by Sofia Grey
Yesterday, when Marcus slept with Marianne. Christ. It seemed like weeks ago. “What about your virus expert? Have you made any progress with that?”
“Yeah. He’s arriving in the morning, and I’ll install him in the secure office with the rest of the audit team. His name is Aiden Bradley. I’ve requested network access and a security pass. And now, if there’s nothing else, I’ve got a bunch of accountants to meet.” Rico nodded, gathered his files, and left the office.
“Do we assume Louisa hasn’t seen the email?” asked Marianne. “And when is she due in London again?”
“If she’s seen it, I’ll know pretty soon. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Marianne spoke first, voicing his thought. “Is this it for us? Do we leave it as a one-night stand?”
Marcus played with a pen left on the table. It was easier than looking into her face and seeing her disappointment with him. He dragged his gaze up and watched as she picked a couple of specks of fluff from her skirt.
“I knew what the situation was. You’re married”—she spoke in a bored, careless tone—”and I hope you can fix it with Louisa.”
He couldn’t let it finish like that. “Marianne.” He didn’t know what to say.
“I need to ask you,” she said. “If this email hadn’t happened today, would you be thinking differently now? If we were still private, with nobody knowing about us?”
It was a good question, and he considered his answer. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“We have to work together, and you’re my boss. My married boss.” She bit her lip, as though composing herself. “It doesn’t happen again.”
Chapter Thirteen
Marianne answered her phone to hear Pete on the line. He sounded excited and demanded an urgent appointment with her, Marcus, and Rico. That wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Rico was off site, his cell phone switched off. Surely this wasn’t something else to do with that email?
She called Cassie and asked her to make Marcus available at the earliest opportunity. Normally, Marianne would phone him directly, but they hadn’t spoken since she left his office this morning. To say things were awkward between them was the understatement of the century. She hoped for a few more hours before she had to see him again.
Last night had been a never-to-be-repeated one-off. She was an idiot if she thought otherwise.
She added a touch of concealer to the shadows under her eyes, a slick of bright lipstick, and she was ready. She marched into Marcus’s office with her head high. Pete sat at the table, waiting. He flicked his thumb back and forth over a folder. It was the most animated she’d seen him, and she was on her guard.
“I have news,” he said. “One of the stolen laptops has been retrieved. The one allocated to Sylvie Woodrow.”
Marianne glanced at Marcus’s poker face. “What can you tell us?” she asked Pete.
“It was easy to recover the data on the hard drive.” He paused and gave her a serious look. “This is the bad news. There was data you wouldn’t expect to find on that machine. Data that shouldn’t have been there.”
Marianne felt a shiver down her spine. What she wouldn’t give to have spent today in bed... “What kind?”
“Confidential information from Marcus’s personal drive.”
“Mine?” Marcus looked surprised.
“There’s no mistake. The folders that have been copied to the hard drive are your personal folders.”
Marcus’s mouth dropped open. “How the fuck did that happen? And how much data are we talking about?”
Pete shrugged. Marianne got the impression he was enjoying being in the limelight for a change. “Your contacts list, personal emails—anything stored on your laptop hard drive.”
“Do you mean Marcus’s folders from his personal drive on the network?”
Pete shook his head. “No. I mean the folders from his personal hard drive. The C: drive on the laptop.”
“How?” Marcus and Marianne spoke together.
“I can’t tell you, and I wish I knew. Short of someone having access to your laptop and copying the files, I can’t see how it could have been done.”
“Jesus.” Marcus sat back, his frustration visible. “It goes from bad to freakin’ worse.”
“How old is the data?” Marianne hoped for a plausible answer that didn’t involve Sylvie.
Pete looked at his notes. “It’s all over six months old, judging by the date stamps. Based on the robbery date, I’d have to say the data was loaded prior to the robbery.”
“You mean it was Sylvie who took it?”
He shrugged. “It’s a strong possibility. Especially when you consider where it was retrieved from.”
“Where?”
“The gym Sylvie Woodrow uses. It was found by the admin staff in a spare locker.”
****
Marcus wondered what the fuck else could go wrong today. He sat there, working through the limited options with Pete and Marianne, when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It might be Rico with news, so he checked.
It was a text from Louisa.
Hi. I want to do some shopping, so I’m on the way down this afternoon. I’ll be at the apartment around 5. You free for dinner? Lxxx
Shit. This was all he needed. “My wife is coming down to London today, so I’ll have to leave straight after the briefing tonight, unless we scrap it.”
Marianne nodded. “May as well. Rico could be out all day.” She turned to Pete and gave him a frosty smile. “Thanks, Pete. Keep us posted on any further developments.” She waited until he got the hint that he was no longer required.
She didn’t speak again until he left the room. “I’ve no idea where Rico is or what the hell he’s doing. He keeps his schedule private, though I asked for access.” She stared at Marcus. “I’m beginning to wonder who’s really running this audit programme. Rico is like a loose cannon. Is there something I should know about him?”
There wasn’t much he could say. “I used him before, a few years ago, on a similar leak back in Houston. All I can tell you is that he’s more than an accountant, but you probably figured that anyway.” Marcus dragged his hands through his hair, feeling exhaustion tugging at him. “I feel bad about what happened this morning. I jumped to conclusions without thinking.”
Marianne gave a delicate yawn and covered it with her hand. “If Louisa does see that email, we need to make sure our stories match. We had one brief kiss, and that was all. We could even say they were Photoshopped. The pictures are circumstantial evidence at best.” She stood and stretched. “I need to go and sort out this business with Sylvie. We’ll suspend her on full pay, pending an investigation. Under the circumstances, it’s not appropriate for her to continue on the audit team. If I don’t see you later, I’ll catch up with you at the briefing, tomorrow morning.”
As she left, Marcus thought again about Louisa. Telling her their marriage was over, was one thing. Being unfaithful was another entirely. No matter how much he might lust after Marianne, he had to be strong.
* * * *
When I heard the news, I was delighted. Getting her out of TM-Tech was quicker and easier than I expected.
Now it’s time to give them something to really think about.
* * * *
Marcus had no clue how Louisa would behave with him today. He worried that, the instant she saw him, she’d know about Marianne. If he tattooed CHEATER on his forehead, he couldn’t feel any guiltier. He also didn’t know if she’d seen the email. She might be waiting to ambush him with an accusation or to use him as a target for her to practice her non-existent knife-throwing skills.
When she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, he felt a fleeting moment of relief before the ever-present guilt kicked in.
“Thank you,” she cried. “They’re fabulous. So romantic.”
Huh? What did he miss?
She tugged him into the lounge, and he stopped dead. A riot of roses and othe
r flowers he couldn’t identify sat on the coffee table, with more on the windowsill. They looked expensive, and she thought they came from him.
It cleared up the question about the email but left him baffled. Who else would send Louisa flowers? To his apartment? It must be a mistake, but he decided to play along. If it boosted Louisa’s mood, it was a good thing.
Louisa had made a reservation at a Thai restaurant for dinner. She was as bubbly and happy as he’d ever seen her, and her vivacious mood carried him along. Things could still be good between them. Good enough?
He gazed at his food. Disjointed thoughts danced through his brain. Now he knew he didn’t love Louisa, it was impossible to pretend he did, and the idea of another thirty years or more with her made him feel ill. He’d been faking things for so long, he’d forgotten what the real him felt like. Sleeping with Marianne was like opening a door to a forgotten room. It was wrong, but he wanted more, and hated himself for it.
He had to tell Louisa how he felt about their marriage. What then? Ask for a formal separation? He had no clue.
“Darling, you’re not listening to me.”
He looked up to see Louisa dabbing her lips with the napkin.
“While I go to the bathroom, can you pay the bill and sort out a cab?” she asked.
“Yep. I’m on it.” His phone beeped as she walked away, and out of habit he checked the incoming text.
It was a picture of Louisa, wearing nothing but a towel, a bouquet of flowers in her arms.
What the holy fuck?
Marcus froze. They were the flowers in the apartment, the ones she thought he sent. There was no message, just the picture, and it came from an unknown number. Was Rico behind this? No. He’d been adamant the email was nothing to do with him. Which meant someone else had access to Marcus’s apartment—and his wife.
* * * *
Marianne stayed late at the office and tried to focus on the audit. Her raging hangover finally cleared, and she was able to plough through papers and reports without interruption. She had to juggle the workload around Sylvie’s absence, while she figured out a longer-term solution. She needed to review the available admin staff again, to see who else was suitable to join the audit.
Telling Sylvie she had to leave the site had been difficult. The girl was in pieces and declared she was innocent. She was a good worker, but Marianne still didn’t trust Rico, and thus couldn’t trust Sylvie either.
By seven-thirty, she’d had enough. She snuggled into her thick woollen coat and made her way down the street, the short distance to the apartment block.
The cold night air made her more tired, and she yawned as she approached the lobby. Some fuckwit walking the other way crashed into her on the pavement. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear and mustn’t have seen her.
“Arsehole,” she hissed as he strode off into the darkness. Rubbing her elbow, where he bumped her, she walked into the building and up to her apartment. That put the icing on the crapcake of her day.
Bloody Marcus and bloody Louisa. And there was no bloody vodka left. She felt dangerously close to tears. When her phone vibrated, she thought about ignoring it but knew she wouldn’t.
It was a number she didn’t recognise, and they’d sent her a picture. She stared at it, trying to figure out what it was. It was her. Outside. Colliding with a guy. What the fuck?
* * * *
The insistent trilling of Sylvie’s cell phone woke her from a deep sleep. Where was she? Oh yes—in Rico’s apartment. And still alone in his bed. As she picked up the phone, she noted the time. A few minutes after midnight.
It was Rico.
“Hel—”
“Silverwood.” Panic underlined his voice. “Where are you?”
She yawned. “In bed. Where are—”
“Are you in my apartment?” There was an urgent note in his voice that snapped her awake.
“Yes. Is that okay?”
He exhaled noisily, and then paused before speaking. “Yeah, that’s great. I’ve nearly finished here. I’ll be with you soon, babe.”
This was the first time she’d spoken to him since being escorted off site at TM-Tech. “Did you hear what happened to me today? In the office?” It nagged at her that he might get in trouble for associating with her. God alone knew if they’d ever let her go back to work. She had no way to prove her innocence.
“No. What happened? Are you okay?”
She tried to compose herself, sleep forgotten. “I’ve been suspended. My laptop, the one that was stolen, was found in the gym, where we go kickboxing. With stolen data on it. And they think I’m responsible.”
A sudden, awful thought formed. Rico used the same gym. Rico knew about the stolen laptop. Her heart raced, as she backtracked over the facts she knew. Was there any chance Rico planted it there? No. She didn’t want to think that.
“What?” He sounded shocked.
Sylvie thought hard. Her laptop was stolen six months ago, but he’d only been in London a few weeks. She was jumping at shadows.
“I’ll be back soon, and we can talk about it then. And Silverwood”—he hesitated—”keep the door locked and don’t open it to anyone. I’ve got a key.”
As if there’d be callers at this time of night. “Okay.”
Since she was now wide-awake, Sylvie padded into the kitchen, to brew some coffee, and then settled on the couch and flicked on the TV. She scanned through the channels, pausing on the twenty-four-hour news. An overexcited reporter stood at the top of Sylvie’s street, waving her arms at something behind her. Sylvie turned up the volume.
There was a fire.
In her street.
Her heart stuttered when she saw it was her house ablaze, flames pouring from every window. She had a bedroom on the top floor and loved the old Victorian terrace. Now it was an inferno.
Pain lanced through her chest, and she forced herself to breathe. Fuck. What about her housemates? She grabbed her phone and called Beth. To her relief, Beth answered, sounding hoarse. Sirens wailed in the background.
“Sylvie,” Beth croaked. “Thank God. Are you okay? We didn’t know if you were in your room.”
“I’m fine. I’m staying at a friend’s tonight. Is Lesley okay? What happened?”
Beth coughed and spoke to someone else. “We’re both out and still in one piece, but we’ve got to go to hospital, to be checked over. Listen, I have to go now, but thank you for ringing. We were so worried about you.”
“Before you go—what happened?”
“I’m not sure. We heard a crash, like a window smashing, and then the smoke alarm went off. Talk soon.”
She disconnected, and Sylvie stared at the news report. Was this why Rico phoned? How did he know that was her house?
Sleep was a million miles away. Too much shit had happened today. She found a blanket to snuggle into, and waited for Rico to come back.
He returned an hour later and held her tight. Someone told him about the fire, he said, and that’s why he called. He didn’t want to worry her while she was there alone. They kissed, and he led her back to bed.
She woke alone again. Had it all been a nightmare? She checked her phone and found it was almost six in the morning. So where was Rico?
He sat on the sofa, in a T-shirt and boxers, tapping away on his laptop. When he saw her, his face lit up. “Hey, babe. Come here a minute.”
She cuddled next to him. Thoughts of the fire swirled through her head. She buried her face in his warm neck and breathed deeply. She’d ask him to go with her, to help sift through the debris, if there was anything left. All her clothes, books, and CDs—everything she’d accumulated over the past few years was gone. And if she’d gone home last night... the thought was too gruesome to contemplate. It would be a miracle if anything survived.
Maybe there was a silver lining to being suspended. She didn’t have to go to work today. There’d be an insurance claim to fill in. She needed to tell her parents and Matt and Lara. Figure out where to live.
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God. Her guitar and amp would be gone. She saved for ages for that Fender bass. It was vintage, so the chances of finding another were slim to none. The prospect of replacing everything made her want to weep. Maybe she should go home to Manchester. Move back in with Mum and Dad. But then she’d never see Rico.
Sylvie rubbed the sleep from her eyes and peered at the laptop screen. It looked as though Rico was booking a series of flights from Heathrow.
“Babe, what are you doing? Are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“Nope. Give me a minute, and I’ll explain.”
She waited for him to finish.
It didn’t take long, and then he swung his legs onto the sofa and tugged her to lie next to him. “I need to hold you. This isn’t gonna be easy.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me.”
“I think I’ve put you in danger. I did something a few years ago, and I think what’s happening now is payback for it. I’d like to be wrong, but I can’t take that risk.” He flicked through a series of screens. “These are flight bookings I’ve made for us, within Britain, to Europe, and to the U.S.A. We’re not actually taking any of them, but if we’re being watched, they should buy us enough time to get away to somewhere you’ll be safer.”
“Hold on. What do you mean, you did something a few years ago? What kind of something?” She took a deep breath and forcibly pushed away the image of her burning house.
“I’ll tell you the whole story later. I promise. There isn’t time right now.”
“So where are we really going then? And how long for?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t tell you yet. I need to make some calls to set it up. I’ve got the morning briefing with Marcus, then a few errands to run. We’ll probably leave around ten, so make sure you’re packed and ready to go with me.”
“Don’t I have to stay here for the laptop investigation?”
He shook his head. “Nope. And I’ve got someone looking into that, to prove you have nothing to do with it.”
