by Lisse Smith
“What about the dinner?” I asked.
“That you have to attend, sorry,” he said. “I know it’s late notice, but the dinner is small; and it’s actually to talk about a charity opportunity, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
“No, that’s fine. I’m happy to go.” I would be requiring new clothes fairly soon, however. My list of formal clothes, if I had to attend every function already listed in his schedule, runs out in exactly four days, so there was going to have to be some shopping before we left. “We’re leaving late Wednesday, and I’ve seen your appointments for the next few weeks. If you want me to attend all those formal events, I’m going to have to do some shopping. Do you mind if I do that while you’re out tomorrow afternoon?”
“Not at all,” he assured me. “Which reminds me.” He walked back into his office and returned a moment later with an envelope. “These are for you. There should be two credit cards—one in your name, one in the company name—and security cards. The blue one will get you into any office in this building, including the private apartments, and the green cards are for our corporate offices in the States. There is also company ID in there and contact details for my personal lawyer.”
I must have looked a little confused, because he added, “We have in-house legal services, but I keep a high-profile lawyer on retainer. His name is Wallace Alexander, and he handles all my personal business, but also takes on the companies more complex issues. Anyway, that’s enough for today. It’s just past four; why don’t you take off and get your house sorted out before it gets too late?”
Not surprisingly, Charlie came along for the ride. At least he would be good for the heavy lifting. That thought made me smile mischievously to myself. Charlie caught the smile and asked, “What’s so funny?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
I made a quick phone call to my landlord while we drove to tell him that I’d be away for a month. I wasn’t ready to give up the apartment; I might need it in a month, so for the moment, I was happy to just have it sit there empty.
I had the driver stop at the post office near where I lived and arranged for my mail to be redirected to the offices in London, then sent a quick e-mail from my phone telling the records department to expect it. I hadn’t realized quite how large a project this would become. Being homeless was difficult.
My apartment came furnished, so there wasn’t actually a lot of stuff that personally belonged to me, and most of that would stay, at least for the moment. I stashed Charlie in the lounge—he made the space look extremely small—and set about packing everything I owned into my two suitcases. When I surveyed the final result, it didn’t look like much. It’s strange how everything you are can be bottled up into something so physically small.
“OK, wonder boy,” I announced happily to Charlie, as he sat watching TV. “Your turn!”
“My turn for what?” he asked cautiously, switching off the TV and walking into the bedroom after me.
“Well, if I have to cart you around with me all the time, there has to be some benefit, and I’ve decided that you can carry my bags. Where’s your muscles, boy?”
Charlie’s slow grin lit up his face, showing a stunning set of dimples in each cheek. “Do you really want to see my muscles?” he asked in a horrifyingly sexy voice.
I wasn’t going anywhere near that! “Just get the bags, Charlie.” I shook my head in exasperation. Seriously, with men it was always about sex.
I picked up my shoulder bag and a few small boxes that I didn’t want crushed and followed him out of the apartment. I took a moment at the door to look around, to remember that I had liked living here, and to reassure myself that if I wasn’t happy with the mess I’d gotten myself into, this would always be waiting for me. It helped to buffer me against the craziness of Lawrence’s world.
Against Charlie’s wishes, I made the driver stop at the supermarket, so with a grumbling giant in tow, I ducked in to get a new notebook. I had left my other one at Cartright and Nagel, so I had to grab a new one. I always kept notes with my work—things I needed to remember, things I needed to do, e-mail addresses, phone calls—so I could have a quick reference if I was ever challenged about an issue. I had no doubt that I’d need that security, working between Lawrence and sixteen MDs.
With a reluctant Charlie tagging along in my wake, I might have spent longer than I really needed to in the store, but I did so enjoy seeing him annoyed that I couldn’t help it.
“Do you think we’re going to make it home for dinner anytime soon?” he asked, as we walked back out to the car. Typical…if it wasn’t sex they were thinking about, it was food.
“Depends on how much more you annoy me,” I told him cheerfully.
His face wasn’t a happy picture, but he was smart enough to shut up at that point.
By the time we made it back to the offices, it was nearly 9:00 p.m., and the place was deserted—and a little eerie. I just about had to run to keep up with Charlie as he marched through the building; obviously, my bags weren’t much of a struggle for him. When we got off the elevator at the offices, I refused anymore running and just trailed along slowly in his wake.
By the time I found my way into the lounge, Charlie was on his way back out of my room, minus two bags. He stopped only long enough to grab a beer from the fridge before disappearing down the hall to his room.
“Did you piss him off already?” Lawrence asked from where he sat on one of the lounges. His laptop sat beside him, and a spread of papers lay littered around him.
I shrugged nonchalantly in response. “Apparently.” Then a thought occurred to me. “He’s going to have so much fun tomorrow,” I predicted, with a sinking feeling. He was unpleasant enough when all we did was buy stationery; I could only imagine what he would be like after half a day of clothes shopping.
I continued on through the room to my bedroom and spent the next few hours putting my things away and trying to work out what would stay here and what I would take when we left for Italy. I’d have to remember to check the schedule and find out how soon it would be before we were back in London. For all I knew, we might be away for the whole month.
It was just after midnight when I walked out into the quiet apartment. I hadn’t had anything to eat, and I didn’t want to go to sleep hungry. A cup of tea should tide me over until the morning.
I was dressed in a short silk shift; not expecting anyone to be out of bed, I hadn’t bothered with a dressing gown, so I was taken aback to find Lawrence still sitting on the lounge exactly where I had left him. I did a double take and almost turned around and headed back to my room before he saw me, but just as I made the decision to retreat, his eyes rose from what he was reading on his laptop and blinked at me across the room.
“Sorry,” I stammered. “Didn’t mean to disturb you. I thought you would be asleep by now.”
“You’re not disturbing me.” He set his laptop beside him and stretched with a groan. “I should give it up anyway; it’s all blurring together in my head at the moment.”
I couldn’t very well run back to my room, now that he had seen me—a little bit more of me than I would have preferred, for that matter—so I continued into the kitchen and searched around for the tea-making implements. By the time I got the kettle on and a cup out, Lawrence, still dressed in his business pants and shirt, but without the jacket and tie, was leaning casually against the kitchen counter, watching my progress.
“Want one?” I asked. It seemed rude not to offer.
“I’m not a huge fan of tea. Thanks though.”
Who doesn’t like tea? “Do you normally keep such late hours?” I asked, as we both waited for the kettle to boil.
He shrugged. “I suppose so. Dinner and social functions usually don’t finish till after midnight, but I’m not much of a sleeper in any event. Travel and the time zones make it hard to get a functioning body clock. I sleep when I’m tired.”
I quite liked my body clock, so that would no doubt prove challengin
g.
“What time do you start in the morning?” I asked.
“Nine, or I try to be in my office by that time, but it doesn’t always happen. It really depends what I have booked for the day, and what I did the night before, but I try and keep the first few hours free anyway, so that I can be late if I need to be.”
“Do you get days off?”
“Typically I try and have Sunday off, but I don’t always get the evening. The most that I usually manage is that I can do whatever I like during the day and then go to dinner with clients in the evening. It’s a compromise, but works mostly.”
I smiled a little at the picture he was painting of his life. As I poured the boiling water into my cup I responded. “I can see why you have such problems keeping staff.”
“It’s a full-time commitment. Now you see why I’ve had to offer such high wages.” Totally—he was buying a slave, not an employee.
I sipped quietly on my tea, occasionally glancing at him over the top of the cup.
“So what do you think so far?” he asked after a long time.
“I think that I might actually enjoy this.” I was almost reluctant to admit it, but he was being honest with me as far as I could tell, and I thought he deserved to know how I really felt. “It’s a challenge. It’s interesting, it’s certainly dynamic, and I get to travel. But then I’m a bit stranger than most people, so it’s not surprising that I would love it.”
“I’m glad. I think we’ll do well together. I’m not someone who has much opportunity to have a genuine friendship with a person, but for some reason with you, I knew we would click.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I warned him. “I’ve got my share of issues.”
“You manage them well enough that I don’t think it will be a problem for us. And besides, I’m not perfect either. I’m pretty sure I’ll be apologizing a lot more to you than you will be to me.”
He was probably right there.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, as he retreated down the hall. “I’m glad you accepted the position, Lilly.” His words echoed back to me with a startling degree of certainty.
Seven
Allan Marsh was the first person I saw the next morning. Charlie still hadn’t made an appearance by the time I left the apartment, but Frost was in his customary seat by the window in my office.
According to the schedule, after Allan I should be expecting Phillip Longborn, Lawrence’s Finance Manager, and then Kyle Bitmore, who I was astonished to learn was a private investigator. I wondered how much work he did for Lawrence.
“Good morning, Allan,” I welcomed him, when he stepped off the lift. “Lawrence asked that you go straight in when you arrive.”
“Thanks, Lilly.”
Lawrence walked Allan out of his office precisely one hour later.
“Hi, Phillip,” he welcomed his next appointment. “Go in, I’ll be right with you.” Then, as soon as Phillip was out of sight, he ducked over to my desk.
“If he goes over an hour, come get me. He’ll never leave otherwise.” With a glance that clearly meant he was serious, he followed Phillip into his office.
“Where’s Charlie?” I asked Frost a while later. He still hadn’t made an appearance; not that I minded, but I was trying to sort out how things worked and him being missing messed with my schedule. At first I wasn’t sure if Frost would even respond. A good few minutes passed before his gravelly voice answered, “He has the morning off.”
And that was apparently all the information I was going to get out of him.
Kyle Bitmore arrived fifteen minutes early for his meeting with Lawrence, and he was nothing like I expected. He looked like a computer nerd. Moderate height, slight build, hair slicked back with gel, a set of glasses that would have done Harry Potter proud, and a briefcase that made him look like a banker.
“Please have a seat, Mr. Bitmore. Mr. Monterey shouldn’t be much longer. Can I get you anything to drink?”
He declined refreshments and took a seat on the edge of one of the lounges, looking more than a little uncomfortable.
The hour ticked over for Phillip, and his time ran out. When they didn’t emerge by five past, I went in to rescue Lawrence. I knocked lightly on the door and stepped through. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Monterey, but your next appointment is here. Would you like me to show him in?”
Lawrence nearly sighed in relief. “Yes, Lilly. Please do.” He rose and shook hands with Phillip. “I’ll think more about your concerns, and we’ll talk when I’m back next. But in the meantime, if you could send me through the figures for the Malluck project, we can make a decision fairly quickly on that issue.”
Phillip took some encouraging, but he finally left. Kyle was only with Lawrence for barely ten minutes before he left, too.
“Lilly?” Lawrence’s voice carried out his open door. He hadn’t walked out with Kyle.
“Have a seat.” He indicated the chair on the other side of his desk. “I’ll give you a quick update on the meetings this morning, and then you can get going, because I’ll need you back here and ready by six-thirty.”
I nodded, and he continued. He outlined the details of the meeting that he had with Allan and Phillip, very concisely and quickly, and gave me a few instructions in relation to outcomes that he needed as a result of both the meetings.
“You will see Kyle coming and going fairly regularly in my schedule,” he added. “He’s working on a number of projects for me at the moment; most of them aren’t on the company books, but some are. My MDs know of his services, but they are kept out of the communication with him and also aren’t privy to his reports when they are made. So please try to keep his movements and anything you see or hear strictly confidential.”
“Sure.” That sounded heavy.
“I’ll be here for about another hour before I’ll take off for the site meeting, so you can go. Call me on the mobile if you need anything.”
I was halfway to the door before I remembered. “Am I taking Frost with me?” Charlie still hadn’t materialized.
Lawrence looked up from his papers. “No,” he said, his eyes thoughtful. “I should probably explain that to you.” He seemed to be speaking more to himself than me. “I’ve had to reorganize things a bit, now that you are part of the team. Normally both Frost and Charlie rotate with their duties, one working while the other is off. They are both with me whenever we attend functions and the like, but when we’re in the office only one of them will be on duty. It’s not an ideal situation for them to have to try to protect us both individually. Not over an extended period of time. It spreads their attention over too wide an area, and they aren’t able to have time off which makes them tired and ineffective. So the times that we are going to be apart will have to be limited, unless you want me to hire an extra one.”
Well that would certainly crowd my life. “No, no,” I assured him. “Two is just fine.”
He smiled in understanding. “So to make things easier, I’ve reallocated their services, and when we have to part, Frost will come with me and Charlie will protect you.”
There wasn’t really either one that I would have preferred, so the decision didn’t really matter that much to me. “OK.”
I let myself into the apartment to get changed. I wasn’t going on a marathon shopping expedition wearing my work clothes. By the time I had emerged, wearing jeans and a jacket, Charlie had appeared from the blackness of wherever he had been, most likely his bedroom, and was waiting in the kitchen, one hip leaning against the edge of the counter.
“Ready?” he asked casually.
I resisted the urge to make a smart comment about his willingness to shop with me and decided to be a better person and let it go. At least he wouldn’t quite stand out so much today. When he and Frost moved around with Lawrence they tended to dress in a more formal fashion, business pants and plain shirts with jackets, and sometimes—no doubt when they wanted to emphasize their military bearing—they wore cargo pant
s and hooded jackets; but today he had opted for casual jeans and a sweater. His appearance didn’t scream out to everyone that he was my bodyguard, which should help to make this a much more enjoyable experience.
When we left the building, I turned left toward the nearest underground station, so that we could head straight into the city, but Charlie halted my steps with a touch. “Where are you going?” he asked in confusion.
“Train?”
He shook his head. “Mr. Monterey would rather you not use that form of transport,” he told me. “There will always be a town car available for your use.” He indicated a car idling quietly at the curb.
“But I like the train.”
He didn’t respond—didn’t seem to remotely care, for that matter—and also didn’t release his grip on my arm.
“Fine,” I huffed and ducked down into the car. I thought banning the underground was a bit of an overkill.
TEXT: I cant use the underground?
LAWRENCE: I would encourage you to use the town cars.
TEXT: Is that a no?
LAWRENCE: Its a strong recommendation that you avoid them if possible.
Sounded like a “no” to me.
I couldn’t fault Charlie on our little shopping trip. Well, obviously, he’s male, so it excused the fact that he wasn’t really thrilled to be there, but he didn’t grumble or give any outward impression that he wanted to kill me for making him sit there while I tried on what seemed like a never-ending pile of clothes.
After the first few pieces, he even started to offer his own opinions, which I recognized fairly quickly were invaluable. Charlie was used to attending these functions with Lawrence, so he knew what sort of clothes I should have.
“That would be fine for dinner,” or “Charity event.” And “Nice, that would work for a formal function.” The recommendations went on, as did the numerous negatives that, in most cases, I had to agree with. “You look like a hooker” was one of my particular favorites. Needless to say, that dress went back.
