“What went wrong?”
Clearly, he and Griff were still friends.
“She betrayed me. She knew how I felt about her. She was a little sister to me. One night I was really drunk and she dared me to kiss her to prove there was nothing between us. I did and she drugged me with a pill on her tongue she shoved to the back of my throat. It was either choke or swallow. I trusted her…”
Though it was taking a long time for him to drunkenly tell the story, I was patient.
“She slipped me Ecstasy. It didn’t take long before I didn’t care who she was to me and I fucked her. She betrayed our friendship over a kiss.”
Well, that explained a lot. Why he didn’t like to kiss.
“But I trust you. You’re the only other woman outside of my mum and Ainsley I completely trust.”
The weight of his words forced out my next ones.
“Kalen.”
“Hmm,” he said, eyes closed.
“I’m pregnant.”
I waited for him to say something. “Kalen?”
In answer, I got soft snores. For the longest time I sat there stroking his hair.
Then finally, I got up and let gravity pull him down. I propped his long legs up as best I could and covered him with a blanket because I had work in the morning.
It took forever to fall asleep knowing he was so close to not only me but the truth.
Only when I woke up, he was gone.
Thirty-Four
Leaving her turned out to be one of the hardest things I had to do. But a legacy for my son was on the line and the meeting with the SEC was just the beginning.
She had never been part of my plan. Hell, falling for the lass hadn’t. There had been a desperate need to have the redhead when I spied her on New Year’s Eve. Dumbly, I’d thought after I could walk away. I hadn’t put her and forever together in my mind. Now an ache formed in my chest at the thought of walking away.
Only one thing to do. Stay out of jail and keep all whom I loved safe.
“Which tie do you like?” I asked Gabe.
A tie was something I didn’t wear every day despite my title. Today, however, it was appropriate.
“This one, Da.”
It was dark blue, which didn’t exactly match my suit with a subtle woven plaid pattern in the same color. It had been an option, which was why it was in the line of options I’d given Gabe to choose from.
No matter what I might have picked, this was the one.
“Great taste, my boy.”
“Where are you going?’ he asked with a quizzical tilt to his head.
To save our world, I wanted to say.
“I have a meeting,” I told him, crouching before him.
“How long will you be gone?”
His forlorn expression reminded me how crazy things had been for the last couple of months.
“I’m not sure. But tomorrow it’s you and me, okay?”
His smile could light up the world as he nodded.
I kissed the top of his head before I got to my feet.
“Don’t give Granny and Ainsley any problems, okay?” I said while fixing my tie.
He bobbed his head again and I ruffled his hair.
“Wish your Da luck.”
“Good luck, Da.”
As I left the hotel, I placed a call.
“Griff, tell me you have something.”
“I think I do,” he said while I listened. “Does the name Sandy Hill mean anything to yer?”
Thirty-Five
The number I dialed had been programed into the phone I’d been given while briefly working undercover for Kalen. I hadn’t turned on the phone for a while, so I had to wait while it charged.
“Lass.”
The voice didn’t match the name which had become so special to me.
“Griffin.”
“Aye. What do I owe the pleasure?”
His voice was as lyrical as Kalen’s, but not the same. His tone was lighter and more playful than the gruffness of the man I’d fallen in love with.
“You’ve probably already done this, but have you matched up the emails that supposedly came from Kalen with his whereabouts? I believe it has something to do with the IP addresses. I don’t really understand it all. It was briefly mentioned during a part of our training for work about suspicious emails. They didn’t tell us how, but they said someone in IT could trace emails using that if we thought something was spam or spoof.”
Griffin was quiet.
“I don’t know,” I added, running a hand over my head in frustration. “You guys have been so focused on finding who could be behind it—”
The idea that Kalen might go to jail scared me.
“No—wait… It’s so simple. I didn’t think of it.”
“I just wondered if maybe some of the emails came from somewhere he wasn’t.”
“Yeah, no, it’s a good idea. I mean, we traced them but didn’t think to match it up with Kalen’s movements.”
“So it’s likely that won’t help.”
“Not exactly. All the emails matched places he could have been, so it didn’t raise red flags. We were looking to find the guy, not find a mistake. This is good.”