Page 57 of The Money Man
Tully was in the office on this particular Saturday because he was monitoring Alice’s security team.
“John Peters is in Cofferwood.”
Derek vaulted out of his chair with a string of curses. “Are you sure?”
“About as positive as I can be without knowing the man myself.” Tully held out his phone. “Check out the rendering your Alice came up with on our facial-recognition software. Then swipe right to see the man one of my team photographed casing Alice’s house.”
“Shit!” Derek said as he compared the two images. He couldn’t argue with the identification. “What do you mean ‘casing Alice’s house’?”
“Just like a burglar. Strolling by and examining it from several angles.”
“Is Alice there?”
“Right now she’s at a bar with two friends, but my team says they’re wrapping things up.”
“They have to stop her from going home.” Derek was out of his chair and headed for the door. “I’m going to pick her up and bring her to my place.”
Tully followed him, striding down the corridor beside him. “I’d tell you to let my team bring her there but I don’t think you’ll listen.”
“Because Alice won’t listen. She can be stubborn.” Derek kept seeing Alice being grabbed by the thick-necked thug in Tully’s photo, his arm around her neck as he yanked back on her long, beautiful hair. Fear slammed into his chest.
“And you think you can persuade her?”
“If I can’t, I’ll put her in the car bodily,” Derek said through gritted teeth.
“Good plan.” As they reached the reception area, Tully put his hand on Derek’s arm to stop him. “Don’t take this on yourself, partner. Your Alice poked at the hornet’s nest when she posted her question on the help forum. And as you’ve pointed out, she’s stubborn, so she wouldn’t have left it alone. It’s a good thing she has KRG on her side because we can protect her.”
“I sure as hell hope you’re right.” Derek briefly gripped Tully’s shoulder. “Just tell your people to keep her safe until I get there.”
On the elevator ride down to the garage, Derek second-guessed himself about taking Alice to Texas. Maybe if he’d kept her out of it, the BalanceTrakR thug wouldn’t have paid any attention to her. Tully insisted that wasn’t the case but Derek wondered.
When he settled into the sedan waiting for him, he faced the problem he’d been avoiding with work. His feelings about Alice. Other than his gut-clenching worry about her safety, of course.
Leaving her that morning had been so hard that he’d nearly changed his mind. He’d planned to let her sleep while he dressed quietly and left for the office. But when his alarm sounded, she’d been curled up next to him with the sweet curve of her bottom nestled against his cock. He’d gotten hard instantly, so he woke her up and took his time making love to her, hoping that maybe he would be sated enough to keep his attention on the work he desperately needed to finish. When he’d told her he wasn’t returning that night, it had been a test of his own self-discipline. There had been disappointment in her eyes but she had supported his decision because she understood his commitment to his clients.
But he’d felt like crap anyway.
The truth was that he’d been blindsided by what happened between them. He’d known how attractive he found her, how much he admired the way her mind worked. What he hadn’t expected was finding the other side of her, the Alice that had a hard time believing Barsky was knowingly stealing from his clients. The Alice who took the initiative to interview the hotel manager in pursuit of the truth. The understanding listener who persuaded him to spill his guts about how disappointed his father was in him no matter what pinnacle of success he reached in the consulting world.
And the sensual, passionate lover who made every molecule in his body vibrate with arousal and then release.
He had the sense that she’d shown him aspects of herself that she usually kept under wraps to maintain her persona of careful, responsible bookkeeper and to avoid the ups and downs of her childhood.
What was it about him that made her throw caution to the wind?
He led a life as careful as hers. He focused on work, making sure that he sweated every detail. Even his social life was mostly work related. He could admit now that his relationship with Courtney had been a deliberate decision rather than an emotional imperative. She had fit his image of what his spouse should be as much as he had fit hers. Except they had both been wrong.
His feelings about Alice were nothing like that. He kept fighting them every inch of the way.
Yet Alice was careful too. He’d found himself in the odd position of winning her over by demonstrating that they were kindred spirits, craving the rational, orderly predictability of debits and credits. She understood that part of him in a way few people did.
And he understood her.
But he hadn’t looked beyond the resolution of the BalanceTrakR problem and his departure for Asia. He had done exactly what he always did—made his job the priority when it came to his life, just as Courtney had accused him of. Except this time it wasn’t happening. He couldn’t use his work to keep Alice in the background.
Yes, he wanted to make sure she was safe, but that wasn’t the real reason he was bringing her back to his highly secure penthouse. He wanted to see her again, to inhale her scent again ... to make crazy, mind-blowing love to her again.
He restrained himself from asking the driver to go faster. Tully had assured him that the man was not only well trained in evasive driving tactics but also carried a gun and knew how to use it. The driver was aware of the situation and was doing his best in the ever-present traffic in the New York metro area.
