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Page 33 of Maneater (The Mavens #1)

TWENTY-TWO

JOSIE

I don’t tell Rory about the kiss right away, unsure of how to approach it.

It helped that while I was showering, Rory caught a break and finally found an entry point into the resort’s cameras, which means we’ve been messing with the different live feeds to see what we have access to.

She hasn’t been able to hack into the cloud for previously recorded videos, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

We’re in our comfy sleep clothes, sitting on my bed, while Rory types up our daily report on what we’ve found, who we talked to, and current suspects.

Gabriel will review it tomorrow morning, edit it, and send a censored version to the client, primarily focusing on our current suspects and the reasons and methods we’ve used to narrow them down.

While she does that, I’m trying to figure out how to tell Rory what happened in the coatroom as well as what I found out.

“Oh, it looks like we have an update from Gabriel,” Rory says, reading over her email before reading a line out loud.

“Intel Annette wanted to send your way after seeing your most recent suspect list was that Horace Greenfeld recently purchased a very large share of Daydream Resorts. It seems his loss is their gain, as he decided not to pursue his own chain but instead invest in theirs.”

I look at Rory, intrigued. “So is he no longer a suspect?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It would seem that way. I can’t imagine that he would want to devalue his purchase after he’s already done. Before, yeah, so it would be cheaper, but not after.”

“We can probably back-burner him at the very least. If anything happens where he’s obviously lied, then bring him back, but for now, we have enough to worry about.”

I nod in agreement, then take a deep breath, knowing this is a perfect segue. Before I can find the courage, though, Rory turns her body away from her computer, looking at me fully with a motherly expression on her face.

“Hey, Josie?” she says in a gentle tone.

“Yeah?” I ask.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

I decide my best bet is playing stupid. “What?”

“You disappeared, then came back twenty minutes later, nearly whistling to yourself, lipstick a mess.”

My jaw drops open. “You didn’t tell me my lipstick was a mess!” I nearly shout, and she smiles.

“It’s not that the lipstick was all over; it’s just that it was nearly gone.”

I groan and put my head in my hands. I should have brought my lip stain ; it’s totally kiss-proof. But I didn’t think to, because I don’t do this.

I don’t kiss my marks.

I’ll flirt, I’ll tease, I’ll imply, I’ll touch an arm and show cleavage, but I never cross that line. I never blur things because, in this job, your focus needs to be absolutely precise.

When I lift my head, she’s staring at me still, raising a knowing eyebrow as if I’m a petulant teenager caught with a hickey.

“Okay. So…” I start, taking a deep breath and remembering the su per hot moment in the coatroom.

I haven’t given myself much space to think about it since I had been at the cocktail party, and then we had the huge break with the camera feeds, but now that I have the space to…

Still, I owe an explanation to my partner, so I continue.

“I saw Horace and Regina coming our way, and also Gene and Jenny. Regina waved Horace into the party and said she was going to the bathroom, which was clearly bullshit because she stopped in a corner to watch Gene and Jenny, then put something in her phone. She tried to get into the party right after, but?—”

“Bags weren’t allowed in,” Rory says, picking up the thread.

“Exactly. So she put her bag in the bag room, and I went to…investigate.” Her eyes go wide, and I hurry to explain. “There was no one in the room, I swear. But I did find this,” I say, reaching for and scrolling on my phone to show her the photos I took.

“Fuck. So the leak is her .” I nod. “Have you sent these to Gabriel yet?” I shake my head and watch as she sends them to herself. “I’ll add them to the daily report,” she says, moving across the room to her computer to do just that. “Continue,” she orders.

I sigh. “And then Rowan came in.”

Her body stills, and she looks up at me. “Did you distract him?”

“I tried,” I say, then drop my face in my hands when she raises an eyebrow. “I tried flirting, but he’s immune to my charm, Rory.”

She lets out a snort of a laugh. “No, he is not.”

“Yes, he is!” I say, throwing my hands into the air. “That’s why I had to kiss him. To distract him from asking too many questions about my being in the room!”

“You kissed him ?” she asks, finally stopping her typing and looking up at me.

It’s not so much shock on her face, but more like awe.

She knows this isn’t what I do: I don’t kiss my marks.

I don’t kiss suspects. I don’t kiss leads.

I’m all talk and no follow-through, only ever flirting and nothing more.

“He walked in on me investigating! Kissing him was my diversion.”

“Jesus, Josie!” she says, more laugh than reprimand. “So he caught you going through her bag?” I shrug.

“I don’t think so. I told him it was my bag. It was bright blue, but he’s a man. He’s not going to realize it wasn’t mine.” I look away, remembering it all once again before shrugging. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not really into me. He’s…immune.”

She stares for a long moment before shaking her head and turning to her computer and continuing to type out the email before hitting send.

My phone pings with a new message. I know I was CC’d on it, but I can’t even double-check because then she’s turning to me fully and looking at me with intention.

“I’m saying this with so much love, Jose,” she starts, and my gut clenches because she only starts a sentence like this if she thinks I’m going to deny whatever fact she’s trying to share completely.

“But the man is so deeply into you and, from what I’m seeing, has been for some time .

Like, since you were in college , some time. ”

I roll my eyes and shake my head, laughing her off. “He likes the man-eater. He doesn’t like Josie.” I laugh, but Rory doesn’t, instead looking at me with a soft, sad tilt of her lips.

“God, I’m so tired of you doing this to yourself.”

“What?”

She stands then, moving to the couch and sitting next to me with a face I don’t really want to see, before taking a sigh and reaching for my hand.

“I love you more than anything. My best friend, my partner, I trust you with my life, literally. You know that. So when I say this, I need you to know I’m saying it with all the love in the world.”

I grimace at her out-of-character, mushy statement. “I feel like I’m not going to like whatever it is you’re about to say.”

“You might not at first, but eventually, like always, you’ll see that I’m a genius and always know best. You are your own worst enemy, Josie,” she says softly.

“They’re all the same, Rory. Men like the appeal of me: they like the flirting, they like the body, they like the package.

They don’t like the reality. They surely don’t like that my job is flirting with other people, typically men.

They don’t like that I work nonstop. They don’t like that I’m unreachable sometimes.

” I could go on for days, but this is not the first time she’s heard this rant.

“The right one will.”

“Oh, and the right one is Rowan, I suppose?” I ask with a laugh, ignoring the flutter in my belly.

“I don’t know,” she says honestly, with a shrug. “What I do know is you’re into him. What I do know is, despite your own experiences and despite seeing the worst in people, you want a relationship. What I do know is that in the four years of working with you, you’ve never dated someone.”

I roll my eyes, eager to shift the focus. “Is this not the pot calling the kettle black?”

She confidently shakes her head. “No.” I raise an eyebrow at her reply, and she continues. “I don’t want a man. I am incredibly happy with my vibrators and my hand, and my work. You are a people person. You want a person, Josie.”

I twist my lips, not liking the way emotion is bubbling in my chest with her words.

My best friend, though nerdy and introverted and with her thick wall keeping out anyone she doesn’t want to see in, has a soft soul. She continues to stare at me before she sighs and smiles softly at me.

“But you’ll get there eventually. When the right one proves himself worthy,” she says. “In the meantime, let’s figure out who is screwing with this place.”

I smile then and nod in appreciation at her change in subject before we get to work.

An hour later, Rory is still trying to sneak into the backend of the security system, while I’m moving from live feed to live feed, trying to find something of note and trying not to get unbearably bored.

“I’ve got it,” Rory whispers, and my body lights up with excitement.

“Really?”

She nods, continuing to stare at her screen. “ Yeah. I think I can get into the cloud, but I need to get into the security room.”

My excitement builds while also tempering.

“The security room?” I ask.

She nods, then gives me a wide smile. “Want to play lookout tomorrow?”

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