“My only regret is that dropping them made you pull away.”
It was her turn to laugh, a nervous release, even as her stomach did a slow roll. She might never get used to his directness, but it was one of the things she liked about him. Heat crept into her cheeks. She wanted to kiss him again with a startling intensity, but a little voice inside her whispered that it was a bad idea. That damned prudence.
“Hey.” He sat back in his seat and waited until she looked at him. “It’s okay. A lot has happened since last night.” Last night. When they’d made love. Twice. “So, as much as I’d like to pick up right where we left off, I get it if you’re not there with me.”
She was though. Right there with him. Ready to jump right back into his arms.
Maybe partly because even now he protected her. He didn’t push, didn’t ridicule, didn’t call her a cocktease or worse. Unlike her asshole ex, Todd let her off the hook, even thoughshe’dkissedhim.
And now she wanted to do it again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TODD FORCED HIMSELF to look away from Lindsey and take a deep breath as he scanned the still empty theater. What the hell was he thinking? No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t kiss her again. Not right now. Even if he was interpreting the look on her face correctly, he needed to keep his wits about him, stay alert for potential threats, and make plans for every contingency.
He couldn’t do that when she looked at him with so much heat in her eyes. Despite her disheveled appearance she was beautiful. Her resilience and capacity for humor under the circumstances only made her more impressive.
Any other time, he would have dragged her into his arms and shown her exactly how he felt. Right now, he needed to stow those thoughts and focus.
“Can you explain something about Megan?” he asked, desperate for a distraction, and also curious.
Lindsey frowned. “What’s that?”
“I got that she was laundering money for the sheriff somehow, but I don’t understand why she went after you.”
“Cruz must’ve told her I was investigating her customers.”
Todd’s jaw clenched. He wanted to throttle this Cruz asshole. Not only had he cheated on Lindsey—the most incredible woman in the fucking universe—his actions had nearly gotten her killed. “Why were you doing that?”
Lindsey sighed. “Because she hired me to do her taxes. It was late in the game, and everything was so disorganized that I had to file for an extension just to get it done. As I went through her payment processor statements to verify the gross receipts, there were an inordinate number of purchases from a handful of companies through only one or two affiliate accounts. I’d expected most of her customers to be individuals or small businesses coming from all over the place.
“I mean, sure, one affiliate member can drive a lot of traffic if they have a large newsletter list or social media audience, but the customer base should be broad, so I mentioned it to Meg.”
Todd frowned. This kind of thing wasn’t his strong suit. “What’s an affiliate exactly?”
“Oh, sorry.” Lindsey grimaced. “It’s someone who uses their own platform—website, social media, newsletter—to drive traffic to a business in exchange for a cut of the sales.”
“So someone with a popular blog about graphic design might promote Megan’s classes to his followers and she’d pay them for each sale?”
Lindsey smiled. “Exactly. Having a small number of successful affiliates wasn’t necessarily weird, but having so many of those purchases come from the same customer was.”
Todd scratched his beard. “So, whoever wanted to pay off the sheriff—for protecting gun or drug shipments, or whatever he’s up to—could buy one or more of Megan’s courses using the his affiliate link, and she’d get some of the money basically as a laundering fee?”
“Yep.”
“Damn,” he said. “That’s pretty brilliant.”
“And remarkably easy to set up, and hard to catch.”
“But you caught it.” Todd couldn’t hide his admiration.
She bit her lip. “I wasn’t sure. And I assumed, if I was right, that they were using Meg’s site without her knowledge.”
“What happened when you mentioned it to her?” he asked.
Lindsey looked at her lap, a crease forming between her dark brows. “She accused me of being jealous of her success. Of thinking that she wasn’t smart enough to make that kind of money without cheating.”
“Ouch. But you kept pressing?”
