
