Illusion (Billionaire in Disguise 2)

She was practically living in that thing now since I was pulling so many late nights at the office.

“I reached out to some of my contacts,” she said. “To see if I could track down Jacob.”

“You have contacts who might know where Jacob is?” I asked.

“When I tell you I live in the darkness, I’m not kidding. Some unsavory characters owe me favors for things I did for them. I’m cashing parts of them in.”

“Parts of them? You can cash in partial favors?”

“Yes. Right now, I’m simply gathering information. I’ll cash the rest in if I need their help catching this son of a bitch.”

“I thought you said Jacob would never survive in the criminal underworld.”

“I get you think this is a game, but it isn’t to me,” I said.

“Every time I see you in that sling, I understand it’s not a game. Just didn’t take you for the type to fraternize with criminal under lords.”

An involuntary grin spread across my cheeks as I darted my eyes over toward Sam. She was tense. Her eyes were hot on me as I leaned back in my chair. I knew I was teasing her, but I was trying to lighten the mood. I had no idea the types of people she was in contact with or the kinds of people she was introducing into this scenario. Who was to say they wouldn’t use that information to come after me somehow?”

“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “I’m being careful as to what I say. All I’ve told them is that I’m on the lookout for Jacob Carl. They all know who he is, thanks to the media.”

“They don’t know why?” I asked.

“Nope. Only told them I wanted him before the police got to him. They can draw their own conclusions.”

“Mr. Steele,” Emma said with a knock. “I’ve got your reports.”

“Come on in, Miss Emma.”

“Hey there, Sam. How are you? How’s your arm?”

“The pain medication helps with the worst of it,” Sam said.

“Everything’s good to go on that real estate company you bought out. They signed off on the time frame, so now it’s only a matter of you getting in touch with the construction company. I’ve also got yearly progress reports for the merger project two

years ago as well as budgets confirmed and signed off by Finance.”

Emma handed me a stack of folders, her eyes dancing between mine as I reached out for them. Ever since she’d found out Sam was my bodyguard, things had been less tense with her. She was friendlier toward Sam, and her hostility toward me had dissipated. It was ironic, given the fact that Sam and I had slept together on many occasions. But Emma didn’t seem to let on that she knew about any of that.

So things were peaceful. For now.

“You have a phone call with one of your investors at three,” Emma said. “Then there’s a conference call tonight at nine with some of our international investors. You know, a catch-up sort of meeting. And that’s it.”

“Thank you, Emma. That’ll be all,” I said.

She left the room, throwing Sam one more carefree smile before she shut my office door behind her. I stared down at the documents, sighing as I leaned further into my chair. This was the type of shit Jacob had been paid to take care of. And now it was falling into my lap, and people were looking to me to see who I would consider as my new COO.

I wasn’t even ready to tackle that monster yet.

“You ever sit back sometimes and wonder what the hell you’re supposed to be doing?” I asked.

“Nope,” Sam said.

“Could you lie to me and tell me you do?” I asked.

“Lying to you doesn’t do any good. But if you wanna talk, I’m here.”

“All of this ... this stuff,” I said as I slammed down the folders, “it was Jacob’s job. All this stuff routed through him, and I trusted that. But now, with all this, I’m paranoid. I’m going back through everything to see if something got screwed up, notated wrong or if money was embezzled or something. People are looking to me to cast someone else as my COO, and I don’t even trust Emma as far as I can toss her right now.”