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  As if on cue, the doorbell rang. This time she didn’t jump, though the sound jangled her nerves. Evan quickly began gathering papers up as Brett went to the door.

  Sammy and Billie stood in the doorway, gaping at Brett; then Billie shot to Tessa’s defense. “What are you doing here? Get out! How dare you badger her like this!”

  “Settle down,” Brett advised her coolly. “We’re not badgering her. We’re trying to find out who set her up.”

  “What do you mean, set her up?” Billie shot back.

  “Just what I said. Well, come on in. This is turning out to be quite a party.” He opened the door wider, and Evan came into their view.

  “What is this?” Billie asked suspiciously.

  Brett jerked his head sideways in silent command, and they both came cautiously into the apartment. “To begin with, we dropped the charges against Tessa yesterday.”

  Sammy’s face brightened, but Billie said, “Is that supposed to make everything all right? You think you can just waltz back in here and take up where you left off?”

  A flush pinkened Tessa’s wan face, and Brett said grimly, “I should be so lucky. No, that isn’t what I think. But someone deliberately made it look as if Tessa was embezzling, and I want to know who it was.”

  “Billie, please,” Tessa interjected, intending to ask Billie to halt the hostilities, but she didn’t get any further.

  “What’s wrong with your voice? You sound like a frog.”

  “She strained her throat,” Brett said, then deftly changed the subject. “Wallace, I understand that you can trace the account if you have either the name or the number.”

  Sammy eyed him cautiously. “That’s right.”

  “How long would it take you?”

  When it came to computers, Sammy lost all his shyness. He was a master in the field, and his confidence showed. “That depends. If I used the master computer at work, a couple of nights. Maybe less.”

  “How about if that’s all you work on tomorrow?”

  “You mean, on company time?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “I can give you the data on the original entry tomorrow.”

  “Do it,” Brett said.

  “What’s the account name?”

  “Conway, Inc.,” Brett said softly, sensing the way Tessa stiffened. “They used her name, all the way through.”

  “No wonder you thought she did it!” Billie muttered.

  Sammy was frowning. “No, that’s wrong. It isn’t Conway, is it?”

  “There’s another account, under the name of Conmay, Inc. Only one letter is different, and that letter is so similar that, with a dot matrix printer and a bad ribbon, which is the common state of affairs, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between the two when you’re checking down a list.”

  Hearing how she’d been set up almost made Tessa ill. “Then my name was used to sign the checks written on the account that the company funds were deposited into… .” The evidence had been over-whelming, and all of it had pointed to her. It didn’t seem like a casual choice, but a deliberate effort to incriminate her specifically.

  Brett looked sharply at her. “That’s right.”

  “I’ll work with you tomorrow,” Evan said to Sammy. “With both of us on it, we can do it in half the time. Who knows, Brett and I may save our jobs yet.”

  Tessa froze momentarily, then turned and looked at Brett, a look that was long and very level. “Did you have the authority to drop the charges against me?” she asked quietly.

  Brett gave Evan a cutting glance. “I have the authority,” he drawled, daring Evan to say anything else.

  “Then let me put it another way: Did you have the authorization to drop the charges?”

  “Not exactly,” he said with a wolfish smile. He didn’t like her questions, but he wasn’t going to lie to her, not now. There was a lot of information he wouldn’t volunteer, but if she asked him a direct question, he was going to answer it honestly. “I took the responsibility for the decision.”

  “But you could be fired?”

  “It’s possible, but not likely. Mr. Carter and I have an agreement about things like this. When an on-the-spot decision is called for, I make it.”

  There were a lot of questions Tessa wanted to ask him about that, but not in front of everyone else. She simply added them to her list of things to ask him about when they were alone—and she had no doubt that they would be alone. When the others left, she knew that Brett would be staying.

  It wasn’t particularly gratifying to find that she was right, but once they were alone again, she turned to face him. She felt far more balanced now than she had in a week, and though she couldn’t help feeling grateful to him for taking care of her the day before, when she’d practically been a basket case, it was past time that she faced him. Putting it off wouldn’t lessen the hurt.

  “Now we talk,” she said.

  He nodded, a hint of satisfaction in his eyes, as if he’d found it difficult to restrain himself. “Yes, we do. You’ve managed to evade the question several times, darling, but now you’re going to tell me exactly what is wrong with your voice,” he said very softly.

  Their eyes met, and she saw the determination in his. She gave a wry smile. “I cried too much.”

  Something changed in his face, but before he could speak again, she drew a deep breath and said, “The next question is mine: Where are you staying, now that you’ve given up your hotel room?”

  His eyes moved over her face, and his voice was gentle but implacable when he said, “I’m staying here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  TESSA PULLED HERSELF up very straight, her gaze unwavering. “I haven’t asked you to stay.”

  “I know,” he admitted dryly. “That’s why I had to invite myself.”

  As she stared at him, she realized that he was determined to stay, to wear down her resistance to him. He made her feel hunted, and desperation made her angry. “Damn it, Brett, it’s over!”

  “Not by a long shot. I’m not giving up, baby. I’m not going to let you go. What we have together is too good to just give up on.”

  “We never had anything together!” she said bitterly. “I had love, while you had your investigation. Now you have your guilt, and I…I just don’t want any part of it,” she finished in a dull tone.

  He flinched at the lash of her words. “Yes, I feel guilty! I should have trusted you, but I didn’t. When I saw your signature on those checks, I went crazy, because I thought you’d been using me as a hedge against being prosecuted!”

  “What a lovely opinion you have of me!” she flared, her small hands knotting into fists at her sides.

  Brett shoved his fingers through his thick hair, groping for an explanation. “I’m a loner, Tessa. I’m not used to trusting anyone, or to letting anyone get close to me. You got so close to me that you knocked me off balance. That’s not much of an excuse, but it’s the only one I have. I thought you were using me, and it hurt like hell. It hurt so much that I almost vomited. All I could think of was not to let you know that I was hurting. Damn it, I love you!” he said angrily.

  Tears stung her eyes. “Sure you do. You love me so much that you never faced me with the evidence. You didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be arrested, to be booked and fingerprinted, how humiliating it is? I felt dirty! I tried to call you; I kept thinking that if I could just get in touch with you, everything would be all right, that you’d straighten it all out. Can you even begin to imagine how I felt when I learned that you had had me arrested?” Her voice became thickened and strained, almost soundless. “You don’t know what love is.”

  He cursed rawly. This was the first time in his life he’d ever told a woman that he loved her, and she didn’t believe him! The hell of it was that he could understand her reasoning. She must think that he was motivated by guilt, that he was taking care of her in an effort to assuage that guilt. And there was noth