Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(39)

“I don’t know for sure.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Come on. You know.”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah. Maybe. She said I could go through her phone and see for myself though.”

“If you do it, don’t bother looking for messages from guys,” she said. “Look for her and her bff’s text messages. The good shit’s in there, trust me.”

He sighed. “It’s hard to meet the good ones.”

“That’s because they don’t usually frequent the dives you frequent. Go to Target. The female to male ration is ten to one and they’re already looking for things they don’t need.”

He laughed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“You’re tired,” she said.

“I’m on a case I hate. It’s a divorced couple and they’re fighting over custody of their three kids. The husband wants physical proof she’s cheating.”

“Seems to be the theme of the day.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I got the proof, unfortunately—a recording of her having sex with someone else.” He brought something up on his phone.

It was a recording. A woman was moaning softly.

“Maybe she’s just eating something good,” Sadie said. “Like cheesecake.”

He gave her a look of disbelief.

“Hey,” she said. “I moan like that when I’m eating cheesecake. The right cheesecake’s better than sex.”

“Baby doll, then you’re not having the right kind of sex.”

No kidding. She was having zero sex.

The moaning on the recording got a little louder and then there was a softly panted “oh yeah, right there . . . that’s it, don’t stop, please God, don’t stop!”

Sadie froze. She hated the word triggered , but that’s exactly what happened to her. She was thrown back to a time she didn’t want to revisit, but her mind didn’t care. “Turn it off,” she whispered. She pointed at his phone. “Stop it.” Her heart was pounding and she was having trouble drawing in enough air. She felt . . . icky. And ashamed. Not a good combination for her. Horrified, she pushed Cal. “Turn. It. Off,” she said again, or she thought she did, but she actually wasn’t sure the words came out. Her reaction was startling, even to herself, but that they were taking this woman’s life out of context, making it dirtier than it was, seemed incredibly wrong and unfair.

And Sadie knew all about things not being fair.

Very few people knew about her past. She knew if people did know, she’d be judged just as she’d judged the woman on the tape. And at the thought, a renewed rush of blood roared in her ears and her limbs went leaden, and she knew exactly what it was. The therapist she’d seen for five years had laid it out for her.

An impending anxiety attack.

And Cal still hadn’t turned off the tape. She snatched his phone, tapped the screen to cut it off and stared at him, breathing a little too hard. Shaking her head, she moved around the cot to walk away, needing a moment. She yanked the curtain aside and—

Came face-to-face with Caleb.

Lollipop was at his side, looking very happy. Not Caleb. His usual easygoing expression was nowhere in view. His eyes were tight, his mouth a little grim as he took in the sight of her. He looked beyond her to Cal still sprawled out in her chair, shirt off, pants unzipped and dangerously low on his hips, which had been the point since that’s what she’d been working on.

She turned back to Caleb, who’d turned away without a word and was heading to the door.

What the hell?

“Sadie,” Cal said behind her, sitting up. “I’m sorry. I clearly hit a nerve for you and I . . . I’m sorry. I was out of line.” He shoved his phone away. “You okay?”

She swiped a hand over her eyes and realized that her hand was shaking. “Yes.”

“Is that your boyfriend? I think he thought we were the ones having sex.”

She stared at him and then whipped out of the cubicle. “Hey,” she called to Caleb.

He had Lollipop on a leash and with one hand on the door, he craned his neck and met her gaze, eyes unreadable and cool, mouth grim and tight.

Yep. Cal was right. That was exactly what Caleb thought, that she’d been having sex. With a client. At work. With other people in the place.

Unbelievable.

There were so many, many things wrong with that, she saw red. Furious, she strode across the floor until she was right in his face. Which was far better than shaking like a coward who didn’t like to face her own dark, secret, twisty past.

But now that she was standing there right in front of him, so much bubbling inside her that she thought she might implode, she couldn’t find any words.

Caleb just looked at her, no smile, no soft “hey” like usual, nothing. With a single shake of her head, she whirled on her heel and strode through the shop. “Need a minute,” she said tightly to Rocco.

Rocco, fluent in the language of moodiness since he was the king of moodiness, gave her a single curt nod.

He’d hold down the fort.

She ran out the back door, around to the courtyard and straight for the stairs. She could’ve taken the elevator, but she had too much electric toxic energy flowing through her.

Five sets of stairs later, she exited onto the roof through a door only a select few in the building knew about, much less had access to, gasping for breath.