Page 111 of Power

56

JACE

The security guard shifted uncomfortably in his chair as I loomed over his desk. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting his growing unease.

“How could there be a hundred men that left the building?” I demanded, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the edge of his desk.

The guard cleared his throat. “It’s a big building, Mr. Lockwood.” He gestured at the monitoring screens behind him. “It normally occupies two thousand people. I thought you’d be happy to find out there were only a hundred.”

“A hundred,” I repeated, shoving a hand through my hair, already calculating how many hours it would take to investigate each one. “Is there any way to isolate who came from which floor?”

The guard grimaced. “We don’t have surveillance cameras inside the building.” He pointed to a monitor showing the main entrance. “Just in the foyer on the front doors by the security system.”

I leaned in closer, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “There’s got to be a way to narrow down who was in Miss West’s office around six o’clock this evening.”

The security guard’s eyes flickered with curiosity. “Do you mind if I ask what this is about, sir?”

My jaw clenched. “Yes, I mind.” I straightened to my full height, letting my CEO persona slip fully into place. “Now, do your job and narrow down the goddamned list.”

The guard flinched, then quickly turned to his keyboard, fingers suddenly very busy. “Right away, Mr. Lockwood.”

“How long will it take?”

His fingers stopped moving. “Er …”

“For God’s sake, call me when you have something.”

57

SCARLETT

“You had hot sex in a meadow?” Dakota whispered, her eyes wide.

“Shhhhh!” I glanced frantically at my office door before shutting it with a decisive click.

It was surreal, coming in this morning. Someone had already cleaned up all the mess in my office and put it back together like nothing had ever happened. For all I knew, Grabby Hands might’ve done it to cover his tracks, but my money was on Jace, wanting me to come in and have nothing triggering me.

“That wasn’t the highlight of what I just told you!” I hissed.

Dakota waved her hand dismissively. “I hear you. I’m saving my barrage of questions about Grabby Hands for a minute, but for right now … you and Jace? Are things getting serious between you two?”

“Seriously? Why is that your focal point?” I dropped into my chair, bewildered by her priorities.

In her defense, I’d left out another headline: the confession Jace had made to me. I didn’t need an NDA to know that was a private thing he’d shared in confidence. It wasn’t my place to broadcast his darkest secret, and frankly, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it yet.

My heart begged me to move on from his past. It whisperedthat everyone made mistakes, that he hadn’t meant it, that he’d been only twenty, that he’d spent years tormented by guilt, that it had been one terrible decision in a lifetime of helping people.

But my brain countered that his actions, drunk or not, had cost someone everything.

Then my heart would circle back, asking if people should be defined by one terrible mistake? Or should they be defined by the whole of their lives? And who was I to judge anyway? People in glass houses and all that. Was I seriously considering pushing away the first man who’d made me feel safe and seen? The first man I’d trusted enough to let past my walls? My feelings for him ran too deep to simply walk away, didn’t they?

I shook my head, forcing the mental tug-of-war to pause. Focus. I could untangle my complicated feelings for Jace later. Right now, I needed to take down Marcus and somehow get Dakota to stop fixating on my love life.

“Well?” I prompted, waiting for her response to my question about why my possibly dating Jace was the headline in her mind when there were actual crimes to discuss.

“Okay, fine, you’re right. Grabby Hands turning violent is definitely the headline. But we’re going to circle back to this whole Jace thing eventually.” She sat back. “So, what’s your plan?”

I squared my shoulders. “I filed a police report.”