Page 43 of Untouchable

“Anyway, I need some direction—at least something to be looking for, other than the general date. Please tell me you’ve got something.”

“I’ve got some people who might have been involved. I’m going to read their names. You ready?”

She had nothing to write them down on, and she couldn’t risk that anyway, so she focused carefully on the five names he gave her until she’d committed them to memory.

“Has he introduced you to anyone? Do you hang out with his friends?”

“I honestly don’t think he has any friends. He doesn’t do anything but work and?—”

“Spare me the dirty details. What is your situation like? Can you get away if you need to?”

“It’s a little hard to manage, but it’s possible. He thinks our fictional mobster is after me, so he’s got a bodyguard tagging along after me, but I’m shopping now. I’m sure I could slip away if I needed to. Or, if necessary, I could tell him I was leaving. He’d let me go, but I’d have no chance of getting in with him again. Why?”

“I was just checking. I might have something to show you in a few days, but it would have to be in person, unless you want to risk me sending it to your phone.”

“No.” Her heart jumped at the thought. “I don’t trust him not to get into my phone. Don’t send anything by phone.”

“Okay then. Well, if necessary, maybe you could arrange a shopping trip, and we could find a way to meet up quickly. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” The thought made her nervous, but she dismissed it as irrational. Caleb was neither omniscient nor omnipresent. She had to be careful about the bodyguard since he would report back to Caleb, but there would be ways to work around that.

She was in control here. Not Caleb. No matter what he thought.

“Anything else to report?” she asked, deciding she better end the conversation soon before the bodyguard got nosy.

“Well, I just got a new receptionist,” Jack grumbled. “And she can’t even make decent coffee. I’ve been drinking this swill for a week now. It’s becoming a nuisance, but I’ll be damned before I pay four dollars for a cup at Starbucks.”

Kelly couldn’t hold back a laugh. Jack was obviously competent at his job, and he was also kind of funny. “I’ll be greatly disappointed in you if I find out you’ve caved and forsaken your principles for the lure of half-decent coffee.”

“So far I’m managing to stay strong. I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up, feeling strange and a little relieved, like there was a whole world outside Caleb’s sanctum.

She’d been starting to feel like there was nothing in the world but him.

On Thursday of the following week, Kelly was still at Caleb’s house outside the city.

He kept asking about her old lover, and she’d refused to tell him a lot of details—just a few breadcrumbs for him to follow that wouldn’t take him anywhere. Her reticence clearly frustrated and puzzled him. But his curiosity was good. It would hold his interest even if he started to grow sated with the sex.

There was no sign of that happening yet.

He needed to trust her—at least enough to let his guard down around her. He wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t going to give her access to incriminating information this early in their relationship. His office at home was always locked. She knewthis because she’d checked it. Even if she could get in, it wouldn’t do her any good unless she could get onto his computer.

So he worked all day, and they would fuck in the evening. Nothing really had changed, except she was getting used to having sex with him, so it wasn’t quite so traumatic.

But she couldn’t extend this situation indefinitely. For one, her backstory would only hold up for a limited amount of time. For another, being with Caleb like this was tearing her apart.

She was relieved when Caleb texted her just after six that evening, letting her know he had to work late so she shouldn’t expect him back until late. She had a relaxing dinner on her own, a quiet walk with Ralph around the property, and then a bath before she went to bed alone.

She stayed awake for a while, waiting to see if Caleb would show up. But by midnight there was still no sign of him, so she let herself fall asleep.

She had no idea what day or time or year it was when she was awakened by a knock on the bedroom door. “Yeah,” she mumbled loudly, more an instinctive response to a knock and that a conscious invitation into her room.

Caleb didn’t know that, however. He opened the door and came in. All the lights were off in the room, so she couldn’t see him but she knew it was him.

It smelled like him. It felt like him. Caleb was unmistakable.

She’d managed to orient herself by the time he reached the bed, but her mind was too fuzzy to interact with him safely. She needed every bit of her mind acutely attuned to him and to her deception in order to successfully deceive him. Half asleep wasn’t the way to do it.