He was paid to find the liar. She is the person he cannot afford to want.
Two investigators hide opposing assignments at the same firm. Telling the truth could cost them their work and each other.
Completed · 18 chapters · 2h 18m
SteamyHeightened sensuality on the page, never explicit.Yearning · Angsty
Financial exploitation, Grief
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Dear Maeve,
I was ordered to telephone a woman and tell her we had found her money. A man I’d never met crossed out the sentence. In front of the person paying us both.
Delilah Crane came to Sable Recovery to find out why customers keep paying for money the firm has not found. Ash Weller was hired to identify the employee passing those customers information. On his first day, he refuses to sign a promise Sable cannot keep. Delilah notices the risk he takes before she knows he has been paid to watch her. They begin rewriting the words customers hear. Their private jokes become the best part of the workday, while each tries to keep a different promise to people outside the room. Ash can protect his fee by naming the person he suspects. Delilah can protect her clients by never letting him close enough to ask. The closer they become, the more honesty will cost them both.
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I had intended to refuse. It would have been much more convenient if I’d done it first. Then I could have spent the morning feeling principled instead of wondering whether he always looked that calm when he was angry.
Ash has since removed several useful lies from our call script. We have a private glossary now. A courtesy review is a second bill; a personalised recovery pathway appears to be a corridor with your name on it. I hadn’t expected to laugh at work. I hadn’t expected to start listening for his footsteps afterwards.
Yesterday he brought me tea without asking anything in return. Later he told me something about himself that I could have put in a report. I left it out.
That is the part I keep thinking about. I came here to bring seven people facts they could choose to use. I am getting very good at recognising what belongs to somebody else. I’m less sure what to do with the things I want for myself.
I’ve asked him to meet me somewhere neither of us has a desk. I said I was tired of speaking in headings. I haven’t told him how much harder I think the ordinary sentences will be.
From The Long Con
Read this if you want colleagues who are concealing different reasons for being there.
Read this if you want the person she wants to be the person paid to suspect her.
Read this if you want two investigators whose attraction threatens opposing assignments.
Enemies, rivals and forbidden love
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