Page 38 of Rise of the Queen

“What? You’re beautiful in the mornings,” I said as she was silently giving me a hard time for staring at her.

She gave me her heart-stopping smile as she held my face in both her hands. She leaned in and kissed me sweetly. “I love you, you know.”

The few meetings I had went by quickly. I was looking forward to the meeting with Neal at the end of the day. I was anxious to get Armando and Ricardo off the building project so it could continue to move forward. I didn’t need either one of them to make the project happen. I brought Armando on as a courtesy. At the time, I still believed he was loyal to me and was going to reward him for it. Once I found out his loyalty was in question, I had them start the process of removing him from the project.

That process was going to be finalized today. Neal was bringing the paperwork to the office for me to look over and sign. What Sephie didn’t realize yet was that I replaced Armando with her on the project. I had discussed it with Neal first, as he was a close business associate that I’d been partnering with for years. He was very happy with that idea. “She’s got morebusiness sense in her little finger than Armando does in his entire body. I’ve never met someone so successful and yet so dumb in my entire life. I don’t understand how he’s stayed in business this long. But she’s just getting started,” Neal had said when I brought it up to him. “If we bring her on for no other reason than her marketing and persuasion skills, it’ll be worth it.” He laughed. “She has a unique way with words.”

Neal didn’t know why I wanted Armando and Ricardo off the project, but he also knew well enough to not ask. He did an excellent job of keeping the legal businesses and the illegal ones separate. He’d made a significant amount of money with me over the years, so he never said a word about the darker side of my business dealings. Even still, he seemed relieved to not be working with Armando any longer.

He walked into my office promptly at 4:00 pm. We ran through the paperwork, discussing a few changes. “There are no traces of Armando or Ricardo on any of the documents for this project any longer. Sephie is also now a partner on the project, as you requested. I just need her signature on the few places that are marked in red. Once that’s complete, it’ll be official. We’re breaking ground on the first of next month. We’ve still got a few contractors to find and hire, but there’s time to do so before they’re needed,” Neal said.

“I have a guy. He does great work. He’s only got a small crew though, but he’s very dependable. I’ll send you his information. You won’t be disappointed if you use him,” I said.

Neal nodded. “That’ll save me a huge amount of time trying to find someone else.”

We were discussing a few more random details on the project, when Sephie walked into the office, followed by Ivan and Andrei. Neal stood to greet her, extending his hand to her. “Sephie, it’s good to see you again. How have you been?”

“Hi, Neal. I’m good. You?” she said, taking his hand.

“I’m good. I need your signature while you’re here. Then we can get this paperwork filed and official by the end of the day today. That’ll make me very happy,” he said.

Sephie looked at me, surprised. “Um, why do you need my signature on anything?”

Neal looked to me, just as surprised as Sephie. He wasn’t aware that I hadn’t told her yet. I smirked at him. “You’re replacing Armando and Ricardo on the building project,” I said, enjoying the look on her face.

“Um, why am I replacing them? I don’t know anything about business!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Sephie. You know more than you give yourself credit for. You’re the reason we have all the restaurant space leased out before we’ve even broken ground on the project. I’m pretty sure if we put you in charge of the marketing for the office space and apartments, those numbers would also jump to 100 percent,” Neal said.

“But …” she was too stunned to be able to argue. She was cute when she was speechless. I just smiled, holding a pen up for her as Neal flipped through the paperwork finding the places she needed to sign.

“No buts. Just sign,” I said, winking at her.

She narrowed her eyes at me, but walked over and took the pen from me. Neal pointed out each section she needed to sign. They were done in a matter of minutes and the paperwork was finally official. My plan to completely erase Armando from history was one step closer to completion.

After Neal left, I turned to Sephie, who was still mostly in shock. I just pulled her in my lap. I knew I’d made the right decision. She would figure it out eventually, once she got overher surprise. It was also a guarantee that she’d come to more of my meetings. I wasn’t mad at that.

“Did you see Mr. Turner?” I asked, brushing a stray curl from her face.

She nodded, still chewing on her bottom lip. She glanced at Ivan and Andrei, then looked back at me. “You know he knows just about every influential person in the city, because they all eventually come to the hotel for business. He overhears everything too. He’s also said it never fails to surprise him how freely people will talk in front of him, like he’s not even there. We used to joke about it when I was still working at the restaurant,” she said.

“Who did he overhear this time?” I asked, my hand rubbing her back lightly.

“He said the mayor was at the hotel a week or two ago. He was talking about replacing the police commissioner, Henry, as he left the hotel. If he gets re-elected, of course. Then, he said that Henry was at the hotel with a few other police chiefs a few days after the mayor and they were talking about how to prove the mayor is in Sal’s pocket. He said a few of the police chiefs were sure they had enough evidence to prove the mayor was dirty. But then he said two of those police chiefs were back at the hotel, with the mayor, like three days after that. He didn’t hear anything that time, but he said it looked very suspicious, given what everyone was talking about the first two times,” she said.

I looked to Ivan. “Does he know the police chiefs?”

He nodded his head. “He said he can’t remember one of their names, but he recognized him. He gave me the name of the other one.”

Andrei added, “He’s also nervous. I’ve never seen him nervous before, so I might’ve snooped. One of the police chiefs who met with the mayor saw him walking into the building one afternoon.He was walking down the street. Mr. Turner was sure he recognized him and he watched him walk in. He thinks he’s been followed a few times since.”

“You still have guys on him, correct?” I asked Ivan.

He nodded his head. “He still doesn’t know. I was going to talk to Viktor and add more in the morning. It’s possible he’s noticing our guys following him now because he’s nervous. Once we see what the extra guys can find, we’ll know if he’s really being followed or if he just now noticed our guys on him.”

“You’ve had him followed this whole time?” Sephie asked.

I chuckled. “I assigned guys to him when he moved here, just in case. We had him watched after you left your apartment, but I assigned a regular team to him once he moved here.”