I blinked rapidly. “Thank you. Getting the pin back is a big deal, and it’s much appreciated.” I chewed my lip and gathered courage for this next part. “Mr. Covington, I just wanted to say that—”
He shook his head. “Ben. Or Bennet if you must. Mr. Covington is the former Prime Minister. I’m not him.”
I sighed. “Okay, fine, Ben, while I appreciate the pin, the flowers are going just a bit too far.”
His brow lifted. “What?”
Be firm. Be direct. It was the only way I was going to be able to contain the runaway butterflies in my lower belly. I couldn’t indulge any kind of crush or whatever this was. I approached him as I spoke. “Obviously, you are very, uh, attractive, and kind as well, but you are my boss. And while I do need someone to accompany me on the things for my mother, I was not propositioning you.”
He frowned and nodded slowly. “Propositioning?”
Why was he repeating the words I was using? “Exactly. I wasn’t in any way saying that I was going to shag you or anything like that.” Though I’d maybe, just maybe, fantasized about it. But that was not something I needed to clue him in on.
“Shag me?”
“Yes. I mean, I don’t exactly know you, but I’d hoped maybe we’d started to be friends, except for the part where you yelled at me last night when we almost got mugged.”
“There you go again, saying I yelled. I spoke firmly to get your attention.”
“That was clearly yelling.”
“I was not yelling.” His voice rose.
My tone matched his. “Oh, I think that was yelling. And you can’t send me flowers. I have a boyfriend.” Oh yeah, way to trot that one out.
He shook his head. “I appreciate your directness, but I didn’t send you these. And let’s face it. Pink roses are boring and unimaginative. You’re clearly an orchid kind of woman.”
My face flamed. “Th— they’re not from you?”
He shook his head. “No. Nor were they here when I dropped off the pin for you earlier this morning. But now I’m concerned because you don’t seem to know who would send you flowers.”
He was serious. I could see it in his eyes. He hadn’t sent them. “I went to thank Dexter, but they’re not from him either.”
“How mad was he that someone had sent you flowers?” he asked with a smirk.
“Um, let’s go with mildly annoyed.”
His brows really scrunched up then. “Another man sent you flowers, and your boyfriend is only mildly annoyed?”
“He trusts me. But if he didn’t send them to me and they’re not from you, then who the hell sent me flowers?”
“That, Miss Ashong, is a very good question.” He searched for wrapping or packaging and found nothing. “Sorry, there are no hints. Maybe Amy removed the packaging before she put them in here?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll ask. I guess it’s a mystery for now.”
“A mystery you’re okay with?”
I shook my head. “Not really, but I have work to do. Maybe they were delivered to me by mistake. Maybe there is some poor woman in here whose birthday or anniversary it is, and she thinks her boyfriend forgot.”
He frowned at that. “It’s a possibility, but who knows?”
I was still standing in the middle of my office when he moved to pass, and it was like being hit in the face with a heat lamp as he walked by. Geez.
The scent of sandalwood teased me enough that I wanted to lean in. I wanted to sniff him. Why did he smell so good? It wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be a troll, completely unattractive. It would have helped a lot.
But you can handle one man.
I could. Besides, I had work to do. Ogling my boss wasn’t on my to-do list.
12
Livy
Perched in the corner of the couch in the living room with the light dimmed, I tapped away. I wanted to at least finish this chapter of the book. Dexter had gone to bed an hour earlier, claiming he needed his beauty rest. Mostly I thought he was trying to avoid me because I was asking to talk to him specifically about our next appointment with Dr. Kaufman.
But I preferred him going to bed rather than getting in another fight.
Or you wanted your peace so you can think about Ben without feeling guilty.
No. No more thinking about Ben. I could accept that the man was sexy. He was. He was full of power and arrogance, and he was more than a little bit naughty. But that was the kind of problem I didn’t need, and I was merely a curiosity to him. Someone like him was not going to be into someone like me. Not for the long haul anyway. He dated models and heiresses. Not real people.
Not that I cared. But our worlds were not the same. I was merely a fascination for him.
I rubbed the back of my neck as I searched through my research notes for a name. My mother had been extremely organized with her outline, her sources, her research. Everyone had their own little dossier. I couldn’t believe how much work she’d done and how in depth she’d been.
Her friend, Caroline Ritter, had worked at the embassy with her in London some years ago. In more recent years, she had started doing more human aid work, trying to work with The Hague for better anti-trafficking laws and penalties. She was a real crusader. But then one day, five years ago, she’d called her mother, told her she was going on a holiday, and then she hadn’t come back.
The paper trail showed that she’d gone to Barbados as planned. But upon digging further, there was no evidence of her ever checking into the Grand Bajan Hotel, no evidence that she’d ever landed in Barbados. But flight manifests showed that she had indeed boarded a flight from Heathrow.
And that was just the start of the mystery. Her life, the people she met, who she talked to, was endlessly fascinating. But what made it even more rewarding was just knowing that my mother had been on this path, chasing down a mystery. She’d always been a true crime junkie. If the show had Law and Order in the title, she was definitely watching it despite it not being quite so true. Anything Interpol was her kind of jam. And I found that I loved it too.
As I typed the last line, my phone buzzed next to me. I smiled when I saw it was Telly. “Hey, love,” I said in greeting. “Does Carmen know you’re up past your bedtime?”
Telly groaned. “Do you know she shoved a smoothie in my hand today? It had kale. You’ve lived in America. What is that country’s obsession with kale?”
I laughed. “It’s good for you, I guess.”
“Ugh, I’m British. I want a bacon butty and sausage rolls any day.”
“You can have that too. But you should probably eat some green things.”
“She’s a leafy green Gestapo.”
“Oh my God, you’re so dramatic. What’s up? Why are you up this late if there isn’t wine involved?”
Telly immediately sobered. “Okay, listen. This flash drive, it’s harder to crack than I thought. I made my own copies, just in case, and I’m glad I did. My first attempt to crack it immediately erased the drive.”
“What?” My heart hammered. Had I done all that just to lose it?
“Yeah. You trip the wrong wire on that thing, and data starts running away from you like someone’s literally doused it in gasoline and set it on fire.”