AMB~she~OUS

TWENTY SIX

"So my best friend came back from Paris and never said a word. What's going on with you? I haven't seen you since forever." Alex strutted into my office with a huge frown on her face.

My eyes lifted from the papers I was trying to go through.

Keyword. Trying.

I had been distracted the whole week and could barely get any work done. A tinge of guilt hit me when I saw how furious my best friend looked. Alex was one of the most carefree people I knew, very few things could upset her.

And me being one of those things didn't make me feel very good. I owed her at least a phone call to let her know how the trip had gone but I had completely forgotten about it.

It hadn't been my intention though, it seemed like everything in my life got sidelined when I opened that envelope.

And that was the other thing.

The envelope.

Even without touching it, I could feel the heat of its contents all the way from the bottom drawer of my desk.

"I'm sorry Alex, I have absolutely no excuse for not coming to see you or giving you a call, to say the least." I grimaced at my own words.

"I can take you for an apology lunch right now if you'd like?" I offered with a pleading look.

And whilst it wasn't easy for my best friend to get mad, it was the exact opposite when it came to holding a grudge. She wasn't one to stay mad for long, especially with a promise of a good lunch.

"You better make good on that promise tomorrow afternoon, today I have lunch with a big client that I cannot afford to miss."

Her smile gave me a sense of relief, I knew she wasn't mad at me anymore. We talked for a bit before Alex left for her lunch.

I was left alone with my thoughts, thinking about Mitchell and the envelope.

On one hand, I wanted to find out the woman's relationship with Nick, all for the sake of gaining leverage over him. But that idea had been shaken after we called a truce in Paris.

Now after opening that envelope I wasn't so sure anymore.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to be left vulnerable if something was to happen.

I had to do something, drastic if possible. It seemed I was already on my last legs without even knowing.

A huge part of me wondered who else knew about it. Did half the office already know? Did they silently laugh behind my back each time I walked in or out?

Frustrated as I was, I couldn't bring myself to be confrontational. I still had more power if I played the dummy.

My hand unconsciously reached to open the last drawer but stopped midway. Looking at it more wouldn't bring me solutions, with that in mind I grabbed my phone and packed my handbag.

I had always been a woman on a mission but things had changed, this was now a full-blown war. I couldn't allow my confidence to falter.

**********
"You want me to what?" Finn nearly spit out all his coffee and I had to move my Dior bag out of the way, the last thing I wanted was his spit all over it.

"That was not part of the job description, I'm a private investigator, not some wannabe actor." He splattered whilst trying to wipe the table with his napkin.

I knew I was asking quite a lot from him but this new plan would get Mitchell singing like a canary about who she really was. She wasn't a shady woman, that much I knew but I had dragged the meeting with Nick long enough and I couldn't use the "he is busy" excuse anymore.

Finn and I had agreed that she hadn't travelled across the country to just check in on her supposed nephew. No, she looked like a woman carrying a lot of secretive information. If it involved Nick then it surely involved my husband and that was information I could use to my advantage.

"Look, it's only going to be for a short time. This will make your job easy and my life easier." I tried to reason with him.

"There are so-"

"I will double the money." I blurted out.

That shut him up.
In the world that I lived in everyone, unfortunately, had a price and Finn's was 20k which was barely a scratch in the Daniels' bank account. It was just a little over what I spent on designer clothes every month.

"You just have to play it out as they do in the romantic movies, she's not married so it shouldn't be hard."

It was a little cruel to play such a trick on another woman but I really didn't have much of a choice. Finn was slightly adorable and looked like he had zero experience with women which was a good thing, it meant he wouldn't come off as a lady's man. I sincerely hoped that Mitchel would be gullible enough to fall for it.

"And if it doesn't work or what if she doesn't trust me enough to spill?" He slumped back in his chair, clearly unmotivated.

"You have to make it work, come on, you're the expert PI here, it shouldn't be that hard. Besides, it will get you a little bit of experience in that area." I said with a cheeky smile and wink hoping it would ease him a bit.

"One month. If she doesn't say anything then you might as well let this go. I already have a bunch of theories and maybe this helps me rule out the possibilities."

After Finn agreed to our little deal, I didn't stick around for long. There was so much work just sitting on my desk that I needed to do. I didn't need to give anyone a reason to dismiss me once Crai-

"Whoa, what's the rush, lunch isn't over for another 15 minutes," Nick spoke out from inside the elevator I was about to get on.

It was like the universe hated me or something because I had the worst like whenever it came to avoiding this man. I hadn't talked to him since we came back from Paris and was planning on keeping it that way, the only way a real truce would work is if we didn't see each other at all.

"I'm heading over to lunch, do you perhaps want to join me?" He asked motioning his head to his parked Rover.

"Thanks but I've already had lunch but don't let me stop you from going to eat yours." I said walking around him.

"Well, you don't look like you've eaten. You're normally grumpy but you seem worse than usual, an unusual trait of someone who just ate."

Now he was just trying to irk me with his gibberish and it was working. I decided to ignore him when I felt his hand wrap around my wrist and shocks of electricity run through my entire body.

"Come on, it's just a harmless lunch. I don't bite." He sheepishly smiled at me and my stomach decided to respond with a tiny somersault. A reaction that only he could bring out.

And for that 'I don't bite' statement, who the hell was he kidding? That was the furthest thing from the truth.

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An update to celebrate reaching number 1 in  Forbidden and reaching over 8k reads.

Thank you so much for following this silly story. It's flawed but I appreciate the support, I'm hoping to update sooner than I normally do because the story is reaching its climax soon.