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FOURTEEN
Chandler was up early the next morning.
Correction. He hadn’t slept pretty much at all the night before and so finally got his tired ass up predawn rather than just lying there and stewing over the kiss from the night before. Now, as he sat at the breakfast bar, staring down into his coffee and wondering when his neatly ordered life had become such a fucking mess, he tried to figure out how he was going to tell Eden their kiss had been a mistake.
Didn’t matter that it had felt amazing. Didn’t matter that they’d both obviously enjoyed it and been into it and each other. Didn’t matter that that one single kiss had rocked his universe in a way it had never been rocked before, revealing explosive chemistry between them unlike anything he’d ever felt.
None of it mattered because it could never happen again. They both had too much going on to complicate their lives with romance. Fake dating for the case was one thing. Taking things too far and actually getting physical was another. Neither of them could afford that kind of distraction at present. Eden had said as much last night. So had he.
But is it true?
He scowled and drank more coffee, glad for the scald of the hot liquid on his throat. Maybe pain was the wake-up call he needed to get his head out of his ass where she was concerned and get it focused on the case, where his attention belonged. He was in this to protect her from whoever was after her and to hopefully help her remember the details of what happened the night of the shooting. Not to strip her naked and make love to her all night long until she screamed out his name in ecstasy over and over and…
Shit.
“Morning,” Eden mumbled as she walked past him into the kitchen, yawning. She looked about as rough as he felt, with shadows under her eyes and a guarded tightness around her mouth that hadn’t been there before their kiss. Just one more sign it had been an epic mistake.
“Morning,” he said, his tone anything but chipper. Chandler waited until she’d poured herself a cup of coffee and settled on the stool beside his before bringing up the elephant in the room. Best to get it all out in the open, in his experience. That way they could deal with it head on and not have it hanging over them. “So about the kiss last night.”
Eden winced, not looking at him. “Let’s not bring it up.”
“We need to,” he said, not backing down. Awkward as it felt right now, it would only get worse the longer they avoided discussing it. “Listen, last night was nice and all, but I don’t think we should repeat it.”
“I one hundred percent agree,” Eden said quickly.
Maybe just a little too quickly, for Chandler’s taste. Which was weird because she was saying he was right and that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Of course it was. It was much better that they be in agreement rather than having an argument about it. He certainly didn’t want her to feel rejected, which might be the result if he had to talk her out of the idea of pursuing a relationship. He shook off the strange feeling inside him, like a balloon deflating, leaving him oddly hollow and unsettled.
“It’s a distraction,” she continued, frowning down at the granite breakfast bar top. “And neither of us needs more of those right now. We shouldn’t be pursuing each other when there’s a killer out there somewhere. Not to mention, there’s another killer who might be released if I don’t get my memory back before the trial. The case needs all the attention we can give it.”
“Yep.” He gripped the handle of his mug tighter. Everything she’d just said was absolutely true. Hell, he’d thought the same things himself over and over since last night. But something about her saying it out loud…well, he didn’t like. He didn’t want to think too much about why. Instead, he stood and walked over to put his cup in the sink before heading back to his bedroom to finish getting ready, calling to her over his shoulder, “After we get to the salon, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to use your office to make some phone calls. I know someone who might be able to tell us if Jeff Ross has had any regular visitors in prison and who they are. Might give us a new lead to follow.”
An hour later, he sat in Eden’s tiny, cramped office with the door cracked open—just enough that he could hear her movement out front as she started her day. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed his dad’s cell number.
“Hey, son,” his dad said, bright and sunny as the day outside.
It did little to improve Chandler’s dour outlook. He was still brooding over last night and this morning and his odd reaction to what Eden had said.
“Hey,” he growled back, less than enthusiastically.
“Everything all right?” his dad asked, sounding concerned.
“Fine. Hey, I called to ask about Peter—I think his last name started with an S? Peter…Solano? Sofini? He used to work at Ruthven Security when I was a teenager.”
“Oh yeah,” his dad replied. “Peter Scorlini. Good man. Worked hard and was a good friend to me. Wish I could have kept him on, but he got a better offer with the prison system. I was sorry to see him go. Why? What do you want to know about him?”
“Is he still working for the prison system?”
“Far as I know. We don’t run into each other all that often, but your mom and I are still on his family’s Christmas card list. His latest card mentioned something about it being his fifteenth year working there. Didn’t sound like he was planning to move on to anything else.”
“Do you have any current contact information for him?” Chandler asked.
“Need to check some prison records for a case, son?” Dad asked. Chandler couldn’t help chuckling a little. His dad never missed a trick.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Look, can you keep this just between us? Don’t tell Mom?” He knew his dad could keep a secret—confidentiality was key in the security business. His mom, on the other hand…not so much. And she was good friends with Eden’s mom.
“If it’s for a case, of course,” his dad agreed promptly. Chandler filled him in on the situation from the start—the murder Eden had witnessed, the car accident Chandler and Adam had suspected wasn’t accidental after all, Eden hiring him to help get her memory back, and the subsequent attack via poison at her house. “So now we’re working at this from two angles,” he concluded. “We’re still digging into Ross to see if we can find something to trigger Eden’s memory—but we’re also looking for anyone he might be close to. Anyone who could potentially be behind these recent attacks. I was hoping Peter could help by letting us know if Ross got close to anyone in prison who’s been released recently, or if he had a recurring visitor. So, what do you think?”
“I think you’re pretty brilliant, son,” his dad said with pride. “Seriously, connecting the dots like that lets me know I left the agency in good hands.”
