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But the Wednesday morning after their dinner, she’d sent him a text and avoided the house for the day. Instead, she’d done some planning for the great room, then focused on picking out paint colors to go with the design themes for the guest bedrooms, finished packing up her office, and shopped for more beds and accessories in the afternoon. Other than a late morning return text from him to make sure her night had been uneventful, she hadn’t heard from him.
Yesterday, about the time she’d convinced herself that was a good thing, he’d popped in while she was painting in the first bedroom on the main floor. He’d handed her the debit card for the house account, and all it took was a brief brush of his fingers and his sexy grin to make her wish she’d taken the opportunity to accept his dare when it was in the palm of her hand.
As he’d left the room, her gaze had devoured every inch of him, from his mussed brown hair all the way to his bare feet. Well, truthfully, she hadn’t gotten much further than the ass of his jeans, but figured the bare feet were a pretty safe assumption. She had yet to see him wearing shoes in his house.
“No, I did not kiss him again,” she answered Britt. Technically, the denial was a lie because she hadn’t told her friend about the second kiss the night of the art show. “Why would I?”
“Um, because he’s damn hot and you both seemed to really enjoy the last one?”
“Who’s hot?” Joel’s indignant voice demanded in the background.
“Dean Daley.”
“Why are you looking at another guy?”
Gina smiled as her friend’s laugh came over the line. “Oh, settle down. I still go to bed with you every night, don’t I?”
This time her husband’s response was low and muffled. She heard a brief, hushed exchange, then her friend’s laughingly whispered, “Go away.”
Then Britt spoke to her in a normal voice again. “Seriously, the guy chased you out of the bar. Then he showed up at the gallery for less than ten minutes, just to talk to you, and you’ve been avoiding my calls. You can’t tell me something didn’t happen that night.”
“Your husband’s investigative skills are wearing off on you.”
“I knew it! Tell me.”
“He accused me of working with Jackson to try to steal programming ideas.”
“What?” Affronted disbelief rang in Britt’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“And you still took the job?”
Gina sighed, all humor gone as she sank down onto the end of the bed delivered just that morning. “I need the money, Britt. Grace kinda screwed me over, and most of my clients were from Jackson’s circle.”
“Why didn’t you say something?
“I’m dealing with it.”
“Did you call your parents? Because if you don’t want to open that can of worms, we can help.”
“I appreciate it, but really, I’m working through it.” She forced a laugh. “Literally.”
“Well, then, how is the job going? He doesn’t still think you have any connection to Jackson, does he? I’m guessing not, otherwise he wouldn’t have hired you.”
Ha, right. “I’ve only seen him once in the past three days, so I’m not sure if he’s changed his mind or not. Anyway, he can think whatever he wants to think. I know what’s true, and that’s all that matters.”
Not really, but she wasn’t ready to admit that out loud yet, even to her best friend. She did tell her about the office break-in, but left out Dean’s presence, then spent the next couple minutes convincing her she wasn’t in any danger. After the ordeal Britt and Joel had gone though almost two years ago, Gina understood her concern.
Her own unease had been high at first, but it was diminishing a little more each day. She still didn’t have a clue why her office had been the only one, and hadn’t heard anything more from the police. A thorough check of her computer at home didn’t find anything suspicious, either. She’d followed the officer’s advice to change her passwords and ordered new credit cards, though at this point, she suspected it’d been a random act of vandalism—and a petty one at that.
As her friend ended their conversation, she reminded, “You said in your text you wanted to ask me something.”
“Forget it. It’s nothing.”
“Britt, don’t give me that. What?”
“I was going to ask you to babysit tomorrow night, but with all you’ve got going on, I don’t want to bother you.”
