Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(64)

Rocco studied her for another beat. “Do I need to kill him?”

“I’ve got it covered.”

He nodded. “You’ll call me if you need help hiding the body.” Not a question but a statement.

There was some comfort in the fact that she knew he 100 percent meant it.





Chapter 21




Caleb entered his offices and ran into Sienne while getting himself coffee. “Hey,” he said. “You studied Japanese in college.”

She blinked. “If you mean the single Japanese culture class I took a zillion years ago because I needed the credits and it was the only class that wasn’t full, then yes. I nearly failed it, by the way. Why?”

He yanked at his shirt and pointed to the Japanese character. “Apparently this means mom . Naoki’s idea of a joke. I’d take him to the mats if I thought he remembered.”

She burst out laughing. “And people call you a genius.”

Rolling his eyes, he headed to his office.

“Where’s the tattoo for your sisters?” she called after him. “Why aren’t we immortalized on you yet?”

He locked his door.

It wasn’t until hours later when he was in a meeting that he started in surprise as Sadie appeared in front of him. He halted the computer program and pulled off his Virtual Reality goggles.

Everyone in the huge room with him working on their latest project did the same. Spence, Sienne, the two engineers from NASA he’d been working with, and his three highest level programmers. “Lights,” he said.

The lights went from dim to bright.

Sadie stood there in the same outfit she’d had on when he’d dropped her at work that morning; formfitting ripped jeans, the holes showing off flashes of sexy leg. She wore a black cropped sweater and black high-heeled boots that put her nearly nose-to-nose with him. Her hair was loose and sexily wild around her face and she was wearing enough earrings and bracelets to set off a metal detector.

But sexy as all that was—and it was very, very sexy—when his gaze met hers, he felt his breath catch. There was so much fury in her eyes he nearly missed the heart-stopping hurt.

Nearly. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Oh boy,” Spence murmured under his breath to Caleb. “Nothing good ever came from those four words. You do something stupid?”

“Take ten,” Caleb said to the room, ignoring Spence while maintaining eye contact with a clearly pissed-off Sadie.

“Try thirty,” Spence said with a smile to Sadie. “Sometimes a woman’s got something to say and needs time to say it.” He crouched low and offered a hand to Lollipop at her side, who allowed a pet, but she was all eyes on Caleb, straining at her leash to get to him.

Sadie actually returned Spence’s smile, effectively proving Spence right, that Caleb was indeed in trouble all on his own. As the room cleared out, he reached for her.

She stepped back and crossed her arms. She’d locked herself up good and tight, which wasn’t good. “I take it this isn’t a social visit,” he said and scooped Lollipop up for a big hug, accepted a face full of kisses before putting her down to concentrate on Sadie.

Not that Lollipop was okay with this. She sat right on Caleb’s feet and stared up at him in adoration, giving him the I’m still right here! whine.

Pretty much the opposite of Sadie’s greeting.

“Definitely not a social visit,” she said. “I knew better than to let my guard down with you, but somehow I thought you were going to surprise me and be different. Instead, you’re worse than any guy I’ve ever dated.”

“That’s quite an accusation,” he said mildly. “You going to tell me what I did?”

She drew a deep breath. “You were sneaky and manipulative. I mean all you had to do was come to me and ask me yourself. I’d have told you anything you wanted to know. I’m a damn open book.”

She was lying. He’d never met a woman less an open book. But hell if he was going to point that out when there was steam coming out her ears. “Still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said.

“Oh, please. And the really screwed-up thing is that it doesn’t even make any sense. It’s not like I wanted anything from you—or that we’re even a thing.”

He took a second to absorb that, realizing just how serious she was. “Okay,” he said. “Well, first, we are very much having a thing. It started the night we rescued Lollipop, even though it took you until last night to trust me enough to lower some boundaries and spend the night.”

Her eyes shot daggers. “Sex does not equal a thing .”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “Which is why I didn’t reference the first time we slept together. That was sex. Great sex, actually, but last night was different. It was more and you know it. And now you’re using it to back away and run scared.”

She sputtered for a moment. “Don’t turn this on me. I’m not running scared. I’m furious . And whatever that was last night, it’s over now.”

“Because . . . ?”

She drew a deep breath as if she needed it to talk instead of murder him where he stood. “Because you’re having me followed like I’m some stranger you want to bang but have to vet first. And you didn’t even care enough to do it yourself! I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I’m not some sort of con artist. I’m not going to sneak into your house and steal from you or talk to the press and give away your trade secrets, are you kidding me?”