“Fine. I’ll be right there,” she sighed.
He waited, looking around impatiently at the perfectly maintained lawn and fairly new black Mercedes sitting in her drive. He’d not paid any attention to what she drove at the restaurant and wasn’t sure what he had expected but having thought she was just a low-paid admin, it wasn’t a Mercedes. He noted that there wasn’t a speck of dirt on it and no water around it. She must have run it through the wash on the way home. His attention turned back toward the door as he heard the clicking of locks and she opened it.
“Come in,” she said, not sounding very thrilled at all to see him.
“I won’t beat around the bush, as I know you’re not exactly overcome with joy to have me here right now.”
“Correct.”
“Okay. Can we at least sit down?”
“Sure.”
Dane followed her to the living room. He couldn’t help noting that it was much more modern than his parents’ house, but not as cold as his penthouse. Instead, it was a perfect blend of style and comfort. It suited the person he now knew her to be or thought her to be anyway. She sat in a chair and motioned for him to have a seat on the overstuffed suede sofa.
“You did a hit piece on Parquo, and then he was found dead, attacked by wild animals. What do you know about that?”
“I did an expose, not a hit piece. I went into his organization in good faith, prepared to do just another promotional-style piece on what I thought was a legit business. I discovered some things during my investigation that panned out, and so, my story changed. Everything I printed was true.”
“I don’t doubt that. What I’m after is what happened to him after that. You must have exposed some of his associates as well, though no other names are revealed in your article.”
“You read it?”
“Yes.”
“Was Parquo a business associate of yours?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Either he was or he wasn’t.”
“I do business with some companies that represent other people. So, if I was ever working with him, it was indirect and without my knowledge.”
“Then what is your interest in him?”
Dane looked at her for a moment, finding her even more attractive now that he knew her to be a successful journalist instead of just someone content to work at a desk day in and day out. He realized that she was doing most of the questioning right now, but he supposed he’d have to let her if he was going to get answers. She wasn’t exactly the type to just tell him what he wanted to know without questioning his motives.
“Those men that came to visit me, they want my construction business. They are willing to go to extremes to get it. I outbid them when I bought it at auction, and they aren’t happy about it.”
“Why not just sell it to them for a profit and call it a day?”
“I could, but I think they have reasons for wanting it that I wouldn’t approve of, and I’m not just going to roll over and let them take something I built up from nothing.”
“It’s not like you need it, Mr. Jensen. I’ve done my homework on you too since I left your place. You’re worth billions. That construction company is just a drop in the ocean for you. You have enough money to just start a new construction company. You can do whatever you want, like paying whoever gave you my address so you could come here and ask me a bunch of questions.”
“Yeah. All that is true, and I did pay someone to find you for me, but this concerns both of us. It’s not just me those men seemed to have a problem with when they came to my house. They knew who you were too.”
“What?”
“They knew your name. They knew about your article on Parquo. That’s why I played along with them when they called you a bitch. I wanted them to think you meant nothing to me in case they got any ideas that they might get to me through you. You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
She was quiet, but her eyes never left his. He could see she was trying to absorb all of this—trying to decide if she bought into it and whether she wanted to answer any more questions or tell him to leave.
“Okay. What do you want to know?” she finally asked.CHAPTER FIFTEENAdriana
Three days had passed since Dane visited her at her house and told her about the men after his construction company, and she had told him how Parquo really died. She knew she was taking a huge leap of faith in revealing that fact to someone outside of Transformation, but she found that she trusted him on a level that was very unusual for her. Instead, she had joined him in trying to figure out the missing piece, if there was one, that tied the two things together.