It was refreshing. He’d gone out with more than enough women who ordered salads and then pushed the lettuce around the plate while he ate steak. There was nothing wrong with eating a salad, even eating it as your main course—but for god’s sake, eat it.
There was a difference between being on a sensible diet and starving yourself into someone else’s idea of beauty. Angie wasn’t too thin, but she wasn’t overly plump either. She ate what she liked and she did yoga to stay trim. He knew because Maddy talked about going to classes together.
“What happens now?” Angie asked.
“We wait for my team to arrive. Then we’ll go over what we know and have a look at your spreadsheet.”
There was a knock on the door. Colt went to look out the peephole. It was Jace, so he opened up.
“Hey, man. You’re early.”
Jace frowned. “Sorry, dude, but the boss says we gotta bring her into HQ for this one.”
Colt shot into alert mode. He scanned the surroundings outside the house, looking for trouble. “Something happen?”
“Don’t know. He called ten minutes ago, said to come over here and fetch you both. Said he’d explain everything and hung up.”
Angie felt the tension rolling off Colt in waves. They were in his Yukon, following behind Jace’s truck as they headed toward Black Defense International’s headquarters.
“Why are we going there?” she’d asked when he said there’d been a change of plans.
“I don’t know, but when the boss says we go, we go. It’ll be okay, Angie. I won’t leave your side.”
She hadn’t argued with him, though she’d thought about it for a split second. He’d told her they could look at Charles’s spreadsheet at his house, but now they were headed to his workplace where somebody would no doubt try to take her computer and disappear with it.
She wasn’t letting that happen.
But what did it matter if they took the spreadsheet and got to work on solving the mystery of what it contained? Did she really care? Clearly, there was something wrong or Charles wouldn’t have split and a man wouldn’t have tried to break into her condo. The more distance she could put between herself and the Cardinal Group, the better.
Except handing it over wouldn’t automatically absolve her of responsibility. The Cardinal Group—or someone there—knew she was in possession of information that didn’t line up with the official figures. She didn’t think they were likely to forget it.
Colt pulled into an underground parking garage. He came around and opened her door for her. She smiled at him as she stepped onto the pavement with her handbag on her arm.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, baby.”
She shivered deep inside whenever he called her baby. There was no denying it. No matter how liberated and independent she thought she was—and she was—hearing this particular man call her baby sent little shivers of delight dancing up and down her spine.
When anybody else called her baby, it infuriated her. Not Colt.
Mon ange. He’d said those words to her this morning and she’d nearly melted. French was so sexy. Or maybe it was just sexy coming from him. What would those words sound like murmured in her ear while he was inside her?
Oh my…
Jace was waiting for them at the freight elevator. They stepped on and he pressed the button to take them to the fourth floor.
Angie tried not to gawk as the doors opened, but considering she’d just ridden in a freight elevator, she’d been expecting something a little less sleek.
They emerged into a hallway that led between offices and conference rooms. There was glass everywhere—glass walls, tinted windows that still managed to spill lots of light into the space, and a glass sculpture of an eagle perched on a pedestal at the end of the hall. Everything was high end, unlike her office at what used to be Barton, Barnes and Blake.
Things there had been a little timeworn, but in a good way. The building was—had been—old. The furnishings had been modern, because Triple B wasn’t broke or poor, but also kind of artfully shabby.
They didn’t have high-tech equipment with iPads that controlled all the electronics, or televisions that flared to life behind what appeared to be mirrors. That happened when Jace led them into a conference room with a huge oval table lined with leather chairs. He picked up an iPad, tapped it, and a mirror turned into a television screen.
He didn’t turn the sound on, but it was an international news station with a crawl at the bottom. There were explosions on the screen and people looking both weary and terrified as they talked to the reporter.
Angie turned at the sound of voices. Four men entered the room. She recognized two of them, but the other two were a mystery. Ian Black stopped speaking to the men and gave her a big smile. He was a handsome man, tall and dark-haired with dark eyes. Though she swore he had blue eyes the last time she met him. Maybe she was confusing him with someone else.
“Hello, Miss Turner. How are you doing today?”
“I’m all right, thanks. Just wondering why I’m here.”
“Of course.” Ian gestured to a chair and Angie went to sit down.
Colt pulled out the chair for her and she sank down on it, murmuring her thanks. She was glad when he sat beside her. His presence was comforting in the company of all these seriously alpha men. Nobody had to tell her that’s what they were. She could feel it in the air. The strength and determination, the will to do good. The absolute unwillingness to sit back and let things happen.
These were men who acted. They did not wait to be acted upon.
“I think you know Tyler,” Ian said.
