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He had gotten a glimpse of her fiddling underneath Fletcher’s Ferrari and his vision had clouded as red as the car. His wild imagination had her planting a tracking device under the vehicle—or in the insanity of the moment—a bomb.
It wasn’t until she saw him and dropped the sandwich she was holding that he realized how monumentally he had fucked up.
But it was too late to stop. The paramilitary training he’d done with Auric Security had taken over and in a blink his momentum had carried them both to the wall behind the car, where he pinned her using the bulk of his body.
His only saving grace was that he’d had the foresight to cradle the back of her head with his palm before she hit the concrete, the sweet taste of vindication fleeing as quickly as it had come.
Now he was frozen in place, unable to see anything but Emma’s fear-filled eyes, his mind having blanked in self-protection against his own idiocy.
Even Fletcher’s shouts were barely making it through the wall of white noise his mind had created.
He had been walking his partner to his car, talking about the dinner they were about to have with a longtime client when they’d spotted Emma.
Fuck. Were those tears? Yes, they were.
Congratulations, asshole. He had terrorized his employee—in a parking garage no less—and made her cry.
The sob that escaped her mouth finally broke the ice that had encased him. Garrett let go, backing off before he threw up all over her.
It took Emma a minute to realize she’d been released. She looked from side to side, jerking abruptly before picking up the coffee cup he hadn’t noticed.
A thousand words of apology rose to his lips, but they got trapped in his throat.
Then he saw something, a scar about an inch long peeking out from behind her hair, the thick mass of it pulled forward over one shoulder in a side braid.
He fixed on the pale line of white that appeared to thicken before disappearing behind the glossy dark-brown strands.
“How old is that scar?” he breathed, his hand moving to push her braid back.
It was another idiot move of course. Garrett had just assaulted a woman in a parking garage and was now trying to stroke her hair.
He deserved what happened next.
Squeaking as if all the air had rushed out of her lungs, Emma jerked the coffee cup up.
De Ollawas a premium coffee place but even they used those flimsy to-go lids that never managed to stay on.
Garrett reared back as the still-hot coffee splashed all over his pristine white shirt.
“Shit.”
He ran his hands down his chest in rapid strokes, pushing the hotliquid off. It wasn’t scalding, but it was hot enough to shock him and incense Fletcher.
His partner stepped up around them, uncaring that Emma had flattened herself against the wall as two men crowded her, effectively trapping her.
“Emma! Did you just throw the coffee at him?” he asked, giving her an incredulous glare.
She didn’t answer. Garrett would have been surprised if she could. Emma was trembling, her eyes wide and glassy as if she was in shock.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” his partner continued yelling as Garrett yanked off his navy blazer and ruined tie. “What is wrong with you?”
He turned his head to glare at his partner. “Calm down. This is my fault.”
Garrett shouldn’t have taken his eyes off her.
Emma pushed past him, hitting him in the shoulder like a tiny linebacker. Surprised, he leaped back at the same time, knocking Fletcher into the side panel of his prized Ferrari.
“Emmy, wait, I’m sor—” he began but she was running too fast to hear.