Now she wasn’t so sure he’d been wrong.
In contrast, Gage had flowed into her life effortlessly. As if he’d always been there and it was easy and right. As if they’d picked up where they’d left off. She’d been holding her breath for almost a decade, waiting for her heart to start beating again. And now it was.
She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
She’d never gotten over Gage Branson and chalked it up to having endured such a badly broken heart. But that wasn’t it at all. She’d never gotten over him because she was still in love with him.
She shut her eyes for a beat. That was the opposite of a good thing. And this was a really bad time to discover it. He might be involved in the leak. Hell, he might have even orchestrated it and at this rate, she’d never find out. If he flat out denied involvement, she’d never believe him. He’d proven he couldn’t be trusted personally, so what was to say he could be trusted professionally? She would not give him the opportunity to destroy her or her business all over again.
Even if he got down on one knee and proposed, which would happen when monkeys learned to pilot a stealth bomber, she’d say no. Her own self-preservation overrode everything.
“I did some more digging into our files. Ready to talk through them?” she asked after she cleared the emotion from her throat. Not only was it a horrible time to discover she still had very real, very raw feelings for him, it would be a disaster to tip him off. God knew what he’d do with it. Twist it around and say she owed him something.
He glanced at her, ball in hand, as Arwen barked to show her displeasure at the interruption. He threw it to the far end of Cass’s property, a good hundred yards, and managed to make it look effortless. Like everything else he did.
“Sure. We’ve got all day and most of tomorrow. Let’s make good use of it.”
That was her deadline to somehow work through her emotional mess, too. A day and a half to get him out of her system for good and move on.
“I’m curious.” She drank deeply from her coffee mug for fortification. “When I talked to you about planting false information, you seemed to know a lot about how digital forensics works. How did that come about?”
The best way to get him out of her system was to prove his involvement in the leak. Then she wouldn’t have to remind herself he wasn’t trustworthy. Because he’d be in jail. Her heart squeezed. Surely that wasn’t going to be the result of all this.
But even if it wasn’t, Gage’s presence in her life was still because of the formula. He wasn’t falling in love with her. He was only here to squash his competition.
Gage shrugged. “You learn stuff over the years. I read articles and such. But really, the reasons that wouldn’t have worked are common sense.”
Carefully, she raised her brows. “How so?”
“Because. Like I said, you don’t have that kind of time. And you’re assuming that the person responsible for the leak would actually be transferring files. What if they take handwritten notes? Memorize files? Take photographs? There are dozens of ways people can access information, especially if the person doing it is authorized in the first place.”
All said very casually, while still throwing Arwen’s ball. She’d watched him over her coffee cup, growing more frustrated by the minute at his clear hazel eyes and relaxed expression. He was supposed to be letting his guard down enough to say something he shouldn’t.
Maybe he hadn’t because she was being too subtle.
“Is that how you’d do it?” she asked, just as casually. Good thing she had a lot of practice at keeping her voice calm even when her insides were a mess. “Take photographs?”
“For what? To steal proprietary information?” He laughed and she’d swear it was genuine, not the kind designed to cover nervousness. “No reason for me to resort to underhanded tactics. If I want something, I buy it.”
Yeah, as she well knew. Her coffee soured in her mouth. The problem with this line of questioning lay in the fact that she didn’t have a clue if Gage was blowing smoke to distract her from his crimes or truly not involved in the leak.
How would she ever know for sure?
Maybe she was still being too subtle and the best way to resolve this was to flat out ask Gage, are you involved?
Surely she could read him well enough to recognize truth in his response. She opened her mouth to do it, once and for all, when his phone rang.
Frowning, he glanced at the screen. “Excuse me a sec. Someone from this number has called a couple of times but never leaves a message. Otherwise, I wouldn’t take it.”