Stolen Lust (Beauty in the Stolen 1)

“You were doing filing in the vault, weren’t you?” His look isn’t entirely unfriendly. His tone is almost apologetic when he says, “You have access to the code.”

“Only the front room.” I wipe my sweaty palms over my skirt. “I’ve never been inside the back room where they keep the money.”

“The safe deposit boxes are in the front,” he points out with a flick of his eyebrow.

“I’d never give anyone the code, and even if I did, you can change it.”

“We already have.” His smile turns professional. Impersonal. “However, you know the schedule and when the guards change shifts. You know the guards, Ms. Joubert, and they’re—How shall I say?—friendly with you.”

I register in the back of my mind he’s no longer calling me by my first name, a very bad sign.

Still, I defend my position, praying for a miracle. “I say hi when I clock in and goodbye when I go home.” I can’t help the bite in my tone. “It’s good manners.”

He brushes the comment away with a wave of his hand. “Yes, well, you have access to information. Unfortunately, no matter how sophisticated our firewalls, the hackers always seem to find a way in.”

“Alan—” I catch myself lest he thinks being on a first-name basis with the guards is too familiar. “Mr. Stander searched my bag this morning. You can search my person. I’m not carrying any USB flash drives or hacking devices.”

He looks at me from under his eyebrows. “Maybe not today.”

I gape at him, feeling like I’m going to be sick, only, my last meal had been before midnight, and my churning stomach is empty. “This is insane.”

“Not as much as you’d like to believe.” He hands me a pen. Discussion closed.

I clutch the gold-plated pen with his engraved initials between my fingers. “You can’t. You can’t do this.”

“I’m acting within protocol and within my rights. You’re welcome to consult with our company lawyer on the matter.”

Of course he’s already cleared his action with their lawyer.

“Take it,” he says, waving the contract at me. “Read it over. You’re welcome to let your own lawyer have a look before you sign.”

The papers scrunch in my hand as I unwillingly take the stapled stack.

“A security guard will escort you off the premises.” He gets to his feet and waits.

With no choice, I stand too. Numb and nauseated, I follow his cue as he comes around the desk and holds the door. I walk through it to find Alan already waiting on the other side.

He shoots me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, Cas. I didn’t know. They just told me.”

Acting like it doesn’t matter, I gather my bag under the gaping stares of my coworkers. Clients stretch their necks to follow my walk of shame.

Like a criminal, I’m escorted out of the building. Alan apologizes again before he shuts the door, leaving me standing on the pavement in the sunlight. My only consolation is the perverse satisfaction at knowing Ian’s jacket is in the bin with the bank’s food waste and shredded paper. For security reasons, they don’t recycle. Everything gets incinerated.

Without looking back at the building, I walk down the road and stop on the corner where it hits me like a fist in the stomach. I’m lost. I’m out of options. I’m so deep in the shit, this time, I’m drowning.

Tears prick at the back of my eyes, but I blink them away. They get stuck in my throat, throbbing with a dull ache. Crying isn’t going to help. I need a plan.

It takes me a few seconds to make up my mind. Instead of heading home, I turn north and walk the few blocks to the workshop.

Franck wipes his hands on a cloth when he sees me. A spanner peeks from the front pocket of his overalls. “You okay, Cas?”

My smile is faint. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He chews on a matchstick in the corner of his mouth, scrutinizing me through one, scrunched-up eye. “Saw the news.”

“It’s on the news?”

“Pretty much all the local stations.” He dumps the cloth on the hood of a car. “I hope they catch that son of a bitch.”

“Yeah.”

The word comes out half-heartedly, and it shocks me. It shocks me that I don’t want Ian behind bars for what he did. It shocks me that the first thing that comes up in my mind isn’t the wrong he’s done but the way his lips had felt on my body. Heat surges under my skin, traveling up my neck.

“My car.” I crane my neck to see it still parked in the same spot in the dusty lot out back. “I was wondering how much you’d give me for it.”

He scrunches both eyes into slits. “You mean you don’t want me to fix it any longer?”

I suck in my lips and let them go with a pop as I scrounge courage from nowhere to beg for money my car isn’t worth. “I can’t afford the parts.”