words, message received.
He had to draw a line in the sand with her until he knew exactly where they stood. It had been wrong to assume Wren wasn’t involved from the beginning. Naive, even. But that didn’t mean he had to continue down that path. A mistake could be corrected at any point, and that’s exactly what he would do now.
RHYS ARRIVED AT the diner early and procured them a booth. He’d been antsy all afternoon, unable to concentrate on the work he’d brought home. Unable to think about anything but how his carefree connection with Wren had become a career hazard. A potential liability.
Of course, he could be overacting. There might be a perfectly reasonable excuse for her not mentioning her friend’s involvement with the gallery. Perhaps they’d drifted apart and were no longer friends. Or maybe she’d really believed that it wasn’t worth bringing up.
Nothing wrong with being optimistic, but the rose-colored glasses are coming off now. Your number one priority is to get the facts.
The moment Wren walked into the diner heads turned in her direction. She was still in the fitted blue pencil skirt, but she’d swapped the T-shirt out for a black lace-trimmed camisole. The effect was mouthwatering. Appreciative eyes swept over Wren from all directions and Rhys found himself fighting back the urge to claim her with a kiss.
Facts first. Your lips don’t go near her until you have what you need.
“Hi,” she said almost shyly as she slipped into the seat across from him. A few wavy strands of blond hair had escaped her ponytail and framed her face.
In the intimate space of the booth, his senses were heightened. The accidental brush of her knee against his almost undid his resolve to keep his hands to himself.
“This is a cute place,” she said. “I hope their burgers are good, I’m starving.”
“This isn’t a date, Wren.”
Her lips pursed. “I know that, but thanks for making yourself clear. I’m still ordering food, though.”
“I want to make sure we’re on the same page,” he said, signaling to a server. “This is work, nothing else.”
“Got you loud and clear, Captain,” she replied with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I bet you keep your employees on the straight and narrow.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her eyes remained on the menu. “You’re a bit of a hard-ass when you’re in work mode.”
“Tough but fair, that’s my motto.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure that’s fine at the office.” She paused as the server took their orders. “But I’m not your employee.”
He resisted the urge to ask her how she classified their relationship. It wasn’t information that would help him right now. “So tell me how you know Kylie Samuels.”
“Gee, you’re not wasting any time, are you? Straight down to business.” She poured water into both their glasses, her hands shaking ever so slightly. “She’s an old friend. We grew up together.”
“And you were aware that she’d interned for a brief period under Sean Ainslie?”
“Yes.”
Wren’s entire demeanor had changed—normally, she had this relaxed, fluidity to her movement. Now she appeared stiff and jerky. She wore an expression on her face that was so closed off, she may as well have been wearing a bag over her head.
“Do you know why she finished up her internship early?”
Her hands knotted in her lap. “Not exactly.”
“I thought you were friends. It seems odd that she gave up an opportunity and returned home but didn’t tell you why…and now you’re here doing the exact same internship.”
“She refused to explain why she came back. She wouldn’t talk about it at all…” Her gaze was riveted on an imperfection in the table.
“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
“When she came home, she was all beat up.” Wren picked at the chipped laminate, her lips curling in anger. “She had a black eye, a busted eye socket, a broken wrist and bruises on her arms. Someone had really worked her over.”
Rhys’s stomach churned as he remembered the photos of Marguerite Bernard’s swollen face. “But she wouldn’t say who did it?”
“No. But it didn’t take much to put two and two together. Anytime I mentioned the internship she either burst into tears or started yelling at me to keep quiet.” When Wren finally looked up, Rhys saw a fire blazing in her eyes that was totally foreign. “I asked her if she’d gone to the police and she said no, because there was no proof.”
“Is that why you’re here?” The pieces of the puzzle started to click into place and Rhys didn’t like the final image that was coming together.
“Yes.”
“How did you get the internship?”
“Kylie and I had applied at the same time, but she got the job and I didn’t.” Her cheeks colored but she reset her shoulders. “Sean approached me after Kylie dropped out, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to find out what had happened to her.”
“Were you the one who tripped the security alert for the storage room?”
She looked him square in the eye, chin tilted slightly. “Yes.”
“Have you accessed Sean Ainslie’s emails by using his log-in credentials?”
Sucking on her lower lip, Wren appeared utterly torn. Her brows crinkled and she bounced her leg in an agitated rhythm beneath the table.
“I want you to be honest with me,” he said.
“Yes. I accessed Sean’s emails.”
Shit. How on earth would he be able to explain that he’d been sleeping with the very person he’d been hired to catch? That he’d been too stupid and too naive to suspect her because she had an angelic face?
“Say something, Rhys,” she said.
“Were you spending time with me because you wanted inside information?”
WREN FELT THE sting of his question down to the very marrow of her bones. “No, of course not.”
Rhys sat like a hard, immovable lump of stone on the other side of the table. When the server arrived with their food a few minutes later, the young man looked awkwardly from one to the other. The tension must have been billowing
