Page 83 of Possession

Jack swung open the door. “What the hell, Carson?”

Blake looked up from a huge steel table with four thirty-inch screens making up a massive curving workstation. Three more wide screens were bolted on the wall behind him and some sort of search was being done on two of them with another running code.

I didn’t even know Blake knew code.

He slapped a few keys, and all the screens went dark.

Jack’s eyes went arctic as he pushed the food into my arms. “Are you fucking kidding me with this? I put my neck out for you and now you’re locking me out?”

Blake came around the desk. His jacket was gone, and he was just in his vest with rolled-up sleeves and his glasses perched on his nose. The tie I’d fashioned was hanging on the edge of one of the screens, my knot still in place.

Now was definitely not the right time to be getting the swoons about that, and yet…there they were.

“These aren’t my secrets to share.” Blake’s voice was cool and dismissive.

Yeah, that wasn’t good. I put down our bag of Thai takeout and lunged after Jack.

The two men faced off, both of them similar in height and stature. And for once, Jack was the one in full business armor. His affable nature was gone, and I was pretty sure that I never wanted to be on Jack’s bad side.

Like ever.

Holy crap.

“Okay, separate corners, you two.” I waded in between them, resisting the urge to shut my eyes. Could laser beams actually come out of eyeballs? They were doing a good job of practicing, that was for damn sure.

Jack was immovable, so I went with Blake. His anger was far cooler, more of a slow burn. Jack was more like that fire guy fromInside Out. Good thing he had a thick head of hair or flames were going to shoot out of the top.

I pressed both hands on his chest. “Blake.”

He broke the dead man’s stare and swiped his hand over my hip before drawing me next to him. “It’s sensitive information.”

I looked between him and Jack and frowned. I trusted Jack, but there was definitely an air of caution blowing off Blake.

And I really didn’t know why. Sure, there had been that cufflink thing Blake had told me about, though Jack had just been trying to look out for me by following me to the beach house. Besides, I thought they’d talked about that and put it to rest.

Apparently not.

I’d once believed Jack was the only man Blake trusted on this planet, but now it didn’t even seem like he trusted him.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Jack is on my short list.”

Blake glanced down at me with a small nod. He moved to the bank of monitors and flipped them back to life.

Jack was still stiff as he rounded the edge of the desk and stood before the ones on the wall. “What the hell kind of algorithms are you running?”

“First screen is to the Massachusetts registry of businesses.”

Jack shot a look over his shoulder. “Do I want to know how you got into that kind of proprietary information?”

Blake lifted a shoulder. “Public record for that one.”

He snorted. “Right.” Jack motioned for the second screen. “And that one?”

“New York.”

I scooped up one of Blake’s fountain pens. Ignoring his frown, I fiddled with the cap as I glanced at the information on the desk screens. Columns of numbers and websites were stacked in some pattern that only made sense to Blake.

Blake came over to me and closed his big hands around mine. He took his pen. I lifted an eyebrow and laughed when he handed me a disposable Bic.

---