* * *
Cole raised his eyebrows, and Joey clapped a hand over her mouth.
His head was pounding and his fists clenched tightly. Anger and disbelief left no room in his thoughts for anything else.
“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding. You didn’t spend your time inside Zia, the company I invited you inside to help me— Tell me you didn’t spend that time investigating me instead of finding the mole and the person who murdered Laura!” His volume escalated until he was outright yelling at her.
Joey paused next to the armchair. “To be fair, I was doing both.”
Her quiet rebuttal had the tension and fury melting away. Leave it to Joey to respond with a snarky comment in the face of his ire. Cole’s fingers came to his hair, tangled in it, and pulled it straight up. “What am I going to do with you, Joey?”
She winced and lifted her shoulders. “Forgive me?”
Cole shook his head. “Why should I? You’ve been lying to me this entire time! I trusted you. I let you into my company. I brought you into my home! Dang it, Joey. I thought—"
He paused. He’d been about to say he thought they shared something. That he cared about her. He’d actually let her in, not just to his company, but to his life. And then to find out that the entire thing was just a lie to her?
Joey sighed. “Since meeting you, my gut has been telling me that I was wrong. That you were different…”
“Was Flint in on it? Did he send you on this mission?” The possibility that one of his closest friends suspected him of this evil and corruption nearly brought him to his knees.
Joey’s expression of surprise seemed completely genuine though. She shook her head adamantly.
“No. Raven had nothing to do with this. He’s never doubted you for a minute. I’m so sorry, Cole. I just needed to be sure.”
Cole heard the desperation in her words, thought about all he knew about her and her past. The string of coincidences she listed off was significant. But there was nothing more there—just coincidences.
“If there is anything I’ve learned since we met, it’s that you are strong-willed and determined.” He was standing close to her now. “Honestly, if I’d seen the same things as you, I probably would have assumed the worst too. And for the record, Senator Morris is under the mistaken impression that I would let someone strongarm the FDA to approve something that wasn’t ready. Even if she could somehow force them to ignore science and push through the approval, which she couldn’t—"
“That’s debatable,” Joey interjected.
“Well,even ifshe could, I wouldn’t want her to.”
“Jared did say you were a man of integrity.”
Cole grinned. “He said that, huh?”
She nodded. “I’m pretty used to not trusting people…”
“You can trust me, Joey.” His voice was a whisper, almost a plea. He desperately wanted her trust. To be searched and be found worthy of being within this remarkable woman’s inner circle. His eyes dropped to the gentle curve of her cheek, his fingers itching to trace the smooth skin there.
She nodded. “I know I can. I do. Even if you are rich.” Her eyes sparked with laughter.
At her admission, and to silence her quip, Cole was helpless to do anything other than capture her lips with his own. Somehow, between taunting him with little pranks and sneaking into his personal affairs, Josephina had inched her way in between the strongholds of his defenses. They crumbled now, nothing but ruins of the walls he’d built, brought to the ground by the earth-shaking power of Joey in his arms.
He tasted her, savoring the way she tipped her head up to meet him. His hand cupped her cheek, tracing a line with his thumb. Despite his best intentions, he’d trusted Joey enough to see the real him. And she hadn’t run scared. Of the dreams that some women mocked or the single-willed focus with which he approached his goals. She understood him better than anyone ever had. And after a thorough investigation—the kind only Joey could orchestrate—she trusted him.
Slowly, he broke the kiss but held her close. Her eyes were unfocused, shuttered slightly. Her lips still parted from the kiss. His smile lifted on one side, thinking of her smart mouth and how satisfying it was to silence it with that kiss.
Joey looked up at him. “That was… um. That was…”
“Perfect?” he supplied.
Joey chuckled. “Yeah. Kind of.” She touched her fingers to her lips, and he felt the pride expand in his chest. That was the kind of kiss he never wanted to forget. The kind of core memory he was trying so hard to preserve for himself and others in his fight against Alzheimer’s.
He groped for words, unsure how to move forward after that kiss had totally shaken his world. “Joey, I, uh…”
Joey seemed to startle and she stepped back. Immediately, he missed the closeness of her body. “Oh, right. We should get to work, right?”