The Darkest of Shadows (27 page)

I scooted across the bed and threw myself into his arms, burying deep within the warmth of him and feeling once again that safeness that only he seemed able to give me.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he breathed again and again into my hair, his arms like bands of steel around me.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I told him. “I don’t blame you. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m not going to ever let you out of my sight,” he told me. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I warned him. “You can’t stop the world from hurting me. Even you can’t manage that. Things happen, and as long as you are there to pick me up after, then I think I can live with what life throws at me.”

“I’ll always be here,” he promised. I realized a little too late that I had come to see Lawrence as a permanent fixture in my life. I should have been terrified by that thought, it should have been beyond my comprehension, but I think what made it alright, was that I knew, deep down, neither of us was really looking for a happily ever after. We were good together; it was as simple as that. I didn’t love him, and I was pretty sure Lawrence was incapable of loving anything except power; and that worked for both of us.

I was still wrapped in his arms when Craig found us a little while later. Lawrence was sleeping, so I spoke quietly so as not to wake him. “Hello, Craig.” He was wearing faded jeans and a light sweater and carried a small bag. He looked tired.

He managed a warm smile as he sat down next to me on the bed. “I wasn’t sure if you would remember me.”

“Only barely, but Lawrence told me about you, too.”

“You look much better.” He touched his fingers to my wrist to feel my pulse.

“I am, mostly,” I admitted. “I have lots of blank parts in my memory. Whatever they made me breathe kept knocking me out, and it left me kind of numb the rest of the time. I think Lawrence is more traumatized than I am.”

“Lawrence cares deeply for you.”

“Lawrence is an extraordinary man. He’s also extremely patient and very persistent.” I smiled in amusement.

“He is that.”

“He is also trying to sleep.” Lawrence’s rumbling voice interrupted. “Must you be here now, Craig?”

“Just checking up on my patient.”

Lawrence was quiet while Craig finished my exam, taking the time to explain to me the effects of the drugs that they’d given me and the one that he’d used to help me sleep earlier. He finished off by giving me a small bottle of sleeping tablets, with instructions to only take them if it was absolutely necessary.

“OK.” Craig stood up from the bed, offering a hand to Lawrence. “I expect you to bring her to meet me in better circumstances than this, Lawrence.”

“Sure,” Lawrence agreed, returning the handshake. “I promise to bring her to every hospital function, so that you can have loads of time to get to know her.”

“I look forward to it.” He grinned. “See you, Lilly.”

“Bye, Craig.” I had difficulty getting the words out because Lawrence got busy trying to distract me in the most pleasant of ways.

It took me a good hour to get Charlie to calm down and stop apologizing when I finally emerged from the bedroom the next day. Apparently he took it as a personal insult that I had been taken and he promised, so many times I lost count, that he would never allow anyone to come within ten feet of me again. In the end I had to threaten him with physical harm if he didn’t shut up.

“It wasn’t your fault, Charlie, and it wasn’t Lawrence’s fault, either,” I told them both. “So please, just stop blaming yourselves, and let’s move on, shall we?”

I’m not sure if they actually stopped with the self-recriminations, but they did at least stop talking about it.

Lawrence called Walter while I was showering and ordered him to sell his stake in the Lane Cove Casino. When I told him he was stupid, he just shook his head and said that regardless of its value, he wanted nothing more to do with that project.

He also needed space from New York. For the moment, he wanted to be anywhere but there, with the memories it held, so later that day we flew back to London. There, more than anywhere, felt like home for me, and Lawrence wanted to lay low for a while.

We didn’t go out for the first few days when we were back. Lawrence seemed reluctant to expose me to anything beyond the four protected walls of the apartment, and I wasn’t sure I really cared enough to complain.

“Do you think your friends will ever invite us back for another party?” I asked one evening, as we sat watching TV.

The question was so off topic that it took Lawrence a moment to answer. “There were some seriously offended people there that night, Lilly. And none of that anger was directed at you. For anyone to think that they could invade that party, of all places, to attempt something, that was probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.” He sighed. “I’m not sure that I will ever be able to repay them for what they pulled off that night.”

“They’re your friends, Lawrence,” I reminded him. “I don’t believe they are asking for recompense.”

“I’m thankful, in a way, that they were ignorant enough to attempt the kidnapping when they did. If we weren’t surrounded by such a high level of security and able to call on such vast resources to find you so quickly, it scares me to think what might have happened.”

“I don’t honesty think that they would have hurt me,” I told him. “All that you accomplished was to hurry the rescue along. You would have called your friends in due course, and they would have done the same thing, just a little later.”

Walter had eventually unraveled the workings of the company that had put in the bid for the Lane Cove Casino; however, I’m not sure he would have been successful had not the FBI, called in as a favor to the CIA, intervened and uncovered what Walter couldn’t.

Harrison Hartigan, a Harvard-educated businessman with a stellar reputation, had been the one behind the proposal. Apparently, unbeknown to everyone, he was in dire financial straits. He had some insider knowledge about the viability of a competitor’s casino that was in the planning stages of being built in direct competition to the Lane Cove development. Apparently the funding for the other project wasn’t adding up, and there was a good chance of the investors pulling out, which would leave the Lane Cove Casino a very large slice of the market. Its value would triple as a result.

Hartigan wanted to buy our development; even with the inflated price he was paying Lawrence, and the smaller, more reasonable rates for the other investors, the final price that he would have ended up paying was significantly lower than its expected market value. He could have sold it on completion in two years’ time and made himself a huge packet of money. It just all had to happen before the other company announced they were pulling out of the development.

Harrison Hartigan was now dead. He was the man who had been sitting in the backseat of the car with me, the one who had made the phone call to Lawrence. I figured the world was better off without him.

“Have you spoken to Reed?” Lawrence asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “I texted her, but she doesn’t know what happened yet.”

“Do you want me to ring her?” he pushed.

I smiled and then got up to retrieve my phone from the kitchen counter, where it had been charging. When I returned I lay down on the lounge beside him, wiggling around until my head rested in his lap and my legs stretched out along the length of the cushions.

Then I dialed Reed’s number.

“OK, now I know that you said not to worry.” Reed started as soon as the phone picked up. “But seriously, you can’t tell me that you’re in trouble and then not give me any more details. It’s been a week, Lil!”

“It has not,” I corrected her. “It’s been like two days since I text you, maybe three.” So it might have been a week since the incident, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Whatever,” she snapped. “Details, woman.”

I knew Lawrence could hear our conversation, and strangely it didn’t bother me. “There was a bit of an altercation at the New Year’s Eve party that we went to, but I’m fine.”

“I’m sure that it was more than an altercation, so pray continue.”

“Well, someone kind of might have kidnapped me.”

“What the hell!” Reed screamed it over the phone. “Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? What happened?”

“Well, if you’ll shut up long enough, I’ll tell you.”
Geez
. When she remained quiet, I continued. “So anyway, there was this business proposal that we were reviewing after Christmas. It was strange, and we weren’t interested in it, so Lawrence had the lawyers tell them no. But then they sent back a higher offer, and we didn’t take that either. Well, apparently the man who made the offer really wanted to buy the project, and he kidnapped me from the party to blackmail Lawrence into selling.”

“Oh, my God, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“Hey.” I was instantly affronted by that. “I did nothing. I’m not responsible for crazy people who do stupid things. And anyway, some of Lawrence’s friends helped to rescue me, and that’s pretty much it.”

“Pretty much it? Pretty much!” I heard the sound of her walking, and then she did the ultimate sister betrayal. She told on me. “Duncan.” She snapped her husband’s name. “Duncan, Lilly got kidnapped by a crazy man and thinks it’s OK.”

“I never said that
it
was OK. I said that
I’m
OK.”
See the difference, woman?

“Duncan wants to talk, Lilly.” Reed sounded so very pleased with herself.

I rolled my eyes at Lawrence. “This was your idea,” I told him, and readied myself to deal with my brother-in-law.

“Lilly, what the hell is Reed talking about?” Duncan’s serious voice warmed my heart and made a smile flicker across my lips. Lawrence traced a path across my cheek, almost like he was chasing the smile before it disappeared.

“Hi, Duncan.” I ignored Reed in the background, who still hadn’t stopped talking. “Are you looking after my baby sister?” I asked him. Duncan was an accountant; he had that quietness to him that could have been misinterpreted for shyness, but if you knew him, he was so far from that. He was strong and dominant, and he looked after my flighty little sister like no one else could.

“Don’t I always? But don’t try to change the subject on me. What is this I hear about a kidnapping?”

“It’s nothing. It’s over now, and the perpetrators have been taken care of. Lawrence and his friends at the CIA have fixed it up, and I’m not hurt.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I promise. Do I sound like I’m not OK?”

“You sound remarkably calm about the whole thing, actually.”

“I wasn’t at first,” I told him honestly. “But Lawrence has helped me keep perspective, and in the scheme of things, it’s really not that hard to deal with, not considering some of the other things I’ve had to cope with. This is almost too easy.”

“I guess it would be, at that,” he admitted. “Miss you, Lil. I’m still waiting for that birthday visit.”

“Miss you, too,” I told him, and then I heard him hand the phone back to Reed.

“She’s fine Reed. Leave her alone,” Duncan told her.

“That didn’t go quite as planned, did it, little sis?” I asked her smugly.

“Yes, well, he always was a pushover for you,” she sulked.

“I’m not lying, Reed. I really am OK. I wouldn’t be ringing you otherwise.”

“So where are you?”

“London.”

“How long for?”

“Not sure. Probably about a week, and then we’ll be moving around again. There are a lot of engagements that we’ve missed for various different reasons over the last week or so. We have a lot of catching up to do.” That was very true.

“How’s Lawrence?”

I looked up at his face. “He’s good. He’s even more worried about me than you are, so you should both just relax.” I smiled to let him know I wasn’t serious.

“Can I talk to him?” she asked, after a moment’s pause.

I sat up on the lounge, suddenly unsure about this. “What do you want to talk to him for?”

“I need to make sure he’s caring for you, Lilly,” she told me. “If I can’t be certain of that, then I’m not going to let it go.” And I knew she meant every word of that.

I pressed the phone into the lounge, so that she wouldn’t hear when I spoke to Lawrence. “I’m sorry,” I started. “But my sister wants to talk to you. You don’t have to—” but he already had his hand out for the phone before I finished.

“No, I’d like to talk to her,” he assured me, and put the phone up to his ear. From where I was on the lounge I couldn’t hear his conversation, as he had heard mine. All I could get was his side, not Reed’s, so I hoped that she wasn’t being difficult.

“Good evening, Reed.” Lawrence spoke evenly into the phone.

“Hello, Lawrence.” Reed responded, her voice surprisingly similar to Lilly’s. “Can Lilly hear me?”

“No.”

“Good.” She hesitated for a moment. “Look, I’m not sure if she really is OK or not; you probably know that better than me, which I hate. But I need to know that you are taking care of her.”

“I promise you that I am.”

“Lilly is very precious to me, to our family.”

“And to me also,” he replied.

“She has been through an enormous amount over the last few years.”

“I know,” Lawrence told her carefully.

Something in his tone must have given him away, because she paused for a moment, then asked. “You know? What do you mean, you know?”

“Exactly that.”

“How do you know? What do you know? She would never have told you.” Reed sounded agitated.

“I have resources available to me that are very useful and very discreet.”

“Does she know?” she asked. “That you know?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“OK. She would have a hissy fit if she found out, and as much as I’m loathe to admit it, you seem to be good for her, so I won’t jeopardize it for you.”