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KATIE
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I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning in a bed that wasn’t mine.
And I knew for a fact that it wasn’t mine for one simple reason: In my room, the bed was up against the wall that faced the window in the suite. In this room—wherever ‘this room’ was—I was facing another wall, and the window was on my right.
I tried to explode right out of bed and run. I mean, I definitely, definitely sent that message to my body, from my brain, because I was freaking out. Where the hell was I, and how the hell had I gotten here? Nothing was coming easily to mind, and as far as I was concerned, that meant only one thing: danger.
So yeah, the message from my brain to the rest of my body was essentially Get up and run!
Unfortunately, my body didn’t respond the way it was supposed to. Mostly because the rest of my body, aside from my brain, was still asleep, and very, very hung over.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered, my hands going right to my head to try to hold it on my neck.
“I feel about the same,” a voice from behind me muttered.
And at that point, my body finally got the message and did jump out of bed, regardless of how much I knew it was going to hurt my head.
I whirled around, my hands still doing the vital work of holding my head on, and stared at the bed behind me.
Where Adam Miller was lying, his hair sticking up and to the side and his scruff even scruffier than it had been the night before. When I agreed to come to his room to talk about things other than the case and let my brain reset. And where we’d set up a picnic on the floor and he’d asked me about what I’d wanted to be when I was a kid.
Oh my... I was remembering it all, now. Or... Well, ‘all’ would have been generous, honestly. I barely remembered anything. But I did know whose room I was in—and in whose bed I’d evidently spent the night.
“Oh shit, did we...?” I asked.
I didn’t know why it mattered. It wasn’t like it would have been the first time. But still, there was something about not being able to remember it that would have bothered me. It made me feel like I’d been out of control. Totally not in charge of what I was doing.
I hated that.
Adam cracked a sleepy morning smile. “No, but your face right now is priceless. Would it really have been so bad if we had?”
Relieved, I realized that I was shivering and didn’t need to be when there was a warm bed—and a man-shaped heater—lying right in front of me. I slid back into the bed and pulled the blankets all the way up to my chin as I faced Adam, though I went out of my way to maintain some space between him and me.
I might have been using him for heat. That didn’t mean I was ready to admit that I wanted to do a whole lot more. Hell, even having the thought that I might want to do a whole lot more was completely out of bounds, based on the new rules I’d set for myself.
Or rather, the old rules, which I’d been reminding myself of constantly.
Still, I had to admit that it was nice to be back in bed with him. And definitely warmer.
“It wouldn’t,” I admitted. “But I hate doing things I don’t remember. Makes me feel out of control.”
He turned on his side and propped his head up with his hand. “And I’m betting you never do things that make you feel out of control.”
I made a face at him. “What sort of investigator would I be if I was running around out of control all the time?”
He leaned forward and planted a very soft, very sweet kiss on my lips. “An incredibly sexy one,” he murmured. “And one that I’d definitely want to get to know better.”
I felt my lips twitching with what wanted to be a smile, because that felt a whole lot like a line that meant more than it seemed to, on the surface. “Is that so?”
“Definitely. I’ve never met anyone who wanted to become a bird before.”
I shut my eyes, the memory roaring back, and groaned. “Please no... did I actually tell you about that?”
“Along with your thoughts about the logic of the whole thing,” he answered, smiling softly. “You seem to have put quite a lot of thought into it.”
“I think you’re being generous there,” I told him firmly. “I hadn’t thought about that episode of my life for years, until our conversation last night.”
He flipped onto his back and put his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Well, I thought you made a pretty good point in terms of whose consciousness you’d keep. And I still say it would come in handy in your line of work.”
I actually giggled at that, though I kept it soft, just to save my head. “I don’t think I can pull it off. Even if it would come in handy.”
He looked over at me, those lush lips of his curving up a bit. “But if anyone could do it, it would be you. I have absolute faith in that. Now, what do you have on your schedule today? Any chance I can talk you into another dinner?”
I gave him a curve of my own lips and thought through the day. And then we lay in bed and discussed our schedules. Like we were some married couple getting ready for our workdays and trying to figure out when we’d get to see each other again.
And behind the talking, I had time for two thoughts. First, I felt different. Like something had shifted in the middle of the night, in the dark, as we cuddled together in his bed. It felt like... something had changed. Some wall had come down between us as we slept.
Second, I liked lying in bed in the morning and discussing the case with him. I liked the soft, quiet intimacy of that moment, when there was only us and we weren’t yet awake enough to face the rest of the world. I liked the idea that it was just him and me.
I acknowledged both of those thoughts, and I didn’t send them flying away the way I would have yesterday.
Because I was starting to think that maybe... just maybe, I’d been wrong about how distant I wanted to stay from him. Maybe I’d been overreacting.
Maybe I’d been making a rule where there didn’t need to be one.
***
I GOT ON THE ELEVATOR at the office, looked around, and realized that I’d fallen into a perfect situation.
Because the only other person in the elevator was one Joseph Parissimo. He of the suspect list. This was the guy who worked in customer service, I remembered, and who had become suspicious by giving too many discounts and refunds to complaining customers.
He had also, I though, reaching even further back, been identified as someone who was handling customers who had already been handled. Doubling down on the work and costing the company more money, while also refunding customers who had already been refunded. Or refunded customers who had been turned down by another agent.
No wonder they’d put him on that list. It wasn’t just that he could be stealing from the company in a roundabout way, if he knew those customers personally and had a deal with them. It was also that he was costing the company money by giving refunds he shouldn’t have been giving.
The guy may or may not be a thief, but he was certainly bad at his job. If I was his supervisor, I would have fired him, straight up.
Despite that, I plastered a smile on my face and stuck out my hand.
“Hi there! I’m sorry to be so forward, but I’m new in this office and I’ve promised myself that I’ll introduce myself to any new face I come across. Katie Walters, finance department.”
He grinned and then whistled as he shook my hand. “Finance, eh? You’re one of those smart ones, then. I’m just in customer service, myself. Doesn’t take as much brainpower, which is good, because I’ve never been lucky enough to have much of it.”
I tittered appreciatively, the way men expected you to when they told jokes like that, and then shook my head. I already knew what sort of persona to put on for this guy. No, it didn’t match my real personality—or the person I was playing for the department upstairs—but this was a guy who might have information, and I needed to do whatever it took to catch him off guard and get him to give me that information.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I joked. “In fact, I bet you could move to another department if you wanted to. If you’re dealing with the customers, it means you’re dealing with numbers all day. You have to be in charge of refunds and stuff, right? I bet I’ve seen accounts that are moving into my department because you’ve been handling them.”
No, it wasn’t subtle. But I had a hangover.
And I didn’t think it would have mattered how subtle I’d been. The moment I brought up his accounts—and the idea of refunds—the friendly, open look on his face shuttered and he turned... strict.
Stern.
Unfriendly.
“I don’t issue many refunds,” he said immediately. “Against company policy, you know. We want our customers to be happy, but we don’t want to give away the company’s money. We’re not running a charity.”
Ah. The company line. Interesting that he’d gone to it as soon as I’d brought up the idea of refunds. I wondered how often he’d gotten into trouble with being too free and easy with that company money.
Enough times that he’d memorized the lecture and brought it out anytime anyone got close.
Still.
I gave him my most coquettish look. “Oh, come on. You can’t actually believe that. You’re in customer service. Shouldn’t that mean you’re more concerned for customer satisfaction than anything else?”
He turned back toward the doors, like he was trying to end the conversation. “Wouldn’t really matter if I thought that, would it? At the end of the day, it’s the company’s money, and I’ve got to be careful with it.”
He got off on the next floor without saying anything else, and I stared after him, more than a little bit confused.
“Well, that was weird,” I whispered to myself.
I didn’t think I’d ever had anyone go from super friendly to cold-shoulder in such a short span of time. And over such a seemingly innocuous question.
It sure didn’t make him look innocent. People didn’t get that paranoid about stealing money from a company unless they were, in fact, stealing money from a company.
I moved Joseph up to first on the list of suspects and hit the button for my floor.
***
YOU CAN IMAGINE MY surprise when I got off on my floor and found Joseph Parissimo in the entryway, sitting down in one of the chairs in the reception area.
“Joseph,” I said, surprised. “Have you also invented a machine that gives you the ability to instantly transport yourself from one place to another? I thought you just got off—”
“Downstairs, I know,” he interrupted sheepishly. “I just had to come up here and apologize for the way I’d behaved. The truth is, I’ve seen you around the office—noticed you the first day you started—and I think... Well, I think you’re just about the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I guess I got a little bit overwhelmed at the idea of actually talking to you.”
I giggled, in a way that made me want to slap myself across the face for sounding so vapid.
Then I pasted a vapid look on my face and prepared to play really dumb.
“Oh my gosh, you’re too much. That’s so sweet, but I have to disagree with you. There are at least twenty women in this office who are more beautiful than I am.”
He crept a bit closer and gave me a flirty smile. “You’re wrong. Any chance I could take you out this weekend? Show you off to my friends?”
Another vapid, twittery giggle, and my hand went up to fan my face. “Joseph, are you asking me out?”
“Sure am. Are you saying yes?”
I tipped my head and let myself flirt a little bit. “I might. Depends on where you’re going to take me.”
He dropped his chin and gave me what I was sure was supposed to be a look of pure sex. “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”
I leaned in a bit closer, then, just to close the loop. “In that case, how could a girl say no? Let’s say Friday night at 7?”
He gave me an all-out grin at that. “Sounds perfect. I’ll check in with you again before then, just to confirm.”
And then he was heading back for the elevator, leaving me shocked—and self-congratulatory—behind him. I already had about twenty ideas flooding through my mind about how I could use this date to get more information out of him. Hey, if me being close to Rachel was going to help, then it couldn’t hurt to try it with someone else, too, right?
Then I looked up and saw Adam coming out of the main finance office and staring right at me.
And he did not look like he agreed with my assessment of the situation.
