“You just happened to be in this coffee shop again today.”
“I came to find you.” Which seemed obvious to him since he already told her that.
“But not apologize.”
Emery could keep trying, but he had no intention of saying he was sorry. He wasn’t. “I fear we’re spinning in circles.”
She stared at him. “The way you talk is endlessly fascinating. Annoying as hell, but also fascinating.”
He had no idea how to respond to that, so he skipped ahead to his point. If he didn’t finish this soon, his driver and probably Garrett would come storming in to find him. “I wanted to make sure you understood the facts.”
“Which are?”
“I didn’t know your cousin. I certainly didn’t kidnap her and I don’t know who did. I wasn’t anywhere near the DC area when she was taken.”
The main points, all of which pointed to him as being innocent, which he was. He lived back and forth between Michigan and Massachusetts at the time. He’d never even heard Tiffany’s name until Emery gave it to him.
She tapped her fingernails against the tabletop. “Why was your name in Gavin Younger’s file?”
The clicking echoed in his brain. “You mean your uncle. This is a family matter for you.”
“I see you’ve been busy digging around in my personal business. How charming.”
He couldn’t exactly deny it, so he didn’t try. “I have no idea why he had my name but, and here’s my actual reason for talking to you today, I intend to find out.”
“How?” She kept drumming. Click. Click. Click.
“It’s what I do.”
“I’m still unclear on the category of what it is you do as an actual job.”
He glanced at her fingers, hoping she’d get the point and stop. Somehow the sound rose above the murmur of conversation in the packed shop. He didn’t even know how that was possible. “I fix things.”
“Ah, yes. You’re all about the fixing.” She sat back in her seat and put her hand on the back of his chair, right by his shoulder. “But answer one question.”
The sudden closeness had his mind racing to other topics. “Possibly.”
Then she shifted again and now their legs touched. She just kept moving. It was as if energy kept pinging around inside of her, pushing her to stay in motion. It was driving him crazy. Not annoyed crazy. No, not that at all. A different kind of crazy . . . the kind that came with bad decision making.
“You’re hysterical,” she said.
“I can assure you no one has ever said that before.”
Her hair brushed against her cheek as she tucked one leg under the other. “Why should I believe anything you say about Tiffany?”
“You don’t have any reason to.” It took all of his control not to put a hand on her leg and hold her there. He could sit still for hours while concentrating on a task. She couldn’t seem to go without fidgeting for ten seconds.
She frowned at him, which seemed to be becoming a habit. “Yeah, I know. That was my point.”
“Yet, I think you do know, at least on some level, that I’m telling the truth.”
“You keep forgetting I don’t know you at all.” Her head tilted and her hair slid over her shoulder.
For a second he couldn’t remember what they were talking about then it came winging back to him. “We need to make a deal.”
“That sounds like a terrible thing for me to do.”
“You don’t even know the terms.” That mouth and those full lips. Jesus, he couldn’t see anything else.
His usual self-control abandoned him. She sat about a foot away from him now, maybe less, and he’d gone into an uncharacteristic tailspin. Instead of following along and holding his ground, his mind wandered. Something about her threw off his concentration. He didn’t like the strange power she seemed to have over him, especially after such a short time.
Without thinking he took a sip of the coffee. The bitter liquid hit the back of his throat, reviving him. This is why he loved caffeine.
He tried to regain the upper hand, to the extent he ever possessed it. “I will track down the answer as to why my name was in the file and provide proof that I was not in the area when—”
“Proof I can corroborate. I’m not taking your word for it.”
He had never met a woman who made his eye twitch and had him thinking about kissing at the same time. “Speaking of charming.”
“Would you just believe anything I said?”
“Maybe.” He hated to admit that answer wasn’t a lie.
She clearly didn’t agree because she snorted. “Oh, please.”
A strange haze fell over him. It blocked the noise of the café and the constant shuffling of people around them. “In return for the intel, plus the corroboration, you will stop asking around about me. That’s a dangerous game.”
“You mean for you.”
“No, Emery, for you. You are not the only person who wants to know more about me. If you give any indication that you actually do, you could walk into trouble.”
She made a face. “This secrecy thing is a tad overdramatic, don’t you think?”