“Ah.” Darren’s lips quirked up on one side, a pleasant hum spreading through him. “You knew I was here.”
Aiden’s expression turned bemused, his gaze going for an obvious swipe of Darren from head to toe. “You are not exactly an easy man to miss.”Okay then. Clearly,he’d left an impression. “Well?” Aiden bobbed his head at a pile of documents on the desk. “Are you going to guard thedoor all day or help me get this place in some semblance of order?”
A thrill of satisfaction raced down Darren’s back. Needing no further invitation, he walked over and picked up the stack of paper. It comprised food and supply orders and invoices, some dating back more than five years.
“What do you want me to do with these?” he asked, looking up from the documents.
Aiden pointed to one of the cabinets. “Organize them by year and type, then deposit them into the appropriate folder in the first and second drawers.”
“Shouldn’t you check them before I put them away?”
“Why? Is this simple task beyond the scope of your abilities, Mr. Howe?”
Darren shook his head and grinned. “Of course not. But what if I mess them up on purpose?”
There was no trust between them; they were practically strangers. And Darren was a criminal.
Aiden seemed to consider that as he adjusted his glasses. “Is your appointment as my secretary not incentive enough for you to do a proper job? Or would you prefer to spend your mornings in the comfort of your cell as you have been doing so far?”
Bossy. But he also had a point.
“I will make sure everything is filed correctly,” Darren said, foregoing a snarky remark so he wouldn’t risk aggravating Aiden, who currently seemed to be in a mood. The slight dark circles under his eyes hinted at the reason for it, though also made Darren wonder what had plagued the warden’s sleep.
Who was he? Was there more to his obvious interest? Or was Darren just getting paranoid and looking for things that weren’t there?
“When you are done with this stack, go through the papers in the third drawer.”
Having said that, Aiden returned his attention to the screen while Darren made himself comfortable on the sofa. Thanks to the absurdly outrageous way in which the invoices had been written up, it took him until lunch to sift through just the documents from the desk. No two followed the same format, as if whoever had been in charge of procuring them had gone to great lengths to ensure they were as hard to decipher as an encrypted message. Darren pondered the reasons for that, deducing that it most likely had to do with stealing and redirecting funds to private accounts.
“Did you know about these?” he regarded Aiden, waving the stack of invoices before going over to the cabinet to file them away.
“I had my suspicions, yes.” Aiden leveled a look at Darren through his glasses, rubbing the left side of his forehead.A headache?“You’ve just confirmed them.”
“Can you do anything about it?”
“Like what, make whoever stole the money return it?” Aiden huffed dismissively. “Don’t be foolish.”
Darren grumbled as he closed the drawer, folding his arms. “Then why make me sit for hours sorting them if we aren’t even gonna use them?”
“There is no ‘we’, Mr. Howe. And, perhaps, I just wanted to enjoy the sight of you struggling to make sense of them?”
Oh, the sly fox.
Darren crossed the room in three big strides and smacked his hands on the desk—but not too aggressively—flashing Aiden one of his killer grins. “You’re a sadist.”
One fake blond eyebrow shot up in challenge. “You humor me with your assumption about my preferences, Mr. Howe.”
“Do I?” Darren let his tone drop to a low hiss, sultry and suggestive, as heat pooled south.
Glancing at his screen as a notification pinged from the speakers, Aiden deadpanned, “You do.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No?” Eyes back on Darren, Aiden leaned forward slightly and laced his hands together. “Then what do you think?”
Darren licked his lips, feeling his expression turn impish. “May I speak freely?”
“You may, though I was of the impression you already were.”
