Page 45 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
“There you are, darling!” Elise’s throaty alto filled his ears. Her tall, spidery figure approached them in a designer suit with her beige trench coat draped over her arm. Her hair was pulled tightly back as usual, and a diamond choker hugged her throat. She loved her diamonds. He honestly couldn’t think of an instance when shewasn’twearing diamonds.
Aaron hid a wince at the cloud of perfume that filled the air as he stood. She reached him and leaned in to kiss his cheek.
Looking apologetic, Maggie hastily slid off the bench on the other side of his booth. “I’ll get out of your hair. It was nice running into you again.” Her lovely lips twisted ruefully. “And thanks for your offer to help.”
Elise’s dark eyebrows rose haughtily as she claimed the bench Maggie had vacated. “What was that all about?”
Aaron didn’t feel like he owed her an explanation for anything in his life, but he was supposed to be pretending to smooth things over with her.It’s only part of the job,he reminded himself for the umpteenth time.
He shrugged offhandedly as he returned to his seat. “I offered to spread the word at the police station to recruit a cleanup crew for them.”
“That was nice of you.” She looked amused. “The ransacking they endured at the bee farm was pretty horrible. I heard all about it on the news.”
He wasn’t sure what she found so funny about it. Reaching for the stack of menus against the wall, hehanded her one. “They have the best buttermilk pancakes and made-to-order omelettes here.” He’d eaten there so often that he had most of the menu memorized.
“No to the pancakes. Yes to the eggs if they’ll toss them in a quiche for me.” Her fingers brushed his as she accepted the menu from him. It felt deliberate. Other than that, he felt nothing.
He was convinced the only reason she’d ever dated him was to get her foot in the door at Diamondback. She’d spent their entire six months together wrangling invitations to dinner parties, fundraisers, and other events where his parents and uncle were likely to be present. To this day, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure how she’d pulled it off, but she’d convinced his father to retire his aging personal assistant and hire her instead.
“How’s work?” He glanced around impatiently for their waitress.
“Listen to us,” Elise cooed in a sugary-sweet voice that lacked sincerity. “Talking about work like a boring old married couple.”
He was saved the trouble of responding to such a ridiculous statement by the waitress, who arrived to take their orders. He was forced to spend the next several minutes listening to Elise harass the woman for things outside of her control, such as the lack of soy milk in the building.
“You haven’t changed,” he noted blandly after the waitress finally made her escape.Still got the same old superiority complex as before.But he didn’t say what he was thinking aloud. “Still a health nut, I see.”
Her lips twisted into a pout. “Believe me, it’s not easy when I’m on the road, especially in little no-name towns like this, but you’re worth it.” She gave a long-sufferingsigh. “Also, your uncle didn’t exactly give me a choice.” The irritation in her voice sounded more genuine this time.
“He can be pretty persistent when he wants to be.” Aaron was having a hard time imagining anyone bossing Elise around, but he played along. “For what it’s worth, I appreciate his concern.” He waited a beat before adding, “And yours.”
Her pout faded into something he couldn’t define. “From what it sounded like, you almost died.”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “As you can see, I’m fine.” Though the gas leak had made him sick, he’d been rescued in plenty of time.
“Gas,” she intoned quietly. “The silent killer.”
He’d forgotten how morbid she could be. He took another sip of his coffee and changed the subject. “Enough about me. How are you doing? How’s work? How’s life? Are you married yet?”
As he’d hoped, his last question drew a shocked gasp out of her. “I can’t tell you all of my secrets in one sitting, Aaron Cannon. What would be the fun in that?”
She made sure she wove in a bunch of intrusive questions of her own before the meal was over. He dodged most of them, making himself sound like the singlest bachelor who’d ever bachelored.
Her air of hauteur faded a few degrees as she listened and barely touched the quiche she’d arm-twisted the waitress into having specially made for her. After he wolfed down his omelette, she set her fork down.
“I miss this,” she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I miss?—”
“So do I,” he breezed, not wanting to let their conversation get too off track. “It’s not ideal handling companybusiness strictly over electronic devices. Sometimes, you’ve gotta have a face-to-face, you know?”
“True.” Her expression grew shuttered. “Is there anything you’d like to run past me?” She glanced at her watch. “I have an hour or so before my next conference call.”
“Actually, there is.” He went into a lengthy explanation about the firewalls in Modello’s security system that Aurora had been struggling to hack through.
Elise muffled a yawn. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Normally, yes.” He tapped his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. “But it doesn’t explain why their alarm was triggered, and that’s what she’s here to figure out—preferably before their next shipment of gems.” He launched into an even more boring topic about the way their system was wired.
To his delight, Elise cut him off mid-sentence, claiming she needed to take off even though he hadn’t come close to using up the allotted hour.
