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Which made it all the harder to believe she was a twenty-year-old virgin having sexual fantasies about an older man who was so intense, just thinking about him made her nipples tingle and between her thighs hot!
“You liked him too, didn’t you, girl,” she defended as she patted Honey on the side of the neck.
The two of them were walking back from the park after their morning outing.
“Obviously not in the way I do,” Mia added self-derisively. “But you definitely liked him.”
Honey looked up at her with warm and intelligent brown eyes, as if she knew exactly what Mia was saying and wholeheartedly agreed with the statement.
“We’d better get you back home.” It was a little before nine thirty, and Mia’s first class was at ten. “Or I’m going to be late to uni.”
CHAPTERTHREE
“Good to see you again,” Rufus Wynter greeted as he stood from behind his wide mahogany desk to shake Darius’s hand.
The other man was probably aged in his early forties, with shrewd eyes so pale in color, it was difficult to know if they were gray or a very pale green. His dark hair was liberally sprinkled with gray at the temples. He wore a formal three-piece suit that had obviously been expertly tailored to his tall and muscular frame.
“How’s the family?” Rufus prompted politely as he resumed his seat. “I believe Sinclair recently remarried?”
Darius remained standing. “The rest of the family is fine. And yes, Sinclair remarried six months ago. He and Remy are expecting their first baby in a few months.”
Rufus nodded abruptly. “I’m pleased for him.” A nerve pulsed briefly in the other man’s jaw before being brought sternly back under his control.
Darius didn’t know all the details, but he knew that Rufus had once been married with a child, but that his wife and that child had both perished in a car accident years ago.
Darius couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt—still feel?—like. He did know that Rufus, despite being attractive and very wealthy, had never remarried.
He would also take a guess that the photograph on Rufus’s desk, turned toward him so that it wasn’t visible to anyone seated opposite him, was of his deceased wife and child.
“I was…concerned when my secretary told me you’d telephoned here shortly after nine o’clock this morning and insisted on having an appointment to see me today.” Rufus spoke before Darius had a chance to do so. “I immediately made inquiries of the men I have on duty at your building as to why you might feel the need to come and see me so urgently.”
Darius snorted. “I’m guessing from your expression they told you.”
The other man’s jaw tightened. “I want to offer you my sincere apologies for the shoddy service of my twenty-four-seven security team working in your building.” He scowled his displeasure. “The six men responsible have had their employment with us terminated.” He glanced at the gold Rolex on his wrist. “Another team took over fifteen minutes ago. But if you feel that’s too little too late and you want to use your own men in future, we’ll just tear up the contract between us, hopefully with no hard feelings.”
“You’re very efficient,” Darius said appreciatively.
Rufus’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Unfortunately, my men weren’t, which is why we have this current situation. As part of my apology, please accept this.” He pushed a file across the desktop.
A file with the heading “Mia Smith” on the front cover.
Darius’s eyes narrowed. “You had Mia Smith investigated?” Even the thought of this man not only delving into Mia’s private life, but also knowing more about her than Darius did, annoyed him intensely.
The other man shrugged. “Belatedly, yes. It’s the routine security check that should have been done before anyone was allowed to regularly go anywhere unaccompanied inside your apartment building.” He scowled. “Miss Smith seems to have been coming and going to a particular apartment for the past month, purely on the say-so of the tenant.” He opened the file. “One Giles Fletcher, who has an apartment on the eleventh floor. Mr. Fletcher, when questioned early this morning, claims she’s a paid dog walker and has been walking a dog for him every morning and evening for the past month.”
That was already more than Darius knew about her. “And is she? Just walking the dog,” he added when Rufus raised an inquiring brow.
Rufus nodded. “A dog that shouldn’t be resident in the building.” He shrugged. “I think you’ll find the file on Miss Smith quite interesting.”
“Oh?” Darius tried to sound only mildly curious, but knew he’d failed when the other man gave him a knowing glance.
“Mia Smith doesn’t have, and has never had, a driving license or a passport. There’s no photograph of her on her offered dog-walking service online. The header is of happy-looking dogs running about a park. The only recent photograph we could find of her on file was the one on her student card. It’s grainy at best. I doubt even her mother would be able to recognize her from it. If she had a mother, which apparently, she doesn’t.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Darius demanded.
Rufus nodded toward the file. “What we have is all in there. You can make your own decision, on both Miss Smith and the dog situation, after you’ve read it. I understand the dog’s previous owner, a Gloria Fletcher, died recently, and that her son, your tenant, has been left with a dog he doesn’t know what to do with, but is reluctant to give away or have put down because of a request in his mother’s will that he not do so.”
Darius knew about the death of the dog’s previous owner. Also, the security men this morning had confirmed that it was GilesFletcherwho had given Mia Smith permission to come in and out of the building morning and night. But those men had misjudged completely the reason for her doing so.
