“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
“When she came home, she was all beat up.” Wren picked at the chipped laminate, her lips curling in anger. “She had a black eye, a busted eye socket, a broken wrist and bruises on her arms. Someone had really worked her over.”
Rhys’s stomach churned as he remembered the photos of Marguerite Bernard’s swollen face. “But she wouldn’t say who did it?”
“No. But it didn’t take much to put two and two together. Anytime I mentioned the internship she either burst into tears or started yelling at me to keep quiet.” When Wren finally looked up, Rhys saw a fire blazing in her eyes that was totally foreign. “I asked her if she’d gone to the police and she said no, because there was no proof.”
“Is that why you’re here?” The pieces of the puzzle started to click into place and Rhys didn’t like the final image that was coming together.
“Yes.”
“How did you get the internship?”
“Kylie and I had applied at the same time, but she got the job and I didn’t.” Her cheeks colored but she reset her shoulders. “Sean approached me after Kylie dropped out, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to find out what had happened to her.”
“Were you the one who tripped the security alert for the storage room?”
She looked him square in the eye, chin tilted slightly. “Yes.”
“Have you accessed Sean Ainslie’s emails by using his log-in credentials?”
Sucking on her lower lip, Wren appeared utterly torn. Her brows crinkled and she bounced her leg in an agitated rhythm beneath the table.
“I want you to be honest with me,” he said.
“Yes. I accessed Sean’s emails.”
Shit. How on earth would he be able to explain that he’d been sleeping with the very person he’d been hired to catch? That he’d been too stupid and too naive to suspect her because she had an angelic face?
“Say something, Rhys,” she said.
“Were you spending time with me because you wanted inside information?”
WREN FELT THE sting of his question down to the very marrow of her bones. “No, of course not.”
Rhys sat like a hard, immovable lump of stone on the other side of the table. When the server arrived with their food a few minutes later, the young man looked awkwardly from one to the other. The tension must have been billowing from their table.
She’d just admitted to accessing her boss’s email without authorization. To the guy with the black-and-white morals. There was a high chance that her reasoning wouldn’t matter, that he wouldn’t listen to her plea.
But the truth was she’d grown to trust Rhys, and it was clear she wasn’t getting very far on her own. Obviously it would have been better to obtain proof before involving him, but the fact of the matter was that he was already involved.
She’d involved him the second they slept together.
And she didn’t want to lie anymore, not now that they were more than neighbors.
All she could do was hope that he was the good man she believed him to be. That he’d be able to look past her indiscretion to the bigger problem—Sean Ainslie.
“Did you know who I was when you moved into your apartment?”
“No,” she said, glancing at the burger she now had no appetite for. “You being my neighbor is a coincidence.”
His deep brown eyes were coldly assessing. “Did you sleep with me to make me trust you?”
A lump formed in her throat. “How could you even ask me that?”
“There’s so much you haven’t told me, I want to be sure.”
“I’m a painter, not an actress.” She pushed her fries around with a fork. “I can’t fake feelings any more than I can fake orgasms.”
It hadn’t sounded all that dangerous in her head but the moment she’d said the words aloud her stomach pitched. Feelings. What on earth did that mean and why the hell had she clued him in?
He appeared as baffled by her admission as she was. “You do realize that you’ve admitted to lying to me and now you’re claiming to have feelings for me?”
“It’s complicated,” she muttered.
“I’d say it’s more than complicated.”
“You know what? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s incredibly simple.” Frustration roiled within her, but she couldn’t take it out on him. She’d done wrong, here. But if she could make him see it was all with good intention, he might help her. “I get that I’ve screwed up. I’m sorry for not being totally honest with you. I’m sorry that I let us cross a line knowing it could make things hard for your job. But I am not sorry that I’m here trying to get some justice for my best friend.”
“What did you think was going to happen, Wren?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, a crease forming between his dark brows. “That you would come here and play spy like you’re in a goddamn Hollywood movie? That you would magically find this evidence on your own and wrap everything up with a neat little bow?”
She tamped down the urge to argue with him. She needed him, needed to regain his trust. “Maybe.”
“If Sean did assault your friend, what did you think he would do to you?” His voice was getting harder, louder. “What if he hurt you the same way? What if you weren’t as lucky as your friend?”
That’s when she saw it. His feelings…for her. He was angry and terrified. For her.
“I’m smart, Rhys. I know how to play him.”
“I don’t want to insult your intelligence, Wren, but what you’ve done is pretty damn stupid.” His fists clenched. “And dangerous…and possibly illegal.”
Cold fear dripped down her spine. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know.” His fingers dug deeper into the muscles of his neck. “But I do know you’re not going near Sean Ainslie until we figure it out.”
“I have to go to work. It’ll tip him off if I don’t. And I have to keep an eye out for Aimee.”
“Why?”
“She had bruises on her arm.” Wren popped a fry into her mouth and tried to force herself to eat, but it tasted like nothing. “Finger-shaped bruises. She said Sean had gotten rough with her, but when I tried to talk to her about it again today she clammed up and said she overreacted.”
He shook his head, the disgust evident on his face. “Did she say what caused him to get angry?”
“Not really. She said they were arguing about a painting. He wasn’t happy with what she’d done. Artistic differences, I guess.”
“That doesn’t seem like a reason for him to get physical.”
“Do you think men who hurt women have their brains wired properly?”
He grunted. “Point taken.”
“I’m convinced he’s hiding something in the storage room.” She gave up eating and instead pushed her food around on her plate. “That’s got to be the reason he freaked out and called your company when I tried to get in. He’s meticulous about making sure no one gets inside.”
“How so?”
“He