“You were never romantically involved?”Her eyebrows lifted.
Grace’s lips parted.That was far more personal than she had expected.But she wasn’t an idiot and understood why his boss might ask.Emotions clouded judgment.Getting physical opened up a Pandora’s box.“No, we never were.”
Vivian crossed her arms, tapping her fingers, assessing her.
Grace twisted the beads on her bracelet.Part of living in hiding for years meant she never interacted with anyone she didn’t want to.She was out of practice at having uncomfortable conversations.
Someone knocked on the door.
Her relief was instantaneous.Short of Callum arriving with a plan to tell Vivian about kissing Grace, she celebrated the interruption.
A woman with a laptop in her arms and a tall man filed into the room.
“Sorry to barge in.”Her dark hair transitioned to deep turquoise tips.That blue was the same shade as the fairy wings she’d recently colored on a book cover.“But if I don’t help Dean, he’s going to be pulling at strings and driving everyone to the edge.”She smiled at Grace.“I’m Scarlett; this is Dean.”She gestured to the man.“And if we don’t nail down a couple more things, it will take all day, and I might kill him.”
Dean scowled.“It wouldn’t take all day.”
Based on what Callum had explained, Grace would have thought Dean would be the one carrying a computer.“You’re security analysts?”
Scarlett snorted.“I am absolutely not.Think of me like a social media maven.A tracker of online gossip and a sleuth of the slippery no-names internet forums where villains of all sorts cavort without worrying someone like me can track them down to their day job.”Her firecracker grin sparkled.“Which I can do.Little hobby of mine.Taking on anonymous keyboard warriors.”
Grace loved Scarlett already.“That sounds like more fun than it should be.”
“It is, and from what I’ve heard about your internet skills, you could jump into the murky, dark deep end with me and have some fun.”
Dean, far more buttoned up than Scarlett with his faded taper and sharp jaw line, gave Scarlett a harsh look.“Maybe not right now.”He shook Grace’s hand.“I’m an analyst and, although I’d rather neither of you troll people on the dark web, I’m impressed with the way you covered your tracks online.You could have set up an online camp for drug lords, and no one would have noticed.”
The compliments caught her off guard.“A lot of good that did.”
Vivian relinquished her spot and gestured to Dean.“Grace and I are finished.More or less.”
Were they?Had Vivian culled her from the pack to ask about what kind of person Callum was?
“One more thing.”She paused at the door as if suddenly not ready to release Grace to Scarlett and Dean.“Have you decided what’s next?”
“For what?”
“When the legal wrangling is done, and you’re a full-fledged member of society again.What’s your next move?”
“Oh…” Callum’s promise of a house with a yard and neighbors who knew her real name jumped to mind.And Callum.He was there with the cute house as well.“Not really.”
Vivian gave her a funny look.“Maybe you should.”
Scarlett scrunched her nose, brow furrowing, as Vivian strode out.“Was that weird?That seemed off.”
Dean took the laptop from Scarlett and sat in Vivian’s vacated chair.“Don’t look for problems where they don’t exist, Scar.We have enough real ones to decipher.”
Chapter Seventeen
Callumhadbeensummonedinto the war room and found it empty.He didn’t know what most of the rooms in their headquarters had been before Titan had repurposed the space, but now he couldn’t imagine this bright room with its enormous solid wood table as anything other than his team’s assignment and debrief zone.
His team…
With every day that passed, Callum became more enmeshed with Titan.
His team.It worked.He liked it.
Vivian strode into the war room with a glare.
