Since I Fell For You(27)

Instead of going to bed after taking Suzanne home the previous evening, Roman had put out feelers to get backgrounds on the people he’d met at the Sullivan Security offices and at Rosa and Drake’s place. He’d also looked up Suzanne’s top competitors and had sent their names to his contacts, as well.

Pulling out his phone, he read the texts not once, but twice.

Damn it. Why hadn’t Suzanne told him about this?

He knew she didn’t want him there, but she’d seemed so genuine. He understood that women lied, but after spending time with her, he’d wanted to believe she was different.

His jaw clenched tighter and tighter as he waited for her to conclude her current meeting. As soon as she was off the conference call and Jeannie popped in to let her know that she was going to hold any further calls until mid-afternoon so that Suzanne could get some lunch, Roman moved out of his position in the back corner of her office.

“I’d like to speak with you about something I just learned.”

Her hand was on the back of her neck, working to rub out the kinks from doing so many back-to-back meetings. He had to shove away the urge to rub it for her as she said, “What now?”

For the past five hours, she’d been unfailingly polite to everyone she worked with, even when a few people weren’t delivering the results she was looking for. She had a knack for being encouraging, yet firm, without the temper tantrums some CEOs were famous for. But he knew he was pushing all her buttons simply by being here.

Too bad for her that he was going to be pushing those buttons even harder after what he’d found out.

“Seems you left out an important piece of information this morning when we were talking about why someone might go after you personally.”

She looked so confused it was almost comical. Except that nothing about her situation was funny. Not if she was in danger.

“Left something out?” She spun her chair around so that she was facing him. “What are you talking about?”

“Craig Boylan.”

Her eyes grew big, a beat before her face colored slightly. Obviously, she knew why he was asking her about that guy specifically. A beat behind surprise came anger. “You’re snooping into my personal life now?”

“I’m not snooping,” he clarified. “Doing backgrounds on the people you work with is part of my job.”

“A job I never asked you to do.”

Though he couldn’t argue that point, he still needed to know more. “Tell me about your association with Mr. Boylan.”

“Craig is harmless,” she said with a wave of her hand.

Roman moved another step closer. “Craig is the co-founder of CP Systems, one of Sullivan Security’s top competitors.” He paused to make sure she understood just how bad it was that she had deliberately kept this information from him. “And an ex.”

But she didn’t look even the slightest bit guilty. In fact, all he got from her was another eye roll. “I wouldn’t call someone I only slept with a couple of times an ex.”

Jealousy slapped him upside the head before he was prepared to slap it back. “He might not agree.”

“Of course he does. It didn’t mean any more to him than it did to me. We were at a conference. We had a little too much to drink. One thing led to another. In the morning, we went our separate ways.”

She was so off the cuff about it, as if she hadn’t given the interlude another thought since it happened. Whereas Roman knew the guy had to be still pining for her. Who wouldn’t be?

“You were together more than once.”

Finally, she got up out of her chair to come at him. Close enough for him to see that her pupils had dilated slightly. “I can’t believe you’re grilling me for the details,” she shot at him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

She was wearing another outfit today that should be illegal—a sexy dress that cupped her breasts and waist and fluttered around her thighs, with fire-red heels that were the cherry on top of the sexy outfit. She was always breathtakingly beautiful, but when her eyes were spitting fire like this, he was hard-pressed not to give in to the answering fire leaping inside him.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t let her know that she was dead on the money about jealousy eating away at him. He had no right to care that she’d slept with someone else. He wasn’t her boyfriend. Wasn’t anything but the paid help. Unfortunately, those hard, cold facts weren’t doing a damned thing to douse his feelings.

Deliberately ignoring her comment, in as measured a voice as he could manage with her scent drawing him in even deeper, he said, “You wouldn’t impede anyone else here in doing their job.” From her reaction to hearing the guy’s name, he now realized she truly didn’t think she had been keeping anything from him in the taxi that morning when he’d asked about who might be a personal threat. She truly thought this guy she’d had a two-night stand with was harmless. If there was any chance at all that he wasn’t, Roman needed to know. “Help me do mine.”