I’d just hung up my work phone with the secretary of some stupid chiropractic clinic who thought she could haggle prices and lowball me for an ad when my personal phone dinged with an incoming text from my purse.Certain Gran needed something that I’d have to drop by the grocery store to get for her on the way home, I glanced out past my cubicle, hoping no one else had heard the sound because a memo had gone out just this morning, saying too many employees were spending too much time on their cell phones. So they were now banned during work hours.When I saw that the coast was clear, I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and plunged my hand into my wicker purse that was sitting in there. After I felt around, I got my fingers around my phone and jerked it up to set it flat on the desk, hidden by my keyboard.Not seeing anyone paying me any kind of attention, I finally dropped my attention to the screen, only to frown. The message was from an unknown number and contained an attachment

I felt weighted down as I returned home from Gran’s place.After Brick had lit out of there, Gran talked me into staying for supper, where I’d finished the rest of the cookies he hadn’t eaten, plus gorged myself on a heaping plate of homemade spaghetti and meatballs.She never would tell me what he’d told her—if we were friends, lovers, or enemies—and that drove me crazy. But I guess it didn’t really matter anymore. He wasn’t going to change his stance about the interview, which left me with two options.Drop the subject completely or continue without his involvement and write an article that incriminated him to the point that he’d be exposed whether he liked it or not. I knew I could do it. I could take my story to Carmen, and she’d get me into the editing department within the hour.But did I want to do that to Brick? Expose him against his wishes? Possibly get him into trouble with the law? And in effect hurt his sisters, who had become two of my very close best friends.No. I

I followed Brick all the way outside and down to a little orange sports car before I started to realize how crazy this whole plan was. And it wasn’t even the illegality of it that bothered me either. It was his vehicle.“Is this your car?” I said, slowing to a stop in front of it as he steered me closer. “This is your freaking car, isn’t it? Oh my God, I should’ve known.”His brow knit as he sent me a confused smile. “You should’ve known what?”“That you’d have some fast, super-nice car. I don’t even know what this is, but I’m sure it cost more than what I make in, like, a decade.”“It’s a Porsche,” he answered. “And don’t be ridiculous. It probably doesn’t cost any more than four or five years of your annual salary, tops.” When I sent him a disgusted glare, he lifted his brows in surprise. “I mean, honestly, do you even rake in thirty grand a year?”I huffed out my frustration because no, I didn’t. “Just how rich are you?”The lights on his shiny, tiny orange car flashed as he u

Well, damn. The nice gang had tracked us down again.We should probably go now.“This way,” I murmured to Camille, tightening my grip on her hand and getting her to casually turn and walk in the other direction with me so we could then take off running away to escape, but as soon as we rotated around, the other end of the alley filled with more menacing-looking silhouettes.They successfully had us trapped. And then they started walking toward us, closing in.“Oh my God,” Camille whimpered.“Don’t freak,” I murmured to her, even as I discreetly dropped the incriminating bag full of spray paint at my side and then lifted both hands in a sign of peace as the two groups converged, boxing us in quite successfully. “Maybe they just want to invite us out for a beer with them.”When she gaped up at me as if I were insane, I shrugged.Hey, it could happen. Wasn’t very likely, but it could happen.“Who the fuck do you think you are, tagging on our ground?” one of them finally asked.“I

Brick was uncharacteristically quiet. And somber.It’d been an hour or two since our marathon sexual encounter had ended, where we had definitely burned ourselves out of all energy, and he hadn’t said a thing during the entire lull.After finishing, he’d merely looked into my eyes, pulled out of me, and then hitched up one side of his mouth in masculine accomplishment before crawling back onto the bed with me, where he settled down beside me, gathering me into his arms to simply hold me.Without speaking.It was nice.But weird. So, so weird.I’d never known him to not have something to say before.I glanced toward my alarm clock to check the time, and yeah, it’d been just under two hours since he’d last spoken. Which made me wonder if he regretted what we’d done.That would be my luck. All those times he’d flirted and come on to me, telling me how ready he was for sex, and I had to go and mess it up by forcing him to accept a quickie—er, two...three? quickies—after we were nea