Read Honor Bound for Free Online Page B

about that, of course.
    He walked me to my car, and there was that warm promise in his eyes when he said he was sure he’d see me again soon.
    I hadn’t had much a social life, if you want to know the truth. I did date in high school some, but since my dad lost his job, I’d been so busy working and trying to hold the family together that I didn’t have time or energy to date.
    So it had been a really long time since I felt that jittery thrill of interest in a good-looking guy, who might—just might —ask me out.
    It was definitely not my priority, though, something I reminded myself of on my way home.
    And on and off throughout the evening too.
    ***
    I went over to the Gentry house three times the following week—certainly more than was necessary, although I had reasonable excuses for every trip.
    Searching for incriminating evidence in the house was harder than I’d been expecting. I got into his office a second time, but was equally unsuccessful at finding anything useful. Plus, by the end of the week, I’d still only managed to search about half the house.
    When I made myself think rationally, I realized that the kind of evidence I needed was most likely to be found in his company office and not in his home. But I could never get into his office downtown, and I could get here . He worked at home sometimes. I knew that much. And people sometimes felt safer at home and left things lying around in a way they never would have at work.
    It was my only hope, so I wasn’t giving it up.
    On Friday, my plan was to check out the second floor. There was nothing but private rooms upstairs, so I had no good reason for being up there at all, but I was determined to check them out anyway.
    Maybe Gentry kept a desk upstairs in his master suite. Or maybe I could find a storage closet with files stored away. Unlikely, but possible. And I couldn’t just ignore one entire floor of the house.
    So after I took the measurements I’d pretended to have forgotten on my last visit—so I could come back out here today—I made sure the coast was clear and headed upstairs.
    The house was dead quiet. Neither Gentry nor his wife were here today.
    I’d seen Sebastian on the other visits I’d made this week, but I hadn’t seen his fancy car out front today.
    Part of me was disappointed. He’d lingered each time I’d come, and we’d chatted about all kinds of stuff. He was smart and funny, and he seemed to genuinely listen to anything I said about my life and interests. He was definitely flirting with me—even clueless as I was, I could recognize that much. But he hadn’t asked me out. Yet.
    Part of me hoped he’d be here today and that maybe he would.
    But the other part of me was relieved by his absence, since his lingering made any investigation impossible.
    I walked down the hall and tried to get a sense of the layout, but there were so many doors off the hallway that I had to just start opening them to see what was in them.
    The first doors on the east wing were obviously guest rooms, so I turned and went down the west wing hall instead. The room I checked out first was a media room. There were books and newspapers on the coffee table that appeared to have been read, and an enormous TV and media console took up most of one wall.
    On the far side, there was a door onto a wide balcony with a great view of the pool and property.
    This looked like the kind of room where Gentry and his wife would actually spend time, so I scanned carefully to see if there was anything worth looking into.
    Most of the shelves were open and were lined with movies, games, or books. But I spotted a laptop on a side table that made me perk up.
    A laptop was worth checking out, for sure.
    I hurried over and lifted the lid, my breath hitching as I saw that it had just been on hibernate and the monitor was coming back on.
    When it did, I pulled up the documents folder and searched the list of titles.
    There were almost no documents on the computer at all. I