Protecting Her Heart (Seals Security Book 3) (20 page)

“Apparently not,” Evie responded. “Now, I have an interview in the morning for an accounting firm in the city called Harrington’s so help me find something stodgy to wear.”

“And you’re going for accounting jobs now like
I
told you to when that old coot kept making you watch that mutt of his. How is it that you never listen to me but you have some great sex and like magic it all makes sense to you?” Rory got off the bed and walked to the closet, grabbing a blue suit and holding it out before shoving it back on the bar and selecting a tan one. She nodded and held it out to Evie.

Evie took it, holding it up to herself while Rory surveyed her thoughtfully before shaking her head and snatching it back. Evie smiled when she pulled the blue one back out and handed it to her instead.

“I guess I just needed to realize that I didn’t have to continue suffering for something I didn’t even do unless I just wanted to is all. Why not the tan one?” she asked after explaining as best she could about what had changed her outlook on her father’s crimes.

“With the hair color it blends way more than you’d think, making you look pale and lifeless. The blue is still not a good color for you but it’s better than the tan. Once you get a job we’re going to have to go shopping to find you some new colors. These aren’t in your palette anymore.” Rory shivered as she held the suit up to her and Evie felt a little laugh bubble up inside her at that comment because it showed Rory’s artistic side.

“I really think you’re a nut and if you hadn’t sold two more of your paintings for fifteen hundred apiece yesterday, I would say that you should give it up.” Evie took the suit and hung it up on the door so she could wear it in the morning.

Heading back to the bathroom to blow-dry her hair, she called over her shoulder, “You know, maybe I don’t need a job and you can support us both now that you’re becoming a rich bitch from all the recognition your work is starting to get.”

“Ha, and what happens when they get tired of my work? The art world is fickle and trust me, I’m not going to get rich anytime soon,” Rory snorted from behind her and Evie laughed. She knew that Rory was a lot more talented than she would admit and the fact that the first paintings she’d sold were worth thousands of dollars meant she was only going up from here but she knew better than to try convincing her of that. Shaking her head at her friend’s lack of confidence, she shut the bathroom door and started drying her hair. 

Luke stared at Nancy as she typed up the proposal he’d given her an hour ago, wondering where the hell Evie was. Yesterday she hadn’t shown up and today it was already ten and she wasn’t here yet. Nancy was competent and he really had no reason to be put out over Evie’s absence because the office was running smoothly. Only he was. He liked seeing Evie every day and her not being here was not making him very happy. At first he’d thought she was working in accounting but after a brief peek into Tina’s office yesterday at four revealed she wasn’t down there helping, he’d realized that she was just not in the building.

He then assumed that she was ill or had a personal errand to run and was pissed he hadn’t been informed as to what it was. Storming down to Laney’s office to demand to know where she was hadn’t gone as planned either. When he’d walked into the office, he’d discovered that Monica and Laney were not present. He’d gone home mad but when he’d banged on the door to her apartment she hadn’t answered and neither had her roommate.

After thirty minutes of debating the risk of getting arrested by using his key to enter the apartment to wait on her, he’d decided to just wait till this morning to chat with her about the issue. By chat he meant he was going to spank her ass and tell her she was to always call him if she wouldn’t be in to the office from now on.

This morning he expected to see Evie but as the hours passed he’d begun to wonder if she was going to be out again. It was making him crazy and he’d gotten nothing done all morning.
He’d had enough, damn it.
Standing, he moved towards his office door intending to find out where the hell she was because if she didn’t show he was going to her apartment and letting himself in to demand an explanation.

Nancy looked up at him with a smile. “Is there something you needed, Mr. Stewart?”

“Yes, when is Evie going to get here?” Luke barked, his scowl wiping the smile from her face. She shifted in her chair looking confused and Luke wondered what the hell she had to be confused about.

“Um—she—well, she doesn’t come in today,” Nancy finally stuttered out, still with that dazed, almost dumbfounded, look. Luke wanted to grab her and shake her for not explaining why Evie wasn’t coming in. His shoulders tensed and it was all he could do not to slam his fist into Evie’s desk. His teeth ground together and he mentally counted to ten trying to hold onto his temper, which was strangely out of control.

“Why not?” he finally managed to get out in a semi-civil tone.

“Well, sir, she—I don’t think she works here anymore,” Nancy said softly.

Luke stared at her like she had lost her damned mind. Of course Evie still worked here, what the hell was this woman talking about? If Evie didn’t work here anymore he would have been the first to know and would have put a stop to it right quick. No way in hell was he letting Evie get away.

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course she works here. Now find out what time she’s coming in,” Luke roared, his patience gone.

Nancy was pale and he could see her hands shaking but he wasn’t able to moderate his temper despite his dislike of bullies. Evie was his hot button as he’d discovered months ago and today wasn’t the day to push him. He was starving for contact with her after not seeing her for four days. His addiction to Evie was becoming a real issue if he couldn’t even be civil when he’d only spent a few days away from her. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. He was about to storm out of the office and demand that Laney tell him what was going on with Evie when Eric walked into the office frowning.

“Is there a problem? I was walking by and heard you yelling,” Eric asked, his face covered with a dark scowl as he watched Luke.

“Yes, there is a damned problem. She seems to think Evie doesn’t work here anymore, which is ridiculous. Someone should have explained that she wasn’t taking over Evie’s job, she’s just helping her out,” Luke explained, his hands moving as he spoke, stabbing in Nancy’s direction and then dropping to his side.

Eric’s eyes narrowed and a confused look took over his face for a moment before he spoke again. “Let’s step into your office and discuss this.”

“What is there to discuss? I want to know when Evie will be back,” Luke growled, watching Eric.

“In your office, Luke,” Eric commanded.

Not understanding why the fuck the man was telling him what to do but realizing that he must know something about Evie that he didn’t want to discuss out here, Luke nodded and stomped towards the door.
Was she in trouble?
Was that why she wasn’t here?
Those thoughts had him moving faster with a twisted feeling in his stomach. His hand was reaching out to jerk open the door when he heard Eric speak to Nancy.

“Sorry, this isn’t how he normally behaves. It’s a misunderstanding. I will straighten it out,” Eric told the woman, who responded quietly.

Luke didn’t hear what she said but he wasn’t really interested. He left the door open for Eric and paced in front of his desk, that sick feeling spreading through him as he waited impatiently on Eric. He must have said something else to the woman because it took him another minute to enter and close the door behind him. He stared at Luke for a long moment as he paced back and forth.

“Spit it out. What the hell is going on? Where is Evie?” Luke barked, his hand lifting to run through his hair, fear an acid taste in his mouth.
Was Evie okay?

“You really had no idea, did you?” Eric asked, making him frown because he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

“No idea about what?”

“Evie quit, Luke. Friday was her last day,” Eric said matter-of-factly.

Luke couldn’t believe the words coming from Eric’s mouth. It was ridiculous that Eric thought Evie had quit. If she had, he would know, damn it. He was her boss. She would have given her resignation to him or if she hadn’t, someone would have made sure he got a copy and he wouldn’t have allowed her to leave. Eric must be mistaken because none of that had happened.

“Well shit, this explains why you didn’t offer her another position and a raise like I thought you would when she quit. Didn’t you read the letter I put on your desk last week? It was Evie’s resignation and I laid it on your desk with your paperwork,” Eric said, staring at him.

Luke couldn’t believe the words escaping his friend’s mouth.
Evie had quit and no one had asked why he wasn’t trying to convince her to stay? What the hell? And why had she left? Was it because of their sexual relationship?
Thoughts were battering him so fast he wasn’t sure he could think clearly enough to ask Eric why he hadn’t said anything to him.

“This stack of papers?” Luke managed to croak out, indicating a stack of filing on the edge of his desk, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah, why?” Eric asked, watching him carefully.

“Eric, this stack of papers is filing. When I didn’t seem bothered by her leaving, why the hell didn’t you say something?” Luke demanded. His stomach was in knots and he stopped pacing and stood in frozen silence. Eric watched him carefully like you would watch a snake you were afraid was about to strike.

“I assumed that something had happened between the two of you that you didn’t want to discuss. It was obvious something was going on between you two and she wasn’t upset over that so I figured it was between you two and you’d work it out. I didn’t know you had no idea she was leaving,” Eric explained after a moment, looking a little sad.

“Nothing was going on. Ugh, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll go to her apartment and straighten this out in a few minutes. She should have given her resignation to me anyway. How did you end up with it? I can’t believe she pulled this stunt.” Luke was beyond frustrated as he walked around to save the file he’d been working on and grabbed his keys off the desk before turning to face Eric again. He wore a pained expression and Luke wondered what that was about.

“What?”

“It’s not going to do you any good to go to her apartment in your building, Luke,” Eric said, confusing him. Did Eric think she already had another job, because that didn’t matter to him in the least.

“Why not?”

“Because she moved out and gave the keys to Laney on Sunday when they met for lunch,” Eric told him, a slight grimace covering his face.

Luke felt like the top of his head was going to blow off. He stood there beside his chair with a ticking muscle in his jaw and a pounding beat in his ears. Fury poured through his veins burning him up in its wake. He couldn’t control the rage he suddenly felt and he slammed his hands into his desk trying to contain it. Eric took a step back and Luke was glad as he swiped everything off his desk, hearing it slam into the wall. He didn’t move for a moment and his breath came in deep bellows as he tried unsuccessfully to get a handle on his temper.

“Luke,” Eric began, stopping when Luke’s head whipped up and his dark glower landed on him. Luke didn’t even remember moving but he had Eric by the collar and he was shoving Eric against the wall hard enough to make the door rattle.

“Did you even ask if she was going somewhere safe or back to another shit hole like she left when she first started working here?” Luke asked, slamming Eric back into the wall again.

“You need to let me go. I’m not telling you shit until you do. Get a hold of yourself, man. What the fuck?” Eric said as he shoved at Luke. He didn’t want to let Eric go but he knew that he wasn’t kidding. He wouldn’t tell him anything until Luke released him.

Damned asshole. 

Luke let him go and stepped back, his stomach twisting around like there were worms inside it. He couldn’t stay still and began to pace back and forth in front of his desk. He wanted to throw something, or maybe rearrange Eric’s face with his fist, at the moment either would work.

“You need to chill. I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you but if you don’t get your shit together I’m calling your mother,” Eric told him, earning a hot glower from Luke because threatening to involve his mother was a low blow.

“Just tell me if you know where she is or not?”

“No, I don’t. It wasn’t any of my business where she was going and I couldn’t very well press for details because she quit. Ask your sister, she had lunch with her and is going out with her and Rory next week.” Eric straightened his shirt and sat down in the chair looking at the jumble of stuff Luke had knocked off the desk. Luke followed his eyes but couldn’t muster enough energy to care about his normally neat office supplies when he had no idea where Evie was or how to get her back.

“You should have asked, damn it. Hell, you should have said something to me when I didn’t try to keep her here,” Luke said through his teeth, trying not to yell at Eric.

How the hell was he going to find Evie and convince her to come back if he had no idea where she was? He needed to calm down so he could think because he needed to figure out where she’d go. Maybe to Rory’s mother’s place? No, probably not after what happened the last time she stayed there. Luke racked his brain trying to figure out what to do.

Wait a minute, he was being an idiot. He’d put a tracker on her car weeks ago and it would still be there because Evie had no idea it was there. He moved behind his desk, ignoring Eric who was talking. He didn’t really need to listen because he’d just remembered he already knew how to find her. He pulled up the tracker program and logged in.

“Are you even listening to me, Luke? What the hell has gotten into you?” Eric leaned over the desk to see what he was doing on the computer.  “Shit, why are you pulling up the tracking program right now? You can’t just pretend this little outburst didn’t happen—wait, does that say Evie? You put a tracker on your assistant? What the hell for?” Eric asked, sounding shocked.

Luke didn’t give a shit. All he cared about at the moment was finding Evie so he could tell her to get her happy little ass back here because she wasn’t leaving him.
No way in hell was he allowing that.
Luke didn’t look too closely at the almost desperate need for her to stay or the fact that it wasn’t because he wanted her to work for him either. It was about needing her and that scared him a little but not enough that he wasn’t going after her, that was for damned sure.

“Yes, I did,” Luke flatly replied as he wrote down the address where Evie’s car was parked.

“I can’t fucking believe you! Why would you do that?”

“Because we’ve had issues with Wyatt’s Navy buddy and I wanted to be able to find her if something happened,” Luke told him, even though that hadn’t been why he’d done it.

“I’m sure even you know that’s a lame excuse, right? Because we both know that Terrence isn’t interested in anyone except Wyatt and his team. I’m assuming since the tracker is still on her car that she has no idea you put it on there?” Eric asked, his brow raised.

“Nope,” Luke replied as he searched the floor for his keys.

“You are acting like a stalker and we arrest those types of people, you know that, right?” Eric asked him as he pulled his keys from under some folders on the floor beside the desk. He headed towards the door, his mind on finding Evie, not bothering to answer Eric.

“You’re not going after her, are you? You can’t just show up at her place, Luke. You’ll likely scare her if you do,” Eric called after him. Luke turned to look at him from where he stood with his hand on the door handle, a dark smile on his lips.