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I shake my head. His words should make things better, but I can’t believe them. He wraps me in a hug, peppering my face with kisses. “We’ll straighten out this tangle. But we need to assuage the raging appetite you are ignoring.”
Max evades my glare and puts an arm around me. “I need you to myself for a minute,” he croons as he steers me down the sidewalk. He matches his long stride to my shorter steps and never removes his arm from around my waist.
JL hasn’t arrived yet, but Max gets a table. Once I’m ensconced on the banquette, he gestures to the menu. “Check out the offerings. I need to make a call.” He gestures toward an empty spot in the busy dining room. “I’ll be right over there.” As soon as he has a connection, he walks away, whisper-yelling into the phone.
By the time he comes back, JL has joined me. Max drops into a chair and grabs the menu out of my hand, slapping it down on the table.
“I don’t know what my mother was thinking.“ Max scratches his neck. “That’s not true. She told me exactly what she was thinking. Mum remembered you were always looking for a space to write when they visited at Christmas, and she had the idea that you might want to have a space of your own to retreat to. Her heart was in the right place.”
Relief floods me. His parents aren’t rejecting me. Tears pour down my face and I can’t stop shaking. Max pulls me up from my chair and hugs me fiercely. “Go clean up and I’ll order you the biggest breakfast they offer.” He points out the sign indicating the toilets.
My lips tremble. “Coffee, but no beans.” I race off to the loo.
ChapterEleven
Max
After breakfast, we walk Cress back to the RAF Club. Once she’s settled in the suite, she can crash. The events of the morning have exhausted her. Then JL and I take off to the GSU offices in Leicester Square. He has meetings with the security staff about new procedures WatchDog is implementing.
I put in a few solid hours of work on tomorrow’s presentation to the heads of three private banks before we adjourn for lunch at the Garrick Arms. Their steak-and-ale pie is outstanding. A pint of Old Speckled Hen ale, first brewed for the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the MG factory in Abington near Oxford, is the perfect accompaniment.
The fruity smell rising from the pint glass takes me back to my college days. I take a sip of the familiar malty flavor and wipe the foam from my lips, basking in the intermittent sunbeams bombarding the windows through the partly cloudy skies. JL is wiping grease off his fingers from the fish and chips.
When my mobile rings, I assume Cress is calling. But Clay’s voice booms out of the speaker. “We have a problem. I need you on a video call, stat.”
I look at the time on my mobile. It’s only seven a.m. in Chicago. “Finishing lunch. We can be back in the office in ten minutes.”
“Fine.” He hangs up.
“Calisse. Not looking forward to finding out about this.” JL’s forehead creases in a frown.
I nod my agreement. “Clay is more than pissed off.”
Clay’s assistant’s voice sounds over the speaker system as we reach the conference room. “Max and JL have arrived, Mr. Brandon.”
Clay’s flushed scowl fills the screen as a door slams behind him.
My stomach rumbles. I’m already regretting the beer. “What’s going on?”
“We have a problem with the update.” A chair scrapes against the floor. Clay shifts and growls “where the hell were you?” as Jarvis lowers himself to a seat.
I talk over him. “What the hell, Jarvis? Everything was fine when we left.”
The small conference table in our London office is placed optimally to view the oversized screen. Elena is sitting at the end of the long table, originally used by Burnham and Root to plan the 1893 World’s Fair, poised to take notes.
All occupants of the Rookery Building can use the historic conference room and library on the eleventh floor with its collection mementos of the fair. Access is a cool perk, but today, even through a screen almost four thousand miles away, the venue feels somehow ominous. We normally only use it for client meetings, but it’s the logical place for a conversation about the security breach. It is well away from our offices on the fifth floor and no one goes up there except to use this room. Clay sits at one end of the long antique rectangle. Jarvis is between Metin and Erik.
Metin’s lopsided grin is slightly feral, with one sharp eyetooth visible. “Hi guys. Heard anything new, Max? Any incidents we should know about?”
“No. Have you?”
“Nothing.”
I scowl. “Moving on.” We’re not here for my issues.
Erik’s red hair stands up, like he put his finger in a socket. He shifts, the chair creaking under his bulk. He takes his glasses off, cleans them, puts them back on, over and over.
“Erik?” My voice is accusing. The tremor in his left hand is more noticeable than usual.
