Against the Dark (12 page)

“Home sweet home,” Cole said, unlocking a door with the number 23 painted on it.

Apparently Borgola’s security guys didn’t get much in the way of accommodations. His room was simple, nothing more than a giant bedroom with a kitchenette nook at one end. A chair and table stood by the window. She was glad to see he had his own bathroom. The place was like a homier-than-normal hotel room. Angel eyed the small couch. One of them would damn well be sleeping there tonight.

He set her suitcase on the bed and grabbed a white card off the floor near the door, scowled at it. “Boss expects us at the pool at three for cocktail hour.”

“Cocktails at three? I can’t be drunk, Cole.”

He turned to her. “Surely you can manage that without insulting our host, can’t you honey?”

She could. She’d often had to pretend to drink in the jewel thief life.

“I want you to make a good impression on the boss,” he said. “I just know he’ll be as crazy about you as I am.”

“That’s convincing,” she said.

Cole sat at his desk by the window, fired up his tablet, and pulled out his phone.

“Anything?”

“Still nothing,” he said.

“I have a contractor meeting in two days,” she said. “And I’m supposed to go out and meet with a seamstress about a client’s curtains.”

“We’ll see.”

“We’ll see?”

“Yeah.” He typed away, fingers flying.

“What? Just like that? Like I’m your pet?”

“Exactly like that.”

Heat invaded her face. “I really do need to meet that seamstress tomorrow.”

“You prefer door number one? Is that what you’re telling me?”

He didn’t even bother to look up, to hear her answer. She walked around, feeling like she was in a cage. Well, she was in a cage, like a songbird, plucked out of its life in the trees. She picked up a martial arts magazine. “Is this all your stuff?”

“Whose else would it be? The mailman’s?” He stood and pulled off his shirt.

Her breath caught as she took in his broad, muscular shoulders. She looked away, back at the magazine, but the image was there now, damn him.

He wasn’t ripped like a bodybuilder, he was just big and strong, the kind of strength that came more from working or fighting. His skin was golden, with a smattering of hair across his chest, but she couldn’t get her mind off that arrow of hair pointing down toward the snaps…that he was now unsnapping—she saw it out the corner of her eye.

“What the hell are you doing?” she said.

“Dressing for dinner. We can’t be late. Put on your bathing suit.”

He unsnapped another snap, then smiled a wicked smile when she shot him another glance. “Do I need to do this in private to keep you from ravishing me?” Again he drew his hand over his belly. “I know how you feel about this, girl.”

Would that joke never get old? No. Not as long as he knew it affected her.

He unsnapped another snap. She couldn’t look away.

“And as you know from our dates, it only gets more impressive from here.”

“You are such a freak.” She spun around and unzipped her suitcase. The suitcase was part of her rare, expensive Sunny Soto luggage set. After she’d given up diamonds she’d gone through a designer phase, splurging on the most beautiful, well-made things she could find, needing to surround herself with beauty. It didn’t work any better than the diamonds.

Just get through this,
she told herself, pulling out her red suit and heels and toiletries. With her eyes perfectly straight ahead, she marched into the bathroom and shut the door. She stripped off her clothes, folded them nicely, and set them on the toilet seat. Then she put on her bathing suit. The suit was a strapless one-piece with a gold metal circle between the breasts. The red heels were madly perfect with it. She fixed up her hair and put on lipstick. Not her lucky lipstick. The lucky lipstick was for the job only.

Then she realized her cover-up was back in her suitcase.

She cursed herself for being so eager to get away from the hotness of a disrobing Cole that she’d forgotten it. She didn’t want to parade out there in her suit like a Miss America contestant, there to be viewed and judged. She’d never liked it when she and her posse used to dress up in slutty outfits for a job, but at least then the sluttiness was a kind of
fuck you
. This was somehow worse, because she wanted him to approve.

Ugh!

Just another job,
she told herself. She took a breath and strolled out like it was nothing.

He looked smart in a black dinner jacket and tie, and his heated gaze made her feel so much in the spotlight that she wanted to run back into the bathroom and slam the door. She forced herself to stay and root through the suitcase for her white woven cover-up. She found it and quickly pulled it over her head.

When she looked again he was checking his phone. She hated herself for wondering what he’d thought of her.

“Why aren’t you in a swimsuit?” she asked.

“Only the bitches swim.”

She exhaled sharply. “Excuse me? Only the bitches?”

He walked toward her, slowly. “That’s how it is with the boss’s pool parties. I’ve guarded enough of them to know. The guys talk business while they watch the bitches swim. But now the difference is that I get to go to one instead of guard one. With you.” She knew what he was doing, getting in character, wanting her to. He stopped in front of her, unbuttoned a button on her cover-up. “You look hot as hell.”

Her mind went again to the scene in the kitchen. He’d made himself sound dominating, relentless, talented...how much of it was based on reality? She buttoned it back up. “Thank you.”

“So modest,” he added.

She pasted on a smile, but she was starting to feel nervous about seeing Borgola again.

“Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” she said, smiling through her nerves.

He looked at her closely, an expression of...what? Concern? “Got sunglasses?”

“Yeah.”

He tipped his head at her suitcase. “Bring ‘em.”

She pulled out the glasses set them on top of her head. “Anything else, commandant?”

“That’s more like it, baby.”

Soon they were walking down the hall. Cole looped a heavy arm around her shoulders as they walked, letting his hand dangle down, not quite touching her breast, but he could if he wanted to. Cole the kiss-up caveman guy. It was kind of amusing that he had persona tics for his character.

They headed through an outdoor patio and into another section of the house, through increasingly lavish rooms into the main part of the house with its airy grandeur that even Borgola and his chintzy naked cherubs and garish art and fakey Italian fountains couldn’t ruin. Some of the main room crown molding was painted gold, or maybe it was even gold leaf, and clouds were painted on the highest ceiling—everything too big, too rich, too made-up. The place was the architectural equivalent of a perfect white rose loaded up with perfume and glitter. She smiled at the thought of White Jenny smashing that vase upstairs. Totally the right idea.

They strolled through an open set of French doors to a large pool room with a glass dome over it. The air was moist and tropical; florals cascaded over every vertical surface, and obscene statues rose up out of a peanut-shaped pool. Borgola sat at a table flanked by two very tan, very blonde women who looked young and stoned.

Borgola smiled his little bow of a smile, raking her body with his oily gaze. Angel bit her lip, feeling queasy. Nobody unnerved her quite like Borgola did.

“Sir,” Cole said.

Borgola rose. “Call me Walter, please. This is a social occasion.” He held out a hand to Angel. She placed her hand in his and he brought it to his mouth, kissing it with just a little tongue, just as he’d done to Macy.

“This is Angel,” Cole said.

“
Enchante
,” Borgola intoned in the French way. Apparently only the hookers got the racial slurs. “And this is Kitty and Kendra,” he said, motioning at the girls, who smiled at Angel. “Ladies, Angel and Cole.”

Tell me when it’s safe to chop off my hand,
Macy had said when Borgola had applied tongue to her hand. Angel bit back a smile, missing her friends more than ever.

Cocktails and shrimp hors d’oerves were brought out. The waiter handed her a glass with red liquid and fruit, and it wasn’t Sangria. It smelled strongly of alcohol.

“Go ahead, make yourself comfortable, stay awhile,” Borgola said, eyeing her cover-up, an obvious command for her to take it off.

She so didn’t want to take it off for him.

It struck her right then how out of control she was in this situation. Borgola was a twisted freak surrounded by loyal and sadistic bodyguards, and she was staying under his roof. Robbing him. And Cole was just one man.

One man who was blackmailing her. Also her enemy.

Cole slapped her ass, breaking her out of her haze. “Go on, cupcake, sit down and make yourself at home.” Purposefully misunderstanding Borgola’s desire, she thought.

She sat, cover-up intact, but not loving the ass slap.

Cole pulled up a seat next to her and slid over the plate of shrimp. “I think you’re going to find that Walter serves the best cuisine for miles around.” He raised his eyebrows at Borgola.

She took a shrimp.

She’d have to take off the wrap for Borgola and swim, eventually. She had no doubt slimy Borgola would scrutinize her and think of sick things.

“So where did the two of you meet?” Kendra asked.

“Savannah coffee shop,” Angel said, watching Cole dip the shrimp in cocktail sauce. “I was dog sitting.”

“With Norman the Irish setter,” Cole said, biting into the shrimp. She thought back to the way he’d moved around her kitchen, the imperious, almost elegant way he spread peanut butter on the rice cake. He’d downgraded his manners for Borgola, too, playing the guy’s guy, careful, perhaps, to not threaten Borgola. Even his posture was different; he sat in a way that made him seem smaller.

Kendra sniffed, “Who names a dog Norman?”

“My neighbor. I know.
Norman
.” She turned again to Cole. “And then we pretty much hung out the rest of that day.”

He crossed his legs, looking smug. “I swept her off her feet. Poor Norman never had a chance.”

“You were great with Norman,” Angel said. “I think Norman enjoyed the male companionship.”

He drew a finger along her shoulder. “Not as much as somebody else did.”

She blushed and sipped her cocktail. It was horribly strong.

Kendra laughed.

Well, if nothing else, they were being convincing, she thought.

“And then we found out we both hate dill and it was all over,” he added.

“You both hate dill?” Kitty asked.

“Yes,” she said, easing into things. “Which is a bummer because everyone cooks with it.”

“Everyone,” Cole echoed. “We might have to start an online petition.”

She squelched a smile. He’d known exactly how to prepare. It was kind of amazing, like they really did have some kind of a relationship.

The five of them small talked a bit more. At one point, Cole picked up her cocktail, sipped it, and put it over on his side. A few minutes later he set his nearly empty one in front of her, and when she tasted it, she found it far less full of alcohol. Cole really was a pro at this.

Giving the women the insanely strong cocktails, though. What a pig. Angel hung back and marveled at how even Borgola’s tone of voice sounded sinister; his words came out too slippery, slightly melodic and lilting, and a pitch higher than what seemed normal for a man. She could easily imagine him doing horrible things while pseudo-calming his victims with that voice, but the voice would upset them instead, and Borgola would like that. The voice gave her a quivery kind of creeps.

Cole had kept his arm around her and played with her hair, and during a moment when Borgola was looking away, he gently lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, nestling them snugly onto her nose. He was giving her a break from having to act her part, as if he’d sensed her growing discomfort.

It helped greatly to have her eyes hidden. A bolt of gratitude shot through her for Cole, her ally and her enemy. Protecting her while he dragged her into danger. Her feelings for him were a confused mass of lust and anger. She put a hand on his arm, smiled. Just playing her part. But also, she just wanted to touch him.

She’d never been forced into prolonged contact with her victims like this, and Macy and White Jenny had always handled any kind of chat. The girls were comfortable with the limelight, whereas she hated it. She hated mirrors most of all, using them only when she had to. The worst was when she unexpectedly caught sight of herself in a mirror or window. Her mood would just plummet.

Beauty goes skin deep. Ugly goes clear to the bone.

She enjoyed helping clients locate and reflect their inner beauty through their environment, but she wasn’t sure it could be done for her. She didn’t feel like she had much to be proud of.

Kendra asked her if she’d seen this season of
The Bachelor,
and Angel wanted to hug her. Yes, she watched
The Bachelor
. It was a relief to focus on Kendra and talk about the show. She could get through this.

“Why don’t you girls take a dip,” Borgola said.

So creepy, the command to take a swim, just when the conversation was getting fun. He wanted to see them wet and to talk to Cole about whatever horrible things guys like that talked about. She turned to Cole.

“I’d enjoy a dip,” she said.

Cole raised an eyebrow, catching the dip reference. It was kind of a crime, how they clicked. But she’d always clicked with the wrong men. She unbuttoned her cover-up, cool as can be, and let it slip onto her chair.

Just another job,
she told herself, ignoring the eyes she felt on her.

There was a net across the pool. A beach ball. Inwardly she groaned. She kicked off her heels, grabbed her cocktail, which had been refilled, and strolled to the pool with the girls. Kendra had more to say about
The Bachelor.
She and Kendra hated the same woman.

They started their way down the pool steps. The water was warm, like a bath. Angel sat on the side; when nobody was looking, she dumped her cocktail into the water, swishing the water with her feet to get rid of the pink blossom it made.