Something clenched in his chest, and his head came up with enough speed that AJ’s expression turned to one of vindication. He didn’t care anymore. “She quit because of me?”
“Uh, yeah, dude. She went off. Said her loyalties were with you, chucked her keys on the boss’s desk, and stormed out. It was pretty magnificent, if I’m being honest.”
He glanced toward the kitchen, where he could hear the faint whir of the espresso machine. Magnificent. An apt description of Vivienne Amelie Grant if ever he’d heard one.
“AJ?”
“Yeah.”
“Get out.”
She grinned at him. “You know, it’s kind of sad I wasted so much time hating you. You’re all right, Brennan. I’ll be in touch when I have news. But you owe me a crack at this ankle bracelet.” She set the monitor back on top of the Roomba and headed for the front door.
The second it closed behind her, Wes stalked straight into the kitchen.
“Is your little techie playdate over already?” Vivienne turned away from her fancy espresso machine and held a steaming cup in his direction.
“You quit to take my case?”
She didn’t have to answer. He could read the truth of it in the rigidness in her spine and the way the latte sloshed dangerously close to the lip of the mug. Wes took it from her and set it on the counter.
“Why the hell would you do that? You loved that goddamn job!”
She looked startled for a moment, like she didn’t think he’d noticed. Granted, their paths didn’t cross at work all that often—until the hack, they’d probably only been in the same boardroom three or four times, since Whitfield had an army of lawyers, and Wes tended to bow out of the site visits anytime he could get away with sending Jesse by himself. Wes had always preferred being behind the scenes, focused on the tech. He left the parties and the wooing to his more personable partner.
But he’d seen Vivienne enough, paid attention enough, to know that she was killing it as Whitfield’s chief legal counsel. That she excelled at what she did. That she was confident and kick-ass in equal measure. That Whitfield had been lucky to have her on his side.
Which was why it haunted him, the way she was looking at him right now.
Unsure. Uncomfortable.
“Max is the one who sent the FBI after you. He was hardly going to keep me on while I was trying to get the charges dropped,” she said simply. But her matter-of-factness was not reassuring in the least. Something dark lit in Wes’s belly.
“Is that why you left? Because that son of a bitch was going to fire you? Was he trying to push you out?”
“No. Wes, just...drop it okay?”
“Not until you tell me why the hell you’d give up your career for me after everything that’s gone down between us.”
“I know you’re innocent!”
Her voice echoed in his ears. The vehemence. The way she believed in him. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. Wished he could take it at face value and use it to block out the shitstorm that was swirling around them.
But this situation was way too complicated for such a simple happy ending.
And the fact that she wasn’t looking at him right now, wasn’t standing her ground, told him everything he needed to know.
“How? How do you know that?”
She wrapped her arms around herself in a way that struck Wes as self-protection, like an animal trying to shield its soft underbelly. Still, he pressed on.
“How can you be so sure that I didn’t do exactly what they say?”
“Because!”
“Not good enough, Viv.”
When she raised her brown eyes to his, what he saw there almost sent him to his knees.
“I’m the one who hacked Max’s company, okay? I know you didn’t do it, because it was me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CONFESSION WOULDN’T compute in his brain.
“I installed the malware on Emma Mathison’s computer. She’d put in her notice. She was supposed to be gone. No one was supposed to notice anything before you—”
“Before I what?” he demanded.
“Before you stopped it. I knew you’d stop it.” There was a faraway look in her eyes, like she was somewhere else in that moment. “I never meant for this to happen.”
And just like that, everything slid into place. Wes shook his head at his own stupidity. “I should have known.” He scraped a hand down his face.
“I should have known that first day, when Max called us all into his office to tell us Whitfield Industries had been hacked. You gave yourself away.”
She looked so vulnerable then. So small in his old shirt, her long legs bare. He watched as her toes curled against the dark floor tiles, before she crossed her right foot over her left, her heel bouncing in time with her nerves.
“First, you jumped to Emma’s defense, even though she was the obvious suspect. Then you uncrossed and recrossed your legs. Which is your tell when you’re uncomfortable.” He stepped closer, and despite the two feet of distance between them, she pushed back against the counter.
She’d already uncrossed her legs, out of habit, and he saw the second she caught herself, the way her muscles tightened against the instinctual need to cross them again.
Wes cocked an eyebrow and took another step in her direction.
Vivienne’s breath picked up, as he placed his hands on the counter on either side of her and leaned close, so close that he could smell that alluring French perfume of hers, the embodiment of wine and tangled sheets and desire. Distinctly, deliciously Vivienne. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “That doesn’t prove anything.” The protest was barely more than a whisper.
“And then you tucked your hair behind your left ear,” he told her, reaching up and doing it for her. The feel of her beneath his fingers, even a touch as innocuous as this, sent heat through
