‘With your skill set, you could’ve wrapped this up in two days.Paperwork, interviews signed off, done.But you didn’t.You dug deeper.Booked yourself in for two weeks at the pub, then dragged it out these past nine days, poking around in places that had nothing to do with funding or resource allocation.You didn’t need to talk to half my team.But you did.’
Taryn’s jaw twitched as she flicked open her notebook.
There was definitely more to this.He could see it.‘You said you needed to understand the early casework—our very first case, the one that involved Everlight Energy.’
‘I told Izzy I wanted to know who was behind Everlight.’
‘Sure.But there were certain questions you kept asking Izzy.And trust me, she replayed that whole conversation back to me, word for word.It’s one of her skills.’
Oh, yeah, he had her attention now, even though she’d been staring at the same page on her notebook for a while now.
Steering them down the dirt road, he kept her in his periphery reading the shift in her posture, and the way she controlled her breathing.
He was close.Damn close.
‘I asked Izzy why she bothered talking to you at all.She told me you reminded her of someone.Said you cared about what happened to her assistant.What was her name?’
Taryn’s tapping pen went deadly still against her notebook.She didn’t look up.And she didn’t breathe.Only for half a second.
Finn still clocked it.
A tell.The tiniest chink in her armour.
He dug deeper, flipping through his memory like it was an old filing cabinet.Something Izzy had said about her assistant, who’d helped her trace that paper trail through various department registries, trying to uncover Everlight’s owners.
‘Meghan,’ he muttered.‘Meghan Forrester.That was her name.’
Taryn’s knuckles went white around the notebook sitting in her lap.
‘It wasn’t just a tactic, was it?Saying you wanted justice for the assistant—that wasn’t just to tug on Izzy’s heartstrings.Was it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘You’re not here for policy.Or for your office.You’re here forher.’
The silence dragged on, as if she were asking herself:how the hell did he just figure that out?It’s what he’d do if in her situation.
‘Who was she?’
‘She was my cousin.Meghan…’
He could hear the way she’d said the name it hurt.
‘Go on.You want answers from me, then you go first.’He wasn’t sure she would, but he kept driving, giving her the space.
‘Fine…’ She huffed, clutching that folder and notebook to her chest like they could shield her from feeling anything.
But he saw it—that crack in her armour exposing a layer of vulnerability, right there beneath the edge.And damn it if it didn’t catch him off guard.He wasn’t supposed to care.Wasn’t supposed to notice the way she gripped that folder like it was her last defence.
He told himself it didn’t matter.After all, he’d spent years spotting weaknesses just to use them to his advantage.
But with her?
She was flipping the rulebook on him in ways he hadn’t even begun to comprehend.Because that kind of hurt—you couldn’t fake.
The only problem was it made it matter to him.
‘We grew up together, that Meghan was more like a sister than a cousin.As a military brat, my family moved around frequently, so friends, well… Besides my parents, Meghan was the only constant in a life built on goodbyes.We spent most summers together on my grandfather’s farm.She may have been a few years younger, but she was there for me…’
