At Any Turn

Her brows rose. “What about security issues, like what happened with that kid in New Jersey?”

“You have to register your phone when you create your account before you use this app. There are classified ads so you can advertise for stuff you want to buy. Also, you can send out push notices, so if you want to get your friends to log on to do a raid, you can have the app send text messages to their cell phones.”

“Badass. You’re a fucking genius.” She started pressing commands. “Quick, log on to FallenOne, I want to see if I can make him do stuff from the phone.”

I turned to my laptop and logged in. We spent the next half hour running the app through the gamut of commands. Emilia was thrilled, asking me a million questions. “Shit, I can’t believe I slept with you every night for months and you were hiding this from me.”

“Business is business,” I said. “You bat for the other team.”

“Ha!” she said, but as she continued to press buttons, a frown crossed her face. She looked distracted, deep in thought.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked up at me with almost fearful eyes. “Um. Well…”

I frowned at her. “Is it the app?”

“No. The app is awesome.” She straightened, handing the phone back to me. I set it next to the laptop. Maybe now she’d come clean?

But as I watched her, I noticed that she’d suddenly gone very pale. She cleared her throat and then coughed. “I came over because I wanted to hang out with you. But also because we need to talk.”

I stiffened. The “we need to talk” phrase never ended well. My breathing froze. Had she come over to break up? Was this what all the evasive behavior was about? Shit. I needed a minute to gather my thoughts, formulate a plan. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

She cleared her throat again. “Um. Yeah. Please? And—umm, maybe some wine?”

Water and wine? I got up and went into the kitchen, grabbing a cup and filling it from the cold water dispenser on the fridge. My mind raced. Change the subject? That wouldn’t work. Why would she want to break up? That nagging fear that there was someone else reared its ugly head. But she hadn’t come in to work for two days and had been very clearly under the weather this weekend

I had no information and wouldn’t have any until the PI got back to me. She had the upper hand and I had to find a way to avoid a confrontation right now. My mind raced. In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.

I removed a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge and uncorked it. The wine hadn’t been touched since she’d moved out. I came back into the room, a glass in each hand, and set them down on the coffee table in front of her. She didn’t look up, having taken up the phone again, messing with the app.

She reached out for the glass of wine and downed the entire thing in one gulp without taking her eyes off the phone. What the hell? “I’m glad the app is such a hit,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. She cleared her throat again and glanced up at me with a strange look on her face. “You got a text just now. From someone named Miguel.”

My blood ran cold. Swallowing, I tried my hardest to hide my fear. I held out a hand for my phone, but she didn’t give it to me. I clenched my jaw and lowered my hand.

There was a definite chance that his text was innocuous. She might not even realize that Miguel was the PI I’d hired to dig up information on her. It could be a very unfounded fear. But if that was the case, why was I hardly breathing?

She frowned, glancing at the phone again. “Yeah, so Miguel wants to know if it’s okay to attach a GPS tracker to my car even though you don’t want me actively followed.”

She set the phone down and stood up, glaring at me. Bending to grab her backpack, she turned, but she never made it more than a few steps to the door. I intercepted her, taking her arm.

“I can explain.”

She pulled away from me. “What the fuck, Adam?”

“I was worried about you—”

“Says every other creepy stalker on the planet. I need to go,” she said in stiff, clipped tones.

“You said we needed to talk,” I said, moving in front of her again.

“Why do we have to talk?” she ground out. “You can just have your private dick follow me around.”

“Emilia—”

She pushed back from me. “Back the fuck off! Are you really that mystified because I turned down your proposal and moved out? Like every other woman in the galaxy wouldn’t fall all over herself to stand in line to marry the hot young gazillionaire. You can’t wrap your mind around the fact that I’m not groveling with gratitude at your feet to become probably the first in a long line of Mrs. Adam Drakes? Is that the big mystery you need solved? Because I’ll tell you why right now. And you don’t need to waste money on stalking me.”