Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (31 page)

But in real life there is often more than one door.

If I hadn’t called my accountant that morning, or if I had called him five minutes later when I was already in the one-way traffic system and it was impossible to turn around and go back, I would never have come across that door. But I did call him, just before I reached the point where the traffic system would have made the door disappear.

‘Hey, Dom,’ he says briskly.

‘What time is your appointment with the parasites today?’

‘They’re already at the restaurant. I’m driving there right now, but I’ll probably be another twenty minutes. I hope they don’t start talking to the staff or snooping around.’ He sounds apprehensive.

‘Where are you meeting them?’ I ask.

‘Lady Marmalade.’  

‘I’m less than five minutes away. I’ll go and keep the fuckers company while they wait for you,’ I offer.

‘No!’ he shouts suddenly, so loudly it makes my eardrum vibrate like a tuning fork.

‘What the fuck, Nigel!’ I swear, tearing the phone away from my ear.

He calms down double quick. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. But please, whatever you do, don’t go there.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s just better.’

‘You think I’m scared of those pug-ugly inspectors?’

‘No, no, no, I don’t think that at all. I’d just really appreciate it if you didn’t confront them.’

‘I’m not going to confront them. I’ll just pass by and offer them a cappuccino.’

I hear him take a deep breath. ‘Dom. In my professional capacity I have to advise you not to make contact with them. They’re dangerous. Anything you say could lead them to deepen their investigation. I know how to handle them. You don’t.’

‘Look. I’m already turning in to the restaurant. Tell me their names. I’ll be the perfect host, I promise.’

I hear him sigh dramatically. ‘It’s Mr. Robert Hunter and Miss Ella Savage.’

‘A woman?’ I ask surprised as I switch off the ignition, open the door and step into the light summer rain.

‘You don’t want to underestimate her. Savage by name and savage by nature,’ Nigel cautions immediately. ‘She’s like the Snow Queen. Beautiful and ruthless. You definitely don’t want to hit on her.’

I laugh. Nigel always amuses me. I own strip clubs full of beautiful, willing women with hardly any clothes on. I’m hardly desperate enough or foolish enough to try to chat up the tax officer who has come to break my balls. Although, I kinda like the idea of taking a snooty cow down a peg or two. ‘Don’t mistake me for Shane,’ I tell him. My younger brother Shane is the playboy of the family. 

‘Look, all I’m saying is don’t rock the boat in any way,’ he urges in frustration.

The back door of the restaurant is open, and some of my staff are lounging around smoking cigarettes under the canopy. ‘Morning, boss,’ they greet cheerfully, and I raise a finger in acknowledgment.

‘Hang on, Nigel,’ I say into the receiver and turn toward my boys. ‘Are the tax officers inside?’

They nod. ‘Yes, boss. Maria has already offered them coffee. They looked a bit pissed off that there was no management here to meet them. The bloke’s gone to the toilet—he’s been in there for the last five minutes—and the woman’s waiting in the restaurant.’

I thank them and step into the washing up area of the restaurant. The dishwashers are running and it is noisy. I wait until I get to the kitchen area before I put the phone back to my ear.

‘Right, Nigel, I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.’

‘I’d really prefer it if you did not meet them, Dom,’ he says, barely able to mask his anxiety.

‘I know. You said.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t antagonize them,’ he pleads.

‘I won’t.’

‘Right. Just remember: the less said, the better. Don’t let her manipulate you into revealing anything.’

‘There’s nothing to reveal, Nigel,’ I say and kill the connection.

I nod at my chef, Sebastiano. He’s standing over a hunk of meat laid out on the stainless steel table. In his right hand he’s holding a knife, and with his left hand he’s stroking the meat as if it’s alive to locate the juiciest, most tender part so it can be precisely carved out and presented as tonight’s Chef’s Special. Cutting meat properly is a skill as old as hunting itself.

I walk past the fridges and the tables with the heating lamps suspended over them before reaching the swing door to the restaurant. Before I go in I stop and look through the round glass hole in the door. The restaurant is mostly in darkness. Only one section is lit. My eyes fall on the woman sitting under the light. At that moment she lifts her head from a file she is studying and I see her face. 

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

I jerk away from the glass in shock and disbelief and lean against the cold tiles of the wall. Air is no longer reaching my lungs. My heart feels constricted, as if steel hands have reached inside my body and are squeezing it like a lump of fucking dough. I gasp for breath. How can fate be so fucking cruel to play such a trick on me? Why?

Something deep inside me starts screaming.

And suddenly, I’m not standing outside the door to my restaurant anymore. I’m in freezing, black water. All around me is pitch-dark. My legs are still kicking, but feebly. Far away in the distance I can see the headlights of the boat. Jake is coming.

I want to scream, but I can’t.

My skin feels too fucking tight. Like the animal in the cage that chews at its own bloody tail in horror at its loss. In my peripheral vision, Sebastiano is holding the knife at the perfect angle as he slices into the muscle and fiber. That meat is dead. It will not feel the sharp steel cutting into it. I too am dead. I will not feel the pain.

Ah, it’s that fucking door again. But I can walk away, and nothing in my life will change. I can remain dead.

I take a deep breath. I can still walk away. I should walk away.

But I don’t.

I open the door and enter the restaurant.

And Ella Savage turns her head and stares coldly at me.

TWO

T
he first sensation I have at the sight of him is one of pure disquiet. Like stroking a cat against the lie of its fur. Something perfectly silky and smooth has become ruffled. It neither feels nor looks right. 

My brain processes what my eyes see in disjointed bits.

Tall, broad, flat stomach, narrow hips. Serious swagger. Fit, but not gym fit: combat fit. A fighter. The long, prowling strides with which he is eating the distance between us gives the impression of coiled tension. A slowly stalking animal about to spring on its prey.

As he moves out of the gloom, his face catches the light.

His hair is damp from the rain and longer than in the photographs I found on the net. It curls around the collar of his leather jacket. And his face is ruggedly beautiful with the kind of tense jaw and five o’clock shadow that must leave delicious burns on a woman’s inner thighs. Whoa! Where the hell did that come from? I suck in a harsh breath. A word I hardly ever use pops into my mind: rideable.

Not a good word, Ella.

Not a good word.

Oozing aggression and male strut, he comes to a stop in front of the table I’m sitting at and stares down at me. The sheer height and breadth of him is so overpowering, it actually makes me feel oddly shaky.
What the hell is Rob still doing in the toilet?
My skin tingles. Masking my unease, I return the angry alpha’s stare coolly.

The light is directly above him so I cannot be certain of the color of his eyes, but they are light, and as fierce and intense as an eagle’s. His chin tilts a fraction higher, and I see the gleam of his irises between his hooded lids.

They are blue: hot blue.

As if the sun had shone onto the ocean’s surface and made it sparkle with reflected light. The unblinking orbs work their way over my face, lingering on my mouth, then sliding down my neck, and coming to rest on my breasts. I take a shocked lungful of air at the blatant arrogance.

His lips twist cynically at the rise and fall of my chest.

Even though I’m wearing my customary cotton shirt and a buttoned-up jacket, and only the suggestion of the shape underneath is on show, I flush deeply. His eyes sweep upward back to my scarlet face.

‘Miss Savage, I presume,’ he intones. His voice is deep and sexy. It feels like something warm melting down my back.

I straighten my spine and try to look unaffected. ‘And you are?’

‘Let’s not play games, Miss Savage. You know exactly who I am.’

‘I’m not playing games,’ I reply calmly. ‘I’m trained not to make assumptions.’

He doesn’t smile. ‘Except one?’ His voice is acid.

I raise a coldly disdainful eyebrow. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You operate under the assumption that there is always an underlying intention to cheat.’

‘If I’m involved there usually is.’

The shockingly blue eyes flash with temper, but his voice is tightly controlled. ‘If you’re implying what I think you are, Miss Savage …’

I let the corners of my lips twitch upwards in a deliberately fake smile. ‘If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear, Mr. Eden.’

‘I wasn’t aware I had anything to fear. I thought you were investigating the restaurant. I’m just an employee of the company that owns this restaurant.’

‘Just an employee?’ I repeat disbelievingly.

‘Just an employee,’ he insists softly.

I look at him steadily. ‘In that case, you are not qualified to give me the information I require. Where is Mr. Broadstreet? This meeting is supposed to be with him.’

‘Nigel has been delayed. Trust me when I say I
am
qualified to give you the information you require,’ he informs, and begins to remove his leather jacket.

Underneath the blue shirt—
Is that silk? He definitely didn’t get that off a store rack. It screams custom
—all kinds of eye-wateringly lovely muscles are rippling up and down his torso and upper arms. I watch him fit the jacket over the back of a chair and start rolling up his shirtsleeve. His forearm is brown, thick, and populated by silky, dark hairs.

My heart skips a beat; then begins to race. There is something incredibly erotic about being alone in an empty restaurant while a full-on, hundred percent certified alpha strips down under a pool of golden light. I catch my wandering thoughts and concentrate on the gold watch on his wrist. Of course, a Rolex. Just an employee, huh? A dishonest, lying, cheating dirtbag, more like.

He slides into the chair opposite me, and suddenly he is too damn close, the smell of his cologne punching me in the middle of my chest. The moment becomes charged. Somehow strangely filled with … oh fuck … sexual tension! Last thing in the world I need.
Where the bloody hell is Rob?

Feeling flustered and awkward, I drop my gaze to the file in front of me. I’m a tough cookie. I’m here to do a job. I’m here on behalf of the Queen and country.

Resisting the impulse to turn around and look for him and so betray my intense discomfort, I take a deep breath and meet Dominic Eden full on, at close quarters.

And Oh! My! God!

The sexiest man in the entire fucking world is staring straight at me with
hunger
in his eyes. My mouth falls open. His eyes zero in on my lips. The air around us becomes electrified.

Whoa! What the …!

I want this man to fuck me raw right here on this table in the middle of this darkened restaurant. The sensation vibrates down my spine and ends in a dull ache between my legs.
The intensity of my desire for him shocks me. Doing this job, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to hide, and even deny my sexuality, but it has always been there, lying in wait. Waiting for the right man to awaken it.

Knowing that doesn’t make my reaction or my unprofessional behavior any less embarrassing. I have to pull myself together. Dominic Eden cannot know how affected I am by him. Taking a deep breath I raise my eyes and look into his. It’s like a zebra trying to outstare a lion.

From the shadows comes the sound of a door opening. Someone is approaching us. I swallow hard unable to pull my eyes away from his, but before whoever it is can come up to our table, Dominic Eden breaks our stare, lifts his hand and holds his thumb and forefinger in the way that you would do if you wanted to show someone the measurement of an inch. I have been investigating restaurants long enough to know that the gesture means espresso, short.

The waitress goes away silently.

I cough. ‘Er ... When do you expect Mr. Broadstreet to join us?’

‘Fifteen minutes or thereabouts,’ he murmurs and nonchalantly leans forward. I can’t help it I flinch back as if avoiding a bullet, my hands grasping the edge of the table, and my heart galloping madly.

At that moment the waitress comes back. I look up at her, grateful for the distraction. On her tray is not a small espresso but a small liquor glass of some colorless liquid. Neat alcohol for breakfast? Wow!

She puts the glass on the table and immediately slinks back into the dim of the unlit restaurant. He leans back, completely relaxed, his forearms resting on the table. His eyes never leaving me, he reaches for the glass and downs the liquid in one swallow. He places the glass back on the table and smiles, the smile of a shark.