He led the detectives into a conference room and took a seat in the large leather chair at the head of the table. Simon typically didn’t like playing mind games, but if he could intimidate the cops by reminding them that this place was his he’d be able to get the upper hand.

“Please be seated,” he said.

As they sat down, he reached for the phone on the table and dialed one of the executive assistants to request refreshments.

“What kind of questions did you have for me?” he asked as he hung up the phone.

Detective Bartlett glanced around the room. “Yeah. Why aren’t we in your office? This place seems awfully fancy for a talk with the likes of us.”

Simon forced a smile, silently hoping that it looked genuine. Making people feel comfortable and at ease was a skill that eluded him. Heather was much better at it, and right now it was just another on the long list of things he missed about her. “I like to entertain my clients in style. Besides, a conference room is much more private than my office. There are always people dropping by unannounced. I thought we’d get much more privacy in a conference room.”

He ignored the twinge of regret inside him at telling them the half-truth. They were in the conference room because his office was right beside Heather’s old office. If she was hiding in there like he had instructed her, the cops would be entirely too close to her if they talked in his office.

“First things first, we’re not here to arrest anybody,” Bartlett said.

Keeping his face placid, Simon said, “I didn’t think you were here for that.” Another lie. If he let on that he thought they were here to arrest Heather, they’d figure out he was protecting her. Which was suspicious in several ways. How could he explain to the police that he was protecting the number one suspect in the hacking case, when he’d unceremoniously fired his previous assistant for less?

His feelings for Heather were making him throw out every principle he’d ever had. He should have been ashamed of that fact, but he wasn’t. Wasn’t going to apologize for protecting her. Even if that meant his reputation and Dover’s went down the drain.

“Dover first called us about your previous assistant, Xander, and we’re still investigating that case,” Barlett said.

“Have you arrested him?” He was still angry with his former assistant for what he’d done, but there was a part of him that didn’t want Xander to end up rotting away in prison for years. Maybe the sentimental part of him was winning.

“We’re not at that stage yet,” Bartlett replied. “But it’s not looking good for him. Whoever lured him into doing this might end up getting away with it while Xander ends up doing time.”

“But that’s not fair,” Simon said. “Xander might have broken the law, but he didn’t do it on his own. Whoever put him up to it should pay.”

“Problem is, Xander refuses to give the person up,” Bartlett said. “We can pinpoint the company he helped, but not the individuals who paid him to break the law. If we don’t get that information, the only person on the hook for the insider trading is Xander.”

Simon made a mental note to reach out to his former assistant the minute he got the chance. He would never forgive Xander for his deceit, but he couldn’t stand to sit by while his former assistant took the fall for someone else. He hated that about wealth. Hated that the people at the top could use and discard people without any shame whatsoever. The injustice of the system had always given him pause when it came to taking pleasure in being rich.

One of the executive assistants entered the conference room, served coffee, and quickly headed back out.

“It sounds like he might be afraid of the person who put him up to the insider trading,” Simon replied. “Do you think he might be involved with the hacking that came after?”

Bartlett shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. “That’s unlikely. We’ve been surveilling Xander for some time and, so far, it looks like he’s had a hand in the insider trading but not in the subsequent spying and hacking.”

“So the two cases aren’t connected?” Simon asked. “That doesn’t seem plausible.”

“Oh, they’re connected,” West said. “Whoever paid off Xander also paid off the spy who came after him.”

His guts twisted. “That means...”

“That means this is a conspiracy,” West finished for him. “Which is why we need to question Dover staff. We’ll start with you, but we’d also like to talk to your newest assistant. Heather Hall, was it?”

“She’s unavailable at the moment,” Simon replied quickly.

“I hear she got shuffled to a new department,” West muttered. “Doesn’t sound like you suspect her of wrongdoing, which is strange considering how quickly you got rid of Xander.”

Simon narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Detective West kept steering the topic back to Heather. Insinuating that he was protecting her for some nefarious reason. Of course, Simon was protecting her, but not for anything nefarious. He just refused to toss Heather to these people, especially considering how they were treating Xander. They seemed more intent on making powerless assistants pay for the crimes of obvious power players. Knowing that now, Simon not only knew he had to shield Heather even if she was guilty but he was also starting to wonder if he shouldn’t have tried to protect Xander sooner.

“Dover is still investigating the matter,” Simon said. “When Xander was let go, we considered the evidence against him overwhelming.”

“You don’t think the evidence against Heather Hall is overwhelming?” West asked.

Simon shook his head. “No.”

Bartlett and West exchanged a knowing glance that made Simon uneasy. Sometimes cops knew a lot more than they let on. Often, to catch people in lies or to catch them off guard.

Simon cleared his throat. “I really wish I could help further, but I don’t think I can go on without talking to my lawyer first.”

“Of course.” Bartlett got to his feet and buttoned up his coat. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”

“I’m guessing this means we won’t be able to question anybody else at Dover.” West narrowed his eyes.

“We advise our employees to discuss legal matters with their lawyers present,” Simon said.

“Of course you do.” West shoved his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a card. “If you think of any information that might be useful to our investigation, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.”

Simon took the card from him. “Thank you. I can show you out.”

West stood up. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll show ourselves out. Remember, no detail is too small.”

Bartlett smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Same here,” Simon said tightly.

The detectives strode over to the door and West paused before stepping out. “If I were you, Mr. Diesel, I’d tell Ms. Hall it wouldn’t hurt to get a good lawyer.”

~~*~~

SHE COULDN’T BELIEVE Simon had talked her into locking herself in her old office. Heather had been sitting at the desk for what felt like hours, silently waiting for some police detectives to kick the door down and drag her away.

The sudden loud knock on the office door made her heart jump into her throat.

“You can come out now,” said Simon’s muffled voice.

Heart beating wildly, she placed her hand over her chest and inhaled. The stress was finally getting to her, and she slowly got to her feet on shaky legs.

She walked across the office to open the door, but Simon was nowhere to be seen. Anger flared. Asking him for help had been a complete mistake. The moment she had asked for his help, he had gone too far by commanding she go hide like she was guilty.

Ignoring the small voice in her head that was telling her to calm down, she marched over to Simon’s office, flung open the door, and stormed inside.

She found him half-dressed, slipping his shirt off. The eyeful of his bare chest made all the words on the tip of her tongue vanish.

He flung his shirt onto the desk, the hard muscles in his chest and arms rippling with each movement.

Heather had come in here to give him a tongue-lashing, but now she was so tongue-tied at the sight of him shirtless that she was practically melting into a puddle. The temperature was suddenly boiling now that she was so hot under the collar.

“What is it?” Simon demanded.

“Where are your clothes?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I spilled coffee on my damn shirt. I was rushing up here to talk to you and got hot coffee all over myself.” He cursed loudly.

“There’s an extra shirt in the drawer of one of your cabinets,” she reminded him.

His eyes locked on hers and the hard expression on his face softened. “You’re right. I forgot.”

She didn’t need him to ask for help. After she had gone to ask him for help earlier today, returning the favor was the right thing to do. Springing into action she walked over to one of the cabinets, grabbed a shirt from the bottom drawer, and handed it to him.

“Wait a minute, you’ve still got coffee on you.” She grabbed the stained shirt from his desk and started to dab at his chest, doing her best to get the hot liquid off his hard body.

She inspected his exposed skin for burns, but there weren’t any. Satisfied, she set the stained shirt down and motioned for him to get dressed. It took all the strength she had left to appear as detached and nonchalant as possible. Revealing how much his naked torso excited her was just asking for trouble. Not to mention, drooling over her ex-boss at work was liable to get her dismissed. She was on thin enough ice as it was.

Simon slipped into the shirt and started buttoning up. He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said, trying to keep her voice even despite her stomach doing somersaults. “I think we need to talk.”

When he reached the final button, he let out an exasperated breath. “All right, Heather, let me have it.”

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you came in here guns blazing,” he shot back.

Annoyed, she lifted her hands to press down his collar and smooth out the wrinkles in the shirt. She tried to ignore how intimate it was to be helping him into his clothes like this, but that didn’t stop her hands from shaking slightly when her fingers brushed against him.

“I’m not trying to fight with you, Simon,” she said.

He crossed his arms. “Is that why you stormed in here?”

“Why did you hide me from the police?” she demanded. “Do you have any idea how guilty that probably makes me look?”

“You’re welcome.”

“What am I thanking you for?” she demanded.

His blue eyes darkened dangerously. “I hid you from the police and this is your way of thanking me?”  

“I didn’t ask you to hide me from the police,” she said. “I came to you to ask you a simple question and the next thing I knew I was being shoved into the Dover building like some fugitive.”

He scoffed. “If you think you’re such a fugitive, why don’t you call those cops back and see what happens?”

She swallowed an irritated groan. Damn, he was so infuriating! This was why she had hesitated to ask for his help. She asked for one favor and suddenly he’d be helping her in every aspect of her life. If he wasn’t getting in her ex-husband’s face to defend her honor, he was taking risks he couldn’t afford with the police. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful—she was—it was that Simon didn’t understand failure. He’d never had to back down from anything. Never had to pick up the pieces and start over.

“You think it’s easy for me to turn down help?” she asked. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for me to still need help? To need someone to look out for me and bail me out of things?”

He reached his hand out to her but she sidestepped it, backing away from him.

“Of course I don’t think it’s easy,” he said. “But it wouldn’t kill you to accept help. And I don’t mean the kind of help you seem ashamed to ask for. I mean real help. The kind that can actually make your life easier. I know that we’ve had our differences, Heather, but why do you keep refusing my help? Is it because you think you don’t deserve it? Is that what your ex-husband has made you think?”

“We’re not doing this,” she snapped. “We’re not having this heartfelt talk where you wrangle your way back into my good graces. I’m still angry with you.”

“That’s fair. I’m still angry with me, too.”

At least he seemed to understand why she couldn’t forgive him. “I’m not ungrateful,” she said finally. “It’s just that hiding me from the police has probably made me look more suspicious. Guiltier. Like I have something to hide.”

He frowned. “I’m trying to protect you the best way I know how.”

“You act like you haven’t been changed by your money, but you have,” she said. “It’s so obvious that you don’t think the rules apply to you. That’s why you can do whatever you want when the cops show up. You think you’re above the law.”

“I don’t throw my money around, Heather,” he retorted.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “Because you don’t have to. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.”

“Which is why I want to help you,” he said. “Why are you being like this?”

She’d tried to explain, but it was clear Simon didn’t understand what it was like to have to struggle. His entire adult life had been success after success. Meanwhile, she had been an utter failure. Accepting his help now was just going to show him that his behavior had been okay, when it wasn’t. If she accepted more help from him, it would be like accepting that she couldn’t amount to anything other than a screw-up. With her son looking up to her, she refused to give in and become a permanent failure. She would claw her way out of this mess on her own.

“What did the police say?” she asked finally.

“They weren’t here to arrest you,” he replied. “But I think they came down here to send a message. They seemed suspicious, and from the way they were acting they seemed to think they have... something. It’s like they came down here to catch me in a lie.”

Her heart squeezed in panic. If the cops had something incriminating, they had probably asked questions they already knew the answer to. They might not have shown up to arrest her, but their line of questioning had obviously been a test. If Simon failed that test, she was done for. “And did you lie?”

“No. But I wasn’t forthcoming, either,” he said. “The problem is, I talked to them without a lawyer.”

“Simon, that exposes you to whatever the police decide,” she said. “It’s dangerous to talk to the police without a lawyer present.”

“I know,” he ground out. “It wasn’t my best decision, believe me. But, under the circumstances, I had to keep them away from you. They might not have been here to arrest you, but they definitely weren’t here to give you the benefit of the doubt. Answering their questions would have exposed you to a lot of legal risk.”

“But you answered their questions,” she pointed out. “You put yourself at risk.” She groaned loudly. “This is why I didn’t want you to help me like this. Now that you’ve stuck your neck out for me you’re in trouble, too. What if the police come after you because they think you’re protecting a criminal?”

“I’ll worry about that when it happens,” he muttered. “For now, I’m just glad that they didn’t get their hands on you.”

“Even if that means you could get into trouble, too?” she asked.

He nodded, saying nothing.

His determination to protect her was only going to get him into trouble. Facing jail time for something she didn’t do was horrible enough, but the thought of Simon going down with her was making her sick. Her stomach soured.

“I can’t let you do this,” she said. “Do you have a contact for the police? I can get in touch with them, set up a meeting, and get them to focus their attention on me—”

“Are you insane?” His jaw tightened and he stared daggers at her. “That’s the last thing you should be doing. That will just put a target on your back, when you have enough on your plate.”

“Simon, I’m grateful for your help, but I’d never forgive myself if you ended up getting in trouble with the police because you were trying to protect me.” She let out a shuddering breath, suddenly spent from their argument. “It was a mistake for me to ask for your help earlier. I won’t do that again. Please. I’m begging you. Stop helping me.”

His face hardened. “Fine. Have it your way. End up in prison if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want,” she insisted. “But I can’t keep relying on other people to save me. Especially if it puts other people in jeopardy.”

“What happens if you can’t clear your name, Heather?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. “What happens to your son? What happens to us?”

“For the last time, there is no us,” she hissed. Her words sounded harsher than she intended, but she had to remove any doubts that still lingered. Maybe one day she could forgive him for how cruel he’d been toward her but letting him back into her heart was out of the question. All her time and energy had to go into staying out of jail and protecting Finn. No matter how much her heart ached over Simon, she wasn’t going to go down that road again.

“Maybe we can’t have a relationship, but I’ll always be your friend,” he said. “No matter how stubborn you are or how hard you try to push me away, I’ll never turn my back on you. We’ve been friends since we were kids, and I don’t intend to change that now.”

It would be so easy to give in to her feelings for him. So easy to retreat to his arms and let him soothe her fears. Comfort her. But every time she got closer to Simon, disaster followed. First, Gary had decided to come after her, then their relationship had ended up in the press. Even if she did forgive him, that didn’t mean they could have an actual relationship. It was way too dangerous. Besides, the timing of a relationship couldn’t be worse.

Her job at Dover wasn’t secure, she might still end up going to jail and, most important of all, there was Finn to think about. Her son came first.

“That’s all we can be,” she said firmly. “Friends. Coworkers. Nothing more. Which means there are certain things I can’t accept.”

“It’s not like I’m giving you money,” he said in exasperation. “What’s to accept? All you have to do is let me use whatever tools I have at my disposal to help clear your name and keep you out of jail.”

“Won’t that cost you money?” she asked. “I assume you’d get outside help to do that.”

“My financial investigator could help,” he said. “Plus, I have no problem getting you a top-notch lawyer.”

“And what if your investigator decides that I’m guilty after all?” she asked. “I mean, didn’t the financial investigator tell Everett and the rest of the board to suspect me?”

“That was just a preliminary hitch,” he said. “My investigator is the best there is. The best money can buy.”

“The best money can buy thought I was capable of betraying you,” she reminded him gently. “And you believed that before you believed me. Accepting your help might just make things even worse between us.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Sit back and watch your life go up in flames?”

“No, you’re supposed to sit back and trust me,” she said. “You didn’t trust me before. At least have the courtesy to trust me now.” Anxiety seized her heart. It was a risk to reject Simon’s offer, but his investigation into her had caused problems. Maybe the solution was for them to take a step back. Take a step away from each other instead of letting their combustible relationship destroy what was left of their lives.

“I do trust you.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You say you do, but you don’t act like you do.”

“Heather, please—”

“I’ve said everything that I want to say,” she said, sharply cutting him off. “I won’t come to you for help anymore. Coming to you today was a mistake I’m not going to repeat. I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all of this. I won’t let that happen again.”

“If you want to let your stubbornness and pride ruin your life, fine,” he said icily. “Don’t let me stand in your way. Throw your life away.”

She was too drained from their emotional argument to go on. All she wanted to do now was bury herself in work and let that distract her. When she got home, she’d talk to her lawyer. Go over everything with a fine-toothed comb until she got the proof she needed to clear her name. Nobody would fight as hard as she would to prove her innocence. Simon might insist that he would, but he had already shown her that he didn’t trust her. Didn’t believe her when she was counting on him the most.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said dryly.

With that she spun on her heel, marched out of his office, and slammed the door behind her.