“YOU CAN’T LOCK DOWN THE building. Hear me out,” Berlin said, holding a hand up in front of her. “I’m not being reckless.”

She wasn’t. The picture Gabe had shown her of Blake and Samantha at the bowling alley had been remarkably similar to the ones she’d been looking at to send out with the press release. Except in his photo, Samantha’s beautiful face had been gouged out with something sharp, tearing through the paper. She couldn’t look at it and not see the hatred, and there was no way she’d advocate for anything that would compromise the other woman’s safety.

“I’m not taking chances with my cousin’s family because it messes with the way things look.” He practically spat the words out and she had to remind herself that he had a reason to be mad—not at her—but he had a reason. She couldn’t stand the idea of anything happening to the woman she’d only known for a few weeks, but Samantha and the baby she carried were family to him. She knew without asking that for a Southerland, family was everything.

“I’m not asking you to take chances, but the woman who left this was in a hurry to get out. I’d bet everything she’s long gone.” She remembered how the other woman had raced to the stairwell with her head down. Berlin had assumed it was because she was shy or embarrassed. In hindsight, she imagined the other woman was trying to avoid getting caught on the cameras Gabe’s firm had installed. Which meant she was too savvy to get caught hanging around after she delivered her message. Watching Gabe’s face, she could see him starting to come to the same conclusion.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Blake, barging through the open doorway. “Peter said your guys won’t let him out the front door. Where’s my wife?”

“Here,” said Samantha, hurrying to her husband’s side, trailing a big, angry-looking security guy behind her. “What’s happened?”

Something that looked a lot like guilt flashed across Blake’s face but he’d managed to bury it by the time he pulled his wife into his arms.

“Gabe was just getting ready to tell us that, weren’t you?” He pinned Gabe with a look that demanded an encyclopedia’s worth of answers, and for a moment, she almost felt bad for the guy. Almost.

“Things have escalated.”

Even from across the room, she could see Blake stiffen, holding his wife. Samantha looked up at him, a crease in the center of her forehead.

“How so?” asked Samantha when her husband didn’t.

“We have reason to believe the person sending the letters was at the bowling alley last night and here in this building today.” Gabe’s tone was measured. That more than anything let her know he was a professional. She knew he was seething inside. She’d felt it in the way he grabbed her. But faced with his cousin’s pregnant wife, he somehow managed to hold it inside.

“God dammit!” said Blake.

Berlin watched Samantha jump and her husband struggle for control.

“How did this happen?” demanded Blake. “You had security all over the place last night and this building is supposed to be tight. No one should be able to get in or out without an employee badge.”

“Sir, I believe I can explain that,” said Liam, the brooding security guy who’d followed Samantha into the office. “Your staff has had a hard time getting used to the security protocols.”

Berlin knew that was true. She’d put out several interoffice announcements about the badges under the guise of making things look more cohesive before the Edison contingent arrived. Response had been tepid at best. She’d seen the badges lying on desks everywhere and people had gotten used to leaving doors open for each other. Gabe’s men had closed as many gaps as they could but even she had to admit there was only so much that could be done in the couple of days they’d been on site.

“We found the door to the east wing propped open. Some of the manufacturing department likes to smoke on the porch on that corner of the building. We think that’s how the suspect gained access to the building.”

“Once she was in that wing, it would be easier for her to make her way through the rest of the building. We’re beefing up the existing system so your own people can’t sabotage it, but until that’s done, I want one of my men with Samantha at all times,” said Gabe.

“She?” asked Samantha, stress making her accent clipped. “Are you sure it’s a woman?”

“Yes,” said Gabe.

His gaze met Blake’s, and Berlin watched something pass wordlessly between the two men. They were hiding something. She’d bet money on it.

“I believe Berlin met the woman we’re looking for this afternoon.” Gabe glanced over at her and the sudden scrutiny made her want to squirm.

“You saw her?” asked Blake. “You saw her face?”

She nodded. “I saw a woman in the hallway earlier. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she had some logs Gabe requested.”

“I never requested any logs,” said Gabe. “She needed a way to get this to you, and I think she wanted you to know how close she’d gotten. She’s getting bolder.”

“You’d recognize her if you saw her again?” asked Blake, taking the folder Gabe handed him. He flipped it open and Samantha gasped. Berlin could only imagine what the other woman must be feeling seeing her image defiled like that. And knowing how close the threat had been to her. Whoever took the picture had been at the bowling alley with them. It felt much more personal than the previous letters.

“Fuck,” said Blake, following the direction of his wife’s stunned expression.

When his gaze met Gabe’s, there was so much pain in his eyes, he looked wounded. She couldn’t help but wonder if his reaction had something to do with whatever it was they were keeping from everybody.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” said Blake, folding his wife tighter in his arms. “I won’t let anything hurt you or the baby. I promise.”

“I’m going to take Berlin downstairs to go over the camera footage to see if she recognizes anything. If you two stay in your office, Liam will wait outside.” Gabe pinned his cousin with his gaze and there was more of that wordless conversation going on. “Neither of you leaves without Liam or another of the team with you. I mean it. That’s a non-negotiable.”

She hadn’t planned on spending the rest of the morning looking at security footage. She had Edison’s team coming for a lunch meeting to go over production numbers and a reporter from a trade magazine coming to cover it. But none of that would matter if they were still on lockdown by then. And, honestly, at this point, it was clear the only thing that mattered to Blake was his wife. Despite her own interests, it was the only thing that mattered to her too.

With the way the woman in the hallway hid her face behind her hair, Berlin doubted they’d find a clear shot of her face. She could try to describe her, but at this point her unremarkable appearance was the thing she remembered most. There had to be another way to get an image of the woman.

“Come on. Let’s go.” Gabe reached for her arm and she stepped out of his grip. She wasn’t ready to let him touch her again so soon. She knew he hadn’t been trying to hurt her and she hated that old patterns re-emerged so easily, but it would be a cold day in hell before she let a man drag her anywhere.

“Hang on a minute,” she said, grabbing the tablet on her desk. “I’ve got an idea.”

––––––––

“NOTHING,” SAID GABE, leaning back in the rolling chair in the small conference room they’d set up as their onsite security headquarters. “We’ve got nothing.”

It wasn’t true. They had more than they’d started the day with. They had an eyewitness. But unless she could come up with a better description than a slightly overweight, completely unremarkable woman, he still had nothing to go on. They’d spent more than an hour scrolling through the security camera footage and in the only images they had of the woman’s face, she wore a scarf and dark glasses. When she was in the building’s main areas, she avoided looking directly at the cameras the same way she had at the hotel. Either she’d cultivated some kind of surveillance sixth sense or more likely, the hunched-over demeanor she adopted and her mane of mousy brown hair made it easy for her to hide her face. Either way, he had nothing.

“Maybe not,” said Berlin, pulling out her tablet.

“What are those?” He tried to peer over her shoulder, but she ignored him, her focus on the images in front of her. “Are those from last night?”

He’d forgotten about the photographer they’d cleared to take candids of the game between Edison and Southern Mark. The guy had been good, staying out of the way and being so unobtrusive it had been easy to forget he was there. The idea that he might have a photo of the stalker gave Gabe more hope than he’d had since this whole thing started.

“I need the photographer’s number.” It would be in the clearance file they’d done on the guy but Berlin probably had him on speed dial. Path of least resistance.

“Shut up. I’m busy.” She held her hand up in front of his face without bothering to even glance at him. “I already messaged him. He’s uploading everything he’s got.”

She swiped her finger across the screen in a continuous movement, right to left, over and over again. And then she paused for a second and backtracked.

“What?” He wanted to shake her until she told him everything she was thinking, but he stopped himself. He knew if he touched her, she’d end up fighting with him and it would take him twice as long to get to the information he needed.

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Well, maybe.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, woman. Show me.”

“You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” she said, handing over the tablet. “It’s not much. You can’t get a clear look at her face, but I think this might be the woman who gave me the folder.”

She pointed to a figure in the corner of the image, and he squinted hard to make out details. It didn’t give him much to go on. He doubted even his firm’s photo enhancement abilities would be able to get them a face they could run through facial recognition software. Or Facebook. Honestly, the social media giant had a bigger ad hoc database than almost anywhere.

“Are you sure?” Unwilling to hand over his best chance at a lead, he turned the tablet to face her and watched as she scanned the image.

Her forehead creased and he felt a moment of empathy for her. He’d been nothing but an ass to her since she handed him the folder, and not only had she willingly done everything he asked, she’d come up with her own lead. He’d have gotten around to going through the commissioned photos, but she thought about it long before he had, saving them precious time. He owed her for that. If things panned out with the other pictures and he ended up with a photo of the stalker, he’d owe her a hell of a lot more. Not that he had any intention of telling her that, but he might try being less of a jerk.

“Ninety percent.” She leaned back in her chair, letting him keep the tablet.

She paused for a moment and he could almost see the wheels turning inside her head. It was odd, because in her business image was everything, and he could tell she’d gotten very good at projecting what she wanted people to see. So good he thought few people ever knew what she was really thinking and feeling at any given moment. He didn’t know why—and maybe he was kidding himself—but it felt like he could. He could see through the smile she used to cover her thoughts, the ones she wore to smooth the way for what she needed to get done, and it made the few genuine smiles he’d seen mean that much more. He felt like he’d stumbled on some kind of magic encryption thing. A code to understand the many moods and thoughts of Berlin.

“Do you really think this woman would try to hurt Samantha? She seemed more like a librarian than a violent stalker.”

“Yes,” he said, the certainty making his jaw clench. He’d do anything he had to to protect his cousin’s wife and their baby. “I know she would. She’s already shown she’s dangerous.”

He realized his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. Berlin arched a brow, and he tried to come up with an answer she’d believe for the question he knew was coming.

“She’s just sent letters, right? And the picture? I get that her coming to Southern Mark is a big deal but what has she done to make you so sure she’s violent?”

“It’s the way she defaced the photo. There’s malice there.” There was malice but it was a big leap from tearing up a photo to physical harm. He pressed his lips together and met Berlin’s gaze, praying she let it go at that and knowing she wouldn’t.

“Why are you bullshitting me?”

“I’m not.” It sounded lame even to him and he braced himself for the attack he was sure would follow.

“Yes. You are.” She hit him with the look that could blister skin, and he took a deep breath, determined to hold his ground. “You and Blake have been having whole silent conversations about this every time you get together. What gives?”

He could deny it again, but she wouldn’t buy it. The best he could hope for was to get away with some version of the truth. That might buy him some time.

“She’s done some things I’m not at liberty to talk about.” He held his hand up to stop her before she blasted him again. “I don’t want the details to get out any more than you do. Believe me. We’re on the same side on this.”

She pinned him with her gaze and he had to work not to squirm. He’d gone toe-to-toe with the new mafia, done forensic accounting on money launderers, and exchanged gun shots with a white supremacist intent on getting to his pop star client. One petite woman in killer heels shouldn’t be able to shake him. He watched her roll the idea around in her head and saw the moment she came to the wrong conclusion.

“The dumb shit had an affair, didn’t he? He fucked some psycho and now we’re escalating up to the boil the bunny stage. God dammit. I actually let myself believe he was different—that he was committed to his wife and family.” She shook her head, making her hair swing, the movement highlighting the purple. “It doesn’t matter how beautiful their wives are. None of them seem to be able to keep their dicks in their pants.” She spun her chair away from him, her shoulders set in a tight line.

It pissed him off that she immediately assumed the worst about Blake. Not all men were the way she described, not even most. Hell, in his experience, not even some. His cousins were faithful. He’d bet his life on it and there was no way Emerson would cheat on anyone—not that he’d have a chance. Gabe couldn’t remember the last time his brother had a date, but that was beside the point. Southerlands didn’t cheat and fidelity was a big damn deal with the guys he worked with.

He reached for the arm of the chair, intending to spin her back to face him. As if she sensed his movement, she looked up, her gaze meeting his. Her eyes held so much pain; it knocked him back for a moment. She covered it quickly with a thick layer of anger but not before he had a chance to wonder who’d hurt her.

“It’s not like that,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t believe him but needing to try. “Blake didn’t cheat on Samantha.”

She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she seemed much more tired than she had moments earlier.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand in front of her. “It doesn’t change the job. You protect the principals and I control the message. We just need to assume things are going to heat up. I’m ready if you are.”

“It’s really not like that.” He repeated the words because there was nothing else he could say. Nothing that would convince her she was wrong about Blake, not without telling his cousin’s secret. He wasn’t ready to do that.

“I know,” she said. “It never is.”

––––––––

JUST ONCE, BERLIN would like to be proven wrong. Just once she’d like to put her faith in a man and not be let down. Not that she’d invested anything in Blake Southerland’s marriage, but she’d almost bought the adoring couple happily-ever-after lie she was selling the Edisons herself. That was either stupidity on her part or a damn fine bit of PR work. She already felt like an idiot for the way she’d handled things with Gabe—he’d seen much more than she wanted him to—so she chose to go with the good at her job reality.

She’d thrown herself into romancing the reporters from the trade magazines, fed a few juicy hints at the merger and the photo she’d chosen to a decent-sized regional paper, and sent the photo with Blake and Samantha living the lie of the perfect couple along with a handful of Eva and Mark to Mrs. Edison. If she believed the pictures, she’d sell the story to her husband and end up doing some of Berlin’s work for her. It was a win any way she looked at it. Except for the death of a teeny-tiny scrap of romanticism she hadn’t realized she still possessed. She assumed she’d exorcised the last of that bullshit ages ago, right about the time she had to play I don’t like you like that with her mother’s ninth boyfriend. Apparently not. It didn’t matter. It was gone now.

She had two hours before she had to get ready for the dinner at the Hotel Roanoke. It was the last event before the group from Edison went back to Michigan, either to work out details for the merger or to go back to business as usual. She had a few good press opportunities lined up to reinforce the image she’d built for Southern Mark but after tonight, the Edisons were away from her direct influence. The story she’d built would either work or it wouldn’t.

Her phone vibrated on the desk. Gabe had been bugging her all afternoon but she’d been too busy handling the press and the team from Edison to deal with him. She doubted he’d wait much longer. It was a miracle he wasn’t already pounding on her door. Part of her—the part not particularly attached to her brain—got a little jolt thinking of him coming to find her. The rest of her knew exactly how bad an idea that would be. Better to give him what he wanted and let him think it was his idea than to have to deal with him.

Slipping off her heels under the desk, she rolled her ankles and then pressed her aching toes into the carpet. She loved the black velvet Dolce & Gabbana T straps with the four-inch heels but they were hell on her feet. Picking up the tablet, she thumbed open her browser and opened the folder of images the photographer sent her. She still couldn’t quite believe how easy it had been to convince him to send them over. She’d had to practically write a blood oath that they’d never leave her desk, but once the photographer understood she didn’t want them for commercial purposes, he’d dumped them in the folder with one more admonition that they came with no license of any kind.

There were hundreds of untouched images. It would take forever to go through them. Longer if she sat there whining to herself instead of scrolling through them. She might be disappointed in Blake, but she owed it to Samantha to try to find the woman threatening her. Then if the lovely pregnant expat decided to leave the son of a bitch who cheated on her, she’d have enough ammunition to get what she needed to take care of herself and her baby. If she decided to leave, Samantha wouldn’t have to bounce from man to man, trying to find someone to make her problems go away, and her child wouldn’t find herself with a string of “uncles.”

Wow. That powerful bit of projection had been sitting much closer to the surface than Berlin expected. She’d honestly thought she’d been over her issues with her mother enough times not to carry them with her everywhere she went. Apparently not.

“Hey, I knocked. You didn’t answer.” Gabe strode through the door, not bothering to wait for her to respond before entering.

Caught off guard both by the fact that she’d been so wrapped up in her head she hadn’t heard him knock and by the man taking up too much space in her office, she jumped to her feet, wincing at the way her aching arches protested.

“What’s wrong?” He closed the distance between them and she drew herself up to her full height, hating how small she felt next to him.

“There’s nothing wrong. Except that you’re a pain in the ass. I was going over the photos for you, but at this rate I’ll never get through them.” In her experience, very little beat a good offense.

“Why are you so much shorter than normal?”

His appraising gaze moved over her in a way that made her skin flush. Lovely, now she was short and blushing like a shy schoolgirl. Exactly the image she wanted to portray.

“I covered a lot of ground today. I took off my shoes.” She resisted the urge to add you dumb jerk to the end of her sentence, but it was a near thing.

“Sit,” he said, rolling the extra office chair to her side of the desk.

“I’m not your damn puppy.” The man had a way of pushing buttons she hadn’t realized she owned and dredging up feelings she thought she’d gotten over long ago. It pissed her off.

“Just sit down, please. I can help.”

His expression was surprisingly earnest and she found herself sinking into her chair before she thought better of it. He glanced at the tablet open to the photos, picked it up and handed it to her.

“Get started.”

“Damn, you’re bossy,” she said and then sucked in her breath when he bent down and grabbed her foot.

She gave in to the instinct to pull away but his grip was too strong and then he ran his thumb up her arch and everything—her resolve included—dissolved in his touch. Using both thumbs, he worked his way around her aching heel and up and down her arch. By the time he used his fingers to fan out her toes, she worried she might be drooling a bit, but it was hard to work up the energy to care when everything he did with his hands felt so damn good.

“God.” She let the word out on a breath she couldn’t hold in.

“Nice of you to finally notice,” he said, hitting her with the cocky grin that had somehow managed to worm its way into her subconscious. “Now get to it.”

He motioned with his head to the tablet in her hand and she managed to drag her attention back to the images on the screen. Most of them were almost duplicates of each other, images of the same pose shot in rapid succession so the photographer could pick the best one. Some of them showed a wider angle than the cropped photos he’d sent her in the finished package. She concentrated on the backgrounds she hadn’t been able to see in the originals. At least she tried to. Gabe kept doing delicious things to her tired feet that made it hard to concentrate on anything other than the feel of his hands.

Maybe concentration wasn’t required. She was looking for a person’s face, a collection of shapes and colors. Maybe if she turned her brain off and simply scanned the images, something would jump out at her. She might not be able to give a good description of the woman, but Berlin knew she’d recognize her when she saw her. She’d flipped through five or six different shots each with a dozen or more images when Gabe hit something really good with the pad of his thumb. Her eyes drifted closed and she couldn’t hold back the groan that escaped from her lips.

“I think I might be working against my own interests,” he said, hitting the spot again.

God, if she could purr, she would. “Don’t you dare stop,” she said, opening her eyes and meeting his gaze.

His expression held so much heat; it knocked her speechless for a moment. She was well acquainted with the cocky Gabe and the angry one. She’d seen his fiercely protective side and she’d even seen him embarrassed. The man staring at her like he was just waiting for an excuse—an opportunity—to taste her was someone new entirely. Needing a little distance from the intensity of his gaze and feelings she had no business feeling, she tugged her foot away and was disappointed when he let her go. Before she had a chance to compartmentalize her feelings about it, he picked up her other foot and went to town on her poor abused arch.

“Back to work,” he said, digging his thumbs into her heel in a way that made her want to promise him anything if he’d just keep going.

“Yes sir,” she said, grappling for a coherent thought in the face of the pleasure his hands were giving her. Honest to God, the man had untapped skills. She’d clearly underestimated him.

His eyes went dark at her words and she caught a sudden predator-prey vibe. Gabe Southerland was more dangerous than she’d let herself believe. She’d gotten caught up in the sexy smart ass and missed the man who could own her body with an almost platonic touch. She couldn’t help wondering what else she’d missed.

“I like the sound of that. We’re definitely going to revisit that later.” He pinned her with his gaze and she felt her skin flush up her chest and her neck, heating her cheeks. “But for now, find me a photo of the stalker.”

She rolled her eyes because nothing good could come from him knowing he had that kind of power over her body. Or more likely, a lot of good could come from it, but she sure as hell didn’t intend to spend any time thinking about it with him in the same room. She’d save it for the privacy of her shower later. She went back to scanning images on the screen, and he went back to working the kinks out of her poor, tired feet. Slowing down when she got to the series of poses similar to the one where she’d found the stalker before, she searched the background for anything familiar. She caught a glimpse of a shoulder here and some hair there, but nothing definitive until she reached the ninth or tenth image in the set.

There she was. The woman who’d handed her the folder. It wasn’t a clear shot and if she hadn’t known exactly what she was looking for, she would’ve missed it, but it was her—the stalker.

“Found her.”

Gabe gave her toes a gentle squeeze, sliding his hand up her bare calf before setting her foot down with what seemed like reluctance. She missed his touch the moment it was gone, but that wasn’t the kind of thing she could say to him. Not and expect to keep things on the professional level she needed them to stay on. That line had already blurred to a big ole swath of gray.

“Show me,” he said, swallowing hard, proving he wasn’t as unaffected as he tried to appear.

The whole thing—whatever was going on between them—was trouble and she couldn’t fight the feeling that one of them would get burned.