The CEO's Little Surprise(22)

Arwen apparently wanted them both to know she was awake and bored. But  only one of them seemed to notice. Gage still slept like the dead, a  fact she'd not forgotten. He'd never been the type to let the pressures  of life keep him from something he enjoyed as much as sleep. He'd need a  dictionary and autocorrect to spell stress.

One of the many reasons he fascinated her. It was a trick she'd like to  learn. She openly evaluated his beautiful face, relaxed in sleep. How  did he shut off everything inside so easily? Or was it more a matter of  truly not caring and therefore, there was nothing to shut off?

The latter, definitely. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd  labeled him heartless. It was starting to ring false. Any man who  clearly loved his dog as much as Gage did couldn't be heartless. And  he'd been so sweet in the Hummer yesterday before rocking her world,  then again last night.

She shook her head. And therein lay his danger. Instead of uncovering  his involvement in the leak, he'd uncovered her, in so many ways,  reminding her why she'd fallen for him in the first place. He'd taken  everything she'd dished out and come back for more.

He lulled her into believing he might be someone different this time  around, someone who would be there tomorrow and the next day, growing  closer as they grew older. Someone who could be trusted. She had no  evidence of that.

Didn't stop her from yearning for it, though.

Gage stirred awake and smiled sleepily at her. "Morning, gorgeous. You  better stop looking at me like that or we're going to get a very late  start on our investigation. That's our top priority for today, no ifs,  ands or buts."

"Oh, that's a shame. I do enjoy your butt." She snickered as he waggled his brows.

And somehow, she ended up under him and panting out his name before she'd scarcely registered him moving.

Finally, they rolled from bed at nine o'clock, the latest she'd gotten  up since...college as a matter of fact. Gage was truly a terrible  influence on her.

But then he took over her Keurig and brewed her a giant cup of coffee,  exactly the way she liked it, which hadn't changed in a decade, but  still. How had he remembered that? Trinity never remembered that Cass  hated sugar in her coffee, and Trinity had watched Cass make it every  weekday morning for years and years.                       
       
           



       

Gage elbowed her aside as she tried to put some breakfast together,  insisting on scrambling eggs and frying bacon himself, despite never  having set foot in her well-equipped kitchen before. Of course, she  rarely set foot in it either. The pan he'd scrounged up from under the  Viking range didn't even look familiar.

After Gage filled a plastic bowl with food for Arwen, they sat outside  on the flagstone patio at the bistro set she'd purchased shortly after  buying the house five years ago, and yet had never once used. It was a  gorgeous morning full of fluffy clouds flung across a blue sky, but Cass  was busy watching the man across from her as he tossed an old tennis  ball he'd pulled from Arwen's bag. The dog raced after it time and time  again. In between tosses, Gage shoveled eggs and bacon into his mouth in  what was clearly a practiced routine.

It was all very domestic and twisted Cass's heart strangely.

She'd dated a guy... Tyler Matheson...a year or so ago and she'd have  said it was bordering on serious, but she'd never once thought about  inviting him to her house for the weekend. It had felt intrusive. As if  men and her domain should be kept separate at all times. When they'd  broken up, Tyler had accused her of being cold and detached, but she'd  brushed it off as the ranting of a rejected man, just like she'd ignored  the hurt over the unkind, unnecessary accusation during what should  have been an amicable split.

Now she wasn't so sure he'd been wrong.

In contrast, Gage had flowed into her life effortlessly. As if he'd  always been there and it was easy and right. As if they'd picked up  where they'd left off. She'd been holding her breath for almost a  decade, waiting for her heart to start beating again. And now it was.

She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

She'd never gotten over Gage Branson and chalked it up to having  endured such a badly broken heart. But that wasn't it at all. She'd  never gotten over him because she was still in love with him.

She shut her eyes for a beat. That was the opposite of a good thing.  And this was a really bad time to discover it. He might be involved in  the leak. Hell, he might have even orchestrated it and at this rate,  she'd never find out. If he flat out denied involvement, she'd never  believe him. He'd proven he couldn't be trusted personally, so what was  to say he could be trusted professionally? She would not give him the  opportunity to destroy her or her business all over again.

Even if he got down on one knee and proposed, which would happen when  monkeys learned to pilot a stealth bomber, she'd say no. Her own  self-preservation overrode everything.

"I did some more digging into our files. Ready to talk through them?"  she asked after she cleared the emotion from her throat. Not only was it  a horrible time to discover she still had very real, very raw feelings  for him, it would be a disaster to tip him off. God knew what he'd do  with it. Twist it around and say she owed him something.

He glanced at her, ball in hand, as Arwen barked to show her  displeasure at the interruption. He threw it to the far end of Cass's  property, a good hundred yards, and managed to make it look effortless.  Like everything else he did.

"Sure. We've got all day and most of tomorrow. Let's make good use of it."

That was her deadline to somehow work through her emotional mess, too. A  day and a half to get him out of her system for good and move on.

"I'm curious." She drank deeply from her coffee mug for fortification.  "When I talked to you about planting false information, you seemed to  know a lot about how digital forensics works. How did that come about?"

The best way to get him out of her system was to prove his involvement  in the leak. Then she wouldn't have to remind herself he wasn't  trustworthy. Because he'd be in jail. Her heart squeezed. Surely that  wasn't going to be the result of all this.

But even if it wasn't, Gage's presence in her life was still because of  the formula. He wasn't falling in love with her. He was only here to  squash his competition.

Gage shrugged. "You learn stuff over the years. I read articles and  such. But really, the reasons that wouldn't have worked are common  sense."                       
       
           



       

Carefully, she raised her brows. "How so?"

"Because. Like I said, you don't have that kind of time. And you're  assuming that the person responsible for the leak would actually be  transferring files. What if they take handwritten notes? Memorize files?  Take photographs? There are dozens of ways people can access  information, especially if the person doing it is authorized in the  first place."

All said very casually, while still throwing Arwen's ball. She'd  watched him over her coffee cup, growing more frustrated by the minute  at his clear hazel eyes and relaxed expression. He was supposed to be  letting his guard down enough to say something he shouldn't.

Maybe he hadn't because she was being too subtle.

"Is that how you'd do it?" she asked, just as casually. Good thing she  had a lot of practice at keeping her voice calm even when her insides  were a mess. "Take photographs?"

"For what? To steal proprietary information?" He laughed and she'd  swear it was genuine, not the kind designed to cover nervousness. "No  reason for me to resort to underhanded tactics. If I want something, I  buy it."

Yeah, as she well knew. Her coffee soured in her mouth. The problem  with this line of questioning lay in the fact that she didn't have a  clue if Gage was blowing smoke to distract her from his crimes or truly  not involved in the leak.

How would she ever know for sure?

Maybe she was still being too subtle and the best way to resolve this was to flat out ask Gage, are you involved?

Surely she could read him well enough to recognize truth in his  response. She opened her mouth to do it, once and for all, when his  phone rang.

Frowning, he glanced at the screen. "Excuse me a sec. Someone from this  number has called a couple of times but never leaves a message.  Otherwise, I wouldn't take it."

Cass nodded as he stepped away from the table, her pulse pounding in  her throat. So close. She'd almost blurted out the million-dollar  question and she hated being forced to wait now that she'd made up her  mind to go this route. But Gage ran a billion-dollar company. Of course  people were vying for his attention.