Colton Baby Conspiracy. Marie Ferrarella
secret while in the throes of their lovemaking—then she couldn’t be the one who was trying to have him killed. She would have no reason to want to eliminate him.
So who the hell was trying to kill him?
The attacks had started shortly after he had slipped out of her room at the Dales Inn. Had someone—either there or just outside the hotel—seen him leaving the bar with her?
Or maybe these attempts on his life didn’t even have anything to do with him spending the night with Marlowe. All right, then what? Why would someone be trying to kill him?
His mind was a total blank.
Marlowe noted that Bowie’s brow was completely furrowed and he had a very strange expression on his face. So strange, in fact, that she couldn’t even begin to fathom what was behind it.
“What is it?” she asked.
Her almost melodious voice broke through the fog around his brain. For a second, he thought she sounded genuinely concerned. So much so that he forgot to keep his guard up against a woman he had been indoctrinated his entire life to regard as someone who came from the enemy camp.
His guard down, he said aloud the words that were currently buzzing around in his head. “If you’re not the one who hired someone to kill me, then who the hell did?” he said, totally exasperated.
She had no idea, nor the will, at this moment, to figure it out. Maybe she hadn’t even told him anything of importance that night and he was just yanking her chain.
“Well, it’s not that I wouldn’t love to help you find an answer as to why someone is supposedly using you for target practice,” she said flippantly, “but I’m kind of in the middle of a crisis of my own right now.”
“You mean something else besides suddenly finding yourself pregnant with the enemy’s child?” he asked her cryptically.
Marlowe raised her chin defiantly. “Yes, other than finding myself pregnant.” She bit off the words, skipping the rest of his description. The fact that it was his baby only added to her feelings of being overwhelmed.
“So what’s this other big crisis of yours?” It seemed to be the right question to ask, Bowie thought, given the situation.
“I can’t tell you,” Marlowe said. When she saw him raise a quizzical eyebrow, she did offer one piece of information. “It’s not just a company crisis...it’s a family crisis, as well.”
The moment she said the last words, she suddenly covered her mouth with her hands, horrified, as she rolled her eyes. That was too much. Annoyed with herself, she dropped her hands from her face and blew out a ragged breath.
“What is it about you that keeps making me blurt things out like that?” she demanded accusingly, glaring at Bowie.
“Then you do remember what you said to me?” he asked her.
“No, I don’t,” she answered, frustrated, “but apparently you seem to have that kind of effect on me.” Marlowe was angrier with herself than she was with him. She should have never had that champagne that night at the inn. Then none of this would be happening.
Belatedly, she thought of where she had been about to go when Bowie had suddenly come storming into her office. Nothing had changed. She still needed to see Daniel and talk to him about trying to track down the person who had sent this email that was causing such shock waves to go ripping through her family’s lives.
“Look,” she told Bowie as she rose to her feet, “I really have to go right now—”
Bowie followed suit, standing up, as well. He followed her to the door. “To handle that company-slash-family crisis, right?” he assumed.
“Something like that,” she replied noncommittally. “But I’ll be in touch later to arrange a meeting between us. Somewhere private,” she added, “so then we’ll be able to talk.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll wait for your call.” His tone made it clear that if it didn’t come, he would be back to see her.
By now they had walked out of her inner office. Karen looked apprehensively at the heads of the two most influential energy companies in Arizona. “Is everything all right, Ms. Colton?” she asked nervously, her eyes darting toward Bowie and then back again.
Marlowe wasn’t in the habit of wearing her emotions on her sleeve, but just for a second, she was tempted to say “No, Karen, it’s not. It’s so far from being all right, it might never be right again.” But she managed to suppress the urge as well as the words. Instead, she said, “Yes, Karen, everything’s fine. Thank you for your concern.” She swept past her and headed toward the elevator.
Because his legs were longer, Bowie easily matched her quick stride step for step until they reached the elevator. He was going out while she was going up, so he paused for a moment before leaving the building.
Whispering into her ear, he told her, “You lie like a pro.”
Stunned, she demanded, “Excuse me?”
“Just now,” Bowie explained, nodding his head toward the office she’d just vacated. “When you answered your assistant’s inquiry, you told her that everything was all right, but you told me that you were in the middle of a crisis.”
“There’s no reason for Karen to know about that.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him just as the elevator arrived. “There’s no reason for you to know that, either, but you seem to have this strange power to make me lower my defenses and say all manner of things to you that I shouldn’t.”
“I’ll do my best to use that power wisely,” he told Marlowe with just the faintest hint of a smile curving his lips. “Don’t forget to call and tell me the time and place that we’ll be meeting,” he reminded her as the elevator doors shut, removing her from his view. “Or I’ll be back,” he called out, raising his voice, although he doubted that she could hear.
Marlowe uttered a few choice words in response to his parting ones, but the doors had closed by then, sealing her off from him.
It was just as well, she thought. Why had she ever even bothered to talk to the man at the conference? Yes, what came afterward could easily be described as the best, the most remarkable night she had ever spent in her life. But at what price? Marlowe asked herself. And could she really say that it had been worth it?
In view of the present situation, she couldn’t honestly say yes. But then, she couldn’t really say no, either.
With all these diametrically opposed thoughts going on in her mind, Marlowe felt as if her head was liable to explode at any moment.
She knew she was dangerously close to being on overload, with just too many shocking pieces of unsettling information bouncing around in her brain, all accumulated in such a short amount of time. She didn’t feel able to sort them all out without drowning in words and feelings.
C’mon, Marlowe, get a grip. If you fall to pieces, everyone else will, too. You have got to get it together! For everyone’s sake, she admonished herself.
Marlowe realized as she quickly walked down the long corridor that she was consciously or unconsciously pinning all her hopes on Daniel, fervently trusting that somehow he would come up with something, preferably the name of the person who had sent them that unnerving email. She was convinced that he had it in him to save the day.
The boyish, studious-looking IT director was only six years older than she was, but in her opinion, he looked younger. Despite his looks, however, he possessed a razor-sharp mind, and if there was anyone who could unearth the name of the person sending them this awful email, it was Daniel.
His door was wide-open, and she knocked on the door frame as she crossed the threshold into the office. It looked like the other two people who were part of his department had already left for the night and that Daniel was just about to leave the office himself.
“Daniel?”