Damn. Well, he’d asked. And wasn’t this just like jumping from the corporate frying pan into the fire of messy family relations?
His hand hovered over the top folder while he played chicken with his past. He’d spent a ton of money and a lot of time to find his lost brother and sister and the answers to all of the questions that had tormented him for the last twenty-four years were sitting on his desk reduced to words and pixels.
Finally forcing himself to open it, he was greeted by his own face looking back at him in two pictures. The first was his current headshot and the other was when he was six years old, the photo his adoptive parents had first seen when they were picking out a kid to give a better life to. Hardened brown eyes that knew way too much about the shit life could throw at you stared back at him from the page. Adam shut the folder. He knew the rest of his story.
The other two packets contained similar but completely different histories. His brother and sister, Sarina and Roan, flashed across his line of vision in a stream of photos and facts and data about what had happened to them after they’d been separated and sent to different families. Different states. Different lives. Different trauma but the same hard expression stared back at him in the photographs. He was anxious to read every word and sickened by the sensation that he was prying into things he had no business knowing.
Things he had paid Tess to find out when he’d hired her to find them.
Things he’d know firsthand if their lives had turned out differently.
Adam slammed the folder shut and tossed it with more force than he intended, causing a couple of pens to shoot off the other side of the desk onto the hardwood floor. He cursed under his breath and took a step to pick them up but the firm press of Tess’s hand on his arm stopped him cold. He glanced down at where she touched him, her warmth raising goose bumps on his own skin, and then lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. He’d expected pity so the open, clear expression of understanding on her face surprised him.
“Adam, I gave them both the same information. You’re all starting at the same place, with the same facts about each other.”
He shifted his arm and Tess’s grip slid until their hands fit together. The touch of their palms was electric, sharp but totally right. They stared at each other, his eyes drifting down to her lips as they parted on a stutter as she temporarily lost her train of thought.
“Family is hard,” she whispered, voice catching on the last part with whatever baggage she brought along with her.
Oh hell. Adam squeezed his eyes shut to the gut punch her words delivered. He’d never been good with the family who’d raised him and now he had a long-lost sister and brother to make some kind of future with. What the hell had he been thinking?
“If it helps, the three of you are more alike than you’d think,” she continued, her voice stronger, soothing and laced with humor. “You all ride motorcycles. Fast ones. Loud ones. And no European crotch rockets, either. You people are a Harley family. It’s like it’s imprinted on your DNA or something.”
This surprised a laugh out of him and something tight in his throat broke loose. Tess’s eyes widened as she tilted her head to the side with the unspoken question.
“Our dad had a crappy Harley. I remember riding around with him on the Qualla Boundary.” The memory was one of the few he still had that felt real. Most of that time felt like he made it up or that it had happened to someone else. Twenty-four years was a long time. “I guess it is in our DNA.”
Adam released her hand, breaking their connection, and walked over to the windows looking out over the wooded tech campus. This part of California was beautiful, nothing like what he could remember of the lush, blue-tinged mystery of the mountains of his boyhood home. But it was gorgeous in its own way. He’d built something here with Justin, a company that employed a lot of people and had the potential to help many, many more.
He’d created a really good life for himself. It would only be better with his brother and sister in it.
But while he wanted to sit down and devour every bit of the information about his family, now was not the time. The future of his company was on the line and he needed Tess and her skills to save it.
Redhawk/Ling had a launch in eight weeks, the app that would make or break this company, and they had a problem. A very big problem and he needed her help.
He turned to Tess and finally got to the main reason he’d asked her to meet him today.
“Tess, I didn’t ask you here just to get the final report. I need to hire you for another job. Somebody from inside Redhawk/Ling is trying to take us down and I want to hire you to find out who it is.”
Two
It was as if the universe was finally on her side.
Tess tried not to do a happy dance at the revelation that Adam Redhawk was keeping her on for another job. Just when she was wondering what excuse she was going to use to continue their contact, he invited her right in.
And ensured that she would get her revenge.
She couldn’t afford to give anything away; this development was too crucial. So, Tess got her excitement under control and focused on the business at hand.
“I’m flattered that you think I can do the job but I don’t know much about corporate espionage.”
She let the silence spread out between them. Adam was a thoughtful man and he wasn’t going to speak in haste. It had served him well throughout his life, keeping him insulated and beyond the hurt and pain life wanted to inflict. Tess had admired it from the first moment she’d met him although it had made him a very difficult mark.
It also made him intriguing, mesmerizing, completely intoxicating. Adam Redhawk was a constant temptation to her. He made her want things, made her want him. In her bed, inside her body but also in her life. He was sexy, whip-smart, strong and honorable. He was the kind of man every woman hoped they would find but he was also the one that none of them could capture.
Adam never had a lack of women in his bed. Not that he bragged about it; she’d had to do her own digging on that point. And by all accounts from those who knew, his still waters ran deep and dirty in the bedroom. A staple on the “top ten sexiest bachelors” lists, Mr. Redhawk was a definite catch, but he refused to take the bait. Nobody stayed over. Nobody lingered in his life for long.
He was a challenge and Tess thrived on a challenge. She knew how to use her looks, her body and sexuality to get what she wanted. But she’d not pursued him, not taken that tack in her plan to get closer to him. He wanted her; she knew it. She wanted him; they both knew it. But she liked him and that feeling would not help her do what she needed to do. Those feelings would only lead to complications that she didn’t want or need.
So, the fantasy of Adam taking her, rough and tumble on his immaculate desk, had never become a reality.