Page 81 of Ricochet

Good point. She lifted her chin.

“And if this is legitimate—”

“It’s legitimate,” she snapped. His comfort level with questioning her was the problem with mixing their business relationship with their personal one. “Which day in my planner should we focus on?”

“The humanitarian dinner next week? The fundraisergala? The benefit—”

“All of the above.” He relaxed his arms. “I’ll be near your side, but we’ll put a team on the outskirts to manage protestors, incoming threats, and I’ll get my guy to track the caller down. See how much we need to be concerned, the source of the threat, and then clean up any loose ends.”

“There shouldn’t be any loose threads,” she mumbled. Her reputation was more valuablethan the billions she owned. More than her life. It was one of the reasons she had been ruthless with her network and generous with their benefits package if they were ever compromised. Her employees would sacrifice themselves for the betterment of their families It was a simple company policy.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Very few know the inner workings of what we do. To find whoevercalled me, they would have to know more details.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve already worked with the guy I have in mind. Any guy I’d talk to about any of this, it’d be the right guy for the job.”

Her world, her name, her life was on the line. But Richard had never led her astray, and he’d lose everything also if she lost did.

“A guy,” Gloria muttered the pedestrian phrase. “Find your guyand find out how she got my suite number before anyone ends up dead.”

He crossed the room and took her hand. “Trust me.”

She wanted to remind him whose world he lived in but didn’t dare cross their line. She was the queen, calling the shots, and he was her knight, soldiering on in their murky world that no one could understand. But he did.

Richard knew how she helped more than she hurt. Sheclosed her eyes as he clasped her hand. “Always.”

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