If Gage had found that out somehow, would it have been a temptation to lean on that connection? No, she couldn’t assume that. Could she?
Her stomach rolled again as she recalled how convenient the timing had been when he’d first shown up at Fyra. Yes, she knew the drive between here and Austin was easy. Someone could conceivably hop in the car with little planning and be here before lunch. It didn’t mean Gage had known about the formula before the information hit the trade magazine, or that he’d used the leak as some kind of leverage to get her to agree to sell.
But still. Gage had been convinced Cass owed him something. But then he’d stopped reminding her of it. The formula rarely came up these days. Why, because he knew Rebecca Moon was going to steal it for him?
That was a stretch. But Cass couldn’t get it off her mind. A leak was one thing, but the threat of the culprit doing additional harm was very real. As was the possibility she’d been played by the master, just like she had been in college.
She would drive herself crazy with that line of thinking. She used her time to thoroughly peruse the rest of the report but Rebecca was the only lead she had.
Who better to contradict whether he’d discovered the perfect mole in Cass’s company than Gage himself? There was absolutely no reason she couldn’t bring this information to him and get his explanation. They could be straight with each other. He’d talk to her and tell her she was being silly and then maybe she’d tell him that she’d hired a private detective. With the detective on the job, she and Gage could focus on each other. See what their relationship might look like with all the agendas put away.
Because if she couldn’t trust him with business, what could she trust him with?
Halfway through the last page of the report, a knock on the door startled her. Gage.
She let him into her house and drank in the man’s beauty and masculinity as she stood frozen in the foyer where he’d made love to her for the first time in a decade. A million powerful emotions washed over her. She’d tried to keep her distance. Tried to keep her heart where it belonged—in her chest and shielded from Gage—but as she looked at him, images flew at her, of him as he held his son, as he laughed with her, as he made love to her.
The addition of his baby had shifted things. Far more so than she’d have anticipated, and not the way she’d have thought. Gage was a father now. Did that mean he’d changed his thinking about commitment? Was he ready to find a woman to settle down with?
But he still said things like let’s see how it goes. We’re having fun. You owe me. Turnabout is fair play. He’d distracted her from the leak again and again with his talk of pleasure before business. Had he been afraid she’d find something?
Ask him about Rebecca. Go on.
The wicked smile he treated her to fuzzled her mind and then he swept her into a very friendly embrace that promised to get a lot friendlier.
She pulled away and crossed her arms over the ache in her midsection that wouldn’t ease. This was why she shouldn’t let her heart take over. Emotions only led to problems.
“That was fast,” she said brightly.
He raised one eyebrow quizzically. “Not fast enough, clearly. What’s wrong?”
“I’m hungry,” she lied. Of course he’d picked up on the swirl of uncertainty under her skin. “I waited for you to eat.”
“I had Whataburger on the way. I’ll hang out with you in the kitchen while you eat something, if you want.”
“Sure.” Then they could talk.
Except she couldn’t seem to segue into by the way, did you happen to set up a deal with one of my employees to steal my formula for you?
Gage sat on a bar stool and chatted about Robbie, absently sipping a highball with a splash of Jack Daniel’s in it. As she woodenly ate a very unappetizing sandwich that didn’t sit well in her swirly stomach, she couldn’t stand it any longer. The best approach was to ease into it, perhaps.
“When are we going to check in with each other?” she asked during a lull in Gage’s conversation. Because of course their relationship, the leak and the formula were all tied together. Without one, the others didn’t exist, and it was time to get all of it straight. “About how things are going.”
“Now?” he suggested mildly. “Is that what’s bugging you? You don’t have to dance around it if that’s on your mind. How are things going, Cass?”
Right, jump straight to her as if she could possibly articulate what was going on inside. She made it a habit of pretending she didn’t have any emotions and she certainly didn’t spend a lot of time cataloguing them for others when she didn’t fully understand them herself.