Page 8 of Flare
Her PC pinged, and an appointment reminder popped up on her screen.
∞∞∞
In a daze and moving like a zombie, Emily went to her bakery appointment at The Velvet Tier. She felt like a zombie as the smiling young assistant baker greeted her.What the hell am I doing here?I can’t marry Andrew. Not after this.
“The wedding’s off. I’m so sorry,” she blurted.
The bakery assistant’s eyes widened in shock, followed immediately by a sympathetic grimace.“I’m so sorry. You understand the deposit is non-refundable, right?”
“Right.”
Emily remembered nothing about the drive home.
After she finished backing up the files on the USB stick to her cloud drive, she tried to figure out what to do next.
Should I ask Andrew to explain? Maybe it’s all some kind of misunderstanding.
The lump in her gut told her it wasn’t a misunderstanding.
Should I pack up and leave?
She hated this house, but with Mom dead, it was the only home she had now.
Emily was about to pull her suitcase out of the closet when she heard the garage door thrum as it opened.
Shit!Purse still clutched in her hands, she flew down the stairs. She dropped her purse next to the sofa, grabbed a bridal magazine, and plopped herself down just as the door leading from the garage to the foyer opened.
Andrew’s manner was all business as he entered the house and tossed his keys into the antique hammered silver bowl his parents had given them as an engagement gift.
Emily studied her fiancé with fresh eyes. His golden hair was perfect as always, his jawline as sharp as a movie star, and he was breathtakingly handsome and well-built. He’d taken off his tie since leaving the office, and wore his white dress shirt open at the collar under his expensive midnight blue suit.
He looked like the perfect man. An honest-to-God Prince Charming.
Too bad he was a lying criminal.
He stopped in the archway leading to the living room and frowned at her.“You’re home early.”
Act like nothing’s wrong, Emily told herself.“I had that appointment at The Velvet Tier, remember? Because Grandma Katherine said she hates raspberries—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the stupid wedding cake,” he interrupted, shocking her.
His blue eyes suddenly looked… odd, with a golden shine. Was he wearing contacts?“Why did you download a bunch of confidential files from my computer this afternoon?”
Icy needles of panic pierced her.He knows!I should have left here before he got home!
Trying for calm innocence,she put down the magazine she’d been pretending to read.“You mean the files for that super-important presentation you left me to finish all by myself?”
She didn’t even have to fake the bitterness in her voice.
“Don’t lie to me, Emily. You’re really shitty at it.” His expression was stony.“I got an alert from my security program. You opened a bunch of my confidential files and copied them onto an unauthorized USB drive.”
Shit.Emily froze.How could I have been so stupid?
SheknewAndrew was obsessed with security. Ofcourse,he would have a program that logged every keystroke, every inserted USB.
She tried to school her features, but her cheeks burned with a guilty flush.“It—it was an honest mistake! I thought they were part of the investor materials. There were a lot of spreadsheets, and the filenames—”
“A mistake, huh? So why did you download them to that USB drive?” Andrew’s voice was so harsh it sounded like a growl. Menace radiated from him now.
