Page 47 of Isolated (Harper Security Ops #21)

Iris

My sister was right.

I should have made friends outside of work.

Because the ones I had there didn’t care one iota about anything that happened to me.

And now that I was in the midst of a crisis, there was only one place I could go. I had only one person who could get me through this.

Of course, even if I had a bevy of friends here in Steel Ridge with me, it was unlikely I would have gone to any of them when I had him.

As the tears streamed down my face, as my heart continued to hammer in my chest, all I wanted was Landen. I couldn’t get to him fast enough.

Maybe I should have called him to come to me, but I didn’t want to stay there.

I didn’t want to linger at a place I’d grown to love and was released from.

I didn’t want to allow anyone to walk outside and see me in tears.

People that I’d grown to respect and admire had accused me of the worst kind of betrayal in the work environment.

Working for the enemy, the competition.

I shuddered at the thought. Felt sick over it.

How I made it to Harper Security Ops in the state I was in without crashing my car was a mystery. I could barely see through the tears that clouded my vision.

Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

I was almost there.

Throwing my car into park, I turned it off and hopped out as quickly as humanly possible. Then I ran. And I was so distraught, so close to full-fledged sobs, I missed the curb and tripped.

I went crashing down, my hands and knees connecting with the ground first. My palms instantly burned with the scrapes I’d acquired as a result, but it was the impact to my right wrist and knee that hurt the most.

Seconds away from the meltdown I could feel coming, a pair of hands touched my shoulders as a masculine voice said, “Whoa, that looked painful. Are you okay?”

My body tensed, and I twisted my neck to look at the man. He must have seen the terror and panic on my face, because he immediately went into protector mode. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re safe. Nobody is going to hurt you. My name is Hart. Why don’t you let?—”

“Hart?”

“Yes.”

Landen told me about Hart. They were friends.

Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I rasped, “I’m Iris. I was… I need?—”

“Landen. ”

I nodded.

“Okay. I’ll get you to him. Can you walk? That was a nasty fall.”

“I’m not sure. My knee is throbbing.”

Without giving it a second thought, he commanded, “Put your arms around my neck. I’ll carry you inside.”

I was about to protest, but the next thing I knew, I was up in his arms. And somehow, the door opened for us to walk through.

A feminine voice asked, “What happened, Hart?”

He ignored that question and countered, “Is Landen in his office?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Hart continued to move through the office, and the next thing I knew, Landen’s voice filled the air. “What the fuck happened? Iris?”

I thought Hart would set me down on my feet, but he handed me off to Landen like I weighed no more than a feather and said, “I was coming in when I saw her running to the door and take a spill. She said she hurt her knee. And I think her hands are all scraped up, so I’ll go grab the first aid kit for you. ”

Landen said nothing to him as Hart left the office. He sat down in the chair, settled me in his lap, and brushed the hair out of my face. “What happened? You’re crying. How badly did you injure your knee?”

His hand went to my leg to inspect it, and I blurted, “They fired me.”

Landen tensed. “What?”

“They fired me,” I repeated. “They canceled my meeting this morning, and when I went to find out why, Robert fired me. ”

The next thing I knew, Landen’s hand was at the side of my face. He swiped at the tears that wouldn’t stop falling before sliding his fingers back into my hair and urging me toward his chest.

Knowing I was safe with him, the fight went out of me, and I slumped against his chest with exhaustion and heartbreak. Landen peppered kisses to the top of my head as he stroked his hands over me to offer comfort and reassurance.

For a long while, I stayed like that, attempting to come to grips with what happened today.

I was vaguely aware of Hart returning to Landen’s office briefly to drop off the first-aid kit.

He asked Landen if we needed anything, and once Landen let him know that we were okay for now, he insisted Landen let him know if that changed.

Then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

When I finally stopped crying, Landen tugged lightly on my hair and urged me to look at him. His eyes were pained. “I’m so sorry, sunshine.”

I closed my eyes in response, a tear spilling down my cheek.

Reaching for my hands, Landen inspected my palms. “How about you tell me exactly what happened while I get your hands cleaned up for you?” He stood, placed me in the chair, and knelt in front of me. “So, your meeting got canceled on you, and you went to Robert’s office?”

I nodded. Then I went on to tell him about what happened in Robert’s office.

How Bryan and Howard were already there with him, how I’d barely been given an opportunity to speak or defend myself.

How they looked at me with such disgust after showing me the campaign that had been delivered to Horizon Solutions from our competitor.

Landen had put an ice pack on my knee and immediately dove into tending to the wounds on my hands as I shared everything with him. “And you’re positive you didn’t save any of the work you’d been doing to the company server?”

“Yes. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, so I was sure to only save it to my laptop. I have no idea how it ended up in anyone else’s hands.”

Despite what he might have been feeling inside, Landen was the picture-perfect image of calm and collected.

And focused. His eyes were on my hands as he bandaged them up, but his mind was fixated on every word I was saying.

“Would anyone else have had access to your laptop without you knowing about it?”

“No. I mean, well, I guess anything is possible. I generally always have it with me. I work a lot from home, so I bring it back with me.”

“Since all of this started, even the stuff with your emails, has anyone been around your laptop while you were at home?”

I shrugged. “Well, my family has come to visit me, so any of them. Walter helped me search for water heaters when mine needed to be replaced. But I was right there with him until…”

“Until what?”

“My sister called, and I walked away from the table to talk to her. But it’s Walter. I don’t think he’d even know what to do to sabotage me. And I can’t imagine he’d ever do something like that, anyway. How would he even gain access to the servers at Mono Mark? ”

Landen nodded, tending to the last of the wounds on my hands. “Okay. What about at work? Is your laptop unattended?”

I shook my head. “No. Other than when I use the bathroom or go to lunch, it’s always with me. And I don’t ever leave it at the office, except…”

Landen’s attention shot to my face. “Except what?”

“Well, I’m just now remembering the weekend of my birthday,” I explained.

“What happened then?”

I thought back to that day. It felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. “It was that Friday when Robert told me about my promotion, telling me to consider it a birthday gift. Then he urged me to enjoy my weekend and leave my laptop at work for once.”

Landen arched a brow. “And did you do that?”

Feeling so stupid, I nodded. “I did.”

“Do you still have your laptop?”

“It’s in my car.”

Lifting his hand to the side of my face, he brushed his thumb over the streaks of tears that had been left behind.

“You’re going to wait here while I go out to get it.

Then I’m going to figure out who did this and how.

And when I’m finished, we’re going to march back into that building and clear your name. ”

Landen so often talked about how confident I was, but as he spoke to me now, as he stared into my eyes and explained what would happen next, I couldn’t miss the conviction in his words, the promise in his tone. I didn’t doubt he’d do precisely what he set out to do. “Thank you.”

His features softened, and he moved to stand. Landen leaned down, kissed my cheek, and said, “I’m going to fix this for you, sunshine. Whatever happened, whoever did it, I’m going to figure it out. You’re not going to shed another tear over this.”

“I might start crying for other reasons,” I warned him. The way he cared for me just blew me away.

His lips twitched just before he touched them lightly to mine. “Sit tight. Keep that ice on your knee. I’ll be right back.”

A moment later, he was out the door. And while he was gone, all I could do was sit with the disbelief that this had happened and that it was likely my own boss who’d done this to me. The only question remained… Why?

Four days later

“Who is this?”

That question followed the loud slap on the table.

Any time I’d ever watched a movie or television show involving private investigators, the one thing that stuck out in my mind was the pictures.

The investigators would do surveillance for hours.

Days. And in the end, they’d find the culprit and pin the crime or indiscretion on the guilty party with the evidence they’d gotten in their pictures.

It always felt so contrived and convenient.

As my eyes shifted to the side where Landen had slapped his hand down on the table, noting the stack of pictures beneath it, I realized there was nothing about photographic evidence that was bad beyond the truth it told. The secrets it revealed .

The picture on top. The individual in it.

Eyes wide, my gaze shot to Landen’s. “Where did you get this? I don’t understand.”

Not a hint of amusement was in his tone when he replied, “This is your double agent.”

My chest tightened painfully, my throat closing. It couldn’t be true. “How… Are you sure?”

He jerked his chin toward the photos. “Look through them. You’ll see.”

Moving slowly, feeling repugnant at the truth before me, I picked up the stack of pictures and flipped through them.

I should have seen the signs. It was all coming together now about how it happened, how it was possible. All the things I’d overlooked and the stories I’d told myself.

Maybe I was responsible for what happened to me if I couldn’t see what was staring me in the face.

Landen rested his hand gently on my shoulder. When I looked up at him, I saw the fury he felt on my behalf blazing in his eyes.

“What am I going to do?”

I asked the question, because I knew he’d already come up with a game plan.

Sure enough, he didn’t hesitate to sit down beside me and share it.

“Now that we know what we’re looking at, who we’re looking at, we’re going to go over everything I’ve found, make sure there’s nothing missing, and we’re going to build your defense.

Then we’re going to have a wonderful weekend together.

And on Monday morning, I accompany you into that building and watch you clear your name. ”

As awful as the realization of who was behind this was, I couldn’t help but allow the smile to spread across my face.

Not for the revenge and retribution I’d received, but for the happiness I felt about having Landen in my life.

It was no secret I’d been feeling a lot for him for months, but this man had made it impossible not to fall for him completely in a matter of weeks.

“Thank you, Landen.”

He drove his fingers into my hair and urged me toward him so he could kiss my mouth. “You’re welcome, Iris. Let’s get this plan put together so we can start our weekend.”

“Mmm. I think you’ve got a lot of appreciation coming your way over the next two and a half days.”

Landen laughed. “And you’ve got a lot of worshipping coming yours. We don’t have any time to waste.”

A shiver ran along my spine. “Where do we start?”

With that, Landen and I got to work.