Page 39 of Even if You Fall

“Anyway, I was coming home from having dinner with my parents,” I continued with my embarrassing ramble before Adam could speak, “and my mom always sends me with a tonof food that I never eat. So, I gave it to Hudson, but I would’ve given it to whoever was there, and I didn’t eatwithhim.”

Oh my gosh, Chloe, stop talking.

I wasn’t sure why it even mattered to me that Adam knew I hadn’t had some sort of date with Hudson the night before, or ever. And yet, words kept tumbling from my mouth. “I didn’t even really talk to him. I just handed him the food, told him to have fun on his lookout, and went inside. Alone.”

Oof, that was painful.

The first time Adam had spoken to me in nearly a week, and I’d just rambled like a complete dork.

“How long have you known we’ve had someone outside your house?” he asked, surprising me that he was still standing there, talking to me, and not walking away with an eye roll or a scoff.

One of my shoulders lifted as I wondered if I should be embarrassed for not realizing it sooner. “Saturday night. I saw Cameron when I was closing the blinds.”

He didn’t acknowledge my response in any way, just studied me a while longer before his stare fell to where my hands rested on top of my book. With a mumbled, “Bubbles,” he left for the main part of the office just as Mallory Monroe came strutting through the front door like she was walking down a runway.

A bright, albeit slightly surprised, “Hi,” burst from me, considering she’d only come in one day last week too.

Maybe she only worked Fridays.

But, where she’d looked at me like I was an alien last week, unsure of what to do with the new person in Ada’s chair, she just slowed her catwalk to look at me contemplatively then. Her stunning features taking on an understanding and sadness before she strode past me with a distracted, “Morning.”

The rest of the guys trickled in over the next ten minutes. Asher and Cameron gave their different versions of greetings, and Beau remained silent, as always. And once everyone wasin, I went back to reading my current high fantasy novel until a courier came to deliver a slender cardboard mailer for Asher.

“Thank you,” I told the man as he pushed the door open with his back, winking at me as he did.

I repressed a shiver at the sight.

It wasn’t like Hudson’s winks, that were all playful flirtation and meant nothing. It also wasn’t like Owen’s—a subtle action that had clearly been practiced over a lifetime to make women swoon on sight. It was creepy.

Glancing at the envelope as I stood, I noted the redUrgentstamped across it and hurried out from around my desk and toward the main office, my clicking footsteps slowing when I realized no one was in there.

I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should wait or interrupt the meeting they had every morning, then decided I’d rather be reprimanded for interrupting than not delivering something that was time sensitive.

Heading in the direction of the conference room I’d only gotten a glimpse of last week, I worried my bottom lip as I wondered exactly how mad Asher Briggs was going to be when I entered. Then again, I’d never been told Icouldn’tbe at the meetings. I’d just assumed they weren’t for me, so I hadn’t even tried.

Maybe this would be how I found out if they were an everyone-minus-Chloe type of thing, or not.

With a steadying breath, I reached for the door just as a deep, grouchy voice from the other side sounded. “Chloe can’t know.”

I paused with my hand hovering over the metal handle, my eyes wide as I wondered if this was some kind of joke. It had to be...surely. There was no way they were actually talking about me in their meeting, especially right at the moment I walked up to the door. This sort of thing only happened in books!

“Agreed,” a feminine voice said—Mallory.

Someone scoffed and mumbled, “You would say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped back.

“We all agree she can’t know,” another voice yelled when the other male started arguing with Mallory again. But this voice had my hand jerking away from the door as I imagined his conflicted stare and the distracting number of tattoos swirling down his tan arms.

“We’ve already seen enough evidence of what Vance has done and can do to Chloe,” Adam continued, sending me back a step and knocking the remaining oxygen from my strained lungs. “She finds outthis? She’s gonna fall right back into his lies and into something so much more dangerous.”

I stumbled back another couple of steps at the cryptic words before finally managing to turn around and hurry back the way I’d come.

I slammed into my desk chair just as a choked sound crawled up my throat, but I pressed a hand to my mouth, dropped my forehead into my other hand, and forced myself to take deep breaths as I fought to push away the words I’d just heard.

But they were there.

Loud. Clear. Confusing.

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