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Chapter 192
She did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and after a moment he ended the call, and she stood there for a little while longer with the phone in her hand and the city going on below her, and then she put the phone in her bag and walked back the way she had come.She was not quite at the lift when a voice called her name.“Mrs. Lane.”She turned, and Marcus was standing in the doorway of his office with one hand resting on the frame, and he was not smiling now, and the removal of the smile made his face look like an entirely different face, harder and older and considerably less pleasant.“Miss Lane,” she corrected him, out of habit more than anything else, because she was not married and had never been.“Miss Lane,” he said. “Do you understand what you are walking away from?”“I understand perfectly.”“Do you. Because I do not think you do. I do not think you have any idea at all what I am offering you, and I think you are going to walk out of this building feeling ver
Chapter 191
She did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and after a moment he ended the call, and she stood there for a little while longer with the phone in her hand and the city going on below her, and then she put the phone in her bag and walked back the way she had come.She was not quite at the lift when a voice called her name.“Mrs. Lane.”She turned, and Marcus was standing in the doorway of his office with one hand resting on the frame, and he was not smiling now, and the removal of the smile made his face look like an entirely different face, harder and older and considerably less pleasant.“Miss Lane,” she corrected him, out of habit more than anything else, because she was not married and had never been.“Miss Lane,” he said. “Do you understand what you are walking away from?”“I understand perfectly.”“Do you. Because I do not think you do. I do not think you have any idea at all what I am offering you, and I think you are going to walk out of this building feeling ver
Chapter 190
She did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and after a moment he ended the call, and she stood there for a little while longer with the phone in her hand and the city going on below her, and then she put the phone in her bag and walked back the way she had come.She was not quite at the lift when a voice called her name.“Mrs. Lane.”She turned, and Marcus was standing in the doorway of his office with one hand resting on the frame, and he was not smiling now, and the removal of the smile made his face look like an entirely different face, harder and older and considerably less pleasant.“Miss Lane,” she corrected him, out of habit more than anything else, because she was not married and had never been.“Miss Lane,” he said. “Do you understand what you are walking away from?”“I understand perfectly.”“Do you. Because I do not think you do. I do not think you have any idea at all what I am offering you, and I think you are going to walk out of this building feeling ver
Chapter 189
The phone rang three times before he answered.“Ethan.”“It is Mia.” She was still standing by the window at the end of the corridor, and she had her hand pressed flat against the glass and her forehead nearly touching it, and her voice had come out steadier than she had any right to expect. “I am calling about the money.”“I told you I would have it by midday.”“I know. I am telling you to go ahead. Do whatever it is you have to do. Make the arrangements, contact the general, deliver it. We are not going to find another way, and I am finished looking for one.”There was a small pause on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, more careful.“Has something happened?”“Something has happened in the sense that a man I have been dealing with has spent the morning attempting to make me sign away things I do not understand in exchange for something I already had. It was not a pleasant conversation and I left it in the middle.” She closed her eyes. “That is
Chapter 188
The phone buzzed a third time before they had gone another block, and it was her mother who noticed it, reaching over and picking it up from where it had slipped between the seats.“Mia. Your phone. It has been going off.”“Who is it?”Her mother looked at the screen, and the name there made her expression change in a way that was visible even in the dim light of the car.“Marcus,” she said. “He has called twice and sent a message.”Mia did not take her eyes off the road, but her hands tightened on the wheel in a way that her mother noticed, and did not comment upon.“What does the message say?”Her mother opened it, and read aloud, slowly, the way one reads something that has been written carefully and is being considered carefully in turn.“It says, ‘Have been thinking about our conversation. I have spoken to some people. Call me when you get this. There may be a way forward, but we need to talk about terms. Nothing is agreed yet. Do not do anything rash before we speak.’” She lower
Chapter 187
He stepped out into the light.Mia watched him do it, and the strangest thing happened in the moment of watching, which was that her body responded before her mind could organize itself, her breath catching at the base of her throat and her pulse quickening and her hands tightening on the wheel as though she had been caught in some small and private ambush of her own making. She had spent the entire day preparing for this, had rehearsed the words and arranged her face and worked out exactly how she would carry herself, and now that the moment was actually upon her, now that the man himself was actually emerging from the car in the deepening evening light, everything she had prepared dissolved into the simple, overwhelming fact of his presence.He did not look like a man who had been hiding.That was her first thought, and it arrived with an unpleasant clarity, because she had been picturing him for weeks as a creature in retreat, someone slinking through back streets and avoiding noti
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