“Fine.”
She picked up the phone, knowing exactly what he needed. This wasn’t her first rodeo, as the folks back in Two Trees liked to say. “Wendy, you have a code blue.” Wendy, Slade’s admin, sighed. “Which part do I need to replace? Tie? Socks? That man is constantly wearing athletic socks with his dress shoes.”
Hannah looked Slade up and down. He knew the drill, turning in a circle for her inspection.
“Nope, Wendy. This is a head-to-toe fixer-upper.”
She hung up the phone just as Slade got a look at her wall. He stared at it a moment before glaring at Dex.
“Seriously? Please tell me that wasn’t Gavin’s head. Where’s his body? Do I need to call 911?” Slade asked the questions with a sarcastic edge, but Hannah heard his concern.
Dex simply shook his head. “No trouble at all. I’m going to call maintenance and get them up here to fix this. Then I have a few things to do. I think I’ll skip the meeting.”
“You can’t skip the board meeting.”
Dex shrugged as he moved toward the door. “Watch me. I have more important things to do.
And Hannah, you’re having lunch today with me and Slade.”
She glanced down at her calendar. “I can’t. I agreed to have lunch with Scott.”
“Who the hell is Scott?” Slade demanded.
“He works with the IT teams. He said it was important,” Hannah explained. “I’m sure it has something to do with those installs I’ve been helping to coordinate.” Both men went very still.
“You’re not meeting Scott anymore. You’re having lunch with us, and we’re going to have a long talk, the three of us.” Dex’s dark eyes held hers for a moment. He was so serious that her heart started racing. When his voice got deep and dark, it made her blood pound.
“Absolutely.” Slade crossed his arms over his chest.
“Okay,” she said. She hadn’t sounded that breathy, had she?
Dex walked out, the doors slamming behind him. Slade shook his head. Even disheveled, he was a gorgeous sight. With thick, dark hair and a face that looked like Michelangelo sculpted it, Slade always made her sigh.
Gavin opened his door and stepped out. He radiated power. Unlike Slade and Dex, there was nothing less than perfect about his appearance. No suit would ever dare to wrinkle while Gavin James wore it.
He nodded grimly at her. “Good morning, Hannah. I need to talk to Slade, but I would like you to stay close to your desk this morning.”
“Of course.” It was an odd request, but one she could handle.
Slade disappeared into his brother’s office. Gavin closed the door, watching her intently until it shut between them with an ominous thud.
And then Hannah was alone.
She reached into her purse and pulled out the number for the private investigator she’d hired two days before. He’d cashed her check but hadn’t returned her calls. Maybe it was time to admit that hiring someone named Vinny who worked out of the back of a tarot reader’s shop hadn’t been the greatest idea. When he didn’t answer, she left another message while e-mailing Scott to cancel lunch. After that, she called the local animal shelters to check if they’d found Mr.
Snuggles. Her cat had been gone for days, and Hannah was beginning to fear that she was gone forever.
Her eyes teared up. She was going to have to take action and soon. She felt alone now that her three men were gone. It was a long time until her lunch with Dex and Slade. The office seemed big and empty. She wanted so much to call them back and tell them her trouble.
But why tell the busy men she loved—who couldn’t possibly love her in return—that someone was trying to kill her?
Chapter Two
Slade’s blood pressure rose as he looked down at the photographs in front of him. From listening to Dex and Gavin on the phone, he’d figured out that someone was stalking Hannah, but seeing the sick evidence in front of him was staggering.
Gavin walked around his desk and sank into the huge wingback chair their father had sat in for forty years. Slade would have burned the big reminder of the son of a bitch, but Gavin had kept it, even after he’d completely redecorated the office.
“They were addressed directly to Hannah,” Gavin said, his voice clipped. “No return address.
No postage.”
“So this asshole brought the envelope into the building? It has to be an employee. No one can get past reception without a keycard.”
Gavin went pale. Then he flushed with fury. “Goddamn it.”
“Have you looked through the security tapes?” Slade picked up a photo of Hannah lying on her stomach across her bed, a book in her hand. He couldn’t make out the cover, but he’d bet it was a romance. She always had one in her bag. And every copy was battered and dog-eared as though it had been through many a hand before hers. For her birthday, he and Dex had bought her a new eBook reader and loaded it with credit. The look of delight in her eyes had done strange things to his heart.