It’s real enough that she has a ring on her finger, and that’s good enough for me.Moving on, I changed the subject before Frankie could latch on to my lengthy silence.“Anyway, where are you staying while they do the repairs?”
“Hugh and I got paired with the Medfords. You can sleep over whenever you need to escape from your horrible boss—if you even want to escape.” Frankie waggled her eyebrows and I elbowed her, but a nervous thrill went through me at the thought of knocking on Nolan’s door in just a few hours.
I could almost mistake the feeling forexcitement.
Which was insane.
Remember, you’re pissed off, Val. Because anger is safer than whatever else this man has you feeling…
Chapter 15
NOLAN
“Andyou’resurethere’snothing?” I barked into the phone. “Not a trace of any possible foul play, a suspect, a scrap of evidence the police might have missed?”
“There’s nothing,szef,” said Jason. “A whole team combed through the footage. Everything matched the police report.”
I let the dead air persist on the line.
“But I have a friend who owes me a favor. I’ll see if he can find anything.”
“Good.” I hung up, leaning back in the oversized leather chair in my living room. Phil had come through with the security footage and Jason’s people worked fast—that’s what I paid them for—and I had a list of long-time employees to interview that I had yet to sift through.
Since arriving at Hale’s Peak, my priorities had been all over the place. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what my problem was. When Val called me for help last night, the possessive beast inside me had rumbled with pleasure. But I knew I was only getting myself into even deeper shit. Every time I decided to keep Val at arm’s length, she kept elbowing her way back into the forefront of my mind.
Who am I kidding? She’s alwaysat the forefront.
Asking her to live with me, though, was an unnecessary risk—but I’d do it again in a second. When Austin had so lazily thrown his arm around Val and offered to bunkwith her, it took everything in me not to rip his arm off and punch him in the jaw with his own fist. The lie about the personal assistant thing had flowed off my tongue easily, and luckily, Val had bought it. No, Val would notbe living with anyone but me. Even if having her so close would drive my self-control to the brink.
My laptop pinged with an incoming email and I returned my attention to the task at hand. I’d long since determined my mysterious pen pal was fixated upon driving me fucking insane with their vague and maddeningly unhelpful letters. If they knew something, why not just come out and say it? Why the runaround? I figured they either knew something they shouldn’t and didn’t want to come up against charges like obstruction of justice or conspiracy, or they were just messing with me for their own sick enjoyment. If it was the latter, I’d never figure out who it was. The list of people who wanted to fuck with me was long. But if it was the former…
I pulled up Phil’s list of active employees as of January 2004 and a separate list of those who were scheduled to work on January 12. I’d have Jason and his team interview every single person, but Phil had singled out those employees who still currently worked at Hale’s Peak—Bobby Suffolk, Barney Huxby, and Tess Mackey. And I intended to speak to each of them personally.
Just then, a light knock sounded at my front door. I was still dressed in my work clothes, but I’d ditched the tie and jacket before my unhelpful call with Jason. If it was anyone work related, I still looked put together. When I opened the door, my heart thundered in my chest.
Fucking fuck. Keep it together.
Val stoodon my threshold with a backpack and the snowboard I got for her. With that tentative smile on her face, surrounded by mounds of sparkling, fresh-fallen snow, she stole my breath.
“Come in,” I said. Her face paled, but she offered me a small nod as she stepped past me. As the scent of her coconut shampoo wrapped around me, I was struck by the thought of what it would feel like to run my hands through those luscious curls, of how I would fist it and pull her head back as Ithrust—
“So thisis how the other half lives,” Val said. I cleared my throat and begged my cock to settle down, but I didn’t have to worry about her noticing my semi—she was distracted by the house. Then she turned to me, a playful curve to her lips, and said, “Yes, I think I could get used to this.”
At the thought of Val being happy here—with me—another wave of need pulsed through me. But I steered myself away from that unhelpful line of thought and said, “I had the movers set up your things in the guest room. My master suite and office are at the end of the hall, and Cressida has the two bedrooms upstairs in the addition.”
From the kitchen, Val stopped fiddling with the espresso maker and snapped her head toward me. “You and Cressida don’t—?”
“We don’t share a room, no. Or a bed.”At least not in the literal sense.Our eyes locked and Val’s gaze darted to my lips and back up, quick as a flash. It was brief, but it was enough for me to know.She still thinks about the kiss too.“Cressida prefers her independence, which I fully support.”
Val bit her lower lip—fuck, did I want to be the one biting that lip—and the words squeezed out of her. “Thank you again for letting me stay here.”
“That’s a different tune than the one you were singing earlier today. You looked like you wanted to rip my head off and throw it at me like a dodgeball.”
“I still haven’t ruled that out.” But then she grew serious,scrutinizingme with those tawny eyes that always saw too much. “I know you only made the offer because you didn’t want me staying with Austin. But what I don’t know is why.”
“It was Arthur’s idea,” I answered automatically, but her observation irked me as much as it floored me.Am I really that transparent? Jesus.A smart man would slap an NDA on the table right now, but I’d already proven myself to be an absolute idiot when it came to her. I wanted to earn her loyalty and trust, not force her into it with a legal document.
“Sure it was,” Val said. A defiant notch flashed in her forehead and I stepped toward her, backing her up until she bumped into the counter. Fuck, I couldnotkeep away from this woman. I thought I was strong enough to ignore the temptation. But her questioning, her prodding me like that…
