All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction) (41 page)

“I
love
that show!”

“So do I… but
watching
it. I don’t want you
living
it.”

“Okay, okay,” I muttered.

“Now that that’s settled, where’s my pastrami on rye?” Johnny asked as he reached for the paper sack I’d gotten from the delivery guy.

There were already two lounge chairs in the hospital room that folded out into makeshift beds. Orderlies dragged in a third, and Sebastian, Johnny and I all said goodnight and turned out the lights.

I curled up with a blanket and slept fitfully, waking every time the nurse came in to check on Connor – who never once woke up. Apparently the painkillers they were giving him were really something.

After 6AM, I couldn’t fall asleep again. The hospital was already alive with increased foot traffic and chatter out in the corridor.

Connor was still unconscious. Johnny was already sitting up in his re-transformed lounge chair, ever the dutiful sentry. Sebastian was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s out in the lounge, making calls,” Johnny said when he saw me looking around.

“Oh,” I mumbled, and wiped my bleary eyes.

“The cafeteria’s open. You going down to eat soon?”

“I guess. You want anything?”

“If you don’t mind, some bacon and eggs would be great,” he said as he handed me a couple of twenties. “And maybe ask Sebastian, see if he wants anything.”

“You got it.”

Before I left, I went in the bathroom and checked out my appearance.

Oh my God, I really need to get home, shower, and change…

I stopped by the 8th floor lounge. In the bright morning light, it looked nothing like the spooky room where Mr. Templeton had made his midnight confession. Sebastian was pacing back and forth, talking relentlessly into the phone. He was still wearing his tux, too, and it was rumpled and now bowtie-less, but he didn’t look nearly as out of place as I did.

When he saw me, he said “Hold on,” and put his hand to the phone. “Is Connor okay?”

“Yeah… he’s not awake yet, so I’m going down to the cafeteria. You want anything?”

“Yes, that would be wonderful – a scone if they have it, a bran muffin if they don’t, with raisins if possible, and a venti vanilla iced soy milk with whipped cream.”

My half-awake brain couldn’t handle that. “W– what?”

He huffed in exasperation. “A venti vanilla iced soy – never mind, I’ll write it down.”

“This is a hospital, not a Starbucks.”

“You’d be surprised.” He wrote down his order on the back of a business card. “Do you have money?”

“Yeah, Johnny gave me some.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I took the card and turned to go.

“Oh, and Lily?”

I looked back to see what other incredibly complex item he wanted to add to his order. “What?”

“Try not to run into Miranda or any more Templetons on the way there.”

I flipped him the bird and walked out of the lounge.

I checked the lounge on the way back, but Sebastian wasn’t there. When I got back to the room, I saw why: Connor was awake.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” I asked as soon as I walked in and saw him sitting up.

“Did you not go home?” he asked, confused.

“No, I stayed here.”

“Wow… you must really like me, huh?”

“Eh, you’re alright.”

“It’s the hospital robe, right? Couldn’t get enough of my groping my bare ass.”

“You groped his ass?” Sebastian asked, and both his and Johnny’s eyebrows raised. “Last
night?”

I just blushed furiously.

“Yeah, you don’t get
none
‘o that,” Connor said to Sebastian.

“Oh please,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I’ve seen far better asses.”

“No you haven’t,” I said, shaking my head.

“I’m fairly sure I have.”

“No. Trust me. You haven’t.”

“Quit telling him that,” Connor said. “Now he’s going to
try
to get a piece ‘o that.”

“Instead of the rampant homophobia, how about thanking me for staying the night, too?” Sebastian said petulantly.

“You stayed the night?”

“YES.”

“Man, you are
all
dumber than I thought.”

Sebastian crossed his arms and scowled.

Connor relented and tilted his head to the side. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Not
enough,
” Sebastian harrumphed.

“And you, too,” Connor said to Johnny. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know you’re not as sensitive as Sebastian, but I figured I better cover all my bases.”

“Well… I’m just trying to make up for letting you get shot,” Johnny said somberly.

“Yeah,
about
that – ”

“Connor,” I warned him.

Connor shook his head. “You people can
not
take a joke, do you know that?”

“Oh, and you
can,
” Sebastian said sarcastically.

“Yeah. It’s getting shot. Puts everything into perspective. You should try it sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“
You
sure are in a good mood,” I marveled.

“If you were on his drugs, you’d be in a good mood, too,” Sebastian scoffed.

“Maybe that’s it…” Connor said, as though a secret had just been revealed to him.

“I’ll go get the doctor,” Sebastian said. “Or a nurse, or something.”

Connor leaned over to me and said in a loud stage whisper, “Once he’s out of the room, you can grope my ass all you want.”

“Oh God,” I sighed and closed my eyes. “You’re really feeling a
lot
better, aren’t you.”

“Damn straight. Now, what did you bring me to eat?” he asked, eyeing the styrofoam container and plastic bag I had brought back from the cafeteria.

After we shared our breakfasts with Connor, Dr. Sarpara came in. He wasn’t pleased to see the three of us, and he was dubious as to whether the patient had actually stayed in bed all night, but he gave a good report on Connor’s progress.

“Now that you know I’m not going to die, you can go home and get some rest,” Connor advised me once the doctor was gone.

“No. I’m staying with you.”

“Well, at least a shower, then.”

“…that might be a good idea,” I conceded.

“You look like we had wild sex last night.”

“Okay, now I’m
definitely
going home.”

“Hey, I don’t mind – I
like
people knowing we had wild sex last night.”

I had to cover his mouth with my hand to get him to shut the hell up.

After he eventually promised to behave, I took my hand away. We chatted for a little while, then I kissed him goodbye and took off.

Once I got home, Anh demanded a complete debriefing. I took a shower first (which was heavenly), then gave her the rundown of what had happened in the last 16 hours.

“Are you okay?” she asked, wide-eyed, after I had finished my tale.

“I’m fine, but…”

“But what?”

“I’d like to stay with him as much as I can, but… we’ve got the new client interviews starting Tuesday, and we need to prep,” I said worriedly.

“I can handle it,” Anh said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m a partner in the firm.
I can handle it.
”

“Okay,” I laughed, which gradually transformed into a yawn.

“Maybe you should take a nap before you go back.”

“It
did
kind of suck, with the nurses coming in and out all night,” I conceded.

“So grab a nap.”

“But – ”

“
Lily.
”

“Yes, Mom.”

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

I slept a good three hours, woke up at noon, and hustled out the door with minimal makeup.

When I got back, Sebastian was in casual clothes and Johnny was wearing a new suit without a tie. Turns out that Sebastian copied me: he went back to the Dubai, showered, and changed. He brought back new clothes for Johnny, who just changed in the hospital room’s bathroom and was back out within 60 seconds.

“You can take a shower in there, you know,” Connor told him.

“Not necessary.”

“I don’t think anybody’s going to rush in and kill me during the three minutes you’re washing your hair.”

“Let’s not find out.”

“You’re going to be able to knock them out with your smell, you know that, right?”

“Good,” Johnny said, and stayed exactly where he was.

The cops came by shortly thereafter to question Connor. I watched them suspiciously the entire time, wondering which one might be getting paid off by Miranda.

Connor knew about as much as I did – which is to say, not much more than he’d been shot. He repeated the story several times, but nothing interesting surfaced until one of the cops asked, “Did you recognize the shooter?”

“No. Do you have any information on him?”

The cops looked at each other. “Not yet.”

“‘Not yet’? It’s not like he got away – you’ve got his goddamn corpse.”

“His prints aren’t in the FBI database, the federal prison system, or any of the state prison systems.”

“Of course not, somebody either hacked the system and wiped his record, or he’s from out of the country,” Connor snapped. “Have you tried Interpol yet?”

The cops looked at each other again. “Uh… that’s our next step. All that about somebody hacking the system or him being a foreigner – why did you say that?”

“Because the person behind this isn’t going to take any chances that he might get traced back to her. She probably used six or seven intermediaries just to hire and pay him.”

My heart skipped a beat. I wondered if I should mention my little run-in with Miranda last night – but Johnny gave me a look that convinced me not to.

“‘She’?” the cop asked. “You think a woman hired him to kill you?”

“Yes. My ex-fiancée, Miranda Lockwood.”

“What, as a crime of passion?”

“No, as a crime of business.”

The cops looked at each other. “Do you have any proof of that?”

Connor launched into a diatribe about the blackmail attempt from two months ago. He also talked about their previous relationship, although I didn’t hear anything he hadn’t already told me.

After five minutes, the cops finally interrupted. “But do you have any proof of her involvement in your shooting?”

Connor glared at them. He could see where this was going.

“Not yet,” he said in a sarcastic voice.

“‘Not yet’? What do you mean, ‘not – ’”

And then they realized he was just mimicking what they’d told him earlier.

One of the detectives grimaced. “Do you believe you’re going to
get
some kind of proof?”

“I’ll let you know when I do. If you don’t mind, I’m kind of tired.”

“Mr. Templeton, we still need you to – ”

Connor yawned theatrically, laid his head on his pillow, and closed his eyes.

When he didn’t answer any more of their questions, the two detectives started getting pissed.

“Come back tomorrow, I need to rest,” he said, his eyes still closed. “Johnny, will you show them out?”

Johnny was as polite but firm as he showed them the door.

As soon as the cops were gone, though, Connor’s eyes snapped open. “Where are we on the shooter?” he asked Sebastian.

“We already hit up our sources at Interpol,” Sebastian said. “They have no record of him, so we’re checking the EU criminal system and military databases.”

I stared at them. “You’ve been doing your own investigation?!”

“Of course, we’re not going to rely solely on the LAPD,” Sebastian scoffed.

Knowing what Miranda had said about her ‘little birds,’ that was probably a smart decision.

But I still didn’t understand exactly what was going on. “Who’s helping you?”

“A team of investigators we’ve used before. I called them last night and they got on it immediately,” Sebastian explained.

“They’re better than the cops?”

“They’re among the best in the world,” Sebastian said. “Former FBI, former Interpol, former military investigators – ”

“Plus, they don’t need warrants,” Johnny added.

“And they have a little more incentive than the cops,” Connor said. “Two million dollars if they can prove Miranda was behind it.”

My eyes bugged open wide.
“Two million dollars?!”

“That’s just the bonus. They still get paid even if they can’t nail her down… which is probably going to be almost impossible to do, if I know her.”

Again, Sebastian’s words from last night haunted me:
If Miranda IS behind it, we’ll never find one shred of evidence implicating her.

Sebastian went back to briefing Connor. “I’ve got forensic accountants searching for any shell corporations we can tie to Miranda, but we won’t be able to do much until we can positively ID the shooter.”

“He’s probably a ghost, hired specifically because he’s not on anybody’s records,” Connor fumed. “But keep trying. What about the inside man?”

“How do you know there was an inside man?” I asked.

“Because there’s no way in hell the shooter just stumbled across us in the hallway,” Connor said. “Either he hacked into the hotel’s security cameras, or – more likely – somebody tipped him off.”

“But he was already walking down the hallway,” I protested. “He couldn’t have known when we were going to be in the hallway unless he knew we were in the elevator.”

“So how did he know we were in the elevator?” Connor tested me.

“He couldn’t have. Not even Johnny knew we were coming out, and you said there were no cameras because…”

I hesitated and glanced at Johnny and Sebastian, who both kept a neutral expression.

“…um, because people like to have sex in there,” I mumbled. “And nobody knew we stopped the elevator – to
talk,
” I emphasized, for the benefit of Johnny and Sebastian. “Nobody except the… oh my God…”

My hand flew to my mouth.

Connor nodded. “The guy who spoke over the intercom.”

I remembered the voice clear as day: