Insecure by Ainslie Paton Read Free Book Online Page B

pointed out the phone. “Use whatever you need.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œThe password is—”
    He was already logged on using whatever tech guru password worked. “Slick.”
    â€œSlick would’ve been having enough smarts to hack your security system so you couldn’t see me on the foyer camera.”
    She laughed. “You did look pathetic.”
    He grinned at the laptop screen.
    â€œWhy didn’t you buzz to come back up?”
    â€œYou had company already.”
    She leant against the doorjamb. “You can’t possibly be jealous of Jay.”
    He grunted an affirmative.
    â€œApparently you can. He’s—”
    â€œNone of my business.”
    â€œVery true.” She watched Mace looking at a message stream on an unfamiliar screen, nothing as pedestrian as Outlook or Gmail. “How’s your head feel?”
    He didn’t look around. “Halloween pumpkin. The sandwich helped, but I’m dehydrated.”
    â€œI’ll get you a drink.”
    â€œYou don’t have to wait on me.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be so prickly.”
    He stopped typing and swivelled the chair around. “Sorry.” He looked up. “I’m your basic antisocial muppet. I’m not good at small talk. But then you probably knew that before you hit on me.”
    She smiled. “And you haven’t disappointed.” She expected him to look away but he looked her over, big deliberate sweeps of her body. She popped her hip to give him something to really look at. “Like what you see?”
    â€œI thought you’d wear suits on the weekend.”
    He was completely straight-faced. He drilled her with eye contact. She shook her head. “Why did you come home with me?”
    He pushed into the chair back, eyes on her legs. “You’re shit hot and you asked nicely.”
    She laughed. “I taunted you.”
    He shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
    â€œYou’re full of crap.”
    â€œAnd you’re not the cold bitch you want everyone to think you are.”
    â€œDoes that disappoint you?”
    â€œI didn’t have any expectations other than seeing you naked and...” he dropped his eyes to his lap.
    â€œAnd what?”
    â€œFucking you senseless.” His head came up. “Which is exactly what you wanted.”
    â€œTrue.” She moved into the room. “But that’s not exactly what happened, is it?”
    â€œYou don’t remember what happened.”
    â€œNeither do you.”
    He looked up. If he planned to say anything he buried the words, and she couldn’t read his expression.
    Her email pinged. That would be Malcolm. She didn’t want to deal with him right now. She wanted to see where this conversation could go. Mace swivelled the chair back to face the desk but she caught its arm and stopped it. “You made me laugh. You were gentle. You made me feel desirable and you made me forget my world was coming apart and this morning you made me feel...” God, he’d made her feel, secure, happy, “nice.”
    â€œNice?” He said it on an exhale that was full of disbelief. He turned his head back to the screen. “I don’t remember.”

6:   Man on Fire
    It was almost impossible to leave the television, though there’d been nothing new said in the last hour, just a continual rehash of the morning’s events from minutely varying perspectives. Jacinta drank her way through a bottle of chilled water and knew this was doing her no good, it was fuelling her anxiety. She’d normally have done a gym session and hit the office by now, so sitting on her tail doing nothing and seeing the pictures of the victims over and over was messing with her already bruised head. She could still be working but she wanted to give Mace some privacy.
    He’d been on the phone when she took him a bottle of water. She heard, “What do you