Page 13 of Her Prince in Disguise
He set it down on the polished conference room table, then stood back, eyeing the box, then her expectantly.
Andi didn’t want the box. She remembered the box that had been delivered to her office weeks ago. She definitely didn’t want to look inside.
“Thanks, Lawrence,” she said, and even to her own ears, her response sounded strained.
He smiled and slid the box closer to her. “Is it a present from your boyfriend back home?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
Andi’s eyes immediately went to Laith. He froze, one hand on the door handle as he swiveled back to watch. He stood waiting and, for some reason, she sensed an odd tension in his shoulders.
Andi pulled her eyes away from his alert gaze and forced a smile for Lawrence. “I don’t have a boyfriend back home,” she admitted.
Immediately, the tension in the conference room eased and Andi saw a sudden smolder of heat in Laith’s eyes. Quickly, she looked away, but then her eyes landed on the awful box. It wasn’t a big box. Only about fourteen inches square. To someone else, it probably looked innocuous. But Andi had a feeling she knew what was inside. She might not completely understand the activities displayed in the scene within the box, but she knew that the scene was some sort of coded threat. For some reason, Andi was intensely relieved that she was halfway around the world instead of back in Philly where she’d have to think about the disgusting scene in the box while sitting alone in her apartment.
It had been two weeks since the last box had been delivered. With all of the chaos in her life recently, the jobtransition, the challenges of finding errors in massive amounts of data, and getting to know her colleagues, the previous horrific box had been pushed out of her mind.
However, the fact that someone had delivered the box here to her in Singapore increased her fears about the person who had crafted it. How had they known to send something to her here? She wasn’t just in a different country, she was in a different hemisphere!
“How did the box arrive?” Laith asked, moving forward, his hands fisted on his hips.
“Someone from the main office forwards all of our office mail here,” Lawrence explained.
With trembling fingers, Andi touched the box, but she didn’t want to open it.
Instead, she inhaled deeply, then shoved the box to the side. She wasn’t going to look inside. Not this time. What was the point?
“Andi?” Laith’s deep voice prompted.
He waited until she looked up at him. Andi tried to hide the fear in her eyes, but it must have been there anyway.
Without taking his eyes off of her, Laith said, “Lawrence, would you give us some privacy?”
Andi knew she couldn’t let the other man leave. Lawrence was her protection against Laith’s overwhelming masculinity. She’d never been a victim of a man’s potency before now. And she didn’t want to feel it with this man. Especially notwhen she knew he’d have questions about the contents of the box.
But Lawrence was nothing if not efficient. He immediately left the conference room and the noise from the hallway faded away as the glass doors closed behind him.
“What’s in the box, Andi?” Laith demanded, his deep voice soft and soothing.
“Nothing important,” she replied, trying to offer him a smile.
From the expression in Laith’s eyes, she’d failed miserably.
“Is the contents of that box a threat?” he asked, briefly tilting his head towards the package.
Andi glanced at the box, then pushed away from the table, walking over to the window. She crossed her arms over her chest, staring out at the beautiful city.
“Andi?” Laith prompted again.
Andi sighed, rubbing her forehead to alleviate the sudden throbbing there. “I honestly don’t know what is in that box.”
There was a pause, then he said, “But you are afraid of it.”
She turned to face him, her chin out and her eyes defiant. “This isn’t something you need to worry about, Laith,” she said firmly. “Leave it alone.” In case the box did contain another sexual scene, Andi didn’t want Laith to see it.
He glanced down at the label, then back at her. “Except that someone is sending threatening mail through my company’s mail system.” He touched the box with a finger. “Sotechnically, this is company mail.”
Panic washed over her with his words as well as the determined look in his eyes. She stepped forward, mind racing with memories of the last diorama. It had been terrifying and confusing. She didn’t want him to see whatever new horror was in that box.
“Laith, leave it alone.” She glanced at the box, then looked away. “In fact, just throw it away.”
