Page 95 of Beautiful Liar

Slowly I release the door and step out. The look on his face hasn’t changed. I don’t know how to accurately describe it. It’s a cross between lust, possession, pity and anger. The first two I understand. The last two baffle me.

I quickly measure the distance between the door and me. He spots and intercepts any move I might try to make.

My fists ball and I force my gaze to meet this. “You want to talk. Well, talk.”

He doesn’t speak immediately. Those flint eyes rake me from head to toe, lingering on my bare legs and my tits. “Christ, you’re so fucking pretty.” His voice is thick with hunger.

My terror mounts. “Ridge—”

He clears his throat and gives a single shake of his head, as if he’s clearing his thoughts. I sure as fuck don’t want to know what those thoughts are, so I remain silent. Vigilant.

“I know what you did.”

Tension roars up my spine. “Excuse me?”

“You went into Clay’s office two nights ago. Took something. I know it was you.”

“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“Watch that mouth.”

I bite back another curse and try to keep my voice even. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I didn’t go into Clay’s office.”

He ambles over to my side, crowding me again. I breathe in his excessively applied aftershave and try not to gag. “I did two tours in Fallujah. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t. Thank you for your service.”

He smirks for a second before his features return to their gut-freezing intensity. “You know what my specialty was?”

I shake my head.

“Computers. Electronics. Anything with a chip or a motherboard, I can dismantle and put together.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an electronic card. It looks like the security pass we use to get between buildings. Only it’s the wrong color. “Clay had me design this special baby for him. It records everyone’s movements between the buildings, including his, and it’s also connected to face recognition software on his laptop. Clever thing about this card is, it also flags discrepancies. For instance, if the camera spots you say, in the North Wing, but your card is swiped at the front gate two minutes later, it sends an alert. Do you get where I’m going with this, Lucky?”

My heart climbs into my throat. “If…if that belongs to Clay, why do you have it?”

“Good question. He thinks he’s misplaced it.”

“And?”

“I have until tomorrow to find it or I make another one for him. Either way, we both know what he’ll find once he gets a hold of this card again.”

I swallow hard. “What do you want, Ridge?”

His features twist with a blend of anticipation and triumph. He slips the card back in his pocket and takes out something else. It’s a tiny pouch, containing about three pinches of white powder.

Oh shit.

He steps forward and holds out the pouch to me. “Slip this into the asshole’s drink tonight.”

I step back. “No.”

He closes the gap between us. “I’m not giving you much of a choice here.”

“What is it?”

“It’s not poison. Much as I want to wipe him off the face of the fucking planet, for one thing I won’t put you in that position.”

I eye the white powder. “So what position is this, then?”

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