Mail room guys didn’t take specificfiles. But no one else needed to know that, not until I had enough informationto save myself looking like a crazy person when I put my theory forward.
Right now, the assumptionwas that ithadbeen random, or if not random, then about companysecrets that I didn’t actually know. I thought otherwise.
The bodyguard suggestion hadbeen unexpected, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to hate the idea. Especiallyif I wasright.
Gray had been dropped intomy lap like a gift from on high, and the fact that his company was calledGuardianAngelshad sealed it for me. When I’d kept the card he’d givenme, I’d expected to have it as a souvenir. Not to actually use the number.
Especially not forwork,instead of breaking my no-second-hookups rule.
Twice was more than enoughto get attached. With a man like Gray, I would have been head over heels by thesecond time I’dcome.
“Oh, well…” Jimmy met myeyes briefly, and then looked at Amanda. I could tell she was glaring by theway his already pale face went white. “If you, umm… need anything, I’m alwayshappy to…”
“Thank you,” I said in ahurry, wanting this conversation to be over. Jimmy’s constant anxiety wasinfectious, my gut twisting in response to the way his voice was shaking. Wecould never have lasted, even if I’d really liked him. “I appreciate that, andI’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do for me.”
Which wasn’t even a lie. Iwould, in fact, let him know if there was anything he could do for me.
I was just also confidentthat there wouldn’t be.
Gray, on the other hand…
He could do allkindsof things for me. Justthinkingabout seeing him again was enough tomake weathering Amanda’s disapproval worth it.
Not that I planned onletting anything happen, but a little fantasizing couldn’t hurt.Probably.
Jimmy nodded and steppedback a pace, still hovering, but apparently done with the conversation. Out ofthe corner of my eye, I saw him checking his phone. Hopefully he’d just gotten amessage that’d take him back to work.
“Send him through when hegets here,” I said to Amanda, looking longingly at the door of my office, wherepeople at least had to knock before coming in. “And don’t… scare him off.”
She pursed her lips, butnodded.
I knew she cared, too. She’d always caredabout me. When I didn’t eat, she brought sandwiches. When I fell asleep on thecouch in my office, I woke up with a blanket draped over me.
It was nice to be caredabout, even if I felt like I was being judged for not caring enough aboutmyself.
As soon as there was a doorbetween me and the rest of the world, I breathed a sigh of relief. Work, Icould do.
And if needing personalsecurity meant I got to look at a hot bodyguard all day, I could live withthat.
FOUR
GRAY
EMERSON MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY'S Sacramento headquartersturned out to be in one of the big Art Deco buildings overlooking a park in themiddle of Downtown, like all the other big businesses in the area. Despite beinga local, I’d never really noticed the building before I was walking into thebig, high-ceilinged, marble-lined foyer and approaching the reception desk.
I knew about the Emersons,of course. Their name was all over buildings in the city. I’d even been inthe Leland Emerson Memorial Ward at the children’s hospital when I broke my armtrying to get the neighbor’s cat out of a tree at eight years old. The son of abitch cat jumped right down on top of me like I was a springboard after I felland ran off as though nothing had happened.
I’d never trusted cats since.
“Grayson Ward, here to talkto Miles Emerson,” I told the receptionist, getting out my phone in case heneeded to see the email.
“I have you here,” he saidbefore I could even pull it up. “But I’ll need to see some ID before I can giveyou a visitor’s pass.”
Shrugging, I took out mywallet and handed over my driver’s license.
Checking ID meant there wasgood security in this place, but there would have had to be, wouldn’t there? Medicalresearch was no joke.
There were probably petridishes full of deadly viruses stashed away somewhere beyond the bank ofelevators lining the back wall. They couldn’t just letanyonewalk in here.
