Page 51 of Crimson Love

“How are we going to do that?”

“We’re going to draw them out. It’s the old adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Her expression falls. “You want to meet with him?”

“When I have more information on him. Devon is looking into it for me —”

“Whoa!” She pushes up to her ass and holds out a hand. “You told Devon about this?”

“Everyone knows what Devon did for a living, but no one really knows the level of access he still has. When we got back to the room last night, I texted him for a favor. That was before you told me everything. I didn’t tell him it had anything to do with you.”

She drags her hands through her hair. “He’s my boss, Jett. When he finds out—and I have no doubt he will—he’s going to know this has everything to do with me. I need this job. Especially if we’re going with the I’m-not-running-away plan, which sounded like a good one until you outed me to my boss.”

I push to a seat. We’re almost nose to nose. “Devon’s not going to fire you. I already asked about you and he told me not to fuck anything up with you since you’re one of his best employees.”

“You asked my boss about me? You’re giving me whiplash.”

“No, I asked my brother-in-law-to-be about you. It sounds much better that way.”

“Why?”

I reach out to tuck her messy hair behind her ear as I memorize every feature of her face before I settle back on her dark eyes. “You managed to steal millions in jewels and escape from your captor. You’re intuitive enough to know why.”

She shakes her head like she doesn’t know which way is up. “This is too much.”

I put a hand to the bed next to her ass to lean in closer and put my lips next to her ear. “It’s Saturday, so you’re off work. I’m sticking to you like glue. Petrov won’t get close to you until we figure this out. And it’s not going to be a hardship to pretend we’re a thing. There won’t be any pretending on my part.”

She grips my biceps like she needs them to hold on to reality. “Jett —”

I don’t let her finish. “And since this is new, I’m going to brush my teeth before I kiss you. Tomorrow, it won’t be new anymore, so I can’t make any promises. Especially since you were the one who busted through the middle-of-the-bed barrier. I plan to kiss you the moment you open your eyes from now on.”

“From now on,” she whispers. “You’re counting on waking up with me a lot?”

I’m about to tell her all the other plans I have for her, when my phone on the nightstand rings. “Hold that thought.”

I connect the call, but he doesn’t give me time to greet him. When his English accent hits me, it’s tense. “It’s Saturday, which means I was looking forward to spending the day with Harlow, but then I got a report back on the little favor you requested. I was about to pick up the phone to call you when I got another phone call from my security company confirming the worst— the manor had a breach. Someone broke through my firewall. That’s what set off the security systems this week.”

I take in the list of problems that Devon just listed and frown. “No shit?”

“I do not have the energy to dish out shit about anything, Jett. Meet me in my office in thirty. I want to know why you’re nosing around someone like Petrov, because I don’t just have a report on him, I have a file thicker than the code of conduct package I was forced to memorize for British Intelligence.”

I climb off the bed and push to my feet. “I’ll be there.”

“I know you’re off work, but I expect you to return the favor and tell me how in the hell someone hacked my systems since my security company seems to be idiots. Shopping around for a company who knows what they’re doing just went to the top of my list of shit to do.”

I step over Lennon’s bags that she dumped on the floor last night to dig through the dresser for clean clothes. “I can do that. I’ll see you in thirty.”

“One more thing.” He lowers his voice. “If you see Harlow, don’t say a word about this. I want to figure out what’s going on with the security before I tell her.”

I glance over at Lennon who’s also out of bed and wonder how long it’ll take her to get ready. “I’ll need forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour.”

Devon sighs. “For fuck’s sake, you were in the Army. You must not have had any hair back then.”

I don’t tell him I’m bringing a plus one to our meeting.

I also don’t know how I’m going to talk Lennon into trusting her boss with what she told me.

I’ve got forty-five minutes to figure that out. Maybe an hour.