Page 55 of An Eye For Illusion

It propels me forward, pushing me to seek the answers to the questions burning in my mind. I finally round the corner that Elliott just did, but I don’t immediately spot him.

I panic a little at the thought of having lost him. What a freaking PI I am!

“Whatcha doing there, Jade?”

I jump, narrowly avoiding a yelp. My head whips around, and I come face to face with the other bane of my existence.

Colin fucking Brooks. Ugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” I say without really thinking.

He raises an eyebrow in amusement. “What do you think I’m doing, Jade?”

I huff. “You know what I mean. Why are you sneaking up on me?”

A playful grin spreads across his face, and I nearly lose my footing with how distracting it is.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Thought it would be fun to see why the woman who hired me to spy on her fiancé is tailing said fiancé herself.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

I start to protest again but stop myself because I am, indeed, tailing my fiancé when I hired Colin to do it for me.

“I’m out here doing your job because you haven’t found anything useful for me.”

“Ha! I was right! Wait. Did you just tell me I suck at my job?” he replies with disbelief in his voice before laughing.

“What if I did?” I say with as much sass as I can infuse into my tone.

“I might be a little hurt and a lot offended.” Colin slaps his hand over his heart and cringes in feigned pain. “You wound me, my lady.”

I bark out a chuckle at his antics. “Who says my lady anymore?”

“Only true gentlemen,” he replies as he finally straightens to his full height.

I snicker. “Gentleman, my ass. Also, that’s payback for telling me I’m a terrible boss,” I gripe under my breath.

His face goes from playful to serious in a nanosecond. “About that... I want to apologize. I never meant to offend or hurt you, Jade. I meant it as a joke. I like ribbing you and giving you a hard time, and it came out so poorly I didn’t know how to recover. I’m truly sorry if my words hurt you.”

His apology feels sincere, but I don’t know how I feel about it. Part of me is still pretty pissed at him, and part of me has come to accept that maybe he’s right.

That doesn’t mean I have to like him, and it certainly doesn’t mean I have to forgive him.

He turns and grasps my arm gently, halting our progress. I can’t see Elliott, but when Colin’s eyes connect with mine, the worry that we’ll lose my bastard fiancé vanishes.

Colin’s eyes are warm, open, and sincere when he asks, “Do you forgive me?”

“I… Why does it matter?” I stop myself from saying no because I want to understand why he cares. What does it matter if I’m mad at him? He’s here to do a job. How I feel about him doesn’t matter one bit to the case.

“It matters because… Well, because I don’t want you mad at me.” He seems just as confused as I am about his answer.

“What I need from you is to find a way out of this marriage before it’s too late. Me being mad at you or not has no bearing on the outcome of this case. Only your capabilities do.”

He releases my arm and looks off into the distance for a moment. When his eyes come back to me, they’re no longer as warm or open. “You’re right. I’m sorry I overstepped. It won’t happen again, Ms. Foster.”

Now we are back to Ms. Foster, all pleasantries from before gone. It should make me happy that he firmly placed whatever the hell this is between us back into a strictly professional box, but it doesn’t make me happy at all.

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