Page 26 of Fall Into Me

“About what?” I leaned back, aiming for calm even as my patience thinned.

“About the development,” he said, lounging in his chair like he had all the time in the world. “People aren’t happy. Heard a rumor the mayor’s pushing for it because he’s up to his ears in gambling debt.”

My jaw tightened as the room shifted. Everyone was glancing at each other now, the kind of curiosity that wasn’t harmless. Rumors like this one made people panic.

“And who did you hear that from?” I asked, keeping my tone even.

Declan shrugged, a lazy hand fluttering in front of him. “Oh, you know…around.” A deliberate smirk tugged at his lips, slow and smug. “But I’m sure it’ll blow over. Wouldn’t want anything to rattle this perfect little project, now would we?”

“If you’ve got something to say, Declan,” I said, my voice dropping, “Say it now.”

His smirk spread like he’d won some private victory. “Nothing at all. Just thrilled to be a part of your first project as a big boy in the family company, boss. Would be something awful for there to be any ulterior motives on it. That’s all.”

I leaned forward, elbows on the table, my eyes locked on his. “Because it seems like this needs saying, I don’t care how things have been done before. Here, we’re doing things right.No cutting corners. We’re assessing the town, plain and simple. I don’t care if a report has been done recently, or what the company’s standard procedure is. I want things done by the book. I want every figure and fact checked twice. Am I clear?”

A halfhearted chorus of yeses mumbled their way across the room as chairs scraped and the crew finally shuffled out. Declan lingered. He winked, slow and deliberate, his face blank for just a second too long before his usual shit-eating grin slid into place.

Then he strode out, walking like his dick was too long for his pants.

“I hate that fucking guy,” I said, dropping my head back into my hand.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Ash pointed, gaping at me. “We haven’t even been in town for twenty-four hours!”

I leaned back in my chair and looked up at him, lifting an eyebrow. “I’m actually pretty curious about your methods.”

“I retraced your steps, and then I remembered the café you went into before you came out looking like a ghost.”

“That’s what you were thinking of this whole time while I was talking?”

“Yup,” he said, popping the p on the end for emphasis.

“Good to know you’re so committed to the job.”

Ash was a tall guy. I had an inch or so on him, but if he could have, I imagine that he would have been swinging his legs back and forth from his spot sitting on my desk like a fucking school kid.

“Plus, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I started to rifle through paperwork on my desk that I wasn’t sure even belonged to the project we were here to do.

“So, you don’t know anything about visiting a café yesterday called Sunshine?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” He tilted his head to the side. “Because I could haveswornwhen you were dating Carly—”

“You’re such a dick.” I glared at him. The thing was, he wasn’t wrong. I’d seen the name of that café, and my heart just about flew up and out of my mouth before I forced the useless organ back down.

Ash and Cali had always referred to each other by the wrong names. When I’d introduced them, the music had been so loud that neither of them had actually heard one another’s names. The next time they met, Cali had called him Antwon and he’d laughed so hard he had one hand holding onto his junk for dear life while he rolled on the ground and tried not to piss himself.

“So?” He wasn’t going to let it go.

I let out a long exhale. “I saw her.”

“Okay.” He nodded, “And?”

“I had dinner with her and her parents.”

I waited for him to say something back, but after about a minute, I chanced a look and found his eyes the size of saucers.

“Are you clinicallyinsane?”

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