Page 80 of Nothing More

He scraped his hair back; a muscle in his cheek twitched. He didn’t look at her, but she saw the lift of his chest as he took a deep breath. “I’ll come by tomorrow night.” Another hesitation, then: “Lock the door behind me.”

When she turned the latch, she pressed her nose to the glass, searching for the last sight of him slipping up over the roof…but he was already gone.

Eighteen

Raven’s phone was lit up like their new Christmas tree on the drive to drop Cassandra at school.

“Are you going to answer any of those?” Cass jerked her chin toward the buzzing, flashing iPhone in the outside pocket of her briefcase.

“No.” Raven was answering emails on her iPad as the Rover crawled through traffic. “At least not until I’m in the office and properly caffeinated.”

It turned out that staying up until past three and having vigorous, mind-blowing sex didn’t make for a refreshed morning.

Once Cass was at school, and Raven was at her desk, done with all namable distractions, she finally checked her texts.

She wished she hadn’t.

From Greg:Thank you for a lovely evening! Look forward to seeing you again soon.

From Fox:Let me know when they get there.

“What?” she said aloud in response to that one.

From an unknown number:Good morning, Raven. This is Prince. I look forward to meeting you for lunch today.

Lunch? She’d have to check her schedule with Melanie.

And, finally, another unknown number, the brevity of which betrayed Toly as the sender:Don’t do anything stupid.

Did meeting with Peter Rydell count as such?

She didn’t have a choice in the matter, apparently.

Too tired to be properly enraged about any of it, she fired off return texts, shot Melanie an email asking about her lunch schedule (the prompt reply informed her that “Mr. Shaman” had called just before her arrival to let her know that he’d secured reservations at Lavelle’s at one-thirty), and launched the first of several Zoom meetings with her London crew.

Work had always been a welcome distraction from life’s little disasters – well, not so little this time, but the same principle applied. Work was something she could control; a place where skill, and experience, and smart decision-making determined the outcome of each day. It was something that was hers and hers alone: no brothers, no club, no threat of death.

Well. Thathadbeen the case. Up until the past few weeks.

Everything was upside down right now…which meant she zoned out more than once and had to be prompted by her London manager. Mortifying. She yawned her way through part of the second meeting, and was regrettably snappish with Shep when she told him to fetch her a coffee. Unlike Toly, he didn’t offer any glares, or granola bars, or lecture her on her caffeine intake. He set the cup down and retreated, lost in something on his phone.

Raven bolted the coffee down too fast, gave herself a stomachache, and was generally in a foul mood.

Between calls, she texted Toly:why am I having lunch with Prince? Is that really necessary?

He didn’t respond, not that she’d expected him to. But it rankled.

Ian came round at twelve-forty-five. He paused in the threshold of her office, grinned and said, “Ah,” when she looked up at him. “I can see you’re happy to see me,” he said, wryly.

She crooked her fingers, and he stepped in and shut the door while she powered down her laptop and gathered her coat. “Not unhappy,” she corrected. “But wondering why it’s necessary I have lunch with Prince. I understand why the Alpines need to be involved – but that doesn’t involve me. Or it shouldn’t, at least.”

“Feeling snobbish? Afraid to rub elbows with a gangster?”

“I rub elbows withyou, don’t I?”

“Yes, but I’m a terribly successful businessman.”

“I would guess that’s how Prince thinks of himself, too,” she said with a snort.