Page 16 of Past and Present

His laugh was dark. “You and your mouth are this close to being dragged up to my office.”

“Hanging up now, Sir,” she said with a giggle.

Once back to focusing on her work, she did her best to put the article, and Friday night dinner, out of her mind. It wasn’t hard, but she still couldn’t concentrate, because all she could think about was being dragged into Lance’s office.

8

Thursday, December 13th

Lance

“Mr. Moss, has Miss Sullivan left yet?” Sean, one of their drivers asked Lance. He frowned as he pushed back from his desk to stretch.

“I think so. We’re both working on our own projects today, so she was going to go home ahead of me. Why?”

“It looks like you have a couple reporters or something snooping around the property and she isn’t answering her phone. Just wanted to give her a heads up.”

“Thank you, Sean. Let me see if I can track her down.”

When he ended the call, he immediately dialed Marissa’s office and got Cameron.

“Is she in?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Moss. She left about an hour ago.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“I assumed home, but she didn’t say specifically.”

He hung up without saying goodbye and dialed Marissa’s cell.

“Is there a reason you’re not answering your phone?” he asked when she said hello.

“I believe that’s what I just did? What crawled up your butt and died?”

He blew out a breath and prayed for patience. “Sean has been trying to reach you. Are you at home?”

“Nope. I’m doing some Christmas shopping.”

He felt a twinge of relief. “Good.” He paused. “Wait, a minute. I thought we were going to do Christmas shopping together.”

She laughed. “I’m shopping for you, ya big dummy.”

“You and your mouth this week, Kitten.”

She snorted but didn’t say anything else.

“Sean was calling to tell you a couple of reporter types are lurking around our place. Be careful when you go home. In fact, why don’t you have a driver come pick you up and take you home when you’re done? Just in case. We can get your car later.”

“You want me to leave my car at the mall?”

He laughed. “I’ll send two drivers.”

“I thought you weren’t worried about the gossip rags.”

He sighed. “I’m not. Not really. But I don’t like people snooping around. With everything that has happened the last few months, I worry that someone might still try to come after you.”

She was quiet for a minute. There was no sass in her tone when she spoke again. “They’re in prison, Lance. Nobody is going to hurt me. I’m almost done. Send the drivers to the Michigan Ave district.”

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