Chapter 16
As soon as she arrived at Blackwood Corp, Ellen told Zoe that Lance was already at the venue finishing up the setup for the ten o’clock meeting and she had to leave now. Archer was in a meeting and would be on his way to the venue soon to test the comms. The first negotiation round was planned at the Wit Hotel, in one of their conference rooms overlooking the city.
Zoe needed to get her bearings and see how the material worked before they started so she went into the lobby where Kai still waited for her. From the moment she left the apartment and hopped into Kai’s waiting car, she had hung onto her cell phone like a lifeline, begging for it to ring and praying it wouldn’t. Kai was trying to be friendly by joking, but quickly realized that she wasn’t very talkative. He often looked at her, but just trying to keep calm was difficult enough.
Her chauffeur didn’t bother with the no-parking signs and escorted her inside the hotel. He looked tall, dark, and dangerous in his suit and tied back hair, so much so that Zoe noticed several women drooling as they passed by.
Once in the elevator, Kai exhaled and turned to her. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”
Zoe looked at her phone for the umpteenth time before realizing he had spoken.
“What?”
His gorgeous face was scowling. “What have you done with Zoe?”
She sounded like a parrot but couldn’t help it. “What?”
“The Zoe I know is funny, flirty, smiley. You are down, depressing, and weird. If your body has been invaded by an alien, blink twice.”
Inevitably, a smile tugged at her lips. “If anyone was inside me, I would know.”
Kai grinned, clapping his hands. “Ah! Now I recognize her! She came back to us. Thanks, aliens! Now, what’s going on?”
She needed to keep her facial expression in check, otherwise everything would backfire on her. Sometimes the most obvious answer could be the solution.
“I’m PMSing. And I started cramping. Satisfied? You want more explanations.”
It was astonishing to see a tough and dangerous man like Kai Jones recoil in horror at the simple mention of her menstrual cycle. But it worked.
“Euh... you need tampons or something?” The idea of making Kai run for hygienic pads was very tempting.
“No, PMS, not my actual period. And I can manage it on my own. I’ll take something for the pain later. But thanks.”
Pure relief etched on his face and she was certain he wouldn’t suggest running an errand like that ever again.
The doors opened, and Kai preceded her, eyes scanning the area. He led her to what seemed like a posh greenhouse. Well, it was more like an amazing living room and conference room with an entire wall made of glass. Stunning, in her opinion. A way to impress a buyer for sure. Never appear like you’re desperate or in need of money. The more dough you have the higher you can sell.
“Where’s the booth?”
Kai gestured for her to follow him, and they went to a door just outside the main venue. In it was a smaller conference room. Lance was sitting at the table, a headset on, looking at three monitors and one laptop. He turned when they all walked in.
“Great timing. Archer Blackwood is on his way. So, here’s the setup, think you can manage?”
“Just having a chair is luxury. I normally never have that much space. Oh! Before I forget.” She fished the flash drive from her bag. “I met that Harker guy yesterday. This is for Gabrielle.”
Lance nodded, pocketing it. “Excellent. Let’s hope we get something useful on that. So, let me explain how it works.”
The man explained where he had placed the microphones throughout the loft as well as the cameras to help her if the men decided to move around the space.
“The best thing to do is open and close the mics according to where they are located. If you open all of them at the same time, there will be reverberations. I’ve categorized them by area and you don’t have to play with each individually. All cameras are up and running, same as the mics, running on a closed circuit with a special device so they’re not detected. Mind the buttons, don’t close them off as it would require the whole system to reboot, taking at least three minutes.”
“Understood.” Zoe checked it out, and as she put on the headset, the door opened to Archer.
All business, he scanned the room and his eyes stopped on her for a brief instant.
“We’ve finished installing the system, sir. It’s on a closed circuit, so it can’t be accessed, discovered, or bugged. All we need to do is test the communication system with you.” Lance presented him with a very small earpiece and told him how to install it. From her standpoint, Zoe didn’t see it, and she was looking hard. “You won’t be able to speak freely, but a couple of basic signs will tell us if something is wrong with the sound, if you need Miss Somersby to repeat something or require either mine or Mr. Jones’ intervention.”
He continued to explain a few signs to him, such as rubbing the back of his neck if the sound was fritzing, touching his tie if he needed Zoe to repeat something and playing with his cufflinks if he needed an intervention of any kind. They also added him touching his lips to confirm he understood a question. No was clenching his fists, yes was unclenching them. Very simple.
