Taboo Boss - Natasha L. Black Page 0,39

gave me a stern point. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t,” I said.

Tom snatched up his phone and walked out of the room. He came back after only a few seconds. His expression was hardened, and he started getting dressed.

“I have to go,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

He stopped dressing and leaned over to kiss me. “That was Tyler. They think they’re on to something. I need to go find out what’s going on. Do you want to come with me?”

I thought about it for a few seconds but then shook my head. “No. You go on and handle that. I’ll stay behind and focus on the issue with the company.”

“Divide and conquer,” he said, then finished getting dressed.

I nodded, and he kissed me again. “I’ll see you later.”

I watched him leave, wondering how he felt about what had just happened between us. It wasn’t like it hadn’t been bubbling up ever since we got into town. Since well before that, if I was really going to be honest with myself. But thinking about something and actually letting it happen were two very different things.

Now that we had given in to our desire for each other, how would it change things between us?

I finally forced myself out of bed and took a shower before getting dressed and settling into work. After scanning over my to-do lists briefly, I called Landon. The next few hours involved several more phone calls with Landon, each one just as uncomfortable as the one before.

It was hard to talk to him now. There was no reason to think he would, but I felt like he might find out what happened just by the sound of my voice. When he asked to video chat, it was even worse. He had to be able to see it written on my face.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Tom is just really stressed, but I’m handling it. Everything is good.”

We got off the phone, and I only gave myself a few seconds of cringe time before burying myself in the rest of the tasks for the day.

17

Tom

The papers spread across the dining room table looked more like schematics than notes from a private investigator and amateur research at the local library. For that matter, the men surrounding the table looking down at those papers and a map of the street where our bar sat, looked more like a recreation of an old Sinatra-style heist film from the sixties. I watched as Mason and Tyler grumbled over the possibility that a frankly old man could start the fire himself, while Jordan and Matt insisted it was arson for hire.

“I’m telling you,” Jordan said, one finger pressing down into the table and trying to keep his voice low despite the anger rumbling in it, “he hired someone to do it. I would put money on it. There is no way that old fart could start a fire at our place, get over the fence and out to the street, and not be seen and heard grunting by everyone within a half-mile radius. He hired a pro.”

“Considering what we know about his past, it would make sense,” Matt said, chiming in. “We know he’s at least in contact with underworld types and has a gambling problem. What are the chances that he doesn’t know someone who could light a place up for him? Especially if it meant he got more business and could pay off his debts faster.”

“I just don’t see it,” Mason said. “The most logical conclusion is the simplest one, most of the time. And the most logical conclusion is he set the fire himself. He probably got drunk one night and figured it was high time we went away and snuck in.”

“But the investigators are still saying the fire could have started inside. Do you think he would be able to break in without someone noticing?” Matt asked.

“Yes,” Mason said. “It would be hard, but it’s doable. We didn’t exactly have a state-of-the-art security system set up over there. And we don’t know that the fire started inside, just that it might have. Let’s not put all our eggs in that basket.”

“To that point,” I said, standing, “we don’t know for sure that it was Danny at all.”

A chorus of objections began, and I put my hands out in a conciliatory way to stop them.

“I know, I know,” I said. “It certainly looks like it is him. And all the evidence seems to point to it. And