Page 62 of Fireworks & Forehead Kisses

So, if she knew who I was, then it begged the question, what was her angle?

All these months that we’d been exchanging emails, she’d never let on that she was who she was. Not only had she not given me any clue to her identity, but she hadn’t even remotely disguised her dislike of me. Her messages thinly veiled herirritation with my management style and borderline disdain for me as a person.

So what was her game? Was she a corporate spy? Was this some sort of industrial espionage? Was she here to gather proprietary information for one of our competitors?

She’d shown up out of the blue a month after Grandad passed away. So, the timing definitely fit. She’d managed to worm her way into a position she was completely unqualified for, so again, that fit. But if she were a plant, wouldn’t she position herself in the Atlanta offices and not work remotely from Firefly Island? What information could she have possibly been exposed to here at Gran’s house?

How could she do this? After the night we’d shared? How could she keep this up for six months?

My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest. I was nauseous. My palms were sweating. I was dizzy.

I needed to think logically and not emotionally.

What were the facts?

Every new hire was put through a rigorous background check. My grandfather had always been on the paranoid side when it came to the business, so the running joke was that it was easier to get a Top Secret security clearance than it was to pass the background checks at Wolfe Enterprises. Surely, she would have been flagged if there was anything questionable in her past.

I quickly pulled up Ashley Thompson’s personnel file on my laptop and went to the background check. I scanned it, looking for any red flags. She was twenty-four years old. She’d majored in art with a minor in psychology. She grew up in Seattle. Her parents died in a car accident when she was nine years old. Her older sister Skylar, who was eighteen at the time, petitioned to be her legal guardian and was granted custody of her. She graduated high school with a higher-than-average GPA of 3.8. She went to college in San Francisco.

A flashback of ‘Carrie’ at the bar popped into my head.

“Fatima and I were neighbors when we were in school in San Francisco.”

She’d been honest about that part of her life.

It said that she transferred to The Savannah College of Art and Design, where she graduated a few months ago. She also did online courses through Georgia Tech, which was how she got her psychology degree. It showed that she’d worked dozens of odd jobs to put herself through college, including several bartending, retail, and serving jobs.

I remembered what she said when I asked her about going back to the bar when she said she forgot her phone, but it turned out that she was leaving Lucas a tip.

“I’ve worked a lot of jobs in the service industry.”

She hadn’t lied about that either. So why had she lied about her name?

The only red flag in her file that I could see was the amount of debt she was in between her student loans and credit card debt. Maybe that’s the leverage someone had used to convince her to be a plant.

That explanation just didn’t sit right with me. If she was a spy, then she was a really bad one. Her correspondences with me were borderline insubordinate and combative—not to mention the NSFW text she’d sent. I could have easily had grounds to terminate her.

So, what was I missing?

Did she know who I was that night at the bar?

Did she know who I was this whole time?

The more I thought about her reaction when she turned around and saw me, the more my gut was telling me no. I’d been so caught up in my own shock I hadn’t registered her reaction. But now, in reflection, she looked just as, if not more, stunned than I was. All of the color drained from her already fair skin.She looked like she’d seen a ghost. That wasn’t the reaction of someone who had been playing a game.

There was a quiet knock at the door. I glanced at the time and saw that I’d been in my office for over two hours. The launch had happened, and I’d missed it. I wondered if she’d gone, and my grandmother was coming to see what the hell my problem was. I’d been trying to get myself under control before facing the situation and had been unable to do so.

I stood.

“Come in.”

The door opened, Ashley walked inside, then shut it behind her. Just like the first time I saw her and when I’d seen her in the sunroom, I was struck by her beauty. Her huge blue eyes, long silky copper hair, full cherry lips, and hourglass frame knocked the wind out of me. I was actually finding it difficult to breathe. I’d never been so attracted to another person.

We stared at each other for several moments, the air between us crackling with tension, before she licked her lips, took a deep breath, and quietly said, “I never thought I’d see you again.”

Fuck, that voice. That sweet, melodic voice. I blinked as the sound washed over me like wind chimes on a blustery day. Her statement brought me right back to the night I met her. She never said what I would expect her to say.

How could this be the same woman who had driven me crazy over emails the past six months? Who had been passive-aggressive and sarcastic? Who basically called me a micromanaging asshole every chance she got?

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