Five Dates with the Billionaire - Alyssa J. Montgomery Page 0,71
in London yesterday morning.’
Connor’s skin crawled. ‘Correlli?’
‘No. Correlli and Lucetti have left Venice and flown back to New York.’
‘Lucetti was in Venice then?’
‘He was, so it was damned lucky he didn’t see Mia.’
Shit.
‘The guy who flew into London is Hank Sullivan, known as Sully. Mia mentioned on the drive to London that she’d seen him in Venice right before you met Correlli.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Sully’s an expert sniper. Keep Mia away from any windows and don’t let her leave the building. We’ve already got people in place, but I’ll alert the whole team that he now knows Mia’s surname and place of work.’
Connor swore again and fear, stronger than any he’d ever known, coursed through his veins. He listened as Carlisle gave him a brief outline of the steps he intended to put into place to ensure Mia’s safety. When the call ended, Connor barely resisted the urge to call Mia again. He didn’t want to spook her.
His mind flew to the configuration of the boardroom with its large glass windows. Grabbing his paperwork, he jumped up and raced out of his office, barely stopping to look at
Grace as he ordered, ‘Call Mike back and tell him I want everyone in meeting room six pronto.’
‘Room six?’ Grace’s disbelief was in every syllable of her high-pitched question. ‘You do know staff refer to that meeting room as the closet?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Oh-kay.’
Yes, it was a strange request—especially when the team was already assembled in the boardroom waiting for him—but the small meeting room had no external windows so there was no chance Sully could take a shot at Mia.
Mia walked into the room behind the rest of the marketing team, adopting the mousy wallflower persona Connor now detested.
To him, she’d never be Miss Mouse from marketing again. It didn’t matter how she dressed herself, she’d no longer fade into the background. As the presentation dragged, he could hardly take his eyes off her. Even though her figure was concealed by her clothes, Connor had to stop himself from playing out the scenes of their amazing lovemaking in his memory. When his body reminded him how much he craved her, he thought of the sniper threat to cool his desire.
After an hour of sitting feigning interest in the marketing slides, tension had worked its way from his shoulders right up his neck and now there was tightness at his temples.
‘Thanks, Mike. Thanks, everyone. I like your ideas and can see how appealing those advertisements will be to the retiree age group.’ He hoped he could rely on the team’s past performance because he’d barely caught any of the key concepts they’d presented.
‘They’re the ones with the disposable income who can afford to take a Stewart Luxe Cruise,’ one of the team members said.
Connor nodded. ‘Mike, I want to go over a couple of things from my trip with Miss Simms.’
‘Okay. I’m looking forward to hearing more about it when you’re ready to fill me in.’
‘All in due course.’
While the rest of the team filed out, Mia stood stiffly opposite Connor. ‘This isn’t a good idea.’
‘Mia, you need to listen.’ There was no point sugar-coating it. ‘A man made a phone call to Grace earlier, claiming to have found a watch you say you’ve never owned.’
‘Oh my God!’ She visibly paled. ‘Have you told Agent Roberts?’
‘I called him as soon as I found out.’
‘What did he say?’
‘One of Lucetti’s men has flown into London. This man, Sully, is—’
‘Oh my God! Sully.’ Her hands flew to her face. ‘It’s all happening then,’ she whispered. ‘Everything I’ve always feared.’ She dropped down quickly into a chair and he went and sat on his haunches in front of her.
Taking hold of her hands and stopping their wringing action, he said quietly, ‘Carlisle has organised agents to stake out the building and there’s a team devoted to monitoring every public security camera in the area for facial recognition. If Sully gets anywhere close to this building, someone at MI5 is going to pick up on it and there’s a very real chance he’ll be caught.’
‘Is that why we moved rooms?’
‘Yes.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I see.’
‘They’re throwing every resource they have into this.’
‘Now we sit and wait?’
He heard the helplessness in her voice.
‘Yes.’ His thumb rubbed over the back of her hand. ‘We’re in this together, sweetheart.’
The silence dragged between them, broken only when Mia disengaged her hands from his and blurted, ‘No. We’re not in this together. You’re not with me at all.’