The Darkest of Shadows (17 page)

I ended up with about a dozen dresses and, soon after, the required shoes and accessories to go with them. By the time all that was done, it was just after five o’clock, and we had to haul ass back to the offices so I could get ready in time.

“Thanks, Charlie.” I appreciated how much he had helped me all afternoon. “Shopping with you wasn’t half as bad as I expected.” I gave him a cheeky grin to make sure he knew I was joking.

“Pleasure was all mine,” he assured me, then left so that I could get ready.

It takes a girl a while to transform from a shopping-crazed maniac to a sophisticated modern woman, but that night I made it there in less than an hour, which is somewhat of an amazing feat. By the time I emerged from my room, dressed in a short, very tight charcoal cocktail dress, Lawrence, Frost and Charlie were already waiting for me near the door.

I got three admiring glances before Lawrence gave me a nod of approval. “You look amazing,” he complimented. “Ready?”

“I guess so.” I smiled at him in encouragement, and all four of us headed down to the car.

“Frost and Charlie will always travel with us when we attend functions, but they will try to stay mostly out of our way while we’re there,” Lawrence explained as we walked. “The level of their attendance really depends on where we are in the world. Here in London we’re much safer than in other places, so they won’t trouble you too much.”

Lawrence was obviously far more used to them than I was if he believed that they weren’t intrusive, but I let it go. It was his issue, and as long as I could ignore them, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

“Whom are we meeting tonight?”

“Lord William Huntsgrove. He’s an old friend and a renowned philanthropist. He has a new project he would like to discuss with me, so I agreed to meet him for dinner tonight.”

Lord Huntsgrove was an elderly gentleman who greeted Lawrence warmly and extended his welcome to me. He had chosen to attend dinner alone, so it was just the three of us, which made my part of the conversation relatively easy. As long as I offered the occasional encouraging nod and managed a smile or two, Lord Huntsgrove seemed genuinely happy with my presence.

The two men spent most of dinner talking about past projects and reminiscing about people they both knew. It wasn’t until dessert was served that they got down to more current issues.

“I’m building a community housing project on some of my land,” Huntsgrove told Lawrence. “It’s a program that I’ve seen work in other areas. The land is donated to needy families. There is a very small loan attached to each build, which the owners pay back through a long-term mortgage, but basically the whole community pulls together and builds one house. Then they build the next one, and the next, until the whole community is created and built by the people who will live in the houses. It’s one of those pass-it-on ideas. You do a good deed for a stranger, who then does a good deed for another stranger; and before you know it, there are hundreds of good deeds going around.”

“I know the program you’re talking about,” Lawrence told him. “I’ve seen it work in other places, but I’ll warn you that I’ve also seen it fail.”

“The percentage of failure is relatively low.”

“It all comes down to the people you have working the sites, who in reality are the underprivileged families that you gift the houses to. They need to be very carefully selected and managed constantly.”

“That’s where you come into it,” Huntsgrove told him. “I can get the materials and the land and everything else we need to get it up and running. I have roped in a friend of mine at Eaton and convinced him to use the selection process as a project for one of his psychology classes, but I need you to help me with managing the build. I don’t know enough about the mechanics of it, and I don’t have the energy anymore to drive the project day-to-day with the enthusiasm that it needs. I need you for that.”

“Send me through a scale of the project. How many houses, the rate of construction, and the timeframe of the works, and I’ll give you a project supervisor who will make sure it happens.” And as easy as that, Lawrence gave away what would easily add up to over a hundred thousand pounds. By the time he paid the wages of the supervisor, and replaced that position in his own workforce, we were talking big money.

“I knew you would come through for me, my boy.” Huntsgrove fairly beamed with pleasure.

They talked for a while longer before Huntsgrove offered his farewells.

“I’ll get those details over to you in the next few days, Lawrence. Again, my thanks for your assistance with this.” Both men shook hands like old friends.

“Always a pleasure speaking with you, Lord William,” Lawrence responded. “I look forward to seeing the project come out successfully.”

“With you involved, I don’t doubt its success.”

Lawrence and I watched him walk out of the restaurant before we both made our way out of the room.

We didn’t talk much on the way back to the offices. I think I was still a little stunned by the simplicity of the situation. How easily and passionately they both shared what was theirs. Without knowing any of the people who might be beneficiaries of their goodwill, both men, without qualification, offered a huge amount of money to support a cause they believed in.

Charlie and Frost disappeared as soon as we entered the apartment and left Lawrence and me alone in the lounge. I wasn’t ready to go to bed just yet. It was just past eleven, and my mind was running a million miles an hour with the complexity of the life I had just immersed myself into.

“Here.” Lawrence placed a small glass of something dark and alcoholic into my hand.

When I went to hand it back, he insisted. “It will calm you down. I find it helps to settle my mind before I go to bed if I have a small drink. These events can leave you wired.”

I didn’t like to drink, not usually, but it was only a very small splash in the bottom of the glass, and I felt like I wanted to do something. I was almost fidgety.

I took a hesitant sip, and the smooth complexity of the drink slipped easily down my throat. It had an almost instant relaxing reaction in my body. One sip was probably enough, so I put the glass down and settled back in the chair.

“What are you thinking?” Lawrence asked, after we had been sitting there about ten minutes.

“I think that there are a lot of extraordinary people out there who are doing really amazing work, and most people don’t know about it.”

“That there is.”

“I had no idea you would be that generous,” I confessed. “So easily offer something of such magnitude.”

“To be honest,” he replied, “I only did that because Huntsgrove asked me to. I don’t have a lot of hope that the project will be successful. But it’s what he wants, and he’s a good man. If he asked me for double that, I’d give it just as quickly.”

He was more generous that I gave him credit for. “How much charity work do you do?” I asked.

“Last year, somewhere around twenty-five million pounds, give or take.” He wasn’t bragging, just stating a fact.

I was astonished. “Good God,” I gasped. “That’s a staggering amount of money.”

“Not when you have as much money as I do, it isn’t,” he reminded me.

That was true. He probably spent that on clothes in a year. But when I thought about the good that would have come from that money, my heart lost some of its heaviness.

“If you’re not careful, I’ll start thinking that you’re a pretty amazing man.”

“Couldn’t have you thinking that, Lilly.” He rose from where he had been sitting. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

Then there was just me.

We were on our way to the airport to fly to Rome, where we were attending a charity function by midafternoon the next day. Lawrence had finalized some short meetings that morning, including a quick visit from Kyle, while I had managed a few sneaking visits to introduce myself to some of the key personnel I would be dealing with in our travels. Charlie, true to Lawrence’s word, followed me around the building but managed to hold off on actually terrorizing the people I was meeting.

The flight was longer than I expected, and it was dark by the time we landed. I’d never been to Italy, but we moved through the private airport and through the dark streets of the city so rapidly that there was very little chance of being able to see much of it now.

We stayed at a very exclusive hotel in the city and had an entire suite of rooms to ourselves. The word “luxury” didn’t do it justice.
I could get used to this
. I snapped a photo of my room and texted it off.

Lawrence’s only meeting the next day was late in the afternoon, too late for me to be able to attend and still manage to get all glammed up for the function that evening. Luckily he was only meeting the clients in the bar downstairs, sort of an informal catch-up more than a meeting; so he left me with Charlie—who had found a huge TV in the lounge and hadn’t moved since we arrived—and left for his meeting.

I took my time getting ready, all the while keeping up a steady chatter with Charlie. Not that he even once responded to me, but he didn’t tell me to shut up, either; so after my shower, when I was drying my hair, I wandered out into the lounge and kept up a one-sided conversation about the amazing hotel. Then when my hair was dry and hung straight and golden down my back, I had a conversation about what dress I should wear; and then when my makeup was done, it was about whether I should eat before we left.

I didn’t need help with the shoes, I knew what went with what dress; but after the whole package was put together he got a twirling runway show, all of which he ignored.

“Charlie.” I called when he still refused to talk to me, but when he ignored that too I screamed it. “CHARLIE.”

And who should pick that moment to come wandering back through the door—gosh, my timing was impeccable— but Lawrence and Frost.

“Why are you screaming at Charlie?” Lawrence didn’t sound concerned, just curious.

“Because he’s being an ass!”
Take that, Charlie
.

“Charlie’s doing his job, Lilly,” Lawrence replied, after he spared a quick look at Charlie. “Leave him alone.”

Seriously?

“You look beautiful by the way.” Lawrence added. I had picked a deep blue, floor-length gown. It tucked up in an empire fashion under my breasts and fell gracefully to the ground. “I’ll just get changed.” Then he left me alone with Frost and Charlie.

I was mildly sick of being ignored. If we were out in public, they were super attentive. I couldn’t move without one of them standing close behind me or grabbing my arm to steer me through dense crowds, but in our rooms, it’s like I didn’t exist. I guess you could call it professionalism, but personally I thought they were just plain rude.

Lawrence was much quicker at getting ready for these things than I was, probably something to do with how many of them he attended. In less than twenty minutes, he was showered and dressed in a formal tux. Apparently this was a bowtie event, and let me assure you, that man knew how to wear a tux.

In a business suit he looked powerful; in a tux he looked powerful and hot—not that I should be noticing that about him, but when it’s there for me to appreciate, it’s hard not to.

And then, like a switch, Charlie was all attentive again. I walked with Lawrence down to the car with Charlie barely a foot behind me. He sat across from me in the limo, his attention focused; and then when we arrived at the function, which was a brilliantly lit, beautiful old building, he was never far from my side.

We had to wade through a massive crush of people when we pulled up at the function. The steps outside were inundated with brightly dressed men and women. This was one of the few times I genuinely welcomed Charlie’s attendance. He and Frost pushed gently but firmly through the crowds to get us to the front doors and inside without too much jostling.

Inside was somewhat calmer than the steps, and Charlie and Frost retreated to the edges of the room. It was intriguing to watch Lawrence operate in this environment. He was by no means beneath anyone’s notice; in fact, I would have been surprised if he had an equal here. He greeted everyone with the same cool, calm manner that left many envious countenances in his wake. He had an ease about him that couldn’t be learned; it was an innate part of who he was.

From the moment we got out of the car, he had taken hold of my hand and placed it through the crook of his arm, and that’s pretty much where it stayed all night.

I wasn’t the most beautiful or well-dressed woman there, but I was with Lawrence Monterey, and that alone ensured I was noticed. People surged through the crowds to be near him. I saw people stop in midconversation as we approached, just so that they didn’t miss that chance to speak with him. There was no business happening tonight; it was all about pleasure and the common good of the charity we were supporting.

I had a glass of champagne in my hand that Lawrence had handed to me a few moments after we arrived. I had taken one sip out of it and decided that was sufficient. Several hours later, the bubbles were gone, and the drink lay hot in my hand.