I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from reacting as Saidy stepped from the car and glanced around.
“Must be one of his admirers,” I managed.
Carter laughed. “He’s got lots of those. She looks lost. Can you get rid of her on your way out? Sullivan has some business he’s taking care of with Jenkins right now.”
“Sure thing.” I shoved my glasses farther up my nose, exited out of the computer security system, then hefted my bag on my shoulder. “Let me know if there’s any more glitches. It might take an hour or two to be fully operational.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll call.”
I brushed past him into the hall and made my way out of the house.
When I reached my service van, I spotted her down the street. She’d moved to the back entrance and clearly looked lost. How in the world had she ended up here?
A text chimed in on my personal phone. I glanced at it as I turned the key in the ignition.
Glamma: Don’t you dare desert me to this unambitious family. I need a kindred spirit.
I chuckled thinking about how disappointed Saidy’s grandmother would be when she found out I wasn’t actually trying to build a tech empire.
I put the van in drive and pulled up alongside Saidy.
Saidy turned toward me when I stopped the van and rolled the window down. Her rich, dark brown hair fell almost to the middle of her back. A few tendrils curled around her face, framing hazel eyes, full lips, and a tan complexion. I’d missed her. So damn much.
It had been too long since I’d seen her face. Almost a full week. I even forgave her for the whole cut-up shirts incident. If I put myself in her shoes, I did look like a terrible boyfriend. I wished I could explain why. But not yet. Almost.
“Are you lost?” I called good-naturedly with a smile, hoping she’d respond to my teasing. Anything but the cold shoulder. I couldn’t stand that.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she glanced left then right, then up, as though I were an angel fallen from the sky—at least she didn’t look down.
“I was doing a little bit of maintenance here.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”
“What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my tone casual, when really all I wanted to do was yell at her to run away from here as fast as she could.
“I’m here to bid on an interior design job, and to talk over ideas.”
Sullivan had hired Saidy. I couldn’t think of a worse situation. I rubbed a hand across my mouth, trying to rein in all the words I wanted to spit out. “Um, are you sure this is the right place?”
“Yes, look right here.” She hurried toward the van and leaned through the window.
She handed me a business card. “This is the address.”
I looked at the name on the card and smiled. My lungs remembered their job and got back to work. “You’re on SE Virginia Street. And you’re off by a number. You need to be on SW Virginia Street, which is actually on the other side of the highway.”
“Really?” Her face crumpled. “That means I’m going to be late. My GPS took me here. Look.” She spun her phone around, as though that would make the directions any different.
“You know, I have to swing by that neighborhood this afternoon anyway. Why don’t you follow me there?” That wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t need to go to that neighborhood. I needed to go to that exact address. I’d never noticed the similarities between the two addresses before.
“Are you sure? You’re not just wanting something from me?” She looked at me skeptically.
“Don’t worry, when I want something from you, you’ll know.” I smirked.
She narrowed her eyes at me and shook her head.
“Well, look who it is,” an all-too-familiar voice called.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and cursed under my breath. Sullivan was walking down the sidewalk, heading straight for Saidy with a big smile on his face.
She looked surprised for a moment before she smiled widely. “Hello again!”
Again? What did she mean, again? This couldn’t be right. I quickly unbuckled the seat belt and stepped out of the car, walking around to stand next to Saidy.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I live here. I’m so glad we met again.” His smooth voice made me want to punch him. “Fletcher here was updating my security system.”
“And how did you meet?” I tried to ask, but Saidy spoke right over me.
“I actually got lost and ended up at the wrong address.” She was smiling at him. She hadn’t smiled at me once over the last couple of weeks. Winning her back wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped.
She explained about the mix-up with the east and west directions.
Sullivan smiled and leaned toward her. “Why don’t I take you over there? Make sure you don’t get lost?”
“I’m already heading that way, she said she’d follow me there,” I butted in. There was no way I was letting Sullivan take my Saidy anywhere. The man was on track to spend the rest of his life in prison. He had a fixer on his payroll. People disappeared who didn’t do what he wanted.
No, I wasn’t going to let him get within a two-mile radius of Saidy. Hopefully.
“I don’t want to be late,” I snapped at Saidy.
She turned so that only I could see her and made a please-drop-dead face at me. Oh well. I’d rather have her be mad at me than hurt.
“Thank you so much for the offer, but since Fletcher’s already going that way, I’ll just follow him,” she said in a sickly-sweet voice when she turned back to him. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was trying to make me jealous.
“Don’t be a stranger.” Sullivan winked.
Saidy gave him a little wave. “Bye-bye.”
Bye-bye? She never said that to me,
