The Project

CHAPTER31

“Wait. How do you know that it was Lucas?” the adorable woman pulling on an oversized Eeyore tee-shirt asked.

“Here,” Devyn said, tossing the damning file on the bed next to her and headed to the bathroom, needing a moment to clear his head.

He couldn’t fucking believe it, Devyn thought as he forced himself to step into the shower before he did something incredibly fucking stupid like hunt the bastard down and kill him. Lucas had played him so fucking well, Devyn realized as he stood beneath the spray of hot water as he thought about everything that Lucas said, the way that he’d toyed with him like it was some fucking game, only to struggle against the urge to put his fist through the fucking wall when he thought about the way that he'd tried to destroy everything that he’d worked for and-

“Why don’t you think that it was me?” Andi demanded, folding her arms over the large Eeyore drawing on her tee-shirt as she glared up at him, looking too fucking adorable for words.

“Call it a hunch,” Devyn drawled, watching as her eyes narrowed as she considered him.

“I could be an evil mastermind,” she informed him only to follow that up with a firm nod that had his lips twitching despite the fact that he’d just been fucked over by his best friend.

“I’m sure that you could, Miss Dawson,” he murmured, struggling not to smile, but God, was she fucking adorable.

“I really could and you’d never know because I am that devious and by the time you found out, it would be too late,” Andi said, nodding solemnly.

“I’m sure that I would be devastated,” Devyn said dryly.

“You really would,” came the murmured agreement along with a firm nod as she tried to go for a hard look in her eye that she just couldn’t pull off before she forgot that she was trying to intimidate him and mumbled sadly, “My slippers,” with a pout when she realized that her slippers were getting wet.

“I would probably quake in fear for the rest of my life at the mere mention of your name,” Devyn said dryly as he watched her return to glaring at him as she hastily toed off her slippers and kicked them aside, determined to make sure that he was properly terrified.

“You really would,” Andi said absently as she considered him for a moment before dropping her arms with a sigh and absently gestured to her clothes. “You may undress me.”

Biting back a smile, Devyn said, “You’re too good to me,” as he reached for her shirt.

“I know,” she said with a sniffle as she raised her arms so that he could take her shirt off before she gestured to the pants.

Sighing heavily as though this somehow pained him, Devyn pushed the oversized flannel pajama pants off and tossed them aside before he took her hand in his and pulled her inside the shower so that he could wrap his arms around her, needing to hold her right now more than ever. He kissed the top of her head as he closed his eyes and found himself wondering just how badly Lucas had fucked him over. He also wondered why he would do something like this.

“Why didn’t you think that it was me?” Andi asked as she wrapped her arms around him.

“Because you can’t multitask,” Devyn said, slowly exhaling only to smile when she went still in his arms.

“I multitask like a champ,” Andi muttered against his chest.

“Of course, you do,” Devyn mumbled in agreement, not really all that surprised when she pulled back so that she could glare up at him.

“I could have done it,” she said with a firm nod. “There was a lot of damning evidence in that file.”

Frowning, Devyn said, “You barely had a chance to look at it before you came in here demanding answers.”

“I’m an excellent skimmer,” Andi said, nodding.

“I see, and from your thirty seconds of skimming, what did you gather?” Devyn murmured as he reached up and pushed a strand of wet hair out of her face.

“I’m glad you asked,” Andi said, going up on her toes so that she could kiss his chin. “A couple of things actually, one, of course, being that they clearly recognize a threat when they see one. They just took one look at me and were like, God, there’s a criminal mastermind if we ever saw one.”

“Jesus Christ,” Devyn muttered, chuckling as he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“Exactly,” Andi agreed with a solemn nod. “From there, they decided to incorporate all those things that make me a threat and changed a few things so that I didn’t come off as too dangerous.”

At his questioning look, she said, “They made me five-four on the report, which I truly appreciate since I’m five-three. Be sure to thank them for that.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Devyn said dryly.

“You do that,” Andi murmured before sighing and mumbling, “Where to begin?”

“The financial records?” Devyn suggested, hoping like hell that Lucas hadn’t transferred some of the embezzled money into her account.

“They actually missed several accounts, including the ones that I set up for my brother and uncle, but I guess this was enough to get their point across. I’m good with numbers, trends, patterns, formulas, basically anything with numbers, which is why my uncle gave me a book on investing for my tenth birthday along with twenty dollars and opened an investment account for me, thinking that it would keep me busy for a while.”

“When I was able to turn that twenty into two hundred dollars, it made me think that I could turn his life savings into a small fortune. That led me to breaking into his bank account, transferring all of his money into an account that I’d created, and since I was already there, I accessed my brother’s college fund and did the same. After my uncle found out and promised not to spank my ass, I crawled out from underneath the bed, logged into the investment accounts that I took upon myself to open for them and showed them what I was able to do. That resulted in my uncle needing several drinks, my brother announcing that he was quitting the fourth grade now that we were rich, and me spending the next two months going without dessert and having to write a letter to my uncle promising that I would never scare him like that again,” she explained with a careless shrug while he stood there watching her, wondering why he wasn’t surprised.

“I’m surprised you didn’t try selling the house to fund your nefarious activities,” Devyn said, immediately feeling an insane amount of sympathy for her uncle when she winced.

“I tried, but the realtor wasn’t willing to negotiate a lower commission,” Andi quickly admitted before adding, “We should probably stay focused.”

“You terrify me, Miss Dawson,” Devyn said, nodding solemnly.

“Which is why I was the perfect choice for this setup, don’t you think?”

“I think,” Devyn said, leaning down to brush his lips against hers, “that they got desperate.”

“There is that,” she grudgingly admitted.