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“I’m fine, thank you.” She wandered toward the ledge and looked at the city lights. The noise of the traffic below faded into the background. The she turned abruptly, a shadow across her beautiful features. “You know what? I’m not fine.”
She threw her hands up. “I don’t always know the right thing to do. I’ve made more mistakes than I care to admit. But when it comes to you, my head tells me one thing and my heart another.”
“Then we’ll have to figure out how to get them on the same page.”
Her shoulders sagged and she laughed, but there was no joy in the sound.
She pointed at me. “You tangled my heart with yours before I realized it had happened.”
“I won’t apologize.”
“I don’t want you to,” she screamed as she pushed off the wall and marched straight into my space. “You’re everything I want and everything I can’t have wrapped up in one great big package I can’t resist.”
“Tell me why this is a problem.” I knew exactly why it was, but my dead heart stuttered back to life with her admission.
“Because Gabriel is supposed to come first.” Her voice echoed into the low hanging clouds and reverberated around us. “If I continue to do what I want, it puts him at risk.”
She adjusted her headband, slamming it back down on her head. “But you give him something I can’t. He needs you as much as I do.”
She dropped her chin to her chest in defeat.
I was at a loss for words. How could I defend myself when she only spoke the truth?
She wrapped her fingers around my wrists. “These hands have done things that should have me running away as fast as I can.” She touched each one as if they held the answers she was looking for. “Instead they pull me toward you.”
I stood still and savored her delicate touch on my skin. “They aren’t finished yet.”
I didn’t want to tell her what lay ahead in the coming days. I’d spare her the details, but I wouldn’t lie. She needed to know exactly whose arms held her.
I expected her to release me and wouldn’t blame her if she did. The despicable side of me was always there, even when it lay dormant.
Holly slowly turned my hand over and brought it to her lips. The anger and frustration and indecision were gone from her eyes when she leaned forward and kissed the center of my palm.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Holly
“You can do this.”
My fingers were poised on the keyboard of the laptop. The login screen to EXODUS sat open, just waiting for me to enter Drew’s details.
I glanced at the slightly ajar door to his office. Anyone passing by shouldn’t be able to see me, and he was slated to be in a meeting for the next two hours. It was now or never.
I could’ve done this from my own computer, but feared with his tech savvy he’d have traced it back to me. While he could still check the time stamps of his logins, I was banking that he wouldn’t. And desperately praying I wouldn’t be caught.
If I thought about the consequences, I wouldn’t go through with this, but I had to. For Mulaney and Easton.
I typed in the details and hit enter.Too late to turn back now.As I waited for the program to load, my mind drifted to Carlos. When he found out I’d left the apartment building without telling him, he’d be furious. No one could know I was here. Not even him.
I navigated to the date range of transactions of figures I’d memorized. In seconds, I discovered Drew’s numbers were vastly different from Easton’s or Mulaney’s. I toggled through the screens and discovered a dropdown menu that wasn’t present in any other version I’d seen. There were four headings consisting of Easton, Mulaney, Harris, and Drew’s names.
I clicked on Easton’s name. It aligned with what I’d seen in his program. Mulaney’s was no different, and Mr. Carter’s looked worse than either of them.
Voices came from down the hall. I paused and tried to see through the crack of the door. The talking grew louder, but I didn’t recognize anyone.
I waited until the sound retreated before I poked around further. There was a log with time stamps every time the program had been updated. I needed to see if those matched Mulaney’s but didn’t have access to it here.
My phone rang.
