I’d been grinning like an idiot all morning, and it was Jalen’s fault. After we made up, we’d spent the rest of the day together. It had started snowing not long after lunch, but it’d been one of those beautiful snowy days. Cold, but not bitterly so. Not a lot of wind. We’d bundled up and gone for a walk, then back to his place where we’d made hot cocoa and snuggled on the couch while binge-watching a vampire comedy series.

Topping it all off, he’d texted me this morning.

Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving? Rylan and Jenna invited me over, and I’d love for you to come with me. Or we can do our own thing. I just want to spend the holiday with the person I’m most thankful for.

I loved the invitation, and I accepted, whether we went to the Archers’ place or spent the day as just the two of us. It was his reasoning that had my stomach doing flips.

He was most thankful for me.

Handsome, intelligent billionaire Jalen Larsen was most thankful for me.

It didn’t seem possible.

I heard the bell I’d installed above the front door ring, and I pulled my focus back to my job. I could think about Jalen later.

“Come on back,” I called. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a receptionist yet.”

I straightened in my seat and opened my mouth to greet my prospective client…and froze as Evan Lee stormed into the office.

“Fucking bitch!”

As he continued to curse and pace, I stared at him, completely caught off-guard. I didn’t know how to handle this. He hadn’t threatened me, and I wasn’t even entirely sure if he was directing his colorful commentary at me, which meant I didn’t know if I was in danger. If I called the cops on him, I could end up ruining the reputation Adare had worked so hard to cultivate. If I tried to throw him out myself, I might be able to take him, but that might also be an insanely bad idea.

Shit. I really needed to get a second person in here.

“Mr. Lee.” I finally managed to get my voice back, and the words came out stronger than I’d hoped. “Mr. Lee, can I help you?”

He spun around and stalked toward me until I could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. “Where are they?”

“Where are who?”

“Don’t play stupid with me! You followed them. You have to know where they are.”

“Your wife?”

He put his hands on my desk and leaned toward me. “Yes. My fucking wife and my fucking girlfriend who’ve been fucking behind my back!”

“I sent you all the information I found,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. “The only place I ever saw them was at the hotel, and I doubt they went back there. Are you sure they’re both gone?”

“You sent me that fucking video, and it’s all I can think about. I close my eyes, and I see my fucking wife with her face in my girlfriend’s twat.”

Wasn’t that charming? Still, I managed to keep a bland expression as he kept ranting.

“I kept waiting for her to come home so I could talk to her about it. Find out what the fuck she was doing. But she never came home. I went to Moira’s to see if they were together, but no one was there.”

Shit. I was afraid he was actually right. After I caught Jessica and Moira in the hotel, it made sense that they might take off together. Maybe they had something more than a fling. Maybe they were both tired of fucking Evan. Either way, he’d been left out, and he was pissed.

“I think you should go home.” I got to my feet but kept the desk between us. “Get some sleep. Let your head clear. Give them both time to come back. They have lives here. They’re not going to just up and leave.”

Except I thought they might do exactly that. Neither woman had the sort of careers here that couldn’t be easily replaced. Moving somewhere else and starting a fresh life wouldn’t be difficult for them. Especially if one or both had been smart enough to take some of Evan’s money.

His eyes narrowed. “You think they’ll be back?”

I didn’t want to lie, but I also wasn’t going to give him the whole truth. “I think it’s a possibility.”

“How could they do it?” His shoulders slumped, all his anger seemingly bled away. “I treated them both good.”

I was tempted to point out that the fact that he’d been married to one and ‘dating’ the other made it hard to believe he’d been ‘good’ to them, but it wasn’t my responsibility to make him see any of that. Or any of my business to judge them.

“You’d have to ask them,” I said, finally daring to come out from behind the desk. “Which I’m sure you’ll be able to do soon. But they won’t come looking for you here.”

“I’ll go home and wait,” he announced as if it was a thought that had suddenly occurred to him.

“That’s a great idea,” I said as I walked him to the door. As soon as he left, I closed the door and locked it, flipping the sign over to closed. If Evan saw it, he might be insulted, but I didn’t care at the moment. I needed a few minutes after that chaos.

I’d barely had a single minute before my phone rang, and I took a step toward the office before I realized it was my cell and not the one that belonged to the company.

Jenna’s name appeared on the screen when I pulled it from my pocket. “Jenna?”

“Are you busy?”

“Is something wrong?” I asked, suddenly worried.

After the way my past had come back to bite me in the ass, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what would happen if my investigations into Jenna’s family brought her past into her present. I’d never forgive myself if I was responsible for bringing up all those awful things again.

“I just got off the phone with Agent Matthews,” she said. “Unofficially, of course. He gave me some information that needs…expanded.”

Expanded.

She didn’t need to spell it out for me. There were things that the FBI couldn’t do. Things that weren’t always illegal, though they sometimes were just that. Jenna and I didn’t need search warrants or supporting evidence. Sure, the thought of violating people’s rights wasn’t one that sat easily with me, but even when I’d been with the FBI, I’d struggled with the idea of a possible criminal’s rights being more important than that of a victim. It was like Jenna had said before, how she couldn’t understand how her mother’s right to continue having children to abuse superseded the rights of those children.

I understood the reasons behind innocent until proven guilty, behind the laws that protected the rights of citizens. That it was better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent person go to jail.

In instances like this, however, I had a difficult time with the justice system.

“I’ll be right there.”