AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
By the time they returned to the office, Brianna knew something had fundamentally changed between them. She didn’t even bother to figure out a way back to equanimity; she couldn’t. Curiously, she didn’t feel as devastated at losing that particular battle.
It helped that they were barely in the door when Sakis threw out a list of things he wanted her to do but, despite the breakneck speed of dealing with his demands, they were soon both plugged into events at Point Noire, especially the clean-up process and the still missing Pantelides Six crewmembers.
After speaking to Morgan Lowell’s wife Perla for the fifth time at six o’clock, Sakis threw his pen on his desk and ran both hands over his stubbled jaw.
‘Are you okay?’
Tired eyes trained on her with breath-stopping intensity.
‘I need to get out of here,’ he rasped as he strode to the door and shrugged into his designer overcoat.
She swallowed and nodded. ‘Do you want me to book a restaurant table for you? Or call a friend to...um...’ She stopped, purely because the thought of arranging a date for Sakis with one of the many women who graced his electronic diary stuck in her gut like a sharp knife.
‘I’m not in the mood to listen to inane conversation about the latest Hollywood gossip or who is screwing whom in my circle of friends.’
His response pleased her way more than it should have. ‘Okay, what can I do?’
His eyes gleamed for a moment, before he looked away and headed towards the door. ‘Nothing.’ He stopped with a hand on the door. ‘I’m meeting Ari for a drink. And you’re logging off for the night. Is that clear, Moneypenny?’
She nodded slowly and watched him walk out, hollowness in her stomach that made her hate herself. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to be the one who wiped away that look of weariness she’d seen in his eyes. And all through today, every time he’d called her ‘Money
penny’, she’d wanted to beg him to call her ‘Brianna’. Because she loved the way he said her name.
She glanced down at the fingers resting on her keyboard and wasn’t surprised to see them trembling. Her whole being trembled with the depth of the feelings that had been coursing through her all day. Frankly, it scared the hell out of her.
Hurriedly, she shut down the computer and gathered her tablet, phone and handbag. She’d just slid her chair neatly into the space beneath her desk when the phone rang. Thinking it was Sakis—because who else would ring her at seven-thirty on a work night?—she pounced on the handset.
‘Hello?’
‘May I speak to Anna Simpson?’
A spear of ice pinned her in place as her lips parted on a soundless gasp. A full minute passed. Her lungs burned until she managed to force herself back from the brink of unconsciousness. ‘Excuse me, I...I think you’ve got the wrong number.’
The ugly laugh at the end of the line shook her to the very soul. ‘We both know I don’t have the wrong number, don’t we, sweetheart?
She didn’t respond—couldn’t—because the phone had fallen from her nerveless fingers.
Another full minute passed. ‘Hello?’ came the impatient echoing voice. ‘Anna?’
Numbness spreading through her, she picked up the phone. ‘I told you there...there’s no one by that name working here.’
But it was too late. She recognised the taunting, reedy voice at the end of the line. It was a voice she’d been dreading hearing again since her return from Point Noire.
‘I can play along if you prefer, Anna. Hell, I’ll even call you by your new name, Brianna Moneypenny. But we both know to me you’ll always be Anna, don’t we?’ mocked Greg Landers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT DO YOU want, Greg?’ Brianna snapped into her mobile phone as she threw her bag on the tiny sofa in her small living room.
‘What? No hello, no pleasantries? Never mind. I’m glad you were sensible enough to return my call. Although, I don’t get why you didn’t want to speak to me at your office. I made sure Pantelides wasn’t there before I called.’
Shock made her grip the edge of the seat. ‘You’re having him watched?’
‘No, I’m having you watched. You’re the one I’m interested in.’
‘Me?’
