Early next morning, before the sun came up, his phone buzzed. He reached out to it with his right hand. Mira lay in his arm and hovered somewhere between still sleeping and not wanting to wake up. “That was Peter,” he said and sat up straight. Mira woke up instantly and pulled the blanket up to her chest.
“What does he want?”
“He said that he has taken Russell into custody, because he has decided to move the case along a little quicker.”
“What?” She threw the blanket off her. “What is he thinking? I thought… I assumed that we would be working on this together.” She ran into the bathroom and jumped into her underwear, while watching Connor as he slipped into his jeans and a shirt. Those few hours in his arms always seemed to end in some kind of catastrophe, she thought. “I am not worried about Russell, but I have to go and see my sister right now,” she explained as she pulled hectically on the zipper of her skirt. He came to her and closed it for her.
“I will drive you,” he said.
“Peter is not planning to involve me in his investigation, is he?”
“I don’t think so,” Connor said reassuringly. “He is a professional and doesn’t like to work with amateurs.” He grabbed his car keys. “I am just as unhappy about this situation as you are. He shouldn’t have gone above our heads and taken matters into his own hands — he will hear a few fitting words from me about that. However, I do agree with him in a certain aspect, even if you don’t like it.” He started the engine as she was falling into her seat.
“I already know what you are going to say,” Mira mentioned.
“Oh really?” Connor looked at her quickly and his gaze was a weird combination of loving and angry at the same time.
“Yes, you will tell me that right now, the less I know, the less danger I will be in.”
“Perfect, then I won’t have to say it out loud anymore.”
Twenty minutes later, they stopped in front of Mira’s parents’ house. It was lit up like a Christmas tree, however there were no signs of police cars or even dark undercover vans, as Mira had envisioned when she had imagined Peter and his mysteriously secret organization.
“Do you know what his arrest now means?” Connor looked at her with slight worry in his eyes.
“Yeah, that I will have to take over the lead at Dumont Ltd much earlier than I thought I would,” she said. “Right now, Suzanne is not in the right frame of mind to deal with anything, so I will literally have to see what I can do.” Connor nodded.
“But you will have to be careful. Promise me that you won’t do anything on your own. As soon as you find anything weird, you must call me. Immediately.”
“I promise,” Mira replied, when she realized how important this was to him.
“We will meet up today at lunch. I will come and get you at around one. And I will then put a wire on you,” he explained and didn’t even react to Mira’s surprise. “It is hard enough as it is to just let you go. Either I stay with you every second of the day and watch over you, or you carry a wire.” He smiled quickly. “There is one other option, but if I know you, it’s not something you would consider, and you might like it even less.”
“And that would be what?” She looked at him curiously.
“You sell your company,” Connor said as he closely watched her reaction.
“Under no circumstances is that an option. No money in the world would be enough for me to consider leaving Dumont Ltd to a stranger.”
“You could still stay there as the managing director,” Connor suggested.
“Don’t take it too far,” Mira warned him. “If I am wearing a wire, then that is for me, but the company is and will remain our inheritance in my family.”
He smiled and when the car came to a stop, he kissed her tenderly on her mouth before watching her until she closed the door behind her.
As Mira heard the engine howl, she realized that he had very cleverly manipulated her into giving in to his wishes. Connor had acted like he was giving her some kind of choice between two evils, even though he had already known that she would not sell the company under any circumstances. He really was the kind of man who always got what he wanted.
And now he wanted her.