Page 12 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

Rio has always been blunt, cutting, even.

But in this case, it warms me to him. I don’t like people skirting around the fact that I have a life-limiting disease, pretending it’s not there, as if that’s somehow going to make it disappear.

Not that I want to talk about it all the time either.

I’d rather they point out how great it is to still be alive, simple and to the point, like Rio.

“Yeah,” I shove my hands in my back pockets. “Surviving has been my greatest rebellion.”

Later in the office, I should be focused on my work, but instead, all day has been a wash. I haven’t gotten much done. Too many distractions.

Too many glances from those hooded eyes and heat on my back, my cheek, and if I’m not mistaken, Gabriel has had his gaze elsewhere, too.

And I can’t say I’ve kept mine to myself when I thought he wasn’t looking.

I wish we could just touch each other already and get this attraction, tension… whatever out of the way, but it doesn’t work like that.

I’d have been better off crammed at the baby table in our apartment, sipping lukewarm coffee and tuning out the world.

The office at Monarch Hills is admittedly gorgeous and smells faintly of leather, coffee, and cedar.

Everything about it feels like a Western boardroom: wide boardroom table made of reclaimed oak, iron light fixtures, and enough cowboy flair to remind you this isn’t some sleek corporate suite in a tower downtown.

There are also several desks, two of which Gabriel and Rio have claimed as their own.

I guess Enzo and Ava have left for their Tahitian vacation. She was so cute when she told me about their trip at book club, and I never thought of it until she said, but it’s true, Tahiti kind of does sound like a fictional place, like Timbuktu. Which I only learned yesterday, is in Mali.

Distracted again…

Freya, on the other hand, is happy as a clam. Her papers and pens are sprawled out on the opposite end to me at the long table, doing her thing.

Crap. I need to focus so I can get to the bottom of this Scarlet Hope expenditure issue.

I picked up on the problem about a month ago when I started writing a bi-monthly donor newsletter to inform our donors where money was being spent.

Accountability is huge, but people are motivated to continue donating where they’re certain it’s money well spent.

But for my first newsletter, I found a huge amount of funds were transferred to another charity I didn’t recognize, and I had no idea what they did with the money. I called the charity and got the runaround. When I asked Kevin, he didn’t try too hard to find out.

Then, it happened again mid-month. Same thing, different charity.

And now, it’s my third newsletter where I’m making up stories about where our donors’ money is being spent.

I need to focus because I no longer think this is slow communication on the part of the charities. My gut tells me something much bigger is wrong. That maybe even, Kevin is involved.

But every time I try to focus, Gabriel shifts… like now. He stands, and I work hard to look at my computer rather than him, but my screen is a blur.

He passes behind me, and the air stirs as if made of something heavier and softer than it was before he entered my space.

One second of nearness, and I lose track of my spreadsheet.

I pull up this quarter’s budgets and start clicking through data beyond when I first noticed the problem. At first glance, everything looks polished. Professional. But when I drill deeper into last quarter’s payments out, my pulse kicks.

Much more money has poured into other charities than I ever knew.

Sure, they are nonprofits, but there’s not much due diligence, receipts, or any real reports of what they’ve spent the money on flowing back our way.

Surely Kevin would require these charities to clearly state what they spent the money on.

I raise millions of dollars on the back of promises. I want to inform our supporters, but this month, two hundred thousand flowed to the Harris Family Foundation.

It’s impossible to know how the Harris Family Foundation will use the money unless they tell us, or we wait a year for them to file their public reports.

Why are we giving money to these other charities?

When I found the first problem a month ago, I asked Kevin about it. Why can’t we deliver the services ourselves? Or donate directly to families?

He explained it’s not our business model.

He explained that what we’re good at is the funding, not the delivery, and that these charities can do it more efficiently.

Can I really write to our donors, again, and say their hard-earned cash is just being sent to another charity?

One that I can’t even really drill down into…

shit, even the Harris Family Foundation website tells me very little, and most of the photos look like stock images of families and sick kids.

“Problem?” Gabriel’s voice is low behind me.

I jump, slamming the laptop shut before I can stop myself. “No,” I say too quickly. “Just spreadsheets.” I spin around and I’m met with his trim waist and a mile-wide chest. “And why are you snooping?”

He leans over, placing his tanned hand on the table next to my laptop, rolled-up sleeves and sexy veins in my eyeline.

“You looked stressed out.”

Freya doesn’t move, but her eyes peek up and over her screen with an inquisitive stare.

“My stress levels aren’t your concern.” I try to compose myself, but my heart beats a million miles an hour now, and all I can think is…

Cologne. Damn, he smells delicious. A woman wouldn’t mind being completely smothered and suffocated by that scent.

“Lara, you can’t keep things from me. We went through this.”

“Wrong. You don’t have access to my entire life. Do you want to join me in the bathroom, too?”

His jaw tics, and him seeing another intention between my words makes me think of it, too. To watch the shower trickle down abs and pecs like his…

He pushes himself upright and leans against the nearby wall as if carved from the beam itself. “I know when something isn’t right, and given you weren’t going to tell me about the text yesterday…”

“We’re past that, G.”

“Are we?” He stares at me like the boy I remember, the one who’d unzip his own skin to warm me if I so much as mentioned being cold.

He was so good back then.

God, I loved him.

I grab the girl inside me and shake her by the shoulders.

But you don’t anymore.

I cock an eyebrow. “Stand down, soldier. It’s just work stuff, and trust me, I’ll give you my daily steps and sleep activity if it gets me off your leash faster.”

Suddenly, I’m dipping into another fantasy involving leather playthings.

I shouldn’t have gone to that book club yesterday and I’m off romance until stamping out of Echo Valley. I need to scrub these Gabriel fantasies from my mind.

I open my laptop again and take a deep breath to cool off.

Is it even hot in here?

Just then, Freya’s cell blasts out ‘Who Runs the World’ by Beyoncé, and she hurries to grab it from her purse to silence it.

She leaps up and answers as she takes quick steps into the hallway, leaving the door ajar. “Kevin… hi…”

Gabriel glances at Rio, who’s lounging near the window, pretending not to be listening. Gabriel pretends, too, and somehow, their interest in Freya’s conversation increases my own.

Freya always has her phone on the highest volume, often even on speaker since she lost some her hearing when she was sick. Their voices waft through the tiny crack in the door.

“Hey, I don’t have much time,” he says.

“That’s okay. I’m working. Everything is set for the donor event coming up next week. All the auction prizes are sorted, and it’s nice this one isn’t too far from San Francisco or Echo Valley. Maybe we could stay ov…”

Kevin cuts her off. “Great. Keep yourself busy, sweetheart. Where are you now?”

The question instantly makes my hair stand on end. It’s a normal one, but anybody who has ever had a stalker doesn’t like it.

“We decided to work at Monarch Hills. It’s where Gabriel lives. You should see this place, horses, rolling paddocks, and…”

“That’s nice…” he cuts her off. “Just make sure your cowboy bodyguard keeps his hands off my princess.”

She laughs, but it’s one of her uncomfortable, tight ones. Or at least I think it is. I can’t tell if she thinks what Kevin said was meant to be cute.

But it makes this girl see red. I hate the way he talks to Freya, have done for a while, but now I don’t like the way he’s referring to Gabriel to top it off.

Yes, he’s a cowboy. Yes, he’s a bodyguard. But I’ve seen how he uses his hands. And it’s never careless.

“Don’t be silly,” Freya says. “Gabriel is so respectful it’s noble.”

I glance over at Gabriel, who stares hard at the floor, listening intently. Does he even give a crap?

I do.

“Well,” Kevin says, “just keep your eyes open. I know how much you put your faith in humanity. No offence, but it can be borderline naive. I just want to look out for you. Not everyone is a good guy.”

Gabriel and Rio exchange a glance at that, and Rio flicks his gaze to me.

“Does he always talk to her like that? Like she’s a child?”

He does, and I have mentioned it to her. I swallow, but my throat is dry. Cameron said some of the same types of things in the early days, and I’ve pointed that out to her before. But I decide this time to back Freya, because she’s even more alone here than I am.

“He doesn’t know you guys. It’s probably putting him on edge.”

“He’s controlling,” Gabriel counters. “There’s a difference, and I know it when I see it. Or hear it.”

Sadly, that’s what my gut is saying, too.

When Freya comes back in, she’s flustered but cheerful. “That was nice of Kevin. He chased the car transport company, my car will be here, crack of dawn tomorrow.”

I nod, feigning normalcy. “That’ll be good.”