“What kind of service monitors all this?” she heard Reed ask Cooper.

“It’s a private company.”

“Armed response, I assume.”

Cooper smirked. “Showing up with a baseball bat is useless, don’t you think?”

Lori appreciated the sarcasm, which made light of the absurdity of it all. Much as she’d have liked to slip into her office for a couple of hours and finish some work, that wasn’t possible with the pounding and drilling going on all around her.

“So what branch of the service were you in?” Reed asked Cooper.

“Marines. What about you?”

Reed shook his head. “Didn’t serve.”

Cooper looked him up and down. “I pegged you for the Army.”

“No, no.”

Cooper watched a monitor as one of the technicians aimed a camera in the far corner of the room. He flipped a switch and another camera from the hall came into view.

“Nothing in my bedroom,” Lori told him.

“Main living spaces only. Nothing in the bathrooms or the bedrooms.”

“Good.” She sucked on her water bottle. “Guess there won’t be any wild dining room sex,” she muttered to Reed as he walked by.

He placed a hand on her hip and nuzzled her neck from behind.

“We can make up for it,” he whispered.

She turned into his arms. “How was your week? We always seem to be talking about my world.”

“Mine is boring.”

“I’ll take a little of that right about now.”

“I bet. How was Trina?”

“Frazzled.”

Reed rubbed her shoulders as they chatted. “Her name popped up online when I was reading the news yesterday. Is her estate what’s causing all of this?”

“Ruslan Petrov has no dealings with me outside of Trina. I was as shocked as Trina when we learned she inherited everything.”

“Which made her father-in-law mad.”

“I guess. He’s blowing smoke.”

Reed looked over her shoulder. “Smoke that has gotten the attention of some influential people, apparently. How is it you have these kinds of connections?”

Lori followed his gaze with her head. “Oh, this isn’t me. This is all Sam.”

“The lady from the other day.”

“Yes, my overprotective friend. She knows everyone.”

“Apparently.”

“This will all blow over, I’m sure.”

He wrapped his arms around her, kissed the side of her head. “You’re a strong woman, Lori.”

She leaned into him, happy to have him holding her. Strong or not, it was nice to have his support.

Reed stared up at Lori’s ceiling. She’d finally fallen asleep, her hand under her cheek as it rested on his chest. Her mouth was open slightly, each breath a tiny whisper across his skin.

The crew left her house and Cooper lingered until Danny arrived, with the promise to return at dawn.

Lori argued, but Cooper told her that he didn’t take his orders from her. He apologized for it but made no excuses for his plans to invade her life.

The entire situation struck a raw chord inside of Reed. There was big money, big guns, and serious manpower behind the security team Cooper spoke of. And while Sam might be behind it, how was it she had pull over Lori?

He was dangerously close to coming right out and asking Lori a few questions to get him closer to the truth. If he was just a guy who flittered into her life on accident, he would have asked already.

But that wasn’t the case.

He had to be careful. Cooper had questioned him with more than just a look while he was following the man around. He’d pegged Reed’s profession . . . well, his previous one, by a hair. He wasn’t a military guy, but he had gone through the police academy and worked as a cop for over a decade.

Reed lifted his arm that wasn’t holding Lori and rubbed the scar on the left side of his jaw. One nasty case and the battle scars to go with it, and he’d left the force. Falling into the world of private investigation was easy. He knew the law and how to avoid breaking it all while doing his job. He had a small pension from the force and didn’t take on many cases unless they paid well. In short, he was doing okay.

He hated seeing shitty things happen to good people. Up until he spent any time with Lori, he was under the impression that all lawyers were assholes. In his experience, the stereotype was true.

Since his client was once a lawyer, he assumed this case was a product of two shitheads crapping on each other, except that Lori hadn’t been his target when all of this started. And his opinion of the profession had vastly changed in just a few short weeks.

Lori muttered something in her sleep, snuggled closer, and something that felt suspiciously like a conscience stirred in his chest.

Chapter Twenty

“I need more information from you,” Reed told his client the following Monday.

“What kind of information?”

“You want to discredit Wentworth.”

“If you say it a little louder, the whole world will hear you.”

Reed put his phone to his other ear and stared at his wall while he spoke. “One politician slinging mud at another isn’t news. It’s expected. Besides, my line is secure.”

“Yes, Reed. I’ve told you this.”

“And you’re looking at his ex-wife to find something.”

“Most ex-wives are pissed enough to let something out.”

Except Shannon wasn’t pissed . . . she was hurt. “If she’s ticked, she’s not showing it.”

“Wentworth is way too clean. The state was charmed enough by his whirlwind wedding and delightful bride to elect him. Even their divorce barely put a dent in his armor. No one is that spotless.”

Reed agreed, but he didn’t see a victim here. The public at large wasn’t unhappy with the current governor, nor had they been overly distraught when the man divorced. In fact, there seemed to be plenty of women lining up to be the next Mrs. Wentworth.

He paused. “Whirlwind?”

“What?”

“Whirlwind? What do you mean by that?”

“Jesus, Reed, don’t you watch the news?”

Not if he didn’t have to. Depressing hour on TV, if you asked him. “No.”

“We all knew Paul was going to run, but he hadn’t announced his candidacy yet. Right before he did, he met Shannon at some fundraiser, and within a month, they were married. There was some gossip that they’d met before, but they’d never been seen in the same place. The chances of him winning the seat in Sacramento were slim until he settled down.”

“How does a man who is running for office have time to woo a wife?”

“Good question. Convenient, don’t you think?”

“Who planned the wedding?” The pictures Reed had come across looked as if the plans were in place for some time. Quick weddings . . . divorces that were all neat and tidy. It was all too perfect.

“How the hell do I know? Who cares . . . are you getting married?”

No, but he knew who to go to for the divorce. His eyes landed on Lori’s picture again.

“Trina and I are going to Texas,” Avery announced later in the week over Skype.

Lori looked at both women on her screen. “Both of you?”

“Alice’s sisters want to meet with me as well as the other members of the board.”

“I told this one that we needed to tell you.” Avery waved her thumb at Trina.

“Tell me, I need to be there. Give me twenty-four hours to clear my schedule, and I’ll join you.” Lori couldn’t let Trina go alone. Who knew what she was walking into?

“I told you,” Avery said to Trina.

“I can take care of it. I don’t think anyone will be hostile there.”

Lori leaned closer to the screen. “How well do you know Alice’s sisters?”

“I met them at the wedding.”

Lori attempted to look menacing on-screen to have Trina take the meeting more seriously. She was fairly certain it didn’t work. “And the board, have you met them?”

“No.”

“Any of them stand to lose something since you are stepping into Alice’s shoes?”

“I don’t know.”

“Anyone there ready to discredit you just on principle?”

“What principle?”

“The fact you know nothing about this business, know nothing about the company, yet you have a third share in something worth over a billion dollars.”

Trina went silent.

Avery spoke up. “I told you she needed to come.”

After hanging up, Lori made a few calls, shuffled a client, and thanked her luck that she wasn’t due in court until the following Monday.

It was after six when Cooper poked his head into her office. “Just letting you know I’m here whenever you’re ready to leave.”

Lori pulled a stack of papers for her Monday case and piled them on her desk. “Might as well make yourself some coffee. I have a couple more hours to kill here.”

“Will do.”

He walked off as she tucked behind the desk and opened the file.

Cooper . . . how did he fit in with going to Texas?

Chances were someone would shadow Trina and Avery.

Lori set aside her case and called Sam.