Free Faceless by Jus Accardo Page B

times.”
    “What’s it mean?”
    “Wentz is an odd one. He can go for weeks, say and do the weirdest things, and then boom. Out of nowhere, the next day, he’s all business.” Donna patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t last more than a day or so. That’s all he needs. The man is brilliant.”
    Brilliant? Someone had a mad crush. I remembered her reaction to him after the office blew up. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. “You have a thing for him, don’t you?”
    Donna blushed and turned away. “Frank is amazing, but he’s far too busy for someone like me. Plus, we have rules about that kind of thing here.”
    Obviously Donna didn’t see herself clearly. Long brown hair and a bright smile bordered by generous lips, she had a sort of exotic quality. Her eyes, light grey at the center, had a darker rim around the edge—almost blue, but not quite. I’d caught Wentz looking at her a few times, and was pretty sure the attraction was mutual. “I think you’d be surprised.”
    Devin cleared her throat and took the last box from my hands. “Was that all you needed?”
    I pulled the list from my pocket and waved it back and forth. “He wants me to pick up dry cleaning, but I don’t have my license on me… Or a car.”
    She’d started sifting through the first box, pulling out folders and setting them on the desk in three different piles. “Devin, could you take Douglass to the cleaners?”
    “No!” we said in unison.
    Donna eyed me, then turned to Devin, fingers drumming against the desk. “Am I missing something? You are both aware that intercompany dating is off limits, correct? So if there’s something going on here Nader will have a cow.”
    “There’s nothing,” Devin replied quickly. “My car’s a mess, that’s all.”
    Donna raised both eyebrows as if to say, really, then nodded to her keys on the desk. “Then take my car, but hurry back. There’s a half day’s worth of filing to do and we still need to go over last week’s payroll. There’s no overtime.”
    Devin hesitated, but only for a minute. Snatching the keys, she started for the doorway, making it a point to stay far ahead. Twice she looked back, eyes narrow. “You better not be staring at my ass.”
    What was the fastest way to get a guy to do something? Tell him he shouldn’t be doing it. Seriously. When would girls learn?
    I waited until she started the engine and pulled onto the road before I attempted conversation. Silence wasn’t usually an issue for me, but with so much hanging between us, I felt uncomfortable. Like there was a twenty-five pound pink elephant in the car. “I need to talk to you about last night.”
    There was a screeching sound, and then stars exploded behind my eyes as my forehead kissed the dashboard in what I would have considered an epic crash—had it happened to someone else. The cars behind us leaned on their horn, and with a whir of the engine, we lurched forward.
    “ Don’t ,” she seethed.
    She jerked the wheel to the right, taking the turn a little faster than needed. Either she had a lead foot, or she was an angry driver. Either way, the convenience store breakfast burrito I’d scarfed on the way out the door at Zendean was threatening to reappear—and those things did not taste better the second time around.
    “Don’t even try feeding me some crap about how sorry you are, or how you didn’t mean for it to happen.” Her voice cut like a knife, but underneath the rage, I could hear it. The smallest whisper of fear. She was still afraid of me. The tirade in the rec room on that first night made total sense now that I’d been inside her head. She was terrified that I’d do what he’d done. Take away her choice.
    My name is Brandt Cross, and I’m a good guy…really. I am.
    An apology seemed weak, and more than that, almost insulting, but saying nothing wasn’t an option. Not after what I’d done. “I wanted to kiss you,” I said quietly. “I had no right to, but