Saint or Sinner: A Contemporary Romance Novel

by Jolie Day

It was a very weird feeling to have to make decisions for others and to manage everything. Mira had no choice but to roll up her sleeves and get things organized, because if she didn’t, she would suffocate in the chaos around her. For the first time she was able to fully understand why Connor had adapted to this character trade and why it had become second nature to him: It felt good.

  The first thing she did was look after her sister. Suzanne had been conscious — at least there was that — and had been sitting on her bed crying. Only because Peter had warned Connor and her about the situation, was Mira able to make some kind of sense of the things Suzanne was saying. Russell had been arrested by the police and now he was being kept in custody. Would she have to get him a lawyer now? No, she would not, Mira decided there and then. Right now, she would have to look after her sister. She called Suzanne’s primary care physician and explained the situation. His surprise proved to her that he had not been the one prescribing the medication to her sister, which was somewhat of a relief for her. He gave her the name of a hospital that specialized in cases such as hers and offered to call them if Mira wanted to bring Suzanne there. No sooner said than done. Mira packed her a bag with the necessities, pushed Suzanne into her car, which turned out to be the most difficult part of the process, and then drove her to the Mount Sinai.

  It hurt Mira to watch Suzanne try to fight the nurses that took over for her. She would have liked to cry a little, but Suzanne had to detox from her medication first and Mira simply did not have the strength, nor the time, to do everything herself. She also didn’t have the skills, she thought, as she wiped away a single tear. She had asked the attending physician to keep her updated and she had given her her personal mobile number. Shortly after that, she was already on her way to the company.

  Once there, it was clear that everybody already knew about Russell’s arrest. “What is he accused of?” Ms. Philips asked with worried eyes. “If it had something to do with the company, then the place would already be swarming with agents and every single computer would have been confiscated by now,” she continued.

  “Truthfully, I have no idea,” Mira admitted, and she hated herself for her own negligence — again. Making decisions was all good and well, but she definitely still had to learn how to collect more correct information about what was going on around her. “For now, we will just keep going as we have so far,” she continued. “And to be able to do that, I will very much need your help. You know best what is going on in this company. Are you willing to work with me here?”

  Ms. Philips blushed, which immediately shaved ten years off her looks. She saluted like a stiff little soldier and smiled — grinned even.

  “Which appointments am I looking at today?”

  “The first one will be with one of our suppliers. Luke has already left for the warehouses in Burlisle Street. He also said that he would be able to meet the second appointment, which will be at around two o’clock, with a web designer. Mr. Forbes had planned to update our internet presence for Dumont Ltd and today, the first drafts were supposed to be ready.”

  It was already too late for the meeting with the supplier, but she would definitely join Luke for the second appointment. No. It was the other way around. Luke would join her! As it was only at two o’clock, she still had ample time to meet up with Connor for lunch and get fitted for that wire.

  First and foremost, however, she would go and finally have a look at what Russell had stuck underneath that one desk drawer. She asked Ms. Philips to gather all office personnel in the large meeting room by 10 am, so she could inform them about the changes and then Mira watched the woman close the door behind her. She immediately fell to her knees and felt for the hidden papers.

  Even though she had somehow expected it, the disappointment was still huge when she didn’t find anything. In her fear after the attack and with the shock information about the death of her mother, she had completely forgotten that she had wanted to search for it. Now it was too late. Whatever Russell had been hiding there was now gone.

  She visited Suzanne every other day and watched her sister fight her way back from the influence of those tranquilizer pills.

  The week passed by in a flash. Mira went to the company every single day and on day two she had already forgotten that she carried a tiny little microphone inside her bra, which told Connor every second where she was. Only at night, when he finally and slowly took the clothes off her body and stripped her of the transmitter, did she remember it, although it was never for long.

  She and Luke were a good team. He explained everything to her, and answered questions about whatever she didn’t know. She had no problems asking him either. His uncomplicated manner made it easy for her to respect him and he was exceptionally patient with her every step of the way. He was also very intelligent and possessed an enormous amount of knowledge about Dumont Ltd — so much in fact, that she started to wonder how important he was for this company. There was nothing he didn’t know. From the next expected delivery all the way to the names of every employee — he had it all saved inside his incredible brain. On her first visit to the warehouses with him, she was a little taken back at just how much all of the staff respected him there. They almost seemed happy to see him. He asked them about their families, how they were doing, and he spoke to every single one of them for a short while and introduced Mira as the new manager.

  By Friday, she was so exhausted that she would have loved to fall asleep right next to the coffee machine in her office. Over and over again, she had to remind herself that she had people around her, who kept encouraging her to keep going. There was Luke, who looked just as tired as her by the end of the week. Sarah Philips had made it her mission to take as much work off Mira’s shoulders as possible and she really did a fantastic job dealing with everything that came her way. Suzanne had started on the long road to recovery and her improving appearance made Mira happy. There were so many reasons to keep on fighting. And obviously, there was also still Connor.

  She had no clue how he managed to work from L.A. and organize everything in his company, but he obviously had no problems doing it. Maybe all of his organizations that were helmed by him had long established themselves as strong and independent entities. Connor demanded to drive her to work every single day and he was also the one picking her up. The nights in Slater’s house all seemed to follow the same pattern. Connor would cook, in the time she took a bath or watched him create some delicious dinner. They ate together, watched the news together, and then they went to snuggle on the sofa together. Even though “snuggle” wasn’t exactly the right word she thought about, whenever she thought about Connor. The erotic chemistry between them was incredible and sooner or later — mostly sooner, if Mira had something to say about it — they would end up making love like two obsessed lovers.

  Another added bonus was the fact that Mira actually felt extremely good working in her father’s company. It surprised her every day anew, how satisfied she was, when she finally called it a day after ten, maybe even twelve hours of hard work. Step by step, she gained a detailed overview of everything that had to get done on a daily basis and she just did it. Obviously, her university degree helped her in that regard, but it still turned out very much like Luke (and even Russell) had described it: theoretical knowledge alone was not enough. It was the practical work that was complicated, but it was doable. Unfortunately, however, Mira had still not managed to find anything that she could use as bulletproof evidence of her father’s or Russell’s connections to the Mafia. The books had turned out to be spotless — at least what she had managed to check so far.

  Every time she thought about Russell, she immediately wondered what he had hidden underneath that drawer. The judge had imposed such a huge bail amount on him, that even his lawyer had turned pale. So, for now, he would be remaining in custody. After some back and forth negotiations, she had finally managed to find a lawyer with Connor’s help, who would be willing to defend Russell, at the same time being fully aware that t
his could mean that he could potentially go against the Mafia.

  Peter had called her once and told her that Russell was not yet willing to cooperate with the authorities, but that he personally didn’t think that it would take much longer for him to crack under the pressure. Other than that, she didn’t hear much from Peter. After this initial call, not even Connor heard from him.

  For Mira it very much felt like the calm before the storm.

  And it would definitely be a wild and severe storm.

  There was never a moment, where she regretted that she had begun to dig up her past, but that did not mean that she wasn’t scared. It would have been stupid not to feel any kind of fear. She stretched her tired limbs and looked one more time at her brand new daily planner. She had taken over Russell’s appointments in order to keep the business in the company running as smoothly as possible.

  Monday at 10 am she had a meeting with Mrs. Kafiro, who runs a logistics company, and who had shown interest in possibly working with Dumont Ltd in the future. When Mira had spoken to her on the phone, the conditions had sounded more than reasonable and offered a lot of room for more economical agreements, which would ultimately trickle down to the employees. Dammit! Mira had forgotten to look up the table with the delivery routes and drives that they had to do every month. She remembered that Sarah had sent it to her via email, so she restarted her computer once more. Mira looked at her watch. Connor would come to get her in about half an hour, but she wouldn’t be ready by then. For a moment, she considered taking the documents home and looking at them there, but she also knew herself well enough to know that this was something that she should rather do right now. She sent Connor a message with a sigh and told him that she needed some more time and that she would call him as soon as she was done with her work. The second she had sent the message, her phone started ringing.

  “I just wanted to make sure that this was really you who sent me the message,” Connor explained.

  “Yes, that was me personally.”

  “This is not funny,” he said. Even with the distance between them, Mira was able to hear the anger in Connor’s voice about her not taking his concerns seriously. “I just have a strange gut feeling. Something is brewing.”

  “I thought you could see where I am with that wire signal,” Mira said surprised. “Or did the transmitter break?”

  “That transmitter is working perfectly,” Connor replied. “However, technology is never foolproof and that signal is indicating that you have not moved from your spot for 160 minutes.”

  “Yes, I am sitting in my office looking through the files for Monday,” Mira explained as she wondered what he meant with his comment. Although she kept reminding herself that it was only Connor who watched over her every minute of every day, even when she went to use the toilet, she still sometimes had a weird feeling about it. What would happen if someone hacked the transmission of her location? “I don’t understand why you are so concerned.”

  “Well, if our unknown suspect finds out that you are wearing a transmitter, it will be easy for him to get rid of it and to just deposit it somewhere in your office. That way the signal will still be transmitted and won’t alarm me that something might be wrong. I would almost prefer it if you just call me every hour.”

  “You can forget about that,” Mira said. “Let me finish my work here. The quicker I am done here, the faster you will be able to see me. I will call you as soon as I know how much more time I will need.”

  At the other end there was only silence. “Are you still there?”

  “I am still here,” Connor replied. “You have one hour. You don’t have to rush for me. I will simply wait until you are done, but I will be there in one hour.”

  “But…”

  “Mira,” said Connor and it was obvious how hard he had to work to reign in his non-existent patience.

  “Connor,” Mira mirrored his tone of voice. Then, as soon as she realized what she had done, she quickly added: “I know that you are worried about me and I love you for it. I will be quick. I promise.”

  Then Mira heard something click and she looked up at her door. Nope, it was still closed.

  “One hour. The longer you try to convince me of the opposite, the less time you will have to work.” Click. He had hung up. This was typical of Connor, Mira thought and against her will she had to smile. What he considered a compromise, others would still view as a concession. Alright then. She pushed the thought of Connor from her mind and turned back towards the table, which had now opened on her computer screen. This list contained the starting points, where the drivers would go to pick up the bags of coffee beans, the distances to their destinations, the weight of each shipment, as well as the price for each driven mile, which Dumont Ltd would pay to the shipping company.

  Mira switched into work mode and blocked out everything other than the numbers. She grabbed a pad and a pen to start making notes. The first thing she noticed, when she looked at these figures, was the fact that Dumont Ltd owned multiple warehouses in four different locations. She had visited two during this last week. One she still remembered from back in the day when her father had still been in charge of his company. The other one had been in operation for three years now. She switched the screen and changed it to Monday. Hmmm. What was going on with the other two? She was almost certain that Luke hadn’t even mentioned them. Sarah had also never said anything about these two warehouses on the outskirts of the city and instead had only mentioned the two near the river. Mira opened another file, which showed the inventory of the warehouses. She frowned. According to the list, coffee beans had been stored at the two other warehouses waiting to be processed for three months already. One click onto the details showed her the name of the coffee supplier from whom these beans had come, and she did not recognize it. This wasn’t anything unusual, because she was still learning so many new things in this company and the first week so far hadn’t been long enough to learn every single detail, but it had triggered her curiosity. Mira pulled up yet another file that had the details for every single deal within the company, but suddenly both screens turned black. She stared at the screens for a couple of seconds before trying to restart the PC. Nothing happened.

  She got up and walked towards the door. On the day of her attack, when all the lights had turned off, Luke had handled the situation by fiddling about in the breaker box. She remembered that it had been somewhere near the entrance, where the cloakroom was. As soon as her hand grabbed the doorknob, she swallowed hard. The memory, which she had buried deep into her conscience, all of a sudden bubbled up with full force again and it almost seemed as if it had happened just yesterday. Okay, to be fair, it had only been a few days. No wonder her heart was beating as if it wanted to escape her chest.

  What were the chances of getting hit by lightning twice in the same spot — almost zero to none. She was quite certain that no perpetrator would risk attacking her twice within the same rooms of her company. She could feel how the fine hairs on her neck stood upright. Goosebumps covered her arms and her hands felt very cold. She scolded herself about her own fear and forced herself to get it together. She had to turn the knob and… step out into the hallway. Mira took a deep breath.

  Then she opened the door.

  She almost started crying with relief. The hallway was fully lit up. Nobody seemed to be here and the only thing she heard was the humming sound of the copy machine on the far side of the hallway. In fact, she was so relieved that her insides felt like they had turned to mush. This must be Sarah, who was obviously working overtime. Mira walked towards the small room where the copier was located with long strides. The clicking sounds of her heels were swallowed by the thick carpet. “Sarah?” she called, when she had almost reached the room. “Could you maybe help me with something? I have a small…” Problem, she had wanted to say, when suddenly the lights turned off.

  Mira immediately stopped in her tracks. The copier died instantly with a small sigh that almost sounded human.
/>   She could hear her own raspy breath in the darkness. Deep inside of her, she felt cold fear creeping up and she began to shake, which found its way mercilessly to all of her limbs. In a useless attempt to protect herself and to face her fear, she threw her arms around herself. What was she supposed to do at this point, other than find the damn breaker box in this thick darkness and turn all the lights back on – or… Mira turned her head from left to right and tried to make out anything in the blackness that surrounded her.

  Nothing.

  What other options did she have? It was almost impossible to think logically at this point. All her instincts were tuned into flight mode, but where was she supposed to turn, if she couldn’t see? The longer she stood there and hesitated, the more confused and disoriented she became.

  She could try to run back to her office. That was where her mobile phone was lying right there on her desk and she could try to call Connor. When did he say he was going to be here? In one hour, he had said. How much time had passed since that conversation?

  The office was close, only a few steps, maybe ten or fifteen and she would be there. So, why was she unable to move?

  No. She could not count on Connor possibly arriving on time. She would much rather make a complete fool of herself and flee to the concierge downstairs. Mira could almost envision him talking about the lady boss of one of the companies in his building and how scared she was in the dark. On the other hand, it really didn’t matter what this man thought about her, if she ended up beaten to a pulp in some corner somewhere and unable to call for help.

  Something behind her clicked.

  The noise seemed so extremely loud in her ears as if someone had just shot a gun and Mira did the only thing she could do at this point: blindly ran in the direction of where she thought the door was. She stumbled forward with short insecure steps, hands stretched out into the darkness and breathing hectically.

  She ran straight into an obstacle. At first, she couldn’t really understand what it was, but when two hands grabbed and held her, she suddenly realized that it had been a person that she had run into.