Page 50 of Forged in Secrets

He looked at her like a deer about to be struck by an 18-wheeler, and despite her annoyance, she found herself softening her tone.

“I knocked at your hotel room door and you weren’t there, and then I realized I dropped my sunglasses somewhere. I figured they could be here.”

“And you heard me talking to Asher.”

She sucked in a breath. “Yup. Pretty much.”

She rubbed at the goosebumps that had arisen on her upper arms, feeling suddenly chilly.

He had lied to her face.

As she waited for him to lock up the room with some small tools and a fake key card, she found her thoughts wandering back to the kisses they’d shared.

They’d been perfect, and just enough, even when she could tell that they both wanted more.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” Ben said as the door closed with a soft click. “I shouldn’t have broken in. You’re right. It wasn’t worth it. I didn’t find anything, anyway.”

She could see by the sadness in his eyes that he was sorry.

But for once, she struggled to find the energy to forgive.

She had spent years pining after him, trying to get him to see her as more than a friend.

Things felt so easy when Ben was just a crush, a welcome distraction during a long workday. But now that things had actually changed between them, she was no longer sure about anything.

She knew she wanted to be with a man who brought her closer to Christ. Ben had lied to her.

And he had lied because he couldn’t even bother to tell her why he disagreed with her opinion.

It hurt.

It wasn’t the first time in her life where someone saw her as nothing more than a pretty blonde with nice clothes.

She just had never expected Ben to be the one to make her feel that way.

“Hey. Can we talk about this?” Ben said, reaching for her hand as she began to make her way back down the hall.

“I’m fine, okay?”

She hoped that the smile plastered on her face would hide the hollowness she was feeling. One mistake didn’t prove she’d been wrong about him. She’d just have to give things between them a little more thought, and in any case, they had more important things to worry about right now.

“So,” Grace said, “Did you actually get a chance to dig into the Lumeneer II?”

Ben flashed her a guilty look.

“No worries,” she added quickly. “I called Katie’s dad in China–I had been wanting to check in with him anyway–and I figured maybe he could give us some background info on Jade.”

“Good thinking.”

She allowed Ben to steer her into the elevator with a gentle hand against her back. Despite her frustration with him at the moment, his touch was just as wonderful as ever. It was infuriating.

“Anyway,” she said, trying to refocus on the questions at hand, “turns out Jade’s father Craig works for some huge company called Lumen. Apparently, the company owns several boats that they keep in various ports for entertaining clients and so on.”

She paused, relishing Ben’s approving glance in spite of herself. She wished that she’d called Donald Fairman about Jade earlier.

“Ah, the Lumeneer II. Makes sense.”

“He told me that Katie and Jade were borrowing it for spring break, so he was surprised when I told him that Jade lied about taking it out. But you know what was strange?”

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