Mistake Me Not

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

“Okay, start talking,” Ryder said, sitting down at the head of the oval boardroom table in HQ.

He’d left Lacie in the tub in his en-suite and told her to sleep when she was done. Rest was important, but he didn’t know if she’d take his advice.

Sonny sat at the far end of the table next to Rocco with Gabe opposite them. But it was Toby who did the talking.

“There is certainly something corrupt at Lewis Investment,” Toby said. “I told you about the accounts we pulled? It’s obvious someone was skimming.”

“We knew that days ago,” Ryder said. “What else have you got?”

“Establishing who’s getting that money is where it gets complicated. We’ve linked it to several offshore accounts. Under various aliases.”

“But we assume it’s the same person,” Ryder said.

“Or a consortium,” Rocco said. “But, yeah, the signature of the activity was the same. It’s being orchestrated by one group.”

“And Bruce Booth was their inside man,” Ryder said.

“Appears so.”

The police information didn’t amount to much. Lacie’s statement revealed it had been a close call. She was lucky; they’d come close to losing her. His men had noticed his reaction, they were in no doubt about his depth of connection to this case, and this woman.

“If it’s one group, it’s small time,” Gabe said. “They’re skimming a serious amount of money but nothing like the big boys play with.”

“The question is why did they pull Bruce Booth?” Ryder asked. “On the inside, he was useful. Lacie said he split three months ago. Told his girlfriend he’d been poached by a bigger fish out of town.”

“Anyone else notice we’re preoccupied with size today?” Rocco asked, easing some of the tension.

“How is your girl involved?” Gabe asked. “I read her statement. But where do you fit in?”

Ryder recounted the story minus the intimate parts; his men would read between the lines for those.

“So Seth Sheppard’s involved,” Rocco said. “He’ll blunder in with his big feet and track mud over us all.”

“I’m meeting him at noon,” Ryder said, glancing at his watch. “I’ll get him to back off.”

“He’s not going to find anything we wouldn’t,” Rocco said. “He has no value in this. It’s—”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Ryder said. “He has history with Bruce’s ex, otherwise he’d be nowhere near this at all.”

Ryder had no way to know that for sure. Shep’s name had come up because Sorcha knew him. If she hadn’t, the women might have looked through the phone book or gone looking for Booth themselves.

“The most valuable advice you can give these women is to back off,” Toby said. “There’s no reason to pursue this guy… and he’ll be no remedy to a broken heart.”

“It’s more than that,” Ryder said. “I don’t care as much about the original case as I do about Lacie right now. They’ve focused on her because of my initial blunder.”

“You had no reason to believe there would be any danger. You found her in Shep’s office,” Rocco said. “This isn’t his bag. She’s lucky that you were in there and not him or…”

“Yeah,” Ryder said. “They don’t know me. They knew her. I didn’t see the boss, but Lacie did. Keeping her safe is our primary mission.”

“Keeping her safe is easy,” Rocco said. “But the danger won’t go away until we find out who is behind this.”

“I know,” Ryder said. “She won’t like being penned in.”

“This place is a palace, she’ll be fine. We entertain ourselves here, she can too.”

Their land was extensive. The HQ building, their center of operations, was closest to the street. Visitors didn’t get beyond that. Most visitors. The land rose and then dropped, hiding the house from the street. The house itself was on a high plateau, a cliff edge, giving them a terrific view over the city below.

The view from his bedroom was the first thing Lacie noticed. His circular bedroom sat on top of the building. Three quarters of the walls were glazed. The part that wasn’t blocked his and Jamie’s rooms from looking in on each other.

Gabe was right that they had a lot of services covered. They had a gym, and a pool, and a library among other interests, but those weren’t Lacie’s loves. She’d need somewhere to work.

“Clear out tactical storage in the house,” he said to Sonny.

“Me? Why?”

“Just do it,” Ryder said.

“Have you spoken to Jamie?” Toby asked.

“Yeah,” Ryder said. “I spoke to him last night. I’ll let him know what’s going on.”

“What are you going to do about Shep?”

“I’ll see if he’s got anything worth looking at,” Ryder said.

“Doubtful.”

“I’ll give him the chance. Meanwhile, we stay in touch with Deacon. We’ll hand over what we’ve got about the Lewis Investments when we know where Booth is.”

“Won’t that information help them track him?” Sonny asked.

Gabe offered the answer. “If the police start poking around one of two things happen, either they’ll go so far underground we’ll never find them, and we have to just sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop…”

“Or?” Sonny asked.

Ryder knew the answer, but a wave of reluctance swept the room. No one wanted to answer or make eye contact with him.

“Or they go to any lengths to clear the board,” Ryder said. “No witnesses, no testimony.”

“They could have killed him,” Gabe said.

“Booth? I thought of that.”

“And?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ryder said. “It’ll matter to Sorcha, and I’d never wish the guy dead despite what’s happened. But these guys think we’re on to them. We’ve got them panicked. We just have to hope that leads to mistakes.”

“Lacie can get into her place whenever she wants,” Gabe said.

“Okay,” Ryder said. “You and Rocco get over there and find anything the cops have missed. Then I want you to clear everything out.”

“Everything?”

“Get our storage guys onto it. I want the place empty. I’ll ask Lace if there’s anything important but trash what’s not salvageable.”

When he left the table, the men did too. “I want everyone on amber until this is over,” Ryder said. “We don’t know if they’ll come at us but if they do I want everyone ready. I’m going to phone Deacon now myself.”

“We’ve got the Waverley Ball this weekend,” Gabe said.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Ryder said. “We carry on with business as usual. But everyone stay on your toes.”

“Boss,” Rocco said when Ryder was about to leave the table.

“Yeah?”

“She’s hot.”

These were serious men, highly trained, precision workers, but it could always be left to Rocco to keep priorities straight. Right now that meant admiring the woman who’d stolen his heart.

“You keep your eyes front, soldier,” Ryder said.

“You haven’t had a woman up at the house since I’ve been here,” Sonny said.

“It’s rare,” Toby said.

“She’s special,” Ryder said.

“We got that,” Gabe said.

“We’ll work hard for you, boss.”

“You always do,” Ryder said.

The room paused then went to work. This was their priority. Ryder just hoped that he could bring this to a resolution quickly for all their sakes.

Lacie hadn’t meant to fall asleep. When she came out of the bathroom, she’d sat on the bed to admire the view and suddenly her body became heavy. When she lay down, it was like bathing in his scent, which only made her face bury itself deeper. That must have been when slumber took her.

A slight noise startled her awake. She sat up looking around for the source. In the mist of sleep, she might not have remembered where she was, except Ryder was right there, the first thing she saw.

“What are you doing?” she asked him. He whirled around to find her examining him. “What are those?”

“Sonny went to the stores for you,” Ryder said, abandoning the boxes and bags he’d been placing down. “You slept?”

Lacie stretched and yawned again. “A little.”

“Lie down,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

She shook her head. “If I sleep today, I’ll never be able to settle tonight.”

“You’re in my bedroom,” he said, sitting on the bed, facing her. “You might not be entitled to any sleep tonight.”

“Do you still have my pills?” she asked. He nodded. “I’ll need to phone my doctor for a refill if I’m going to be staying here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “For the foreseeable future.”

Closing her eyes, she rolled her neck on her shoulders, working out the kinks of a tense night. He pinched her n****e, on reflex, she slapped his hand away. The direct contact had taken her by surprise until she remembered she’d lay down wearing only her towel. It had fallen off her body and was in a crumpled mess beneath her.

“You’re n***d,” he said. “That’s an invitation.”

“I did everything but send you an embossed invitation this morning and you didn’t take advantage of it. What time is it?”

“I don’t have time right now,” he said. “But when I’m back, we’ll spend the rest of the day in bed. How is that?”

“Why don’t you have time now?”

“I have to go out,” he said.

Glancing behind herself, she read the time on the nightstand clock. “It’s eleven thirty. We’ll be late.”

“No, we won’t,” he said.

She scrambled off the bed to search the bags he’d dumped for something to wear. “You should’ve woken me.”

“You’re not coming,” he said.

A top dropped from her fingertips. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re staying here until this is over,” he said. “Right here.”

“You’re going to leave me alone with a dozen men who have the ability to kill me?”

“Don’t be scared of the guys,” Ryder said, leaving the bed to join her. “None of them will hurt you. Every single one of them would give their life for yours.”

“What?” she asked. She’d never heard such… Ryder was so matter of fact, like what he’d said was no big deal. Their worlds were poles apart. “Why would you say that?”

“It’s what we do, baby,” he said. “We do investigations, but we work private security too. We have a lot of high-profile customers who pay us very well to make sure they remain safe. We do this all the time. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about,” she said, clambering to her feet. “The last time I was alone in a room of strange men, they tried to force me into s****l acts. Do you really think—?”

“None of my men are like that,” Ryder said. “You will be safe, trust me.”

“I should go home,” she said.

He hooked her hair and guided it back over her shoulder. “I’m having the place cleared for you. Is there anything of importance we should look out for?”

“My apartment?” she asked. “Everything important to me they took or is in the cellar.”

“I’m happy to replace anything that they—”

“But I didn’t mean there,” she said.

“What did you—?”

“Home,” she said. “I can take Sorcha and we’ll—”

“Home? You mean over the pond?”

“I doubt they’ll chase me that far.”

“We don’t know how far they’ll chase you. Do you want to go back to your parents?”

“This whole situation is a mess,” Lacie said. “They want to hurt me and none of this is anything to do with me. I can’t walk away because Sorcha wants Bruce. But we don’t know if Bruce can, or wants to, walk away from whatever he’s mixed up in.”

“I know you’re scared. That’s good. Means you won’t take unnecessary risks. I will keep you safe.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” she said. “There’s every chance that their boss doesn’t know you were there. He flipped out when he saw me, I doubt anyone wanted to tell him about you. Just being here, I could be putting you in danger.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about that.”

“I do worry about that.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said. “They won’t get in here. You were alone out there; that won’t be a mistake I’ll make again. Here, we have reinforcements, you’ll never be alone.”

“I have to go to Shep’s with you,” she said. “Sorcha will be there. If I’m not, she’ll panic or take her own risks.”

“I can’t put you in that kind of danger.”

“I won’t be in danger,” Lacie said. “I’ll stay with you, I promise. We’ll go straight in and come straight out again. I’ll come back here with you, and I’ll be a model housemate, I promise.”

“You’ll come back here with me?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I was serious when I said I didn’t want to go back to my place. I would only have done what you have. I’d have the place cleared, throw everything out, and replace what had to be replaced. My work is the most important thing and that’s in the basement. I suppose I can put my things into storage until I find something more permanent. I won’t be able to do the commission. I suppose I should cancel my meeting with Darwin at the weekend.”

“Leave it for now,” he said. “Don’t cancel anything. If this is still going on then, yes, I agree with you. But we have the next few days to figure this out. I’m hoping it will all be over by then.”

“Ryder,” she said, taking his hand. “Thank you.”

“What for?” he asked.

“This week,” she said. “I don’t think I would be so… calm, if I didn’t have you to help me through this.”

“Don’t thank me, baby,” he said. “I’ve done nothing but make this worse.”

“I’m sorry I mistook you for Shep,” she said, easing the intensity of the moment.

“Yeah,” he said on a nod. “You should be sorry for that.”

Securing her neck in his arm, he dragged her to his chest.

She wrapped her arms all the way around him. “I’m still n***d,” she said.

“Yeah… I like that about you.”

After she nipped his jaw with her teeth, he relented and let her return to the bags. “I just need five minutes,” she said.

“Okay,” he sauntered to the bed and sat down, leaning back on his hands.

“Are you going to sit there and watch?” she asked, reaching for the bags again.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Okay,” she said. Her lips stretched to a smile when she read the hunger in his eyes. “I’m putting my clothes on.”

“I know,” he said. “There’s something sexy as hell about just watching you. I discovered that when you were dancing with Sorcha. Just watching you is…” He paused without finishing the thought. “Pretend I’m not here.”

“That might be difficult,” she said.

Lacie carried on searching through the bags. Most of the items were low cut, or short, but there were a couple of pairs of jeans, and a bag of underwear… mostly rather lacy, or see-through.

She pulled on a matching set then stuck her legs in the jeans. “How did you get all my sizes right?”

“Gabe cut the labels out the things left in your place.”

Smart. Lacie chose a top then used the band from her wrist to tie back her hair. When she looked down at her vest, her breasts seemed to be trying to liberate themselves.

“Do you have an internet hook-up?”

“Several,” he said, coming to her and cupping her breasts.

She was sure that they grew a cup size with his pampering attention. Her n*****s pebbled against his palms. He dipped his head to kiss each swell, then he kissed each n****e through the fabric.

“You could’ve done that when I was n***d,” she said, looking down to the top of his head when he nibbled at her again.

“Could I talk you into canceling this meeting?”

“No,” she said, nudging his head away and stepping out of reach. “When we get back, I’m going online to order something a little more… me.”

“Spoilsport,” Ryder said, draping his arm around her to lead her from the room.

“You like enjoying me in clothes another man bought for me? Do you think he imagined what I’d look like in his choices?”

Ryder frowned. “When you put it like that…”

“Get your business head on. Stop thinking about my breasts. You’ll have unlimited access tonight. But can we get through this meeting first?”

“Unlimited access,” Ryder said. “I’ll hold you to that.”

From the snarl in his voice, she could tell he meant it. Whenever he touched her, she wanted to block out the world too, to pretend it was only them. That there was no danger lurking on their horizon.

Unfortunately, they had a meeting, which brought everything slamming back into focus. Still, every step forward was one in the right direction. If they worked hard together all this would be over soon… she hoped.