Page 44 of Taste of Addiction

“How was your Florida trip?” I ask. I just saw him yesterday morning, but so much has happened over the past forty-eight hours that it seems like it has been a week since we shared the same space.

“Next time I go, you're coming with me.”

“Did you go to your family’s home?”

He frowns. “No, sweetheart, I wouldn’t take Sophia there. She hasn’t even gone with me to Hillsboro. You are the woman in my life who I want to share with my family. Please know that this recent trip was just a facade. Nothing more.”

“Why didn’t you stay longer? I mean, I’m glad you didn’t but…”

Graham sighs. “I just needed to take some pictures with Sophia and make it appear we were there longer than we were. I don’t like being states away from you. I can’t think and don’t function as well as when we are closer in proximity.”

“Okay,” I whisper. I hate that I need this level of verbal reassurance, but I do. Sophia brings out the worst in me, and knowing that she wants Graham back makes my hairs stand on end.

Graham looks down at his phone and stops rubbing my feet. “Zander was here?” he asks, venom dripping from his tone.

He must have just gotten word from his men who are watching my place and reporting back. “Yes, but only to tell me he couldn’t fix my issues.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Just that?”

“And to see if I’m interested in dating him now that I am newly single.”

Graham growls and sits up taller. “He doesn’t waste time.”

“I told him I wanted to be single.”

“Good.”

“And there may be a glimmer of hope that we can go back to being friends, which I would love because I hate all of this tension between us. He apologized. We both did.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because I got scared and panicked. Plus, you were on the other side of the country!”

The sound of a throat clearing causes Graham and me to look over to the kitchen area, where Nic is standing with a book bag draped over his shoulder. I look back and forth between the two men and am still kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. They have very distinct features. Between the chiseled jaws and clear blue eyes, I should have suspected their family ties months ago. Graham gets up and makes room for Nic to sit down to look over my device. I sit up and watch as he goes to work.

“Good to see you again, Angie. Wish it was under better circumstances.”

I offer a weak smile. “Same.”

I watch as Nic plugs several cables into my laptop and sets up another device beside it. He seems to have more experience than Zander and that is saying a lot since Z is very skilled, despite not being able to deliver earlier.

“You sure you didn’t save your work elsewhere? Email it to yourself? Save it on a different device?”

“I mean, I did. But everything was fragmented. I spent the past two days consolidating everything and deleting the scraps. Everything recently has been saved to this laptop or my flash drive.”

“The flash drive has been tampered with,” Nic explains, pulling it out of the side port.

“Tampered with?”

“Yeah. Did you accidentally dump it in water or step on it?”

“No. It was working this morning. Now it’s not,” I say in a rush.

“I can’t be certain yet, but it also appears that someone has installed a keylogger on your laptop. Having both your portable flash drive and your hard drive acting up seems to hint at it being a purposeful attack.”

“What’s a keylogger?” I ask stupidly. Am I supposed to know this lingo?

Nic keeps typing away on his own device but glances to Graham.

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