Since I Fell For You(91)

A muscle was jumping in Roman’s jaw. “When I had him up against the wall, I looked into his eyes. I trusted him too when he said he wasn’t after you.”

She’d always thought she was a good reader of people, and she believed Roman was too. How could they have both been so wrong about Craig?

Peeling her clenched fingers from her phone, she found his number and dialed. “Craig, this is Suzanne Sullivan. We need to talk. I’m on my way over right now, and I’m going to need security passes for myself, Roman Huson, and Lee Mitchell.” She slid the phone back into her bag. “He’s going to have everything ready for us immediately.”

“Surely he’s got to know his game is up. So why would he cooperate?” Roman looked as confused as she felt as he pulled into the underground parking lot beneath the CP Systems building. “Unless he thinks you’ll be willing to make some sort of deal with him. But he’s got to know that you would never make a dirty deal with anyone.”

Despite the ridiculously stressful morning they were having, sweet emotion burst through Suzanne’s chest at how well he understood her. “I love you.”

Roman parked, turned off the ignition, then pulled her close and kissed her breathless. When he finally let her go, her heart was pounding for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with the fire in her apartment.

“If that’s your way of saying you love me too, I’ll take it.”

He stroked her cheek with one callused fingertip. “Ready to kick some ass?”

This time she was the one kissing him in lieu of a verbal reply, practically crawling onto his lap in the tight quarters of the car.

“If that’s your way of saying yes,” he said when they finally came up for air, “I’ll take it.”

“Thank you for making me forget to be mad, forget to be scared. I’m more than ready to kick ass now.”

Lee was waiting for them when they walked into the lobby. If he could tell that they’d been making out in the garage, he didn’t give any sign of it. The receptionist on the ground floor looked more than a little alarmed as she handed Roman his temporary security pass. After Suzanne and Lee were also given passes, a CP Systems security guard escorted them to Craig’s office on the top floor.

Craig’s office door was already open when Suzanne stormed in. “I thought we were friends.” She was barely aware of Roman closing the door behind them.

“We are.” Craig had his hands out as if to take hers, but she wouldn’t let him touch her. She was sorry she ever had. “What’s going on, Suzanne? Why are you so upset? Roman said you’ve been having some problems at work, but he didn’t say what they were.”

After all the years that she and Craig had been in the business together, shouldn’t she have seen the darkness inside of him before now? “Don’t try to act like you don’t know about the endless phone calls. About the denial-of-service attacks.”

Craig looked from her to Roman. “So that’s why you were here earlier this week? Because you thought I was behind a big broadcast storm to max out your servers?”

“I said you couldn’t be behind it all,” Suzanne said before Roman could reply. “I swore that you were a good guy.”

“I am,” Craig said, hands up in the air now. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Suzanne. Wouldn’t do that to your company. I may not be as squeaky clean as you, but you know I have my limits. How could you possibly think I would stoop to something like that?”

As if on cue, Lee laid the half-melted CP Systems home automation device on Craig’s desk. Craig’s eyebrows lifted beneath the hair falling over his forehead. “What the hell…?”

“Roman and I left town for my cousin’s wedding a couple of days ago and when we returned there were fire trucks in front of my apartment. Lee is the fire investigator who discovered that the fire started inside of this unit. One of your devices, which has obviously been tampered with.”

Craig swallowed hard as he reached for the plastic bag.

“Wait.” Lee handed a set of gloves to Craig. “Put these on first.”

Suzanne noted that Craig’s hands shook slightly as he donned the gloves. He took the unit from the bag and turned it over to look at the wires and chips that ran it.

“This chip was never supposed to be used.” His teeth clenched as he looked back at Suzanne. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but you’d better believe I’m going to find out.”

Roman had already reached for Suzanne’s hand and was holding it tightly by the time she said, “Either you’re really good at acting surprised all the time—”