The Darkest of Shadows

by Lisse Smith

  Hartigan wanted to buy our development; even with the inflated price he was paying Lawrence, and the smaller, more reasonable rates for the other investors, the final price that he would have ended up paying was significantly lower than its expected market value. He could have sold it on completion in two years’ time and made himself a huge packet of money. It just all had to happen before the other company announced they were pulling out of the development.

  Harrison Hartigan was now dead. He was the man who had been sitting in the backseat of the car with me, the one who had made the phone call to Lawrence. I figured the world was better off without him.

  “Have you spoken to Reed?” Lawrence asked.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I texted her, but she doesn’t know what happened yet.”

  “Do you want me to ring her?” he pushed.

  I smiled and then got up to retrieve my phone from the kitchen counter, where it had been charging. When I returned I lay down on the lounge beside him, wiggling around until my head rested in his lap and my legs stretched out along the length of the cushions.

  Then I dialed Reed’s number.

  “OK, now I know that you said not to worry.” Reed started as soon as the phone picked up. “But seriously, you can’t tell me that you’re in trouble and then not give me any more details. It’s been a week, Lil!”

  “It has not,” I corrected her. “It’s been like two days since I text you, maybe three.” So it might have been a week since the incident, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Whatever,” she snapped. “Details, woman.”

  I knew Lawrence could hear our conversation, and strangely it didn’t bother me. “There was a bit of an altercation at the New Year’s Eve party that we went to, but I’m fine.”

  “I’m sure that it was more than an altercation, so pray continue.”

  “Well, someone kind of might have kidnapped me.”

  “What the hell!” Reed screamed it over the phone. “Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? What happened?”

  “Well, if you’ll shut up long enough, I’ll tell you.” Geez. When she remained quiet, I continued. “So anyway, there was this business proposal that we were reviewing after Christmas. It was strange, and we weren’t interested in it, so Lawrence had the lawyers tell them no. But then they sent back a higher offer, and we didn’t take that either. Well, apparently the man who made the offer really wanted to buy the project, and he kidnapped me from the party to blackmail Lawrence into selling.”

  “Oh, my God, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  “Hey.” I was instantly affronted by that. “I did nothing. I’m not responsible for crazy people who do stupid things. And anyway, some of Lawrence’s friends helped to rescue me, and that’s pretty much it.”

  “Pretty much it? Pretty much!” I heard the sound of her walking, and then she did the ultimate sister betrayal. She told on me. “Duncan.” She snapped her husband’s name. “Duncan, Lilly got kidnapped by a crazy man and thinks it’s OK.”

  “I never said that it was OK. I said that I’m OK.” See the difference, woman?

  “Duncan wants to talk, Lilly.” Reed sounded so very pleased with herself.

  I rolled my eyes at Lawrence. “This was your idea,” I told him, and readied myself to deal with my brother-in-law.

  “Lilly, what the hell is Reed talking about?” Duncan’s serious voice warmed my heart and made a smile flicker across my lips. Lawrence traced a path across my cheek, almost like he was chasing the smile before it disappeared.

  “Hi, Duncan.” I ignored Reed in the background, who still hadn’t stopped talking. “Are you looking after my baby sister?” I asked him. Duncan was an accountant; he had that quietness to him that could have been misinterpreted for shyness, but if you knew him, he was so far from that. He was strong and dominant, and he looked after my flighty little sister like no one else could.

  “Don’t I always? But don’t try to change the subject on me. What is this I hear about a kidnapping?”

  “It’s nothing. It’s over now, and the perpetrators have been taken care of. Lawrence and his friends at the CIA have fixed it up, and I’m not hurt.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not. I promise. Do I sound like I’m not OK?”

  “You sound remarkably calm about the whole thing, actually.”

  “I wasn’t at first,” I told him honestly. “But Lawrence has helped me keep perspective, and in the scheme of things, it’s really not that hard to deal with, not considering some of the other things I’ve had to cope with. This is almost too easy.”

  “I guess it would be, at that,” he admitted. “Miss you, Lil. I’m still waiting for that birthday visit.”

  “Miss you, too,” I told him, and then I heard him hand the phone back to Reed.

  “She’s fine Reed. Leave her alone,” Duncan told her.

  “That didn’t go quite as planned, did it, little sis?” I asked her smugly.

  “Yes, well, he always was a pushover for you,” she sulked.

  “I’m not lying, Reed. I really am OK. I wouldn’t be ringing you otherwise.”

  “So where are you?”

  “London.”

  “How long for?”

  “Not sure. Probably about a week, and then we’ll be moving around again. There are a lot of engagements that we’ve missed for various different reasons over the last week or so. We have a lot of catching up to do.” That was very true.

  “How’s Lawrence?”

  I looked up at his face. “He’s good. He’s even more worried about me than you are, so you should both just relax.” I smiled to let him know I wasn’t serious.

  “Can I talk to him?” she asked, after a moment’s pause.

  I sat up on the lounge, suddenly unsure about this. “What do you want to talk to him for?”

  “I need to make sure he’s caring for you, Lilly,” she told me. “If I can’t be certain of that, then I’m not going to let it go.” And I knew she meant every word of that.

  I pressed the phone into the lounge, so that she wouldn’t hear when I spoke to Lawrence. “I’m sorry,” I started. “But my sister wants to talk to you. You don’t have to—” but he already had his hand out for the phone before I finished.

  “No, I’d like to talk to her,” he assured me, and put the phone up to his ear. From where I was on the lounge I couldn’t hear his conversation, as he had heard mine. All I could get was his side, not Reed’s, so I hoped that she wasn’t being difficult.

  “Good evening, Reed.” Lawrence spoke evenly into the phone.

  “Hello, Lawrence.” Reed responded, her voice surprisingly similar to Lilly’s. “Can Lilly hear me?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She hesitated for a moment. “Look, I’m not sure if she really is OK or not; you probably know that better than me, which I hate. But I need to know that you are taking care of her.”

  “I promise you that I am.”

  “Lilly is very precious to me, to our family.”

  “And to me also,” he replied.

  “She has been through an enormous amount over the last few years.”

  “I know,” Lawrence told her carefully.

  Something in his tone must have given him away, because she paused for a moment, then asked. “You know? What do you mean, you know?”

  “Exactly that.”

  “How do you know? What do you know? She would never have told you.” Reed sounded agitated.

  “I have resources available to me that are very useful and very discreet.”

  “Does she know?” she asked. “That you know?”

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “OK. She would have a hissy fit if she found out, and as much as I’m loathe to admit it, you seem to be good for her, so I won’t jeopardize it for you.”

  “Thank you.” He breathed easier.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t keep secrets from my sister, and if
she asks me outright then I would never lie to her, but I won’t go out of my way to tell her.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  “That’s not actually why I asked to talk to you,” Reed said.

  “Yes?”

  “Lilly’s dad, our dad, he’s not well.”

  “I see.”

  “He’s taken a turn for the worse over the last few days, but I didn’t want to ring Lilly, and now that she’s told me about what happened to her, I really don’t want to worry her.”

  “Hmm.”

  “But I need someone over there to know, so that if something horrible happens, then there is someone with her, someone who cares.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Don’t worry her with it now, not unless I ring you and tell you that she needs to know. Hopefully he’ll get better, and she won’t have to know at all.”

  “It’s fine, Reed. I understand.”

  “Good.” She paused, then added, “You must be special if Lilly has given you a chance, Lawrence. Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I will make every effort not to,” he assured her.

  “Can I talk to Lilly now?”

  “What did you say?” I accused her when Lawrence gave the phone back. He looked calm and unruffled, as always.

  “Just checking up on you, my dear.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” I told her.

  “Ring me later.” I barely heard her response before I hung up.

  “Sorry.” I scooted over to him on the lounge, until I sat straddling his thighs, facing him. “She can be a bit pushy sometimes.”

  “She’s a sister.” He shrugged, pulling me closer to him. “She’s exactly like my own sister. Means well, but can be really irritating.”

  “That’s exactly what she’s like.” Then I frowned as his words sunk in. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “I have one sister, and a whole tribe of nieces,” he replied. “Seven of them.” He actually shuddered at the thought.

  “Holy crap! That’s a lot.”

  “Exactly,” he agreed. “I try to make it a point of never visiting. You have no idea what a house of seven girls is like.”

  “Reed has four boys,” I added, surprising myself with the admission. I didn’t normally talk about my nephews.

  “Maybe we should introduce them?” Lawrence grinned wickedly.

  “Maybe not.” I shook my head. I also remembered what four boys were like, so having that many kids in one place…no one deserved that.

  Even though we didn’t announce we were in the building, it wasn’t long before people began to invade our time. It was nearly impossible for Allan to ignore the fact that he had Lawrence that close at hand, and there always seemed to be some emergency that he just had to tell him about. At first Lawrence just did what he normally did, ignored the calls, but when they started to ring my phone fairly regularly, we both acknowledged that we were either going to have to leave London, or answer the phone.

  Once we answered that first call, the floodgates opened, and within an hour Lawrence was back in his office and I was sitting at my desk.

  He was very reluctant to have me work, insisting that I stay in the apartment, so I just waited until he was in his office with Allan and then settled at my own desk anyway. There was a huge backlog of things I needed to get done, especially rebooking all the meetings that Lawrence had missed over the last week.

  “Hi, Allan.” I rose to greet him when he emerged from Lawrence’s office a few hours later.

  “Good afternoon, Lilly.” He walked closer and leant over to kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he added sadly.

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  “Make sure you don’t let him overwork you.” He nodded toward Lawrence, who had just come out into the foyer where my desk sat. He must have heard my voice, and from the frustrated look on his face, he wasn’t happy about me working against his instructions.

  “Lilly?” he asked with a deepness to his voice that said much more than his words. He shot a look at Charlie, who was sitting in an armchair, reading a magazine by the window.

  Charlie shrugged in apology. “Like she’d listen to me,” he said, in answer to the look in Lawrence’s eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I told them all. “Trust me, you’ll know when I’m not.” Then I turned my attention back to Allan. “I’ve rebooked the ALC meeting for tonight, so if you still wanted to come, I’ll send the details through to Jules.”

  He nodded. “That would be great. Thanks. I’ll see you both tonight then.” Moments later I was left with just Charlie and Lawrence, the latter of whom still looked far from happy.

  Only because there wasn’t anyone else around, and because I didn’t want to see that look on his face, I stepped closer to him, my body fitting perfectly against the long length of his. Almost unconsciously his arms folded around me.

  “Don’t be mad.” I breathed the words against his lips.

  “I want you to rest, Lilly.” He groaned the words almost reluctantly.

  “Do you trust me?”

  He knew that was a trap, but he also knew he had to step right into it. “Yes.”

  “Then trust me to know what I can and can’t do,” I told him.

  “Fine,” he muttered, and then his lips touched mine. It was a possessive kiss, a dominating and wonderful kiss that told me clearer than his words that his mind was divided on this issue.

  By the time his lips left mine, I couldn’t have stood without his arms around me. The world spun so randomly that I had to cling to the front of his suit to stay upright. The smug look on his face was evidence that he was more than happy with my reaction. His hands ran down my back, pulling me closer to him, grinding my hips against his.

  “I don’t want to go out tonight,” he complained. “I’ve got other things that I’d rather do.” I knew exactly what those things were; the evidence was pressed solidly against me.

  A sexy smile flicked over my face. “We’ll have lots of time for that after,” I told him.

  “Must I go?” he kissed his way down my neck, and I chuckled. He sounded like a teenager, complaining when his mother asked him to clean his room, but there was nothing childlike about his intentions.

  “Yes, you must.” I pulled back a bit so that I could look him in the face. “I’ve had to reschedule a whole lot of stuff to make up for everything you’ve missed. You’re going to be a busy boy this week.”

  I’m not even sure he was listening by that point; his eyes and his hands were doing other things, things that really weren’t appropriate for the middle of the office.

  “Behave.” I pushed back from him, but I made sure that I gave him a kiss filled with a promise for much more later. His arms fell reluctantly from around me.

  Dinner that night was with a firm that was doing the architectural work on a high-rise apartment development for us. There were some design problems with the local authorities that were stalling the development. Only Lawrence had the contacts that would get the project moving again. The architects needed to brief him on the major problems so that the following night, Lawrence and I could meet with the head of the certifying authority to get them passed.

  There was a group of three from ALC at dinner. I had picked a fairly private restaurant for us to go to, one that had separate private dining rooms, so that there would be room and privacy in case Lawrence needed to see any of the plans laid out. Originally this meeting was scheduled for two days earlier in our corporate offices, but circumstances for both ALC and Lawrence meant that the only time before the meeting the following night with the planning minister was dinner tonight. So, there we were, Lawrence, Allan, and myself, being introduced to Adam Paskel, GM of ALC, and two of his colleagues, Sam Writen, his planning manager, and Abel North, a design engineer who looked and acted very out of place in the room with the others. Obviously, he was there for the actual architectural drawing side of the project, not for his ability to represent AL
C in a room dominated by the high flyers of the business world.

  I had actually met Adam previously. We had attended a benefit together about six months earlier, so it was with a genuine smile that I shook hands with him again when we entered the room.

  “Lilly.” He was a big man and had a voice to match. It boomed around the room, making it seem much smaller than it actually was.

  “Good evening Adam.” I laughed as he kissed my cheek. He was a very touchy person, not really that big on respecting people’s personal space, which normally would have bothered me, but something about Adam let women know he wasn’t a threat. That, and the fact that I had spent a very enjoyable few hours with his stunning wife at that benefit, so I knew what waited for him at home. Her name was Tashya and there was no doubt, once I had seen them both together, that they were genuinely and deeply in love. “How’s Tashya?”

  “Fat!” he announced jovially.

  It seemed such a strange comment for him, because there was nothing fat about Tashya—she was model gorgeous. My expression must have given it away because he laughed in his big booming voice. “She’s pregnant, Lilly.”

  My heart sank cold and heavy in my chest, but I forced a smile to my face. “Congratulations, Adam. Give Tashya my best.” That was as much as I could manage to say. Lawrence was the only one who noticed something different about me, and without realizing what he was doing, his arm snaked around my waist and he pulled me into his side before he placed a soft kiss in my hair.

  “Congratulations.” Lawrence held out his hand to Adam, who took it in his and then with his other hand reached out and slapped Lawrence on the shoulder.

  “By the looks of it, my friend, I’m not the only one to be congratulated.” He looked suggestively between my pale face and Lawrence.

  Lawrence and I ignored his question. It was quite obvious at this point, so there was little need for a verbal confirmation.

  We settled around the table. Lawrence leaned down close to my ear as he pushed my chair in for me. “Are you OK?” he asked quietly. I nodded but didn’t answer.

  I hated to be reminded of happily ever afters. It wasn’t personal to Adam and Tashya, but I didn’t want to know about their life, I didn’t want to know that they were having a baby and that they would get to keep that child and watch it grow. I didn’t want to think those thoughts, not at all.