He hands me a glass. I accept, but don’t drink. I know where that leads and I want to be better this time. He lowers himself into the chair to my left and crosses his legs. I love the shape of his thighs, the bulge of his arms, his sculpted chest and twinkling, confident eyes. The man’s a beast and he knows it. There’s no shame in him, no hesitation. He seems to walk throughthe world like he’s comfortable in every room, ready for any situation, and I’m deeply jealous of that.
I’m the total opposite.
“Alright, love, you wanted me, now you have me.” He reaches into his pocket and fiddles with something absently. I’m guessing it’s his phone and he’s thinking about how to get rid of me. “What do you want to chat about?”
I decide to get to the point. It’s already late and I don’t want to be out too much longer.
“I spoke with my father. He says Kieren stole something from the company and that it’s being handled. You’re the one handling it, aren’t you?”
He seems unsurprised. “That’s right.”
I hesitate at the honesty. I assumed he would try to dance around the questioning or outright lie about it. “You were looking for something in his car.”
“Documents. Storage devices. That sort of thing.”
“But there wasn’t anything?”
“Clean as a whistle. At least I hope so. Because otherwise—“ He flicks the fingers of his other hand in the air. “Poof. Ashes.”
“Right. Arson.” I shiver and take a sip of wine. Crap, I told myself I wasn’t going to drink, but I’m nervous and Liam puts me on edge. He’s too intense and handsome, and I keep thinking about what it feels like to have him buried between my legs. “Have you found anything else yet?”
“Not yet. I paid your apartment a visit just a few minutes ago, actually. That’s where I was coming from.”
My heart spikes. “Wait, hold on. You were in my apartment?”
“Nice place. Two bedrooms. Lovely decorations, except for all that baseball garbage.” His nose wrinkles with disgust. “I can’t believe you let him display his pathetic card collection.”
I laugh despite how violated I feel. “We fought about that, actually, but I had to give in. I mean, he was so serious about it—“ I clear my throat, drink again, hate myself a bit, and press on. “Did you find anything? In the apartment?”
“No, I didn’t.” He looks at me curiously. “You’re not going to make a bigger deal about me breaking into your home?”
“It’s not my home anymore. I haven’t been in that place since?—“
Since I found him railing Vera in our bed.
He nods knowingly and seems to realize he’s got his hand in his pocket. He glances down and quickly pulls it back out, then covers the moment by taking a long drink. “Truthfully, if you’ve got any ideas about where Kieren might be hiding what he took?—“
“I really have no idea.”
“Any email addresses I might not know about?”
“He’s got one for work, one personal email, and he made one in college, but I don’t think he uses that much.”
Liam looks interested and gets up to grab a pen and paper. “Can you give it to me?”
I spell it out and he writes it down. “You think that’ll help?”
“I think it won’t work. I have a feeling whatever he took, Kieren didn’t keep a hard copy. That’s good and bad. Means it’ll be moredifficult to track down, but emails are relatively easy to break into. Do you know his password, by any chance?”
I cackle, because of course I do, I made it for him. “The idiot reuses it all the time. It’s his name, plus the name of his first dog, plus a number.”
Liam writes that down too, nodding to himself. “You’ve been a big help.” He taps the pen on the paper before tossing the pad on the table and sitting back down. His hand drifts into his pocket again.
“What are you going to do if you find what you’re looking for?”
“Can’t honestly say right now. How much do you know about your father’s business?”
I raise my glass to my lips for a beat before answering. “I’m his daughter and I work in his accounting department.”
