While Daris was over by the shelves, looking at Noah’s pictures, Scott was still by her computer, standing there with a flash drive in his hand and a guilty expression on his face, looking almost as shocked as she was.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, already knowing the answer.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Daris wasn’t even looking at them, but it wasn’t like she cared.
Scott flushed. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
She tightened her grip on the mugs. “Really? Because it looks like you’re trying to steal my book.”
Scott didn’t say anything.
“That is what you were trying to do, isn’t it?” she insisted. “Why would you do something like that?”
When he still didn’t answer, Peyton thought maybe she was wrong. But then Scott’s face twisted, looking angrier than she’d ever imagined it could be.
“Because I’m tired of being pissed on and told it’s raining. I’m the one who scooped your first book off the slush pile all those years ago. I was the one who fought to get it on the table for consideration. I’m the one who stood up for you and the series at the acquisition meetings when everyone kept saying that young adult print sales were dead and gone. I got your series published. And I was the one who edited the first two books in the series, not Gwen. Hell, she was one of the people who didn’t see any potential in the series. I was the one who put your books on the bestseller lists!”
Peyton frowned, stunned. Yes, she’d worked with him on her earlier books, but she had no idea he’d been the one who found it in the slush pile.
“But I thought you were getting promoted to full editor in the thriller market,” she said softly.
“I thought so too, but then Gwen decided she needed my help too much to let me leave.” He snorted. “I figured if I was going to do this much damn work on a book, I should at least get paid for it. Luckily, there are people like Daris around who recognize the true value I bring to the team. And what a book like yours can really be worth.”
Peyton’s stomach clenched as she put two and two together. She threw another quick glance toward Daris, to see that he was definitely interested in the conversation now. “You hired those guys to kidnap me?”
Scott shrugged. “I didn’t pay for them, of course. That was Daris. But I did pick them out and tell them what to do. And they would have pulled it off too, if it wasn’t for that stupid fucking Navy SEAL.”
“A miscalculation on your part,” Daris murmured from his place over by Noah’s bookshelf with the framed photos.
Scott’s lip curled. “How the hell was I supposed to know the publisher hired a damn Navy SEAL to be your bodyguard? And then you up and disappear after the signing at the hotel I thought for sure I’d never find you. I almost flipped when I overheard Gwen talking to the publisher about you staying with your bodyguard. Luckily, Daris had no problem finding the address.”
This was insane. All this time she’d thought it was nameless, faceless criminals looking to sell her book to the highest bidder. Discovering it was someone she trusted made the whole thing even worse.
“You didn’t think you could walk out of here with that flash drive without me knowing, did you?” she asked.
“Yeah, I did.” He slowly slipped the flash drive into his pocket. “And if you’d come out of the kitchen a few seconds later, you never would have realized I’d made a copy. Truthfully, I really wish you hadn’t caught me because now, I’m going to have to do something about it.”
Peyton’s blood ran cold. Crap. For the first time since she’d walked in here, she realized she might be in trouble.
Before she knew what she was even doing, Peyton threw the three mugs of hot coffee at Scott, turning to run for the door even as he let out a curse.
Daris caught her as she yanked the door open. She tried to fight him, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around. Her back slammed against the wall and her head hit with a thud. She was sure he was going to hit her, but before he got the chance, everything went black and she felt herself falling.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NOAH COULDN’T REMEMBER having it so bad for a woman before, but after spending one amazing night with Peyton, he knew she was in his blood forever. He hadn’t been able to think about anything other than her the whole way to the police station. Hell, he was so preoccupied, he was damn lucky he hadn’t driven off the road. Even now, as he strode inside the building and headed upstairs to see Dwayne, he was still daydreaming about how much fun that quickie had been with her this morning.
He knew he was probably grinning like an idiot as he finally found his friend’s desk, but he didn’t care. Peyton was the kind of woman who made him not give a crap what people thought of him.
Dwayne was reading something intently on his computer screen when Noah walked up. “Finally. I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it.”
“Traffic was a nightmare,” Noah said, berating himself for staying for that quickie even though he would never really be able to regret
