Page 38 of Sinful Attraction

We’ve only been together a few days. Why do I feel like this? Because it’s unnecessary and was my fault?That’s probably part of it. But as time goes on and I switch from beer to iced coffee, eat leftovers I barely taste, and compare record after record, that small discomfort stays, digging in painfully the moment my mind is not occupied.

“This is ridiculous,” I mutter as I force myself to keep working.

But my focus shifts within minutes. Suddenly, I’m remembering Leanne and the whole two-year struggle to impress her and make her happy. She wore me out and tried to make me feel unworthy, and the whole time, I just wanted to love her. And yet, somehow, her walking away after two years had hurt less than Arya walking out—maybe temporarily—after three days.

I don’t get it.

However, not understanding it doesn’t make it go away. It gnaws at me as I keep checking the records and security videos. I’ve been over them multiple times now—some of them I’ve seen enough that I can predict every second of them.

Here’s Maria with her creepy probably-drug connection. He’s never away from her, always following her like a puppy.

Here’s Billy, thinking he’s being slick about driving home drunk, parking an inch from my mom’s begonias, and going in to be yelled at by Dad.

Here’s Uncle Ezio being embarrassing and creepy toward a pretty new maid.

Here’s my dad’s midnight snack habit. And my mom’s midnight snack habit, roughly an hour later. I wonder if they’ve ever run into each other while looking for sweets.

Here is my family in private: imperfect, messy, and sometimes embarrassing. But can one of them really have turned against me by stealing that money? And why?

If I hadn’t had doubts, I wouldn’t have gotten defensive with Arya.

My phone buzzes, and I snatch it off my desk, hoping it’s Arya. No such luck: It’s my father.

“Progress report on recovering those funds?” he asks curtly.

“I’m doing backgrounds on some friends of the family and workmen who were around during the right time frame.” My voice is all business, and the emotions are shoved neatly away so that he can’t see anything he might consider a weakness.

“I see.” He takes a deep breath. “I just got some information back on our staff’s background searches. We’re sacking one maidwho has a reputation for repeated theft. She paid good money to have her records scrubbed of anything negative, but we got her by talking to a few past employers. Expensive repeated theft, so that’s a bullet dodged.”

“Well, that part’s good.” I want to demand why he hadn’t already made deep background searches and past employee interviews a part of the hiring process. But I know that won’t cause anything but an argument. Still... I feel my respect for him waver a little. “Nothing about computer access or spying on me in particular?”

“No. At this point, it doesn’t look like any of them were involved.”

My heart sinks as silence stretches between us.

“You think it’s one of us, don’t you?” he asks quietly but with a stony anger in his voice.

“I don’t know that yet. That’s why I’m looking into other guests. But... it’s a growing possibility.” It hurts to even say that.

“Don’t say anything to your mother about that,” he advises in a tone that tells me it’s actually an order. “Not until we know for sure. You know it will break her.”

“I know.” It hurts thinking about my mom breaking down because one of us turned out to be rotten. “Not a word until I have real proof.”

“If you do get a name... you tell me immediately. Not her, not your siblings, me. Understood?”

I take a deep breath, thinking about the bomb that may drop on my family soon, and I say, “I’ll go straight to you, no problem.”

My stomach is churning again after he hangs up. I want to call Arya and tell her I’m sorry. That we just got more evidence that her worst-case scenario may be right. That my family is being betrayed from within.

It’s too soon. She wants space. I have to respect that, even if it’s inconvenient and hurts. I’ll pull together what I’ve learned and send the whole thing to her tomorrow instead of jumping the gun because I want her back.

I wake up reaching for Arya across my mattress, my hand grasping nothing. Hints of her scent still linger in the room.

It’s fucking killing me. I can’t believe I drove her away like that. Most of the time, I just focus on how I’m going to fix the problem. But... most of the time, I know better than to go off like that.

This mess with the heist and my family has me off-balance. So does she. Her absence more than her presence. I know it’s too soon for that. It brings up words likeweirdandclingyand ignores all the problems she and I have to get through.

I’m still feeling it. I just refuse to let it make me do anything crazy.

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