Chapter 10
Sebastian
I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s just a girl I picked up at a bar, so I don’t know what makes her special to the point that I can’t get her out of my goddamn head. But I can’t. Every time my phone rings, I wonder if it’s her. Then I remember that I didn’t give her my number. Although, it’s not like she couldn’t find it if she wanted to. She knows my name. She knows where I work. She could certainly track me down if she tried. But maybe she’s not the kind of girl who has to track down a man. It wouldn’t surprise me. She’s gorgeous. Gorgeous women don’t need to go begging for dick. And in her line of work, she probably meets guys all the time.
I press the intercom button and ask Rena to come into my office.
“Yes, Sebastian. What can I do for you?” She has a pen and notepad in her hand, ready to write down my request.
“Can you order a chicken club from Bacon Bits? Use that service…Meals2Me.”
“Sure thing. It’ll be here in about half an hour.”
Half an hour. I can handle that. Now that I know Emma will be stopping by soon, I can finally focus on work. The early prototypes of my nightlight are ready, and I have to make some decisions about the materials. I need them to be lightweight enough that kids can carry them in their backpack or even in their pocket if they’re being transported from home to home. But the lights also need to be durable enough to withstand being carried around in a kid’s pocket or backpack.
It’s a fine line that I’m not sure we’ve quite mastered yet. I’ve got a few guys testing them with their kids, so I’m hoping that’s enough to help us get us into mass production within the next few months.
I’m almost caught up on emails when Rena pops her head in with my sandwich in her hand. “Here you go…”
I cut her off. “Is she still here?” I stand up and head toward Rena to catch Emma before she gets to the elevator.
“Who?”
“Emma, the delivery girl. Has she left already?”
“No, it wasn’t her. It was a man.” Rena is still holding my bag in front of her with a confused look on her face.
I sigh and take the bag. “Thank you, Rena.” I stand there for a second, contemplating my next move. It’s a little desperate, but I really want to talk to Emma. “Rena, could you please order another sandwich? If there’s any way to request the driver, please request Emma.”
Rena’s confusion immediately changes to understanding. “Oh, of course. I’ll see what I can do.”
I nod and head back to my desk. “And when she gets here, can you ask her to come into my office?”
Rena looks like she just won the lottery. “Of course, Sebastian. It will probably be another half-hour though.”
“Interrupt me if I’m on a call.”
I scarf down half my sandwich and get on a conference call, but I keep checking my messages to see if Rena’s trying to get through.
Twenty-five minutes later, Rena peeks her head into my office with a disappointed look on her face. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I just got an alert that Emma isn’t going to be making the delivery. And your new sandwich will be here in five minutes.”
I blow out a breath but keep my eyes locked on my keyboard. “Order again. Whatever you want to take home. Place five orders from different restaurants if you need to. Just get her in here. I need to talk to her.”
“Of course. I’ll let you know when she’s here.”
I really hope Emma is working today. If not, Rena is gonna have a hell of a lot of food to take home tonight.
~**~
I’m just about to hang up on my call with Clark and his team when Rena pokes her head through my doorway and gives me a thumbs-up sign. That can only mean one thing. Emma must be on her way.
I dig a tin of mints out of my desk and pop one into my mouth as I wait for her to arrive. It’s not that I expect anything to happen, but it doesn’t hurt to have fresh breath.
The elevator opens and shuts several times before I hear Rena saying that I’d like the box delivered to my office. As lame as it sounds, I pick up a piece of paper and pretend to read it. I don’t want it to seem like I’ve been sitting around waiting for her to arrive, even though that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past few hours.
“Excuse me.” Emma’s cheeks are pink as she stands in my doorway. I hope it’s because she’s remembering our last encounter together.
I put the paper down and look up at her, feigning surprise to see her standing in front of me. “Emma, hello. Please, come in.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but your secretary said you wanted me to bring them in here.”
I wave her in, so she’s forced to come all the way to my desk. It takes me a minute to realize that the box she’s holding is full of cupcakes. I guess Rena had to get creative. That woman just might have earned herself a spot bonus. “Thank you. Have a seat.”
“Oh, thanks, but I need to get going.” Emma glances at her phone anxiously. “I’ve got like fifteen more deliveries I need to make before I call it quits today.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Fifteen? How many have you already done?”
She smiles proudly and puffs up her chest a little bit. “You’re lucky number thirty-five. This is the first time I’m going to hit fifty in a while.”
Damn. “That’s impressive. You must be exhausted.”
She gives me a small smile as she starts to back away toward the door. “Yeah, well. It pays the bills. I’ll see you later.”
She’s almost out the door before I circle around my desk and catch up with her. “Hey, I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner sometime.”
Emma freezes in place, and she doesn’t look like she believes me.
“What? Do you not eat?”
“I eat.” She shakes her head and puts on an indignant front. “I just… Well, I didn’t think…”
“You didn’t think what?” I take a step closer, forcing her to back up against my office wall. If she were an employee, I would be worried about a harassment suit. But she’s not, and I can tell by the way she’s breathing that she has no problem with my proximity.
“So, you want to go out on a date… With me?”
“Is that a hard concept for you to grasp?” Honestly, it’s more than a little shocking to me too, but I can’t stop thinking about this woman. And if it takes dinner and one more night of fucking to get her out of my system, then so be it.
She forces out a laugh. “Well, yeah. Kinda. I mean…”
“Is that a yes?”
Her eyes are big as she shakes her head. “No, actually. That’s probably not a good idea.”
What? She can’t be serious. She’s actually refusing a dinner date with me? She talks and acts like she doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from. Why would she say no?
Emma presses one hand to my chest and pushes gently so she can sneak out from underneath me. “I’m dealing with some shit right now that’s kind of got me distracted. But thanks for the offer.”
She practically runs down the hallway to the elevator. If she was forced to stand there to wait for it, I might’ve chased after her. But of course, the doors open right as she arrives, and she steps inside, not even making eye contact with me as the doors close.
Goddammit. I still don’t have her fucking phone number. “Rena, double that last tip.”
That should piss her off. If she’s making fifty deliveries a day, it has to be because she needs the money. And giving her another big tip might be enough to get her to come back and yell at me for it. And when she does, I’ll be ready.
But just in case, I pull out my phone and call my buddy Tim.
He picks up on the second ring. “Sebastian James. Where’s the body, and how deep do you want the hole?”
I smile at the inside joke. Tim says I only call when I need a body hidden. But the reality is, I only call when I need a body found. In the past, I’ve asked him to run background checks on business associates or women sniffing around who seemed a little too interested in my wallet. But if I did need a body buried, Tim Harding would be there for me. No questions asked.
But since this isn’t about a dead body, there will be questions. A shit-ton of them.
“I need you to look into someone for me.”
“Sexy or slimy?” He doesn’t miss a beat. And he’s known me since freshman year of high school, so he knows how my mind works.
“Sexy. But elusive.” I flip a pen into the air and catch it as I stare out my office window. “I can’t get a good read on her. She’s either married, playing hard to get, or totally not interested.”
“Interesting.” Tim is breathing heavily, and I wonder what I’m interrupting. I should probably offer to call him back, but I don’t. If he wants me to, he can say so. Otherwise, it’s his own fault for answering the phone. “What do you know about her?”
“Not much.” I give him the minimal information I have about Emma, including her address. Thank god she took me back to her place last week. That’s usually the first piece of information I have to ask Tim for.
Tim is one of the smartest guys I know, and when I need anything done that’s not completely legal, I trust him to be discreet and fast.
Tim used to be an attorney. He followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the firm his father founded thirty years earlier. But after just a few years of defending scumbags and cheaters, he decided it wasn’t for him. He walked away from the firm that he was destined to partner at and opened a private security consulting firm. He focuses mostly on cybersecurity and keeping the bad guys out of the good guys’ networks. But he’s one of the smartest guys I know, and when I need anything done that’s not completely legal, I trust him to be discreet and fast.
“I’ll run a few basic checks and see if there are any cameras near her place I can tap into. You never know what you’ll learn about a person until you see videos of them coming and going from home when they think no one is looking.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll owe you a steak.”
He laughs. “You’ll owe me a whole fucking cow, but I’ll settle for a steak. I’ll call you later.”
I hang up feeling slightly guilty for invading Emma’s privacy this way. But until I know what her game is, I won’t be able to rest. Is this just a hustle? Did her mom put her up to reeling me in to get a piece of my pie? Or does she not know a good thing when she sees one?