“I took care of it.”
He narrows his eyes, and internally I’m praying that he doesn’t dig any deeper which will force me to lie to him. I won’t tell him the truth. This is my business, not his.
“Did you get the information on Bushman?”
Now this I can handle. I tug open the file cabinet to the left of my chair and pull out the file in reference. “He’s a fucking snake.”
Deacon takes the file and looks through the information I gathered. “I got that feeling when he came into the office.”
“He’s got four kids with three different women and he’s giving them all the runaround, refusing paternity tests, and hiding money. He even transferred thirty grand out of his account and into another.”
“Whose?”
“His secretary’s. According to their cell phone pings, they hookup at the hotel down the street from their office at least twice a week.”
“He’d have money for child support if he stopped getting hotel rooms.”
A chuckle escapes my lips. “He doesn’t pay for them, the secretary does.”
“What a pig.”
“Agreed.”
“Well, we won’t be working with him. I’ll have Flynn break the news to him.”
“What exactly was he wanting?”
“Dirt on the soon-to-be ex-wife; anything that would keep him from having to pay alimony.”
“You didn’t ask me to research the wife.”
He slaps the folder to his leg. “Because I didn’t think we’d be working for him. It’s running into assholes like this that makes me want to start a pro-bono program to help these women get dirt on their slimeball husbands.”
A sinister grin crosses my lips. “I’d love that. If you feel like setting that into motion, I’ll volunteer my damn time.”
“Good man,” he says before walking out of my office.
I have a list of things to do, but my mind continues to wander to Whitney. I’ve been good, not having turned the videos back on to keep track of her, but that doesn’t make the urge go away completely. I’d love to have seen how flushed her cheeks were when she walked out of that sauna room because I know for a fact the low lighting in there didn’t do them justice.
But I’ll be patient. She’ll let me keep the lights on in the room when we finally come together in that way. I just know it.
We need to have a very serious conversation. I’m not one to have a contract with women. Most often I meet them once, and after we get what we need from each other, we go our separate ways.
I don’t have any intention of walking away from Whitney anytime soon, but I need to know her limits. That’s pertinent for the things I want to do to her, and I need her to feel safe. She can’t enjoy herself if she doesn’t feel like she can trust me to protect her, especially after taking so many things away from her.
Work goes quickly, and before I know it, my desk is clear and I have nothing else to focus on. Before Whitney, I would spend hours and hours digging through stuff on the Internet, finding loopholes for all sorts of stuff, challenging myself with encryption, and infiltrating all sorts of programs. Now, I sometimes sit and wait for her to get online, testing her ability to respond with messages sent through TalkToMe.
She hasn’t responded much today, and I know she’s busy. I know what it’s like to get lost in work and leave the rest of the world waiting until it’s done, but my nervousness after what happened this morning makes that lack of confidence in myself perk back up. Did I push too hard? Did I not do enough? Did licking her neck gross her out? Honestly, some people aren’t into sweat. Did I not kiss her enough? I barely nipped her lips in the sauna. Was she left wanting and now she’s upset?
I can’t seem to get out of my head, so I do the only thing I can do right now. I urge Puff Daddy into the soft carrier—this is a fight because he’d rather stay here than go back to my apartment for some reason—he hasn’t been home in days.
“I like it here!” he complains as I zip up the bag. “It’s boring at your place!”
I guess I have my answer. I don’t think the guys come into my office while I’m gone, even though nothing keeps them out when I’m here, but maybe their constant chatter in the breakroom keeps him company.
“Well,” I say to him as I leave my office and head toward the elevator, “you’re coming home with me tonight.”
“You’re not my dad!”
Several guys chuckle at his antics, and I throw a wave over my shoulder. Thankfully, no one stops me to razz me anymore about Whitney.
The short drive home turns into a little longer drive because Nana needs my help. According to her, it’s an emergency, so I blow through nearly every damn light to get to her place only to arrive to find her remote control not working properly.