He scoffed, watching her in amusement, “I don’t need to tell you. You already know. I assumed Huang had an inkling about me setting up the website behind his back and hired you to get proof.”
“No,” Gracie shook her head decisively. “He hired me to look into the spiked articles.”
Chesney’s mouth twitched slightly, she could see that he didn’t believe her.
“Gracie, my house has just been broken into, nothing’s been stolen but they went through all my papers. My laptop got stolen last week. This isn’t happening because of a few articles. This is a lot bigger than that.”
“I’m telling you, I was hired to see if you were the one leaking the articles. That’s it. I doubt that anyone even knows about the website!”
Chesney put his coffee down on the counter and raised his hand to cup Gracie’s cheek. His fingers were hot from cradling his coffee cup.
“It’s difficult to trust you when you’ve been lying to me since the beginning. How...” his thumb stroked her bottom lip and his troubled eyes seemed to look straight through her. “How do you expect me to react?”
Gracie leaned her head into his hand, her lips brushing his palm. “I expect you to believe me.”
Chesney’s hand dropped away. “I want to, Gracie, I really want to.”
With a sinking heart, she realized that there was nothing else she could do here. No matter what she said, she was not going to be able to convince him. Despite their earlier intimacy, she didn’t feel welcome any longer.
“I should go,” she said softly. He didn’t make a noise of protest or try to stop her. She leaned up to press a goodbye kiss to his cheek and counted it a victory when he didn’t turn away.
She could never regret a job that she loved so much. She would not feel guilty for not being honest with him from the beginning. All she could do as she left Chesney's house was wish that the two of them had met under different circumstances.
There were a bunch of missed calls on her phone. All of them from Klarov. He must be desperate to get hold of her, but she didn’t call him back. The radio came on as she started the car, it was still tuned to Chesney’s radio station, now playing some happy sounding song with upbeat lyrics.
Gracie shut the radio off and headed home in silence.
Klarov’s carwas parked outside her apartment building and the man himself was walking through the parking lot. He must have just come from knocking on her front door.
“What the hell? Where have you been?” Klarov said, looking her up and down with a professional eye, checking for injuries as soon as she got out of the car. Gracie’s clothes were still crumpled from putting them on so quickly after her encounter with Chesney and she smoothed a hand down her pants, hoping that Klarov hadn’t noticed anything amiss.
“Busy.”
“Busy?!? You’re in the middle of a case, Gracie. You don’t get to be busy with anything until this is wrapped up!”
She shook her head, stepping past him. All she wanted was to go to bed and pretend that all of that conversation with Chesney had been a dream. An unreal nightmare that she could just wake up from. Klarov drew a deep breath, pivoting on his heel to follow after her.
“What are you doing here, Klarov?” Gracie asked, forestalling the rest of his tirade.
“I wanted to let you know what I found out about Huang, and I couldn’t reach you!” Klarov’s feet stomped heavily behind her. “Jesus, I was worried about you. I was imagining all kinds of shit and you were...you were, what exactly?”
“I was with Chesney.”
“WHAT!?!”
Gracie stopped outside her front door, not wanting to let Klarov inside. She didn’t need to be yelled at in her own home. Not right now.
“Keep it down, the neighbors will complain.”
Klarov scowled and lowered his voice to a hiss, “What the hell were you doing with Chesney that means your shirt is inside out?”
Gracie looked down quickly. Klarov was right. She wanted to tell him to back off, that it was none of his damn business why her shirt was inside out. But that wasn’t entirely true. Ultimately he was responsible to the client, he needed to know that she’d blown the case.
“I told him.”
Klarov simply looked confused by her confession.
“I told him my real name,” Gracie clarified, “And about the case.”