MAC 

––––––––

THE SECOND I STEPPED out of my office I sensed that she was no longer in the house. I didn’t even bother checking for her belongings, instead I headed straight out the back door. Sure as hell the car was gone.

How had I not sensed she was scheming to desert me? I thought of her unwrapping herself like a present and then parting her legs and letting me get a good long look at her beautiful cunt. The little tease had seduced me. Calling me by my fake surname, while kissing me and petting me. Mr. Sutton, pretty as you please out of those gorgeous lips. Mr. Sutton, purring like a goddamn sex kitten.

And now she’d run away. Good fucking riddance. Her father had been clearly looking for revenge when he made me responsible for his spoiled brat of a daughter. From what I’d managed to pry out of her, she knew jack shit about the inner workings of her father’s company.

And her name never came up when I interrogated the intruder with my fists. Turned out, he was just an ordinary thief who’d thought an isolated house made a prime target. And the asshole Tom had found lurking down the drive had been hired by Jarvis. Just an ex who wanted his girlfriend back and thought for some reason that siccing a private investigator on her would help win her back.

I’d been convinced that Chantry had suspected Jarvis and that’s why he’d insisted on marriage, to get the boyfriend out of Serena’s life. But Jarvis was coming up clean in this investigation. 

Serena was perfectly safe and free to run as far and fast as she damn well pleased.

A mouthy punk, barely out of high-school. Definitely not the qualifications at the top of my list for a bride

I slammed back into the house and headed straight for the whiskey. Time to celebrate having that little pain in the ass out from under me.

Jesus, just the thought of having her under me made me crave her. Get drunk, go to sleep, and play the role. Getting drunk would be the only change in my usual routine. I poured a double, drank it down, then grabbed the bottle. Why bother with a glass when there was no one at home to give a damn how much I drank?

Getting stuck with the boss’s brat, for so little payoff, now that was bullshit. I’d only gotten a single lead from her father and it ended up going nowhere.

I took a pull off the bottle and remembered the conversation I’d had with him in his office over a glass of fifty year old scotch. He’d told me he’d turned a blind eye to what his partner was doing. He knew there was something fishy going on, but the wife he’d adored had committed suicide and he just couldn’t concentrate on the minutiae of business anymore. His suspicions didn’t stop him from accumulating things; a lake house, a boat, sports cars. 

I’d been tempted to ask him whether it was easier to turn a blind eye when you’re stuffing your pockets.

It wasn’t just trivial details he missed. There were some glaring signs of fraud he managed to miss, too. He hadn’t asked any questions when they were suddenly purchasing material at ridiculously discounted rates. The substandard material wasn’t obvious to the naked eye; it required stress tests to discern the difference. His partner had canceled those, explaining that there was no need to continue to test a product they’d been monitoring for the last twenty years. Payne had then reduced the quality control unit to a minimum of people and then summarily fired those workers and replaced them with unskilled, unqualified ones. 

I brought the bottle with me into the bedroom and set it on the nightstand, by my empty bed. Instead of getting piss drunk, I was just getting royally pissed off. I checked my phone again, as if I expected her to call me. I yanked opened the drawer for my charger and stared at the paper littering the drawer. It took me a moment to register what I was looking at. Serena had found the wedding license I’d shredded. I moved the paper out of the way to get my charger and discovered my dog tags. For some reason, she’d taken the time to carefully spiral the chain.

She’d been purring like a sex-kitten, lying about falling in love with me, because she didn’t want me to go in search of a condom and find that she’d had a little tantrum. She knew me for a liar all because of my idiotic habit of taking the tags with me wherever I went, like some sort of talisman.

I called her number. The familiar chime echoed through the house. I followed the sound to the kitchen table. She’d purposely left it behind.

I needed sleep. I’d catch my quarry tomorrow. I removed my clothes and lay down. My hands itched to reach for her, to pull her close, and feel her soft, curvy body pressed up against me. How had I gotten here? Where I needed her next to me? I thought of the first nights where she tried to stop herself from crying by blinking rapidly, her long lashes fluttering against my skin. She’d definitely been her daddy’s girl. She’d certainly never expressed any devotion to me save for her cunning deception tonight. Christ, I was even jealous of her feelings for her father.

I sat up and fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. I clicked open the GPS tracker app. A local map appeared on the screen. The GPS unit was in short walking distance from the house and it sure as shit wasn’t on the move. My heart thundered in my chest, the brat was more resourceful than I’d imagined. She’d pried the fucking thing off the car.

I’d call in a few favors and arrange to have men stationed outside her friends’ homes waiting to report back to me. I’d only use the bureau’s resources to put a hold on her bank accounts, beyond that I’d use my own personal resources to track down my wife.

I dragged my hand through my hair. Wife? Don’t let the fact that she is tempting beyond reason change what you know, I told myself. I wasn’t in the place in my life for a real marriage and even if I were I would certainly not choose that gorgeous handful of trouble.