Page 7 of Undercover Savior

“Who are you?” I asked, looking into eyes that were so familiar yet I couldn’t place where I’d seen them before.

He sighed, shifted me off his lap, and stood. “I’ll explain later. For now, we need to be on our way.”

When he held out his hand, I considered refusing, but what would I do? I had no idea where I was other than somewhere in Edinburgh. I’d left everything in my car, so I had no means to call someone to pick me up, and even if I was able to contact a car service, I was dressed in little more than a ball gown and heels. Considering the night I’d had, I was disheveled, had beensick to my stomach more than once, and was sure the little makeup I wore was in streaks on my cheeks from crying. Not that I’d done it in front of him.

As soon as he’d left me bound to the chair, a torrent of tears fell from my eyes. The sobs racking my body were silent; I’d always been a quiet crier, even as a baby.

I looked up into the stranger’s eyes and took his outstretched hand. “Will you at least tell me your name?”

“David,” he said, removing the Harris Tweed jacket he wore. “Here, put this on.”

I eased my arms, one of which was already sore, into the sleeves.

“Let’s go. We have a long drive ahead of us.” He led me to the door and out to the lift.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere you’ll be safe.”

“Thank you, David,” I said to the man who… What was he? My savior? Guardian? Protector? There was also a chance he might be my killer, given one man had already met the same fate tonight. Plus, it seemed like he didn’t like me very much.

If I was in danger,I had to admit there was a certain comfort knowing I was being transported in an armored vehicle.

“My colleague is making arrangements for clothing and other incidentals to be delivered to the place where you’ll be staying.”

Clothing and incidentals? Okay. That seemed odd. How did the colleague know what size I wore? And, by the latter, did he mean things like knickers? God, I’d be mortified if that was the case.

“Wait. I need my computer and my mobile.”

David glanced in my direction. “Not possible.”

I shook my head. “I’m serious. I can’t leave it in my car, where anyone might get their hands on it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I presume your work is stored on some kind of cloud-based server, is it not?”

“Not entirely.” Especially not anymore, given the last thing I did before leaving the office was download every last piece of research I’d collected from the servers onto my laptop. I’d also deleted it, not that anyone working for the Crown Herald couldn’t have retrieved it.

I hadn’t spent an hour in this man’s presence, yet I was already familiar with theexasperatedlook he gave me. “Can’t your colleague make arrangements for that to be delivered as well?” I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but given David had said if he did honor my request to return me to my vehicle, I would likely be killed, I thought better of pressing him to do it.

“Well?” I asked when he didn’t respond.

“As I already said, retrieving your computer or your mobile will not be possible.”

“Wait a minute. Whoever you work for already has them, don’t they? They’re scrubbing them for everything they can get their grimy hands on.”

He raised a brow at my disparaging word choice. “Err, present company excluded from the grimy comment.”

He sighed and glanced over at me like I was a speck of lint he’d like to brush off his jacket. “I doubt the people I work for would find anything on them they don’t already know.”

“I can’t just leave it there.”

“‘No’ was never a word you accepted without an argument,” he said under his breath.

“What does that mean? And more, how would you know?”

“It was a supposition.”

“By the way, I have exceptional hearing.”

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