Disturbance: A King's Hart Novel Book 2 (BWWM)

I. Insight

Insight...

Armand Ambrose startled in bed when his blackberry went off on the nightstand. Glancing the time and seeing that it was three in the morning, he sat up and stretched long before checking the caller ID.

Maggie. Her name lit up his screen and had him rubbing at the thumping of his heart.

A small smile of content came over him, and he swiped his hand across the screen to answer. 

"Allo Petite," his voice was a ghost of a thing, but it was three in the morning after all, so she would have to understand. 

"Armand, I'm getting real worried about this boss of ours." Her voice was soft, effectively bringing him back down to reality, and he hung on to her every word. "I swear I wouldn't have called so late if it wasn't important."

"Well what be the problem exactly?"

"It's been a week and he hasn't gotten back to me about this project we're supposed to finish up by the end of the month. He hasn't been into work at all, and the vendors have me about ready to just climb the - -,"

"Go back to sleep angel," Armand interrupted her and he was already on his feet shrugging into a tee shirt.

"But I can't Armand. That's the problem."

He sat at the edge of his bed and balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder as he shoved one trainer on after the other. All he wanted to do was make it better for her. She thought to call him. It had him ready to carry the world if it meant that he could be the one she came running to. 

"I'm gonna go check on him and see if I could get him back to the land of the living," he explained to her, wiping the last bit of sleep out of his eyes. "I think I have an idea about what the problem is."

"I'm coming too," she said and he heard her making small grunts as though she struggled out of her own bed. 

"But Maggs- -," Armand began to protest.

"Don't you dare Cajun. I'm coming and you can't stop me. And I ain't too sure you're enough to get the job done."

The line was silent for a while as Armand smiled down at the floor like a boy who'd been given a new shiny toy. "You got twenty minutes Petite." 

Maggie hung up and Armand clutched the phone tight in his palm.

. . . 

Armand explained it all to Maggie and she sat quietly and took it all in. She wore a short summer dress and sandals and he was distracted by her every movements. He'd been attracted to women before, but Maggie was on a different level than what he was used to. 

She was beautiful, she took charge of things, and she wasn't afraid to tell people what she really thought. 

 "So basically, he spied on her, invaded her privacy and got caught," she surmised shaking her head. "Now he's basically stretched out under the world because she hasn't accepted his reasoning."

She put her hand over her heart and sat up in the car beside him. "Wait. Nuri is such a talented artist. The man can't afford to not have her on his team." She sat back again with an equally ghastly expression on her face. "Do you think she thinks I had anything to do with setting her up?"

Armand shook his head and scratched at his beard. "This woman has basically been living underneath a rock for the better part of this year and here we come busting in on her like a bomb and she was Baghdad." He knew it was wrong to spy on someone like her. Innocents don't deserved to be treated like the real bad people he'd retrieved information on. 

"I wonder if she'll talk to me, maybe I can do some damage control," she said and Armand watched as she diligently went to work on her phone. What she was planning from that small black square of a thing he would not begin to wonder. She was adorable to look at though and he was glad that she was here with him. 

He was sure that walking up to Nathan's apartment was going to be Deja Vu. He was there when things were rocky between him and Emma.

... and the man barely survived that.

The way Nathaniel looked at Nuri, and spoke about her. . . he was obsessed. He was like a man who'd found the right path after getting lost in the wilderness. AND HE ONLY JUST MET HER. He didn't know Nuri, but he prayed that she was nothing like Emma. He prayed that she was the light that would shine on the man who, since he'd met him, had been living in the shadowy darkness. 

Armand shook his head and pulled into the lone parking space. Cutting the engine he looked over at Maggie who had already put her phone away and looked like she was ready to go to war.