bout, don’t you? You and my little sister, going at it… Let me tell you, you two sure went really hard at it. I’m surprised that a man of God would have so much stamina."
"You fucking --"
"Oh, aside from fucking my little sister, now you’re also cursing? You’re a basket full of surprises," he laughs, the sound of his voice feeling like nails being dragged across chalkboard. "Well, I’ve got the footage," he continues, taking an USB pen out from his breast pocket. I take one step toward him, ready to crush my fist against his head, but he just throws the pen toward me. Moving fast, I raise my hand and grab it mid-air. "You can keep that one… I have copies."
"You’re a shame to your family, Earl…"
"Well, I wasn’t the one fucking Clarise inside a church. I’d say that’s shameful," he laughs, his eyes immediately going toward the orchid that Clarise gifted me on my first day at the estate. "Nice flower, did my sister gave it to you?"
"What do you want, Earl?" I ask him, but then I can’t resist adding a few more words. "Start talking, and start doing it fast."
"What do I want? Now you’re asking the right kind of questions, Connor…" he continues, the tone in his voice pissing me off more and more with each passing second. Swear to God, I’m seconds away from grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and throwing him out the window. "Well, it’s pretty simple; you either start playing ball or else I’m going to expose your dirty little secret."
"What do you want?" I ask him, my patience already growing low.
"So impatient, man," he laughs, reaching inside his jacket at the same time. "If you were more patient with my sister, maybe you wouldn’t be in this situation," he continues, taking an envelope out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He pushes it into my hands and I just stare at him for a second.
"What’s this?"
"That’s a bit of information on your assignment."
"My assignment?" I ask him, arching one eyebrow in disbelief.
"Yeah, Connor, your assignment. Now you work for me. You’re my little bitch," he whispers, his words brimming with threats. "What I want you to do is to get my father to invest in that company." He nods at the envelope in my hands, and I start opening it.
"Red Lion Aviation? What the hell’s this?" I ask him, reading the red lettering on top of the document. It seems to be a small summary of the operations of a mid-sized airline based out of Indonesia.
"Can’t you read? It’s an airline. And I want you to get my father to invest in it, $2 billion." His grin widens into something sickly as he tells me the value he intends to invest, and I look at him with disbelief.
"$2 billion? Are you out of your mind? That’s a lot of risk for a piece-of-shit company like this," I growl, throwing the envelope and the document into his face. They hit him in the chest and then float down to his feet.
"I don’t care what you think, asshole," he growls back at me, closing the distance between us and pressing his index finger against my chest. "You’ll do what I say, or else I’ll ruin you… and Clarise." With that, he narrows his eyes and takes one step back. Giving me one final grin, he finally marches out of my house, slamming the door behind him.
Fuck.
28
Clarise
I don’t understand.
After everything that happened between the two of us, after the words we exchanged the last time we were together, Connor simply vanished. He doesn’t return my calls, and he’s nowhere to be found. It’s been one day after our little confession, and I haven’t seen him since.
Oh, God, what if Earl has done something stupid…? Something I even don’t dare think about?
I’ve been to his house and to the chapel, but he wasn’t there. Then, I enlisted one of our private drivers and he took me to the mega-church; he wasn’t there either. Nor was he in the Donovan Tower.
So where the hell can he be?
Right now, sitting in the back of the limo, I can’t help but feel that something nefarious has just happened. Connor wouldn’t disappear like that, especially when he knows that my father might need him. But what if…? What if Connor ran away from me? Maybe he simply couldn’t endure the pressure of being with me and serving as my father’s adviser. But no, that doesn’t make any sense. Connor isn’t the kind of man to pack up and leave.
Maybe I’m acting crazy. I mean, it’s only been a day … maybe he’s busy with something else? But with what?
Then, it dawns on me.
"Take me to the cemetery," I tell my driver through the intercom, certain that Connor has to be there. Where else would a man like him turn in a moment of turmoil? If he isn’t in the church or in the chapel, he must've gone to the cemetery.
I spend the next fifteen minutes in a kind of desperate anxiety and, by the time the limo stops in front of the cemetery, I almost jump out of the car while it’s still moving.