Page 27 of Bad Boy in Her Bed

Not this time.

“I’m not the bad guy here,” he said quietly, wrapping her small hand in his.“This is probably going to sound ridiculously cheesy and stupid, but Serpent’s Tongue Ink saved me from becoming the bad guy three years ago.I would never do anything to fuck it up.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, the optimism he’d seen in them a mere hour earlier replaced by a hardened resolve as she squeezed his fingers and stood.“We have a lot more than this situation to talk about.”

He’d known this was coming since their first lunch together, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.Not yet.Whatever Jocelyn knew about his incarceration through the town grapevine hadn’t scared her off, but he knew hearing it from his own lips would do it.And he was too fucking selfish to lose what was left of her opinion of him.

Swallowing, he nodded.“Yeah, I suppose we do.And we will.Just…not tonight, okay?”

With a deep breath, she let go of his hand and the absence of her warmth hit him, hard.“It’s going to take at least another week for me to review the rest of the paperwork.Then there will be the write-up, cross-referencing, and recommendations.Can you keep this quiet until I can forward my findings to my boss, knowing it will likely end up in the hands of the police?”

“You mean can I play nice with Ryder until then?Yeah, I can do that.”He cleared his throat.“He’s been doing the nightly deposits for the past year.Today he offered to take all the evening shifts while I do the morning ones.Not saying it means anything, but it might.”

She frowned and walked over to the coffee table where her laptop sat, swiping her fingers across the track pad.“Interesting.What about your brothers?Have you mentioned anything to them?”

He scoffed and slouched back in the chair.“Have I told Grey and River that the business keeping us afloat is under investigation for fraud?No, Jocelyn.I’m not putting that stress on them.”

Licking her lips, she sat cross-legged on the king-size bed in her suite with her computer, her fingers dancing across the keys as the small printer beside Birch fired to life.“Angelo emailed me a list of the other businesses linked to Trevor Drayson.You probably overheard some of the conversation, but several of them are the same ones Ryder paid for excess supplies you say weren’t needed.Do you remember ever seeing a delivery from any of those companies?”

The printer spat out a piece of paper and he grabbed it, reading the names over.“I’m certain I saw some of these names on some boxes in the recycling bin, but since Ryder usually does the contracted mail pickup on his way to work, I don’t deal with anything not sent through the post office.”

Setting her laptop aside, she leaned back on her hands.“So, what came out of the boxes?Jewelry?Ink?Disinfectants?You would see the stock on the shelves, right?”

Wracking his memory, he shook his head slowly.“Nothing.I can’t think of anything I’ve seen in the shop that wasn’t a regular order.”

“Then what was in them?”she pressed.“These companies weren’t just shipping air to keep up a front.”

Chapter Thirteen

Jocelyn jolted awake,her mind foggy and disoriented as she sat up on the sofa and caught her laptop before it fell to the floor.The soft click of a lock snapped her attention over to the door Birch was opening slowly.His back was to her as he slipped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him.

Although she told Angelo she wouldn’t be delving into the invoices and deposits until morning, she and Birch had sat up late into the night entering the numbers into her spreadsheet and flagging the ones they deemed suspicious for further investigation.

It was a long night with few words spoken.The tension thrumming off of Birch put her own nerves on edge.She could see the dots connecting in his head as he flipped back through the stacks they’d already finished with, but whatever those connections were, he wasn’t sharing.Every so often he would stop and stare at the floor for a few minutes, his shoulders hunched and his hands flexing.Then, as fast as he fell into the zone he would return to work, reading out the numbers and details to her while she typed them out until she literally fell asleep on the job.

Getting to her feet, she trudged to the bathroom to wake herself up with a hot shower, the early light of dawn peeking between the heavy hotel curtains.She stripped down and stepped under the spray, her thoughts on the man who had just snuck out the door without a word.

She barely knew him.

So what was it about Birch Baker that made her so certain he truly wasn’t the bad guy in this mess?

It wasn’t like her to overlook flaws, to rationalize them away with weak justifications.

And being under investigation for fraud was a pretty damning flaw.

But no matter how hard she tried to be objective, she simply couldn’t believe the man she was falling for was able to fool her so completely.His reactions to everything were too honest, too raw.The hurt flashing across his face when she demanded he reassure her he wasn’t the bad guy was too deep.

And it was those unfiltered moments of vulnerability that drew her in further.

She could never be accused of being a bleeding heart when it came to men.Not anymore, now that she knew there were guys out there who had no qualms about using her to their advantage.And she never had the desire to fix, save, or change anyone.

But Birch didn’t need fixing.Or saving.Or changing.

What he needed was to be seen and heard for who he was, not who he was deemed to be.

When his guard dropped, every tiny thing he revealed called to her.She wanted to know all the stories he held tight to the chest, wanted to know how he saw the world.Even if it was only for the short time before she returned home, she wanted to know everythingthat Baker boykept from the rest of Epson.

And there was one story in particular she needed to hear from him, not from the whispers around town.

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