Numbers Never Lie (Crimson Romance) (7 page)

Jake Wellborn, the tall blond guy next to her, was one of her team. His highlighted hair was spiked on top in that fake-ruffled way. A hole in his ear informed it had been pierced at one time. Maybe he didn’t wear the earring at work? His clothes, starched and pressed to perfection, portrayed an affinity for neatness. He was a programmer and according to the files, flagrantly gay. Trev could see it; the clothes and hair pretty much gave it away. No straight guy dressed like that. Jake was a decent guy though, no record. Good grades in school, all through college and graduate school. Smart. Really Smart. Born the only child of a family in East Texas, he distanced himself from his parents since leaving home. Not uncommon for someone who’d gone through what he probably had over the years.

Another young man returned from the bar with a couple of drinks. He squeezed between Jake and Sophie and handed her one of the glasses. She smiled and Trev saw her mouth the words “thank you” at him. That was Thomas Brand. He knew the face but not a lot of details other than he was a systems analyst with only a year at the company. His history was sparse in the agency’s files, and judging by his attention to Sophie, that probably needed to be checked out.

Thomas and Jake stood the same height, but where Jake defined fastidiousness in his appearance, Thomas was just the opposite. Wrinkled shirt. Wrinkled pants. Wrinkled jacket over the shirt. He obviously lived alone, did his own laundry, and didn’t care. His brown hair hadn’t been cut in a while so it looked wrinkled, too. A sizeable growth of facial hair either meant it grew really fast or he’d forgotten to shave. For some reason though, he carried it pretty well — a little slovenly but it worked for him. Trev watched him hand the glass to Sophie and decided to find out more about Thomas. He also needed to go back and check the levels of access each of these people had to the accounting system.

“Hey, Henry.” Sophie jumped when he spoke into her ear from her right side. She turned quickly into him, smiling and bumping her drink against his chest. Instinctively, she put a hand against his shirt to wipe away the drips then drew it back quickly and looked down. She tried to step back away from him but found herself jammed up against the table.

“Hello, Trevor. I see you found me.”

“You’re not hard to find.” His eyes looked around the room then settled back on her face, smiling with a slight tip of the lips.

“Yeah, I’m a little tall with these heels on so I tower over everyone most of the time. I guess I kind of stick out.” Apparently, she was a little uncomfortable with her height. He slowly let his eyes take in her shoes, legs, skirt, blouse, hair, and eyes.

“That wasn’t really what I meant,” he responded.

She looked at him curiously and opened her mouth like she intended to speak but said nothing.

“Sophie, who’s your gorgeous friend?” Callie asked from across the table as she leaned over to smile up at him.

Sophie snapped her attention back to the table. Her face warmed a little as she responded. “Everyone, this is Trevor Adams, a friend.”

Trev continued to watch her face, wondering why she’d introduced him that way. He liked it; it implied a relationship of some sort that would certainly raise questions. Is that what she wanted … questions? He turned to the table and shook each of the girls’ hands as they gave their names. It turned out the third girl, the one he didn’t recognize, was new, a friend of one of the others. He also shook the guys’ hands, noticing that Thomas’s expression clouded over instantly when Sophie introduced him. Thomas protectively put an arm on Sophie’s shoulder and asked Trevor, “So, how do you know my Sophie?”

“I’m not your Sophie,” she countered as she shrugged his arm from her shoulder.

“She saved me from an electrocution a while back so I bought her lunch.”

This guy’s got a thing for her,
Trev thought,
but she seems a little resistant to it. The guy’s kind of an ass so no wonder.
Trev flashed a charming grin at him and spoke softly to Sophie, “Should I wait? Or come back later?”

“No. No. Please stay and talk with us. That is, if you can spare the time. I promise no one will bite you.” She lowered her eyebrows and shot Thomas a warning look as she put a hand on Trevor’s forearm, pulling him closer to the table. The others moved around to make room. He towered over her with one shoulder behind her and the other edged toward the table.

Callie winked at Sophie and laughed. “I’m not promising I won’t bite you, handsome,” she flirted.

“Callie!” Sophie protested.

“Sorry, Soph, but in case you haven’t paid any attention … your friend here is definitely not hard on the eyes.” Callie’s eyes wandered up and down Trev as she smiled and fluttered her lashes at him.

“I agree totally.” Jake lifted his glass in a salute to Trev, making Trev look around the room in discomfort. He calculated an appropriate response and thought of none. He wasn’t good in crowds and certainly not the flirty type. He had no patience with idle chitchat, but she’d invited him so he’d tough it out.

“Seriously,” Callie’s friend persisted. “How did you meet Sophie, Mr. Adams? And where are you from?”

Trev’s shoulder stiffened against her. He wondered if Sophie could sense how much he wanted out of this conversation. Then she spoke. “Trevor is a security guy and he’s here to protect me from my stalker.” He glanced at the back of her hair, startled by her comment. Unable to see her expression, he contemplated whether the statement was serious.

“Really?” Callie exclaimed. “Is that guy still bothering you? What did the police find out?”

“Not a thing. I haven’t heard anything from them since I reported it.”

“Stalker?” The two other guys said in unison as Trev observed her facial expressions. He wasn’t sure what was going on but he intended to find out.

“Yeah,” Callie retorted. “Sophie met a guy here a couple months ago. He followed her out to her car and tried to grab her. She beat him off with that giant red umbrella of hers and managed to get away. He showed up again but just watched her.”

Trev’s eyes narrowed and shot to Sophie’s face. He leaned down and whispered into her ear so the others wouldn’t hear him. “Is this true?”

“Well, partially, yes,” she admitted, returning his whisper, her breath tingling against his ear. “He hasn’t shown up everywhere but I’ve seen him again.”

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

“I need to know more about this.”

Trev grabbed Sophie’s arm and pulled her away from her friends to a newly cleaned booth. The waitress took one last swipe with a cloth as they approached. Thomas started to follow but Trev saw Callie catch his arm and say, “Leave the lovebirds alone, T.”

Thomas growled something back at her, downed his drink, and headed to the bar. Trev pushed Sophie into the freshly wiped seat of the booth and slid in across from her. He was instantly disappointed she was no longer pressed against his chest and chastised himself for even thinking that. She glanced longingly back at the table they’d just left, where her friends remained talking. “You can go back in a minute.” He sensed her desire to get away from him. “Tell me about this stalker person.”

“That has nothing to do with what I need your help on. It’s an isolated incident. Besides, there’s nothing to know, really. I came here with everyone after work several weeks ago and stayed late visiting with Callie and Thomas. This guy came up and started talking to me. He wanted to buy me a drink. I said no thank you because I was leaving. He asked if I needed a ride. I said no to that, too. He disappeared so I assumed he got the message. Later when I left, Callie and Thomas went out with me but they parked on the other side of the building so we said goodbye and split. When I got to the car, he popped out of nowhere.”

“And?” Trev waited for her to go on.

“He said something like, ‘Listen, you rich bitch, you’re going with me whether you like it or not,’ and he grabbed at me. It had been raining and I had my umbrella so I brought it up and whacked him across the face with it.”

Trev smiled inwardly as he remembered that gigantic umbrella and wondered how badly she pummeled the guy. A small snicker escaped.

“What!” she blurted. “You don’t think I can take care of myself?”

“No. I just, well, I’ve seen that umbrella and I wondered what kind of damage you did to the poor guy.”

“Poor guy, my ass. Look at my wrist, it’s still bruised.” She held up her arm for him to see the brown and yellow marks that were faded. He slid a finger across the discolored skin.

“Christ, it must have been completely black and blue then!” He surveyed it, then added, “You reported it right?”

“Yes, or at least I tried to, but I don’t know who he is. I never got a name. So, there wasn’t really much they could do. You can’t really file a complaint against an unknown guy who grabbed you in the parking lot.”

“Hmmm.” Trev digested the information. He couldn’t really determine whether it was just a random incident or associated with the other things. “When did you last see him?”

“He showed up here again the following Friday, but he just stood at the bar watching.”

“What did you do?”

“I told the bartender about it and while I talked to him, the guy left. I half expected him to be waiting outside but he wasn’t. He just left. Thomas offered to take me home just to be safe. Insisted on it, in fact.”

“Good old Thomas. When we leave I want you to show me where you parked that night.” He was matter of fact and didn’t listen for a protest. “Do you still want to go back to your friends?”

“Not really, but it would be rude not to. If you need to get the reports and go, I can get them for you now.”

“I’m not in a hurry. Besides, this is getting pretty interesting. Come on, let’s go celebrate your buddy’s birthday. By the way, he’s really got a thing for you.” He waited for her to rise out of the booth.

“Ancient history,” she answered.

“So, you were
with him?”

“Yes. No! Not like that. Not
with him
really. Like I said, ancient history.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.” She might’ve seen it that way, but Thomas still thought otherwise. Trev followed her back to the table and stood behind her or next to her the remainder of the evening while he listened to the chatter and participated as infrequently as possible.

Thomas seethed as he watched Trev. Like one lion might watch another, both stalking the same prey. Trev pretended not to care. He found it humorous and Sophie seemed oblivious. He smiled at Thomas as if in complete control of the situation. At one point, Trev even touched his hand on the small of her back just to piss him off. Unfortunately, he hadn’t expected her skin to feel so blazing hot and as soon as he did it, he dropped his hand back to his side. But not so soon that it wasn’t noticed.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed as he lifted his drink to his mouth. Sophie felt it, too, and shot a glance at Trev before returning to her conversation with her friends. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t slap him either, which intrigued him. God, he was enjoying this.

Sophie looked at her watch and leaned down to pick up her bag on the floor under the table. “Well, I need to get going, guys. I’m afraid I’m done for the day and there’s something I need to take care of.” She went around the table hugging everyone and stopped at Thomas.

“Thanks for coming, Soph.” He hugged her.

“Happy Birthday, Thomas. I hope it was a great day for you.” She pecked him on the cheek and gasped a short “ugh” as he grabbed her tighter and kissed her cheek, too.

“It was. Thanks so much for doing all this for me.” He let her go and she started for the door, waving to everyone.

Trev wasn’t really sure what to do. Should he follow her? Should he stay here a little bit then go?

“Are you coming, Trev?” She smiled, holding out a hand to beckon him. He thought the others would likely imagine a different type of invitation in her words. He sauntered after her, feeling like the cat that ate the canary. He didn’t look back but he knew the daggers in Thomas’s eyes would surely cut him in two if he turned around. It was just stupid competitive male pride, wanting everyone to think he attracted this gorgeous lady in front of him, but still he savored the feeling while it lasted.

“Why did you do that?” he asked pointedly when they moved outside. He slid his hands into his pockets as he followed after her.

“Do what?”

“Let them think I was with you.”

“I didn’t know I did.”

“Don’t play games with me, lady. That’s exactly what you did, and you know it.”

“But you were, weren’t you? With me. Not for reasons that they know about, but you were still there because I invited you, right?”

“Yes, but you let them think it was something else.”

“No I didn’t. I just didn’t make them think it wasn’t.”

“Back to my question. Why did you do it?” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and rested them on his hips. He stopped and waited for an answer in the middle of the parking lot, not following her. When she saw he wasn’t moving, she turned back.

“Because I want them all to leave me alone for a while, okay?” She sounded exasperated. “Callie is always trying to set me up with guys. I can’t tell you how many jerks I’ve gone out with just to make her happy. It’s irritating as hell … and Thomas is a hoverer — don’t you see it? Always around, pressuring me to do this or that. I don’t need everyone trying to run my life. To fix me or fix me up. I like the way I am. I don’t want to be in a relationship right now, and if they think I already am, then maybe they’ll just leave me alone.”

“Oh, well … ” He digested what she’d said, then broke into a slow grin. “Glad to be of service, then.” Trevor scratched at his chin for a second. “Just curious. How far am I supposed to take this so your friends are convinced?” He teased her a little, but it was frustrating. Did she really think he was that harmless? That she could use him to run off the others?

“What do you mean?”

“Well, are we done now? Or am I supposed to show up again?” He frowned as he considered the implications of what happened. “Don’t you think it’s wrong to use someone to make others stop trying to run your love life?”