Chapter
Twenty-Two

Mia’s nightmares kept getting worse. First there was Chase’s dead body. There was even more blood than she remembered. And then the next thing she knew, she was having a hard time breathing. With each belabored breath, the world became darker.

She awoke with a start. For a brief moment, relief washed over her that she was awake, but that feeling quickly subsided. Her room was pitch black, and she started to cough. She realized the bedroom was filled with thick smoke. Dear Lord, help me.

It wasn’t a nightmare. This was real life. Her house was on fire. She threw the covers back, and smoke burned her eyes and lungs as she tried to take in air. She had to get out of there now, or she’d suffocate from the smoke.

She didn’t know where the fire had started and whether she’d be running into the flames. Figuring she was as good as dead if she stayed in her bedroom, she ran out of her room and toward the stairs. Smoke filled the air from below, but the flames were definitely worse on the second floor.

Rushing down the stairs as fast as her wobbly legs could take her, she ran toward the front door and unlocked the dead bolt. She pulled the door, but it didn’t budge. What in the world? More smoke from upstairs wafted down the steps. She turned and saw flames starting to envelop the top of the staircase.

She tried the door again, pulling with all of her might, but nothing happened. Something wasn’t right. The door should open. Had someone locked her in her house? There could only be a sinister explanation for that, and her mind went to the worst scenario. But she could analyze the situation later. First she had to make it out of there alive.

Running as fast as she could, she tried her porch door, but the handle was broken off—deliberately. It wasn’t like that when she’d gone to sleep.

Her survival instincts were kicking in. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed the heaviest pot she had. Coughing, she tried not to take big breaths because of the smoke and forced herself not to hyperventilate. Time was running out on her.

With all of her strength, she hurled the pot through the living room window, smashing it open, sending glass flying everywhere. She was barefoot and knew her feet would get cut, but that was better than dying. Lord, I need you. She grimaced as the glass cut into the bottoms of her feet, and then she dove out the window, landing in one of the bushes with a thud. She knew she couldn’t just lie there. She had to get farther away from the fire.

When her lungs filled with cool, fresh air, a burst of energy shot through her, and she pushed herself to get up and move across the street. She stumbled into a neighbor’s yard. She heard voices around her, and the blaring of fire trucks filled the air. She couldn’t hold on any longer, knowing she was safely away from the fire, and she lay down in her neighbor’s yard and closed her eyes.

“Where’s Mia?” Noah asked Cooper.

“She’s in the den with Sophie,” Cooper responded.

Noah had gotten a frantic call from Cooper and hightailed it over to his house. “What do we know?”

“They’re investigating, but it looks like the fire might have been set deliberately.”

“How is she doing?”

“Shaken up pretty badly.” Cooper’s eyes told him how serious the situation was.

“And her house?”

“It’s not good. It might be a total loss,” Cooper said quietly.

“This has gotten completely out of control,” Noah said. He wanted to rush to Mia’s side, but he needed to talk this through with Cooper first.

“What’re you thinking?” Cooper asked.

“That we’ve got to track down Liam Morrow. I think he was behind this. Now that Howard is dead, the only risk he faces is that Mia will testify against him in Chase’s murder.”

“Landon and I will put all our resources behind it.”

“We made the wrong move when we took everything at face value. Nothing is as it seems, and we have to start operating like that. Morrow is the most likely suspect here, and this time he was trying to finish the job. I’m going to take Mia to my place. From here on out, it’s around-the-clock security detail until we get this sorted out.”

Cooper nodded. “How do you think Mia’s going to take that?”

“She needs a place to stay. It makes sense, as I can keep her safe.” Or at least that was what he was going to convince her of.

“I’ll call Landon, debrief him, and we’ll get on it.” Cooper paused. “I’m not crazy, right? Your protection of Mia goes beyond work, doesn’t it?”

“Far beyond.”

Cooper nodded. “Let me make that call.”

Noah went to the den. When he saw Mia seated on the sofa with Sophie’s arm wrapped around her, his heart broke. The woman’s life had been threatened and her home virtually destroyed.

Sophie made eye contact with him. “Mia, I’m going to make some tea. I’ll be back in a bit.” She excused herself.

“Noah.” Mia jumped up from the couch and threw her arms around him. He held her just as tightly.

He pulled back for a second and pushed the hair out of her face, looking deeply into her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“By the grace of God.” She looked down. “I can’t even describe what happened. Not just yet.”

“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” He continued holding her, not wanting to let go.

“I thought I might die.” She shook in his arms. And that only made him more motivated to put a stop to this.

“Mia, I failed you, but I won’t let that happen again.”

“I don’t even have a place to live.” Her voice wobbled.

“You’re going to stay at my place. I’ve got plenty of extra room, and that way I can provide around-the-clock protection. You’re not going to be alone again. Not until this mess is over.”

“Will it ever be over?”

“Yes,” he answered definitively. And he believed that. “Please, sit.”

They sat next to each other on the couch, and he put his arm around her. He was being openly affectionate with her, and that was the only thing that felt good about the current situation. He couldn’t even imagine the pain and trauma she was going through right now. All he knew was that the house was on fire, and somehow she had made it out. But beyond that, details were sketchy, and she’d already said she didn’t want to talk about it right now. He would have to wait for her to open up. In the meantime, though, he planned to talk to someone at the fire department to get more information.

“I assume you also talked to the police?” He hated to ask but felt it was necessary.

“Yes. They’re focused on Morrow, but the trail is cold. The working theory is that he was able to disarm my alarm system and set the fire from the inside. But he also bolted my front door shut from the outside so I couldn’t get out and broke the handle off my porch door.”

Noah sucked in a breath.

“Yes, my thought exactly.” She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

Morrow was going in for the kill.

“Are you ready to come with me to my place?” Noah asked, needing to get her somewhere safe as soon as possible. “Do you want to stay here longer with Sophie?”

“I’ll come with you. She’s had to deal with me for the past few hours, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I came as soon as I heard.”

“I don’t even have my phone. Nothing. I’ve got nothing.” Tears filled her eyes. “Sophie is giving me a bag of toiletries, and I’m borrowing some of her clothes. Although she doesn’t have much that fits me, given she’s a little bit of nothing.”

“Just let me know what you need, and I’ll make it happen.”

“Oh, Noah,” she said softly. She looked up into his eyes.

He so badly wanted to pull her to him and kiss her, but he didn’t want their first kiss to be like this. “I’m not going to let anything else happen to you, Mia.”

Owen had just gotten off the phone with Noah. He couldn’t believe what he’d been told. Someone had tried to burn Mia’s house down with her in it. He had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. If Morrow was the culprit, he was probably trying to cover his own hide.

How could Owen have been so blind about Howard? How didn’t he see the signs? His thoughts went back to Lew and his erratic behavior. While they didn’t have any evidence tying him to this, something made Owen go back through the past few weeks and question whether Lew could have had some role in this mess. At the same time playing Owen like a fiddle.

Lew and Howard went back many years, and Owen started to jump to the worst conclusions. But why would Lew sabotage his own company? The company he was running? That was what Owen struggled with the most. The motivation just didn’t seem clear, but he also didn’t have a good explanation for Lew’s strange behavior. The drinking, the hot temper, the emotional outbursts.

Owen was in a predicament because, at the end of the day, he was LCI’s attorney—not Lew’s personal attorney or the attorney of any single executive. His job and ethical responsibility was to protect the company, not the men or women who worked there.

He waited patiently for Lew to come to his office. He wanted to be the one to tell him about Mia and see if he could read any physical cues.

When Lew walked in a few minutes later, his face was red. “You said it was urgent,” he said as he took a seat.

The whiff of alcohol on Lew’s breath was undeniable. It was only three in the afternoon. Lew had absolutely no reason to be drinking at that time of day. Owen wondered if Lew had been sitting in his office, throwing them back. That was a bad sign for how this conversation might go.

“It is urgent. Someone burned Mia’s house down, and she barely escaped with her life.”

Lew’s red face suddenly lost its color. “They’re coming after all of us, aren’t they?”

“What do you mean?”

Lew gripped the arms of his chair. “I could’ve sworn that someone followed me home from the office last night. They were watching me.”

This was worse than Owen could have imagined. Lew was acting paranoid, maybe even delusional. “Lew, let’s focus on the threat to Mia right now. One step at a time.”

Lew nodded. “What do we know?”

“Not much. The police and fire department are investigating, but I’m told by Noah that they’re pretty certain it was arson—along with attempted murder. They think it was a man named Liam Morrow, but he’s nowhere to be found.”

“What are you not telling me, Owen? You have an awful poker face. There’s something else going on. I need you to spit it out.”

First Owen needed to address the elephant in the room. “You’ve been drinking, Lew. It’s a bit early for that. And in the office?”

Lew scoffed. “This has been a very stressful time for me. You can’t fault me for having an afternoon cocktail. Not after everything I’ve been through. There’s a lot riding on my shoulders. Ultimately, as the CEO, I’m the one held to account. No one else.”

“I just want to make sure there’s not something else going on that I need to know about.” Owen was going to push. He had to.

“Like what?”

“Some type of guilt?”

Lew’s eyes grew wide. “You can’t seriously think that I have anything to do with this mess. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m the CEO!”

“Believe me, I’ve thought the same thing, but none of this makes any sense, Lew. I’m just as frustrated as you are.” Owen stared Lew down, hoping that he would break if he had something to hide. But the man sitting in front of him right now didn’t seem guilty—just disturbed, like he was battling some personal demons. But Owen found it difficult to believe Lew was working with Howard. Unless he was missing something big—no, something huge—he felt like Lew was innocent.

“Do you believe me? You have to believe me. I would never sell out my company, my people. Thousands of people’s jobs depend on the economic viability of this company. That burden is on my shoulders. You wonder why I’m having a drink after lunch? It’s because of that pressure. If this entire thing implodes on us and LCI goes under, I’ll have to try to sleep at night knowing that I failed all of those people and their families. They depend on their jobs to sustain their lives. That is my chief concern.”

The empathy Lew was showing seemed completely sincere to Owen. “I do believe you, Lew,” he said softly. “But if you and I are innocent, then let’s just make sure this thing stopped with Howard’s death.”

Later that night, Mia curled up on Noah’s couch beside him. She didn’t want to be the clingy type, but she was scared to death. The thought of closing her eyes and being enveloped in smoke and flames was just too much. But with his strong arms around her, she felt safe. She never thought she’d feel safe around a man—just the opposite. It was one of the reasons she preferred to be alone.

But pretty much everything was different with Noah. He treated her with a respect and kindness that she’d never experienced before. Chase had been good to her, but it was always more like a big brother, joking and giving her a hard time. There was never a thread of romance there. Noah was a completely different story.

The guys she had dated in the past had all let her down. They’d start out seemingly okay, but then their selfishness always came through. Noah didn’t have a selfish bone in his body.

“I can almost hear you thinking,” Noah said quietly.

“Maybe because I was thinking of you.”

He lifted her chin. “Hopefully good?”

“Absolutely. Going through all of this has been horrendous, but having you beside me has really opened my eyes.” She had to be careful. It was far too soon to express everything she felt to him, but at the same time, she couldn’t completely hold back.

“Whatever it is you’re feeling right now, Mia, I guarantee I feel the same way.”

She heard herself sigh as he placed his hand on her cheek. He leaned closer, their lips almost touching, looking into each other’s eyes. Was this what it meant to love someone? They lingered there for what seemed like an eternity, the looks they exchanged saying more than their words ever could. A silent understanding passed between them.

When his lips finally touched hers, she wasn’t apprehensive. There was no doubt in her mind that Noah was the guy for her. The warmth of his lips on hers made her stomach do cartwheels. The kiss deepened and then softened again.

He finally pulled back. “You’re smiling.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

He grinned. “Nothing makes me happier than to see you smile.”

She snuggled up next to him, and for that moment she didn’t think about all the danger she faced. She just wanted to be with the man who had stolen her heart.

When Noah’s phone buzzed, she was annoyed at the intrusion into their private moment. But given the circumstances, she knew he had to answer.

“I’m sorry, I should get this,” he told her.

She nodded.

“Hello,” he said.

She listened to the one side of the conversation, unable to make out what was going on.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She waited for him to end the call. “What’s going on?”

Noah looked at her. “That was an APD detective. They found Liam Morrow early this afternoon.”

“That’s good news. Are they questioning him?” Finally, maybe they’d get definitive answers. Or at the very least, he could now be put on trial for Chase’s murder.

“Yes, but he’s lawyered up and isn’t saying a word. But the good news is that he can’t hurt you anymore.”