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Something, I tell myself, to add to the authenticity of it all, because there will be questions.
She looks up at me as I walk out, fully dressed in my suit, and there’s an array of interesting expressions flitting over her face that range from desire to embarrassment to doubtfulness, the last complete with a frown.
Her hair is pulled back, which I don’t miss the meaning of. Not that she needs to do that with me. Last night was then and this is real life.
She gets to her feet. “I can’t, you have—”
“Take the morning off.” I put in the last cufflink. “You can work late if you feel the need. But everything’s running smoothly and I’ve got meetings all day.”
She nods then, her professional face on.
Turning, I usher her out of the bedroom and into the hall. Anyone else would have snooped about or been disgruntled by the difference in my behavior. Not Scarlett. If anything, she seems a little relieved it’s business as usual and I’m…I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that.
I probably should go over everything again, the whole that was then and this is now, but before I can decide to, the elevator whooshes open and Ryder is there with to-go coffees and a bag that smells like a heavenly heart attack in butter and pastry.
“You shouldn’t give your door code out to just anyone,” he’s saying. “I came in…oh Hello.”
He stops, staring at Scarlett who goes red.
Ryder thrusts the coffee and pastries at me and I grab them before they can spill as he cranes his neck to see past me and down into the bedroom and then he runs a practiced eye over Scarlett, as if he has no idea who she is.
“Well aren’t you the dark horse, Hud. Making things official?”
“I need to go,” she says, like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “Nice seeing you again—”
“Ryder, the sexier, better brother.” He grins at me, but it fades quickly into something else. “Look, you might want to stay, too.”
I glance at her and she sighs, staying where she is. The pit of my stomach tightens and all the goodness from sex seeps away, taking with it any residual languidness that might be still lingering in my bones.
“Ryder,” I say, handing him the damn pastries and coffee, my voice low and dangerous. “What the fuck are you on about?”
“I wasn’t flirting with your girl, just messing with you.”
“She’s not my girl,” I say at the same time she says, “I’m not anyone’s girl.”
For some reason, that irritates me but I ignore it. Lack of sleep is my issue here, and my brother seemingly dropping in on a workday. For all I know, Ryder drops by every day and I’m gone, but I don’t think so.
And I don’t want her to be my girl and I don’t want her thinking she is for some insane reason. Why he’d say that is beyond me, too.
I shift my brain back to the issue at hand.
My brother.
Here on a mission.
“I’m talking, Ryder, about the other shit. Why you said Scarlett needed to stay.”
“I said might.” He offers a coffee to Scarlett, who takes it, looking completely thrown and there’s that something in her face I don’t quite get, that makes me a little off-center.
Then again, it could be Ryder. But he’s not looking happy, either.
“Okay,” he says, “fine. I put word out, found someone to pay off to get me any information from Jenson’s office about this.”
He doesn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. He never has when it’s come to him wanting things. What he can’t get through charm and underhanded maneuvers, he’ll do the old-fashioned way: with cold, hard cash.
“What did you find?” I know he went looking for information on the jewels. That’s him all over. The mystery is alive again, realer than it ever was, and of course he’d try and find out all he could.
“Nothing more about the Sinclair jewels.”
