by Nana Malone
“That was clearly yelling.”
“I was not yelling.” His voice rose.
My tone matched his. “Oh, I think that was yelling. And you can’t send me flowers. I have a boyfriend.” Oh yeah, way to trot that one out.
He shook his head. “I appreciate your directness, but I didn’t send you these. And let’s face it. Pink roses are boring and unimaginative. You’re clearly an orchid kind of woman.”
My face flamed. “Th— they’re not from you?”
He shook his head. “No. Nor were they here when I dropped off the pin for you earlier this morning. But now I’m concerned because you don’t seem to know who would send you flowers.”
He was serious. I could see it in his eyes. He hadn’t sent them. “I went to thank Dexter, but they’re not from him either.”
“How mad was he that someone had sent you flowers?” he asked with a smirk.
“Um, let’s go with mildly annoyed.”
His brows really scrunched up then. “Another man sent you flowers, and your boyfriend is only mildly annoyed?”
“He trusts me. But if he didn’t send them to me and they’re not from you, then who the hell sent me flowers?”
“That, Miss Ashong, is a very good question.” He searched for wrapping or packaging and found nothing. “Sorry, there are no hints. Maybe Amy removed the packaging before she put them in here?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll ask. I guess it’s a mystery for now.”
“A mystery you’re okay with?”
I shook my head. “Not really, but I have work to do. Maybe they were delivered to me by mistake. Maybe there is some poor woman in here whose birthday or anniversary it is, and she thinks her boyfriend forgot.”
He frowned at that. “It’s a possibility, but who knows?”
I was still standing in the middle of my office when he moved to pass, and it was like being hit in the face with a heat lamp as he walked by. Geez.
The scent of sandalwood teased me enough that I wanted to lean in. I wanted to sniff him. Why did he smell so good? It wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be a troll, completely unattractive. It would have helped a lot.
But you can handle one man.
I could. Besides, I had work to do. Ogling my boss wasn’t on my to-do list.
12
Livy
Perched in the corner of the couch in the living room with the light dimmed, I tapped away. I wanted to at least finish this chapter of the book. Dexter had gone to bed an hour earlier, claiming he needed his beauty rest. Mostly I thought he was trying to avoid me because I was asking to talk to him specifically about our next appointment with Dr. Kaufman.
But I preferred him going to bed rather than getting in another fight.
Or you wanted your peace so you can think about Ben without feeling guilty.
No. No more thinking about Ben. I could accept that the man was sexy. He was. He was full of power and arrogance, and he was more than a little bit naughty. But that was the kind of problem I didn’t need, and I was merely a curiosity to him. Someone like him was not going to be into someone like me. Not for the long haul anyway. He dated models and heiresses. Not real people.
Not that I cared. But our worlds were not the same. I was merely a fascination for him.
I rubbed the back of my neck as I searched through my research notes for a name. My mother had been extremely organized with her outline, her sources, her research. Everyone had their own little dossier. I couldn’t believe how much work she’d done and how in depth she’d been.
Her friend, Caroline Ritter, had worked at the embassy with her in London some years ago. In more recent years, she had started doing more human aid work, trying to work with The Hague for better anti-trafficking laws and penalties. She was a real crusader. But then one day, five years ago, she’d called her mother, told her she was going on a holiday, and then she hadn’t come back.
The paper trail showed that she’d gone to Barbados as planned. But upon digging further, there was no evidence of her ever checking into the Grand Bajan Hotel, no evidence that she’d ever landed in Barbados. But flight manifests showed that she had indeed boarded a flight from Heathrow.
And that was just the start of the mystery. Her life, the people she met, who she talked to, was endlessly fascinating. But what made it even more rewarding was just knowing that my mother had been on this path, chasing down a mystery. She’d always been a true crime junkie. If the show had Law and Order in the title, she was definitely watching it despite it not being quite so true. Anything Interpol was her kind of jam. And I found that I loved it too.
As I typed the last line, my phone buzzed next to me. I smiled when I saw it was Telly. “Hey, love,” I said in greeting. “Does Carmen know you’re up past your bedtime?”
Telly groaned. “Do you know she shoved a smoothie in my hand today? It had kale. You’ve lived in America. What is that country’s obsession with kale?”
I laughed. “It’s good for you, I guess.”
“Ugh, I’m British. I want a bacon butty and sausage rolls any day.”
“You can have that too. But you should probably eat some green things.”
“She’s a leafy green Gestapo.”
“Oh my God, you’re so dramatic. What’s up? Why are you up this late if there isn’t wine involved?”
Telly immediately sobered. “Okay, listen. This flash drive, it’s harder to crack than I thought. I made my own copies, just in case, and I’m glad I did. My first attempt to crack it immediately erased the drive.”
“What?” My heart hammered. Had I done all that just to lose it?
“Yeah. You trip the wrong wire on that thing, and data starts running away from you like someone’s literally doused it in gasoline and set it on fire.”
“Jesus.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “How many copies did you make?”
“I have at least three more. But now I wonder if making copies also corrupts the data.”
I frowned. I hadn’t even thought of such a thing. “Were you able to get any information at all?”
“A little. I’m not going to be able to make much sense of most of it though. It’s like a giant dump of data, some of it seemingly inconsequential. It could also be a code. I don’t know. And loverboy wanted this really bad? Enough to have you smuggle it out?”
“I guess. I mean maybe it’s corporate sabotage, but last I checked the Van Linsteds weren’t into property development. Or hotels.”
“No, they’re not, at least not as far as we know. If it doesn’t shine and glitter and they can’t steal from impoverished indigenous peoples, they’re not interested,” Telly muttered. “Okay, I want to keep trying. But I need you to be careful. Some of the data I am seeing points at Eton College.”
I frowned. “The secondary school for boys?”
“Yeah. I know that Ben and his mates went to Eton. Other than that, it just looks like bullshit data. I’m going to keep digging, but I might need another set of eyes.”
“What do you mean another set of eyes?” I clearly was no coder.
“Well, you know there are people better than me out there, people who black hat hack and white hat hack. I happen to know someone who rides the line. I’m going to fire off this data to him and see if he can come back with anything. Because it is bizarre.”
“Telly, if you think it’s at all dangerous, then maybe we should stop.”
“Oh no, Neo, we’ve gone down this white rabbit hole, we’re going to continue to take the damn blue pill.”
I chewed my nail. “Okay.”
“I’ll send it to my friend. He’ll be discreet. But in the meantime, I want you to be careful. Anybody with data who is this desperate to hide it is likely dangerous.”
“I’m not really in anyone’s target. No one knows I was there. But I have questions. So many questions.”
“I hear you. But just do me a favor and keep an eye on that Viking. Whatever he’s dragged you into, it stinks of bad news.�
��
“Okay, I hear you. And Telly, thanks.”
“Of course, love. Ride or die. Though I’d really like to know where we’re going and why one of us must die when we get there.”
With a chuckle I hung up the phone. I had no idea what I’d tripped into, but there was no way I could pull back now.
13
Ben
Two weeks later…
I was fucking distracted.
How was it one woman, in the span of two weeks, could have turned my entire world upside down?
I was a bloody disaster. Between fighting with my mates about how best to handle this fucking situation and waiting on East who was still working on leverage, I was twisting in the fucking wind. And now, I was sitting next to her and she smelled fucking insane.
Her perfume should be named Tease. Just a hint of coconut and lime. Just when you thought you had figured out what it was, where it might be coming from, it morphed and changed into something else. It was something both familiar and unknown. God, I was a mess. It was bad enough after our little adventure with the attempted mugging and my detour to Bridge’s that she’d been all I’d been able to see in my dreams. That fucking smile, her goddamn voice... And let me just say, in my dreams she was a hell of a dirty talker. Willing to beg, practically purring... Jesus.
I’d tried to be nice by replacing that stupid pin. I just wanted her to have something good, since I’d broken hers the night we met. I wasn’t sure how I knew that it was so important to her, I just did. But even that gesture had taken a wrong turn. Nothing about the woman was ever straightforward. And she was sitting there with a soft smile, smelling like temptation and every bad decision I’d ever made.
I dragged my attention back to the meeting, and next to me, Olivia shifted in her seat. Her skirt migrated and inched higher, and holy hell, was that the end of a stocking? I bit back a groan and dragged my gaze away.
Do not look. I didn’t need any more fodder for the goddamn wank bank. It was already too easy to think about her, to dream about her... She was already fucking torturing me. I didn’t need any more.
She cleared her throat and stood up. What was she doing?
“Hello, everyone. I’ve met most of you in meetings over the last couple of weeks. Glad to be on board. Before going on vacation this week, Jessa asked me to present today, so I’d like all of you to turn your attention to...”
I could hear the words she was saying. I understood that she was directing people to the PowerPoint on the board, and she had the clicker. Why did she have the clicker?
Clearly, she’s giving a presentation you wanker.
I frowned. But it was my job to present the priority projects.
My frown deepened, and I interrupted. “Ms. Ashong, what are you doing?”
She blinked at me. “Mr. Covington, I’m giving the presentation on the direction we’ll be moving, what’s currently on everyone’s plate right now, and suggestions for how to streamline.”
I gave her a brittle smile. I was pissed off that she thought she could take over my meeting.
Well, it is her job.
That spike of rationality got smothered quickly. This was mine. It had always been mine.
Then why did you hire her?
I had no fucking idea. I was pissed off and annoyed. For someone who had me all twisted up, she didn’t look at all perturbed.
“Oh, sorry sir. I thought that you would want me to. But go ahead.”
I took the remote from her and stood. That’s right, my meeting. She gave me a soft smile. Why the fuck was she smiling at me?
You’re losing it. Calm down. Focus on what you need to do.
“All right, as you know we’ve got the Paris property going. We’re waiting on final bids from Wes, and then we’ll finalize. Also, I went over the Peterman file and what we’ll do is have Max Peterman and his crew take over on the twentieth for that site. We’ll get their estimate and—”
Olivia raised her hand. “I’m so sorry to interrupt sir, but Max Peterman can’t lead on that project.”
I frowned. “What? Why the hell not?”
“Because his wife is having a baby the week before. He sent notification via email. He’s got his foreman ready and willing to go, but you weren’t happy with the results the last time his foreman ran a project for us. What I am suggesting is an alternative. We’ll have a crew work on the luxury villas. It was a separate crew anyway, because that was going to require special permits. We’ll keep that moving and on track instead of waiting. And then after Peterman’s paternity leave, he and his team can resume in two months.”
I could only stare at her and try to decipher her words. She’d clearly asked me something because she was waiting for a response. I shook my head. “What?”
She spoke more slowly, and I was well aware of everyone around the table staring at us. She stood and took the remote out of my hand and clicked. “You see, on this file, I circled when he would be ready to start. That means that the luxury villas would be built, mostly fitted, except for plumbing, and we have a separate team to do that and the electrical, which will be wired into the main system, so we can have Peterman’s team do that as normal while he’s on leave. He would start here”—she clicked the calendar—“eight weeks from now, and the whole team will be able to function while he’s gone. There will be no starts and stops. This will be more efficient and means we can finish ahead of schedule.”
She clicked again, showing what that did to the calendar on the project.
I blinked at her. “Right.” Why hadn’t I known about Peterman?
I handed the rest of the meeting over to her. After all, she had all the slides, and well, I felt fucking obsolete at my own company. This was my meeting. My team.
It’s her job now.
God, I was losing it. After just a hint of this woman’s perfume, I couldn’t think right. Jesus. I was no better than a goddamn teenager.
When the meeting was over, I scowled. “Miss Ashong, please stay behind.” She had just stood but eased herself back into her seat and turned around slightly so she could face me.
When everyone was gone, she crossed her arms. I didn’t know if it was a protection of herself against me or if she was irritated. Either way, it made my anger simmer to life. “What the hell was that?”
“That was you trying to take over my meeting.”
I blinked hard. “Your meeting? Whose name is on the building?”
She grinned. “London Lords.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I? You hired me to do a job. Let me do that job.”
“Why didn’t I know about Peterman?”
“When I asked you to hand over the file the other day, you must have known I was going through it. I wanted to double-check dates. That’s when he mentioned to me that he was going on paternity leave, so I adjusted the calendar accordingly. I did some juggling and moved things along. I sent it in the prospectus two days ago.”
I frowned. She had sent me some emails. I hadn’t had a chance to go to through them all yet. “I didn’t see them.”
“I marked them as urgent.”
I’d had my hands a little fucking full. “You didn’t deem it necessary to sit me down face to face?”
“Sir, when you gave me this job, we didn’t exactly set any parameters, so Jessa and I discussed them. If you need me to sit you down and discuss every little thing with you as part of this job, I can do that, but you need to make yourself available. It’s also redundant to do that with Jessa and with you. Are you who I directly report to, or is she? Or maybe you should realize that you hired someone qualified and let me deal with the job you’ve hired me to do. If I run everything by you, I’m nothing more than your glorified assistant.”
I scowled at that. “You are going to be a pain in the arse, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Is that a problem?”
I opened my mouth to yell, but instead, my stupid lips twitched. I
liked that she had spunk. I liked that she stood her ground and was smart enough and didn’t need me to make every little decision. Shit.
I was going to regret this. I could feel it. Working this closely with her, being this close to her, not touching her, was going to be a problem.
“We can work together. You don’t have to fight me. I just want to do my job, and I am grateful for the opportunity because I would have been stuck as Kennedy’s assistant for far too long. So please, let me show you what I can do.”
“You already have. It’s not bad.”
She laughed, pushed back her seat, and stood. “Not bad? Please, I’m the best operations director you’ve ever had. You’ll see.”
And then I could only stare at that delectable ass as she sashayed out of the damn room.
I was so utterly fucked.
14
Ben
Music thumped inside the club, and I had to blink rapidly to let my eyes adjust to the dark. SKIN was one of the most exclusive strip clubs in London. The girls were high-end escorts and dancers. The owner, Cassia, a former Russian ballerina, made sure her girls were clean, safe, and drug free.
This was where I found Adam Hilton, getting a lap dance from a dancer called Candy. I slid into the booth with him, and he frowned at me. “Oi, mate, this is a private booth.”
I grinned at him. “No, Adam, it’s not.”
His frown deepened, and then he squinted. “Covington? Is that you?”
“In the flesh.”
Candy glanced back and forth between us. “I’m sorry, but if you would like a friend to join in, you’ll have to pay extra.”
I took several hundred-pound notes out of my billfold and handed them over. “I’m so sorry to cut this short. But I need to speak to him.”
She gave me a smile and her gaze perused my body. “Shame. We could have had fun.”