Page 20 of Her Prince in Disguise
“Dinner?” she echoed, pretending that she didn’t understand the lawyer’s question.
“Yeah, you ghosted us last night. Where did you grab dinner?”
Thankfully, the doors to the conference room opened and Lawrence turned to see who was entering their work space, so he didn’t notice Andi’s painful blush as Laith walked in.
“Sir! I have the cease-and-desist letters you asked me to prepare,” Lawrence announced before anything else could be said. “I’m working with a colleague here in Singapore to file the other motions, since I’m not licensed to work here. Yet.”
Lawrence was in his mid-thirties with a wife and four kids back home in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He had an excellent reputation in the legal world and was razor sharp when it came to legal issues. However, whenever Laith came around, the man turned into an eager to please puppy. Andi didn’tunderstand why and it lowered her respect for Lawrence as a person.
Still, he knew his stuff and was extremely productive. Plus, Laith must appreciate his efforts because Lawrence remained on the team. He seemed sharp enough, in a bland sort of way. Andi liked him well enough because of his sharp wit and intelligence, but wished that the man didn’t…pander the way he did.
Had he sent her the box? No, that was a stupid question. The first box had arrived before the team was formed. However, now Andi was looking at the whole team with a quizzical eye, wondering who might have sent that box.
However, as a bonus, considering Lawrence as the diorama creator allowed her to avoid eye contact with Laith! She’d snuck out of his bed early this morning, tiptoeing through the room quietly so that she didn’t wake him. It was cowardly, but Andi wasn’t ready to confront what had happened between them. Not yet.
Maybe tomorrow she would find the courage. Probably not, she thought, and sighed.
Then a pertinent question popped into her head. Had that stupid box been sent to her here in Singapore? Or had it been addressed to her office back in Philly?
Startled, Andi mentally berated herself for not thinking to check the address label yesterday. Her only excuse was that she’d been pretty freaked out by its arrival and hadn’t wanted to look at the box. She hadn’t wanted to even acknowledge it.
If she had, would she have noticed those little details? If she’d acknowledged the box, actually opened it and examined the contents, faced her fears and worked out who might have sent her the diorama, would last night with Laith have happened? Andi sank lower in her chair, still pretending to focus on her work while her head spun with questions.
Questions that couldn’t wait, she suddenly decided. So, while Laith and Lawrence continued their discussion, Andi quietly gathered up her notes and left the conference room. She felt Laith’s eyes on her the whole time, but Andi refused to look at him. She had to appear normal, like she hadn’t spent the night in Laith’s arms, discovering things about herself…and him…that she hadn’t known were possible.
It took her several minutes to reach the area in which the security personnel were working. When she stepped into the room, the package was sitting in the middle of the table. At the moment, it didn’t seem threatening. But she knew that there was something off about that box. Was it a threat? Or maybe an invitation? Since the sender didn’t bother to add a note or a return address, Andi couldn’t tell. Nor could she respond to the message contained within the diorama since she hadn’t seen it and had no way of communicating with the sender. And that made it threatening.
“I’d like to open that box,” she told the muscular man who moved to stand in front of her.
The man stared down at her. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Laith, but there was an expression on his hard features that Andi understood to be a silent, “Don’t piss me off” message.
“We think it would be better if the box is kept closed.”
Closed? Why? “But…don’t you want to really see what’s inside?”
“We put the box through an x-ray to determine if there is a physical threat. We’ve ascertained that there isn’t an explosive component to the box. But we can’t tell if there is a biological component.”
Biological? That hadn’t occurred to her. She pulled back slightly. “So…the other box might have had something in it that I didn’t know about?”
The other five men in the conference room looked up. “Where is the other box?”
Andi bit her lower lip, folding her arms over her chest. She probably should have kept that news to herself. Or maybe not. She’d mentioned it to Laith last night over dinner, but it might have slipped his mind.
“I received the first box a few days before we left for Singapore.”
“Were you already on the team when you received the box?” Laith demanded.
Andi jumped and swung around, startled by his silent arrival. She’d come in here, in part, to get away from him. But now he was so close, she could smell the scent of his soap.
She wished that she’d been there to soap up his magnificent body. They’d been so frantic last night, so focused on culminating the act and…she shivered, remembering the world-rocking pleasure he’d given her. Every nerve in her body hummed, eager to experience such pleasure again.
But as soon as she realized where her mind had gone, she banished the thought, focusing instead on the present problem. No sexual thoughts!
Blinking herself back to the present, Andi licked her lips. “No,” she replied. Andi took a step back, and Laith reacted immediately, grabbing her upper arms to keep her from falling. Andi hadn’t noticed the cases right behind her. She’d just needed to put some space between herself and Laith, but the room was so stacked with equipment, space wasn’t really an option.
However, she couldn’t just stand here, staring at him. She should pull away, even though…all she wanted was to step forward, to rub herself against him like a cat, and enjoy the strength of his arms around her one more time. One more moment of bliss!
Boss! Andi reminded herself that Laith was her boss. She couldnothave a fling with him!
