“I’ll get you set up with a secure connection.” Tristan guides me down the hidden bunker. It looks like a secret military operation in action down here. Computer monitors lined up, playing on them squares of every room in the cabin, the woods and the beach. Other equipment I’m not familiar with but looks expensive. A cot and a cupboard filled with water bottles, canned food and guns. Lots of them.
“I thought we kept the guns upstairs in the bedroom safe,” I say.
“Here too.” He reaches for a satellite phone and works his magic. Then, within seconds, he points at one of the computers, grabs the one chair in the room and sets it for me. “It’s ready.”
“You’re so fast. How have you become so good with high-end technology? They teach you that in sniper school?”
“No, but there’s so much you can learn when you can read, and decide to run a security company.” He bends to work some buttons on the keyboard, and his cologne, mixed with raw masculinity and heat, invades my senses. My imagination runs wild. A man and a woman in a dark, tight place like this, too intimate, built for making wrong decisions and sweet regrets.
His chest nearly touches my back as he reaches around me to type, his muscled arm brushing against mine. The heat from his body envelops me, and I fight the urge to lean back into him. “Your thirty minutes,” his voice drops lower, rougher, his breath hot against my ear, “start now.”
I shift in the chair, hyper-aware of every point where we almost touch. “You’re going to stand there the whole time?”
“Right here.” His palm flattens on the desk beside the keyboard, caging me in. “Where I can see everything.”
I cross my legs to ease the ache building between them. “Everything?”
He chuckles. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Birdie. I know you’ve imagined my fingers, my tongue and my pierced cock in your pussy so many times more than you care to count just like I know you don’t only picture me between your squirming legs now, you need it.” His other hand moves, and for a second I think he’s reaching between my thighs. But it only rests on the back of my chair. “Twenty-nine minutes.”
Breath catching, skin flushing, I reach for the mouse. “Fuck you.”
“You wish.” He taps the desk, rushing me. “Your agent first, then your lawyer. We need to know what Blake’s been saying, what he might be planning.”
I videocall Martha, painfully conscious of how his body towers over mine, how trapped I am between his arms, the desk and this damn chair.
The connection seems to take forever to start—courtesy of the extra layers of security or the silent tension between us. At last, Martha’s face fills the screen. “Birdie, thank goodness. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for—” Martha chops off her words, and her brows knit. “What is this place? Where are you and why are you calling me on anapp?” She waves at Tristan. “And why is your handsome bodyguard breathing down your neck with his serial killer face on?”
A laugh finds its way to my heart despite everything. “It’s a long story. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. When was the last time you talked to Blake?”
“I don’t know. The day Saldana died or the day after, I’m not sure, but I haven’t spoken to him since you sent me his termination notice email, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Blake hasn’t tried to reach Martha. It’s a good sign. He hasn’t intended to expose me to her—not yet—or the media or she would have known about it. I exchange a glance with Tristan. “No, it’s just that he’s been MIA for a few days. After what happened to Gia, I was worried about him.”
“Gia? What happened to her?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. What’s going on, Birdie?”
Gia’s murder hasn’t made it into the press yet? My head jumps automatically to Jacob. He has his way of controlling the press. Perhaps he’s protecting me behind the scenes, making sure no news about the murder or the stalker gets leaked.
I fill my agent in. Gia’s murder. The police interrogations. “And Martha, there’s a big chance Blake is involved, and honestly—”
“Birdie,” Tristan warns.
I stare at him. “She needs to know to stay safe. I can’t let anything happen to her.”
“Know what?” Martha’s eyes go full dinner plate size. “What’s gonna happen to me?”
“We think,” I swallow, “the stalker might be behind all this.”
“Oh my God. Oh. My. God. You think he killed Gia? Why?”
“She and Blake were having an affair.”
“Holy shit! No way!”
“Ms. Goldman, please know this is privileged information and can’t be disclosed under any circumstances, not even to the police,” Tristan interrupts.
