Moonlighter (The Company, #1)(23)

Alex just shakes her head. The intruder does a quick circuit of the room, pulling on gloves then stopping in front of Alex’s laptop on the desk. He opens the lid, and the screen blinks to life. I hear Alex’s sharp intake of breath as he pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of the login screen.

Then he closes it again and walks away, circling behind the camera.

“Now he’s offscreen for seventy seconds,” Gunnar says.

Alex groans. “I left my prenatal vitamins in the bedroom. And there’s a pregnancy book in my luggage. I should have been more careful.”

“You think this guy is working for your ex?” I ask. “That was fast.”

“It was fast,” Gunnar says. “Can I ask you a question, Alex? Tatum registered for the conference at the last minute, right? Does he have any real business here, besides asking you to get back together?”

“Well, sure,” she says slowly. “He needs to do another round of funding for his startup. There are people here who could help him.”

Okay. I’m still in the dark, though. “Who else would stalk Alex?” I ask.

Gunnar’s forehead wrinkles. “When you run a big company, you make enemies. On any given day, there are a dozen people mad at Alex.”

“Sad but true,” she murmurs.

In my peripheral vision, I see Pieter wave his hands. We all look up at once, and he beckons to Gunnar.

“So let’s not leap to conclusions yet,” Gunnar says in a normal voice. But he’s already on his feet and walking toward the bedroom. “I’m just going to use the bathroom before I head out.”

“Um, okay?” Alex says, clearly confused.

Gunnar holds up a hand that’s meant to keep us where we’re seated. But I’m not in the mood to obey. I kick off my flip flops and then pace across the rug to see what the hell they found.

In the bedroom, Pieter is standing beside a framed painting on the wall. He points, and I see it—something small on the top of the frame. It’s no bigger than a coat button.

I hear water running behind the bathroom door. And then Gunnar opens the bathroom door, holding three fingers to Pieter. On a count of three, he flushes the toilet.

At the same moment as the loud flush, Pieter reaches up and plucks the device off the picture frame. He places it on his palm, and then cups his hand over it, the same way you would a real bug. He walks by me, heading for the door to the suite, while Gunnar rushes to open it for him.

Pieter leaves with that thing in his hand. And when I turn around again, Alex is heading out onto the terrace, looking white as a sheet.

Gunnar is still poking around the suite with some kind of sensing device in his hand, scanning every baseboard. As I watch, he picks up the hotel’s phone and examines it. Then he sets it down again. Then he heads over to the bed and starts tossing pillows onto the floor.

I follow Alex outside. She’s sitting on one of the outdoor sofas, her knees tucked in tight to her chest as if making herself as small as possible. This posture of fear hits me right in the solar plexus.

The Alex I remember is bossy and forthright. She doesn’t curl up into a ball. Ever.

“Hey,” I say, sitting down right beside her. Then I drag the footstool closer. I stretch out my legs and nudge her to do the same. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I know that,” she snaps. And then she puts her head in her hands and cries.





8





Alex





Well, this is both terrifying and mortifying.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m not a crier.” It’s true, but pretty difficult to prove with all these tears streaming down my face. I swipe at them hastily. “It’s the hormones.”

Eric makes a small noise of concern then puts an arm around me, pulling me closer, until my unhappy head meets his shoulder.

The pregnancy hormones are wreaking havoc on my fortitude, because nothing has ever felt better to me than Eric’s solid bulk under my cheek. I’ve never been the sort of woman who needs a man to tell her that everything is all right. But my burdens are extra heavy today.

“Tell me why you’re so freaked,” he whispers. “Gunnar will get to the bottom of it.”

“He’s stripping the bed right now, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” he admits.

“A bug in the bedroom. This is such a disaster. And it’s all my fault. Of all the men I could have…” I swallow hard and sit up straight again. “What if Jared won’t sign the papers just to spite me? What if he won’t give me custody?” My anxieties bound around like the white-tailed deer on Martha’s Vineyard.

“Slow down there. Breaking and entering won’t sound good to a judge,” he points out. “The crazier he acts, the worse it will be for him.”

I actually shiver. That’s how terrified I am of Jared. Before now, I’d wondered if I’d just built him up in my mind—if he wasn’t really as big a creep as I’d made him out to be.

And then someone put a bug in my hotel room.

Eric’s strong arm tightens around me. “Deep breaths. I mean that literally. Do you do yoga?”

“Sometimes.” I take a very long inhale. When I can’t possibly bring in any more air, I let it out slowly through my mouth.