Page 249 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“I’ll try to get more pics,” he said, and I saw the hint of a smile toying with his lips.
I ate another slice, delighted at his reaction. It was likely the height of foolishness on my part, but I’d fallen headlong back into my crush on my big brother’s best friend. Verbal sparring like this got my blood pumping.
Jack pulled his phone up and enlarged the ledger photo. “You think the numbers could be related to payouts?”
Wiping my hands on a napkin, I held one out for the phone. Jack passed it to me and I moved the screen close to my face. “Maybe,” I said. The numbers ranged from three to five digits. They could be monetary amounts.
Intending to return to the picture of the men in the alley, I swiped across his screen. I must have swiped the wrong direction, because a picture of Jack and Matt in matching fatigues appeared. I laughed, thinking my brother looked like a complete dork.
Unable to resist, I kept swiping. Matt was posed in front of a camel. It had markings on its tan face, like someone had shaved patterns into the hair there. Jack and Matt on a tank. Jack and Matt and a few other guys posed with a group of locals.
I swiped again, and the photo that appeared gave me pause. It was of a smallish wooden coffin, dark against the dust around it. I wondered who the coffin belonged to.
His arm reached over my shoulder and Jack removed the phone from my hands. I realized suddenly how rude I’d been.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I was looking for the group pic, and I swiped the wrong way and saw those pictures of you and my brother. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Jack stared at her without saying a word. Then he turned on his heel, leaving the conference room. I watched as he grabbed his jacket and put it on. He was leaving.
“Hey,” I called after him, but he ignored me. Unlocking the door, he let himself out. I watched as he stalked under the streetlamp.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 9
JACK
It was another long day in Dexter Jansen’s office. I was forced to practice the mindfulness techniques I’d learn in Delta Force. Otherwise, I’d end up going off on this rich motherfucker.
The topic of conversation today was Christmas bonuses. Apparently, Jansen had promised his engineers a substantial end of the year bonus if they completed the requested designs on time. As I watched, Jansen dressed down the chief engineer when the poor man had reminded him of the promise.
“Do you have it in writing?” Jansen snarled.
The engineer shook his head. “We had an oral agreement.”
The rich man shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t remember that.”
The other man stood, and my senses went on alert. The man’s fists were balled, his posture that of an animal about to strike. “I’m sick of this shit,” the engineer said. “You live up to your promise, or my entire team walks.”
“Walk then,” Jansen said, leaning back, lifting his legs to place them on the desktop and crossing his ankles. “Your team is replaceable.”
“We’ll badmouth you to every professional we know.”
Jansen shrugged. “I’ll hire foreigners and pay them less than your guys.”
“You’re an asshole,” the man snarled, then pushed his way past Jack and out of the door.
Jansen laughed. “He won’t quit. None of the techie guys ever quit. They’re all marshmallows on the inside.”
I gritted my teeth, biting back a retort about him being a marshmallow on the outside.
When he finally ducked into the bathroom for his afternoon constitutional, I breathed a sigh of relief, just to have a door between us. Still, I couldn’t waste the opportunity. I ducked back behind his desk, pulling open the drawer that had held the envelope of photos.
The envelope was gone. It wasn’t anywhere in the desk.
I spied his leather messenger bag sitting on the floor, leaned up against the desk. I squatted beside it and carefully opened the thing. But the envelope wasn’t there either.
The sound of the toilet flushing caught my attention and I darted back across the room. It was only a few minutes later when I felt the vibration of my phone in my pocket. Pulling it out, I saw Emma’s number on the notification screen. I had to stop a smile from spreading across my face.
