Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted #3) - Shayla Black Page 0,4
in the middle with the sparkling green eyes and the fuckable mouth shoved his heart against his ribs with a thud. Man, he’d love to meet her.
He set the photo down, and seeing Aspen’s still suspicious glare slanted his way, Zy chose to pluck another photo off the desk. In this one, the blonde wore a white sundress and reclined with a fluffy gray tabby, both with their eyes closed, almost nose to nose. She looked happy in this picture. Peaceful. Gorgeous.
“You should probably put that down. I don’t know if Tessa would appreciate anyone messing with her pictures. I’ve tried to avoid touching them for just that reason.”
Tessa was the blonde?
“Have you met her?” He gestured to the woman in the photo.
Aspen shook her head. “Only talked to her over the phone. But I wouldn’t want my stuff touched.”
Yet she felt free to mess with his computer? Screw this. Time to end the standoff, snatch the machine up, and fix it himself. But another framed picture on the far wall caught his attention. A dude with sandy hair and a matching goatee stood beside the gorgeous blonde, wearing a cocky smirk, his arm hooked around her shoulders.
This must be Tessa’s husband. And in Zy’s view, she could have done better. This guy looked a little smarmy. A little shifty, too. But whatever. Maybe Mr. Tessa was a great human being and a supportive husband. It just sucked that the first woman Zy had felt a jolt of attraction to in forever was taken.
“I’m not hurting anything.” He set the picture back down. “Just admiring the nice couple.”
Aspen turned to him and dropped her voice. “They’re not a couple anymore. Apparently, he ran out on her a few weeks before their daughter was born.”
What a scumbag. On the one hand, Zy was kind of happy to hear the news. That meant she wasn’t weighed down by a horrible excuse for a man anymore and she was free to date someone else. Like him, for instance. On the other hand, that meant she was a single mom with a newborn and maybe even a broken heart…so probably not ready to date anytime soon.
Just his luck. And the longer he stood at her desk, checking out her random pictures, the more that fact annoyed him.
“Thanks for the FYI, Aspen.” He snatched up the computer. “You know, I think I’ll take it from here.”
“Wait!” She lunged out of her chair. “I really want the chance to fix it.”
“I’ll handle it and give you some pointers later. Log-in credentials?” He held out his hand.
She slid the slip of paper into his palm, looking almost tearful. “Please give me the chance to fix this and learn from my mistakes.”
Maybe if he’d been feeling less agitated, he would have obliged her. “Next time.”
Zy hiked back to his desk and sat with the computer. When he opened the lid, he scowled. “What the hell was she doing?”
Instead of a log-in screen, Aspen had somehow gotten behind the interface and maneuvered herself into the back end, into the terminal itself. “What the fuck was she doing?”
“What?” Trees looked up absently.
Zy flipped the laptop in his direction.
His buddy laughed. “She did that with mine, too. She tries. I think she’s really lost.”
She had to be. Getting here usually took a know-how he doubted she possessed. “She won’t be touching my computer again.”
“Good call.”
Silence fell, and Zy knew he probably shouldn’t stir up trouble, but he didn’t feel like letting this go. “So, um…Aspen told me Tessa’s husband ran out on her?”
“Boyfriend. Yep. His name was Cash.” Trees snorted. “And yeah, he was as douchy as his name implies.”
“How did she take it?”
His friend shrugged. “Tessa is hard to read.”
Zy didn’t know what to say to that. He wanted to know more. Hell, he kind of wanted to know where she lived so he could find out if she was all right. But that was ridiculous. He’d never met the woman, and she likely wouldn’t want a stranger intruding. Besides, they were going to be co-workers. Why start something in the office that, contractually speaking, neither of them could pursue?
It would be better off if he didn’t go after her. Shouldn’t be too hard. This job would be dangerous, and a fair amount of his time would be spent away from Lafayette, gun in hand, kicking bad-guy ass. That’s where he needed to focus, not some hang-up he had for a blonde he’d never met.