But after listening to Charles Fields verbally berate Grace for what seemed like an eternity, I was tired of forcing myself not to step in. I stood from the bed, and made my way to the door, opening it just in time to see him leaving. I was beyond impressed with how Grace had handled herself, but when she turned to me, there was real fear in her eyes.
“You ok?” I asked her, gently brushing her long auburn hair back behind her ear and touching her cheek gently in order to comfort her.
She nodded, leaning into my hand ever so subtly, and I was overcome with the need to protect her—to keep her safe, no matter the cost. “He’s full of hot air,” she said after a long moment, but she didn’t sound too convinced and I wasn’t sure that I was, either.
“You know I have to tell Francine, right?”
She nodded again. “If you don’t, I will.”
I smiled, and let go of her, stepping away so I could take her in. She was a truly remarkable woman, and it was a shame that it had taken me so long to recognize it.
“I have a gala I have to go to tomorrow night,” I told her. “It’s a fundraiser thing that my family hosts. Will you come with me? It will be far more bearable if you are there.”
In response, she crinkled up her nose like she had just smelled a fart.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I didn’t mean to—I don’t want to—This isn’t—” I was at a complete loss for words; Grace had managed to render me completely speechless, which was no small feat.
She laughed at my incoherent stuttering. “I just don’t think I have anything to wear to something like that,” she admitted.
I hoped that she didn’t notice the sigh of relief that escaped from my chest. In the grand scheme of things, a dress was a small problem. Far smaller than the bruise to my ego would have been if she had turned me down flat. “Don’t worry about that,” I said to her, a plan already forming in my mind.
16
Grace
There are few things more annoying than waking up to a knock at your door at seven in the morning. Now that I didn’t have to follow Francine Fields, I was determined to sleep in. But, clearly, the universe was determined to prevent me from doing so.
The knocking was not the urgent pounding of a desperate client—a sound I had been hearing way too often lately. It was more like the polite sound of a neighbor returning my lost dog. Only I didn’t have a dog; I had a two-room apartment and a job that took up twenty hours of my day. So I didn’t know who it could possibly be. Eric, maybe? He had left the day before, not long after Mr. Fields, and I hadn’t heard from him since, but I wasn’t expecting to see him until he picked me up for the gala benefit that evening.
Whoever it was, I figured I should probably put on pants before I greeted them. My early-morning foggy brain was slow to do so, and the knocking politely continued as I managed to locate a pair of jeans that had been tossed haphazardly on my floor the night before and slide them over my bare ass.
I looked at the silhouette through the frosted glass cautiously. I didn’t want to admit it to myself or to Eric, but Charles Fields had spooked me when he entered my office the day before. Not only because he has interrupted a very intimate moment between Eric and me, but because of the wild, desperate look in his eyes when he had done so. I didn’t want to believe that he was actually dangerous, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do if he was.
In any case, the silhouette was definitely not his. The head was far too narrow to be that sack of sweat, and I didn’t hear any heavy breathing, so I figured it was probably safe.
I opened the door to reveal a large package—or rather, a proper, well-dressed man holding a package that was bigger than he was.
“Miss Silver?” he said when he saw me. I was glad that he knew my name, because in all honesty, I had no idea who he was. I had never seen the man before, and he definitely wasn’t dressed like a mailman.
“That’s me,” I answered tentatively.
“I work for Mr. Sorenson,” he explained, sounding very official. “He asked me to deliver this to you.”
“Oh…ok.” I took the package from him gingerly, holding it as if it might break, and he turned to leave. Part of me wondered why the man hadn’t just left the package outside my door, but I shrugged it off, and took the package into my office, setting it on the desk before I opened it to discover its contents.
Eric—or, more likely, one of his assistants—had chosen a dress for me to wear to the gala. It was a gorgeous shade of olive green that would look perfect with my auburn hair, and its skirt was so long and flowy that it would easily reach the floor if I didn’t wear heels under it. Pinned to the corset front of it was a folded sheet of paper. I removed it carefully, and unfolded it to read the message inside.
Good morning, Sunshine. You’d look gorgeous in anything, but I think this will do.
The note was written in a scrawled handwriting that could have only been Eric’s, and when I read it, I could almost immediately feel my face flush and my body get warm. Just thinking about the man made me so horny it was embarrassing. I didn’t know how I’d be able to spend an entire evening looking at that chiseled physique in a tuxedo and resist the urge to tear it off of him. I hugged the dress close to me, disappointed that it didn’t smell like Eric, but nevertheless excited to try it on.
I was amazed that the dress fit me perfectly, and completely dumbstruck by the fact that Eric was somehow able to guess my size. Standing in front of the full length mirror that hung on the back of my door, I was barely able to recognize myself. I looked more like an heiress than a low-rent private investigator.
My phone rang then, pulling me out of my reverie, and I scrambled to reach it on the center of my queen-sized bed, almost tripping over the dress’ long layers of fabric in the process. The caller ID informed me that Eric was on the other end of the line, as if he somehow knew that I would be trying on his gift at that very moment, imagining myself on his arm at a lavish party.
“Hello,” I said, trying on my most sultry voice for the occasion.
“Hey there,” he replied. “Did you get my present?”
“I’m wearing it.” I couldn’t help but giggle a little. The dress made me feel girly and flirty in a way that I had not felt in a while.
“Mmmm,” was his reply, “I bet you look incredible.”
“Eh…it’ll do.” I smirked as though he could see me.
“I can’t wait…can I come over and rip it off of you now?”
I feigned shock. “What? No! I have to work. And you have to…do whatever it is that you do.”
“I have to go tell Francine that her husband is a little deranged,” he said woefully.
“Yeah…that.” I certainly didn’t envy Eric that conversation. Over the years, I had told a number of spouses that their wives and husbands were cheating on them. It never ended well. They either started crying uncontrollably, or became angry at me for delivering the news. I’d have to remind them that I was only giving them the information they asked for. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why people can’t just trust each other. In my line of work, I’ve learned that while there are a lot of reasons not to trust that someone is being faithful to you, there are just as many reasons to accept it when they tell you they are. I think if it came down to it, I wouldn’t want to know that my spouse was cheating. I’d rather just go on thinking that everything was ok. I’ve seen what that kind of distrust can do to relationships, and I don’t want any part of it.
I didn’t say any of this to Eric, of course. Instead, I told him, “Good luck with that,” before we wished each other well and ended the call. I could not be more excited to see that man this evening if he were going to greet me at the door naked holding a chocolate cake.
17
Eric
I only wished I could have seen the look on Grace’s face as she opened the box. As I imagined it, her face lit up, and a huge smile spread across her delicate features, making her gorgeous grey-green eyes widen to th
e size of walnuts. I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of seeing that face, and the only thing that prevented me from hand-delivering the dress myself was the fact that I was determined to have many more opportunities to make her alight with excitement just like that. Now that I had her, I wasn’t going to be giving her up; I had spent too many years without her already.
I wanted to take it to her myself, but I couldn’t. Because I was being followed.
I didn’t notice it at first—my driver, Harold, had to point it out to me. The follow was clever; it was staying a few cars back, but it was still unmistakable. It was a blue sedan, a recent model, and every time we made a turn, we watched in the rearview mirror as it followed. I couldn’t make out the driver, but it seemed that I had no shortage of people angry at me lately. Sebastian could have hired someone, or Francine’s husband, or even someone who I wasn’t yet aware that I’d pissed off. I wasn’t going to waste my time worrying too much about it. Harold was ex-military, and kept a piece on him at all times. So if trouble came looking for us, I was confident that he could handle himself. He said that the best thing I could do was go about my business, pretending like I hadn’t noticed that someone was following us. so that’s what I didwith one exception. Whoever was following me, I wasn’t about to lead them to Grace’s place, and put her in danger. Honestly, she could probably handle herself too, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way.
I actually had the box with the dress in the car, headed to Grace’s apartment to deliver it when we realized that something was amiss. So, I had Harold drop me off at Vance National Holdings, while he delivered the package himself. I was betting that Sebastian was not in the building, and I desperately needed to talk to Francine face to face. The conversation I needed to have with her wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could say over the phone.
The building that served as the headquarters for Vance National Holdings was not nearly as impressive as that of my father’s company. Maybe I was biased, but Sorenson Tower was several stories taller, and far more elegant inside than the structuralist modern slab that I entered. Usually, I didn’t entertain such comparisons. My family was lucky to have things that were often bigger and better than the competition, but it didn’t serve anyone well to point it out. The one exception was Sebastian Vance. Our entire friendship had been one long pissing contest. And that wasn’t about to stop now, just because my father managed to clock him really good one time. Even though that was awesome. So awesome.
Vance had seriously gone all-in on the whole modern decor thing. Everything was concrete, steel, and glass, and probably very expensive, which was one of the reasons the whole business was going under in the first place, allowing us to take over. Francine’s office was twelve floors up in an elevator that looked like it had been a prop in a sci-fi movie. When I reached my floor, and asked for directions to Francine’s office, it felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. Everything in the place was so…clean.
Francine’s assistant was hot. I mean, not as hot as Grace, but a week ago, I might have taken her out to show her a good time. Now, when she looked up at me from her desk, she just seemed flustered and a little inept.
“Oh, Mr. Sorenson! Hi…Francine…she’s in a meeting. You can wait. Out here. If you want.” It was as if she was carrying on an entire conversation all by herself, and I had not been invited to the party. Unfortunately for her, the flustered act was not nearly as cute as she thought it was, and the fact that she was so obviously into me only made it that much easier to charm my way past her and into her boss’ office.
Which was fine, because Francine was not in a meeting at all. She was eating pancakes.
“Francine?” Upon poking my head in and witnessing the scene before me, it seemed appropriate to make sure I was talking to the right person. My mother’s friend Francine—a health food junkie who went to the gym every single day of her life—was devouring a stack of pancakes that had been ordered in from somewhere decadent. They were drowned in at least two kinds of syrup, and she was inhaling them as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. My mind went blank save for one question that kept repeating itself over and over again: What the fuck was I looking at?
Francine looked up from her feast to see a very confused look on my face, and matched it with one of her own, removing the Styrofoam container of pancakes from her desktop in a vain effort to hide it, despite the fact that I had already had an eyeful. She chewed a mouthful of food sheepishly, covering her mouth with a napkin before speaking. The whole thing had me completely dumbfounded.
“Eric! Hello! I’m so sorry. I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast and then—”
I cut her off. “Do you want me to come back later? I can come back,” I offered.
She shook her head and waved me over to a comfortable chair on the opposite side of her desk. “Don’t be silly,” she said, her voice still apologizing for what I had just walked in on. “What’s up?”
I settled back in the chair and gathered my thoughts. I had practiced what I was going to say to Francine that morning in front of the mirror, but with all of the excitement of being followed, and then the pancakes, my mind seemed to have gone otherwise blank.
Finally, I answered her—in what was probably the least tactful way possible.
“It’s about your husband,” I blurted.
She immediately went into crisis mode. “Oh my God! Is he okay? Did something happen?” She was full of questions. I shook my head.
“Nothing like that. He’s fine, I’m sure,” I answered her.
She calmed visibly. “What happened, then?” she asked. I watched her face as she came to her senses, and realized that I’d have no way of knowing if something had happened to her husband even if it had, which it hadn’t.
“He might be dangerous,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s a teddy bear. He just gets upset sometimes…but he’s all bark and no bite.” I was about to tell her how wrong she was, and tried to set her straight, but then she added, “Where did you meet him, anyway?”
I was there to tell Francine the truth, but I was having some trouble determining the amount of truth I wanted to tell her.
“He’s having you followed, Francine,” I told her. “He hired a friend of mine. A P.I.”
Francine’s eyes widened. “Am I being followed now?” she asked me.
“No,” I explained. “She stopped, and he fired her.”
Francine nodded knowingly. Of all people, she knew what a dick her husband could be. I let this new information sink in for her before opening my mouth again.
“He thinks that you and I are having an affair.” I chuckled at this latest revelation, but Mrs. Fields was not laughing. I internally kicked myself. Of course she didn’t think her husband’s insanity was funny; I’m not sure why I made a joke out of it. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Francine stared out the large window in her office for a long time, though, before saying anything. She was a careful woman, and her words reflected that.
“Charles is a jealous man,” she admitted. The tone of her voice seemed to be conveying something else, however. I wasn’t sure if it was fear, but it sure seemed that way. When she turned back to be, her eyes were wide, and welling with salty tears. “Just be careful,” she said, her voice cracking.
I comforted her for a moment before leaving, and the thought crossed my mind that if Francine’s husband walked in at that very moment, all of his suspicions would be confirmed. I was holding her like I’d hold a sister, but to anyone that walked in, I supposed it would look like Eric Sorenson had developed a preference for older women. When I left, I fired off a quick text message to Harold to let him know that I’d be at the vegan restaurant around the corner. I figured that whoever was following me wasn’t going to do anything to me in broad daylight on a busy street. By the time Harold texted me back to warn me to stay put, I had already made it there. I could almost picture the annoyed smirk on his face when he read what I message
d him back.
I assumed that I was followed to the restaurant, though I couldn’t be sure without rear view mirrors attached to my head as I walked. But when Harold arrived to pick me up about ten minutes later, he confirmed it.
“It’s a blue sedan,” he said in his gravelly pack-a-day voice, “stopped right down there on the corner. Two men inside. We’re going to lose them.”
My father had insisted on the hiring of Harold years ago when I was younger and feeling more invincible than I did today. At the time, I had balked at the idea, but at that moment, riding in the back of the Town Car, I was grateful that I had a driver with Harold’s particular set of skills. He had made about fifteen turns before I could even catch my breath, and when he was done, I didn’t even recognize the neighborhood we were in. Somewhere on the South Side. Unless the guys following me were really hardcore, there was no way they were going to follow us into this part of town.
But something else had occurred to me then that seemed far more pressing and important. With a tail, how was I going to pick Grace up for our date? There was no way I could live with myself if I put her in danger. Harold and I had about seven hours to figure out how to get rid of them for good.
Just as I was thinking this, Harold looked at me in the mirror. “I think they’re gone,” he said. And I felt myself breathe for the first time in a very long time.
18
Keeping Her Safe: A Billionaire Second Chance Romance Page 8
