Borden (Borden #1) (11 page)

I was about to close the computer when I stopped midway. Curiosity got the better of me. Despite burying the thoughts, I stupidly decided to feed them with more.

I felt guilty typing in Marcus Borden’s name. I didn’t even have to write New Raven in the search engine to find he was in the top search results. There were a lot of photos of him and he looked exactly like today’s confrontation: stern, uninviting and emotionless. Even long before he made his fortune, he looked like a street thug; there were leaked photos of him in his early twenties, some without his shirt on. Intricate tattoos covered his once lean upper body, crawling up each arm. He was almost unrecognizable if it weren’t for those piercing eyes. Bastard cleaned up well, though the tatted look wasn’t off putting.

In every social event like a party or New Raven’s charity balls, there was never a woman by his side, but he was dressed to impress, looking sharp and clean in his grey or light blue suits. I bit my lip, picturing the former photos of him merged into these, knowing damn well that beneath these suits was a tatted up body.
And a beast.

There were tons of articles on him too. Of his court cases and accusations against him; all shortly after he’d returned to New Raven mysteriously rich. This was the time he first purchased his club and began venturing out, and mouths ran wild at the level of money he was dropping. I heard the rumours. People said he’d been a troubled youth, in and out of jail, heavy into drugs and in debt with drug lords around our parts, and that he’d lived in a rough neighbourhood for some time.

The main focus of most articles centred on an old love of his who was found murdered and floating in the New Raven River. It was interesting because nobody accused Borden of committing the horrible crime, but rather sparking a long chain of criminal activity afterwards. They said it was revenge that the two main murder suspects (who happened to be brothers) were found dead, their bodies almost burnt to a crisp a short distance from the river. But they could never surface the evidence that it was him who committed the crime. He had an alibi whenever he needed one. He had the knowledge and powerful league of lawyers when he needed them. He was, like everyone said, untouchable.

I spent a long time suddenly questioning my boldness today.

And kissing such a vile man.

And getting horny by it too.

Ughhhhhhhhhh.

My stomach churned in guilt. Granny would kill me if she knew.

After I finished, I cleared the history in case Granny was technologically savvy enough to see what I looked up; that woman never surprised me. Then I headed out the door and walked three blocks to the nearest bus stop, my hand in my pocket, gripping tight my blade.

When I got home that night, I looked him up again.

And again.

And…(sigh) again.

Emma

The rest of the week was uneventful. Though I had Blythe and Tessa breathing down my neck about Borden’s visit, I remained tight lipped and unwilling to open up. Eventually they gave up, but they were pissy about it. Blythe was more concerned about me being in deep shit, but I assured her it wasn’t like that. Even though it totally was.
Goddammit.

Friday rolled around and Granny had passed on the news to meet Joel at the New Raven Square in the north of town. It was no wonder either, of course a doctor like him could afford to live around there. He said he would be in front of the Bistro Bay restaurant, a very upmarket posh place I’d never been to before for obvious reasons.

I wasn’t looking forward to it. I sort of just wanted it done and over with because there was no way I was interested in being in a relationship. Especially when the last week I’d guiltily obsessed about Borden, part of me hoping he’d return to the diner to finish off that kiss.

But yeah, none of that happened.

I struggled finding something to wear. My finest outfit was the black strapless dress I’d worn at the club the weekend before. That might have been too revealing for a first date. I found a casual cap sleeve red dress with a long v neck. It definitely gave me curves in all the right places, which was a difficult thing to achieve lately when I dined on barely anything at all and nothing in my wardrobe hugged my figure the way it used to.

I straightened my black hair. Without the loose curls, it reached almost elbow length. It was a bit plain looking against my colourless face. I couldn’t afford a decent hair cut so I needed a distraction. I settled with red lipstick. It was bold but I hoped it worked.

It was just starting to get dark when I reached the New Raven Square. There were shops, restaurants, clubs and gardens all along this strip. I didn’t come down here too often. Everything was way out of my price range. I was definitely pressed for time, and it was made worse when I couldn’t find the place. There were many people roaming the streets, all fashionably dressed in groups or as couples headed in all different directions. Smiling faces everywhere. I felt out of place, like I was a wannabe in a sea of privileged people.

By the time I found the restaurant, I was late, out of breath and my feet were uncomfortable due to wearing high heels made from Satan’s asshole. I spotted Joel immediately, standing out front with his back against the wall, staring down at his watch with a frown on his face.

I hoped I didn’t fuck this up already by being late.

“Hi,” I said as I approached him carefully.

He glanced up at me and immediately his eyes roamed me up and down for a short moment, like he was checking out the product.

His mouth formed a wide smile. “Emma, right?”

I nodded, surprised by his high pitched voice that wasn’t all too manly.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.

Relaxed, he pushed off the wall and moved to me. He wasn’t huge, or anything, but he was tall and very fortunate looking (which helped overlook the voice thing). He moved in for a hug, surprising me with a soft kiss on the cheek. Whoa, that was fast.

“I’m glad you made it,” he told me softly. “I was worried you wouldn’t. We’re running a bit late because of your tardiness. Let’s go in, shall we?”

I blinked in surprise at his tardiness remark. “Sure,” I muttered.

“You look beautiful, by the way.”

I forced a smile. “Thank you.”

He lightly rested his hand on my lower back (of which I squirmed away from at least a dozen times) and led me inside the large two story stone structure. In no time, we were escorted to our table by a gorgeous hostess. The entire way there, I gawked at the place. It was so big and bright, the tables and chairs plush and luxurious. I’d never dined in a place so richly set up before. There were tall glass windows that put my diner to shame, crystal chandeliers dangling overhead, and a long winding staircase to the second floor dining area.

We made little chat at the table as the waitress dressed in a green, body hugging uniform gave us our menus. She was immaculate looking, without a hair out of place, just like all the others. Whoever hired them was very picky, I decided.

“Did you make these reservations a while ago?” I then asked, opening up the menu. “I can’t imagine a place like this making a booking unless it was way in advance.”

“Actually, I paid for the privilege,” he responded. “I put myself on the waiting list in case of cancellations. There was one three days ago and I paid a little extra for it.”

Oh jeez, talk about impressing a woman.

“I’m not sure I want to know how much you would have had to pay then. Judging by the price of these meals too, I’m a little speechless.”

“Relax,” he soothingly said on a wink that made it to both eyes. “You pick whatever grabs you, Emma. I’m more than happy to spend a fortune if it means being around someone as beautiful as you.”

I should have blushed but…no, I didn’t. Truth was, I was wary. How many men had tried to smooth talk me before, and how many of them did it with a single mission to get in between my legs?

We waited a while for our meals, and I tried my hardest to stare dreamily into the eyes of the man that clearly had the ability to sweep a woman off her feet, but I didn’t feel anything inside of me. No butterflies, no warmth, no curiosity. Instead, it was that stretch of awkward silence you sometimes get trapped in, like when you make a mistake by opening the door to a religious person, or a salesman, and you have no choice but to endure ten minutes of awkward chatting and you pretend to give a shit before finding an excuse to escape into your house and cringe like a motherfucker.

Yeah, it was like that.

When our meals finally did arrive, I tried to suppress my desire to hump the table and binge my face off at the seafood special I’d ordered. Holy fuck, I hadn’t had oysters in over a year, or scallops in even longer than that! This was a meal I had to savour every smell and taste of because at this rate, going out to dinner with Joel was going to be a one-time thing.

“Your grandmother was telling me you were studying business at one point,” he then said, working his way into a conversation.

I nodded. “I settled for my bookkeeping diploma in the end. Took me two years because of the expenses. Having an education is beyond expensive nowadays. And there aren’t many jobs around here anymore, so I’m currently stuck at my waitressing job, which is actually great.”

“New Raven has certainly picked up. I think it’ll be a while before the jobs start catching up to the people. You know, I could see you working someplace like this. Think of the tips.”

I almost laughed. “Oh yeah? I think I live too far at the moment. But it would be pretty cool.”

More silence.

His eyes were pinned to my face, and it was a little disconcerting to be stared at so blatantly. Yet, despite this, I felt like there was another pair of eyes on me. I glanced around the restaurant, convinced I was being overly paranoid to think those eyes belonged to a man I was admittedly spending my time online reading about.

Too much time.

Like, too much
.

“So how was my grandmother anyhow?” I asked, focusing back to Joel. “I hope she didn’t force this on you.”

He laughed lightly and shook his head. “No, she didn’t force it on me. She showed me a photo of you and I couldn’t say no. I’ll admit she’s a very intense woman, isn’t she?”

“Intense would be one of the defining qualities of my grandmother,” I agreed, chuckling.

We spoke for a while longer. He told me he’d applied for two jobs, one as a prison doctor and the other at the clinic Granny went to. Of course, he got the latter job, which he wasn’t entirely satisfied with.

“The New Raven Prison is pretty infamous for its violent prisoners, so I wouldn’t be too upset about missing out on that,” I consoled him.

He shrugged. “Yeah, but the experience would have been great. You know, you can drive right up to it if you wanted to. Middle of nowhere, that place. Did you hear about the man that escaped there once four years ago?”

“No. I didn’t realize there was a successful escape.”

“Well, it wasn’t successful,” he heartily explained. “They found him ten kilometres out. He died of dehydration, and the only reason they found him was because of all the crows circling overhead. They’d eaten almost all of him up and could only identify him with a few body parts, like fingers and such.”

I shuddered in disgust. “That… sucks for him.”

“I should take you there one day.”

Wryly, I raised a brow. “A tour around a prison?”

“It’s very fortified and impressive if you’re into the architectural side of things. I’ve been there five times and it never gets old. I especially like to drive around the area the man was found. There’s something very eerie and alluring about being around a place you know someone’s died in. Like being one with nature.”

Um.

Well… this was a weird thing to talk about, and it was a little creepy how excited he was about it. My non-attraction levels took an even bigger nose dive, especially when I spotted the twinkle in his eye about visiting it. Things had been going kind of bearably well too. Now I was dining with a doctor that had a weird prison fetish and sounded like he’d inhaled ten helium balloons. Could those eyes shine any brighter?

A waitress appeared once more, asking how we were doing. Joel requested another refill of his wine and she left. I stared down at my food, hoping he’d find something else to talk about.

“There are others who’ve died at the prison, too,” he carried on, squandering my hopes. “Some in the cells, but they don’t allow visitors inside there, unfortunately.”

What the fuck? “Shame.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

I ran a hand through my hair and glanced around the restaurant again, feeling glummer by the minute. There would be no salvaging this. I was going to die a spinster with cobwebs feasting on my vagina, I just knew it.

Then the waitress returned and leaned over the table to fill his glass. I didn’t catch it properly from the corner of my eye, but I heard a gasp escape out of her, and by the time I looked, the wine glass had already tipped from near the edge of the table and spilled over Joel’s clothes. He hissed, as though he’d been burned by boiling water, and immediately backed his chair up.

“Are you fucking serious?” he growled out, abruptly jumping to his feet, dabbing at the wine on his dress shirt with his hands.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry,” the waitress apologized, looking horrified as she immediately set the bottle down and grabbed at his napkin. “I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry? That’s what you have to say? How fucking hard is it to pour a glass of wine, woman? Do you have two left feet? This is ridiculous!”

When she neared him to help him dry it off, he snarled at her and snatched the napkin from her hand. Once again, he overlooked her apologies and went on with his tirade.

“Do you know how expensive this shirt is? Or these pants? Have you the faintest fucking clue? I’m not made of money!”

The waitress shrunk back, her slender frame shuddering at his sudden rage. I was bewildered for a moment, glancing between them with a deer in the headlights look before I eventually shook it off.

“It’s fine,” I immediately told her with a soft look before glaring back at Joel. “It was a mistake, Joel –”

“I understand it was a mistake,” he interrupted sharply, practically spitting out the words as he dried himself off with that angry look on his face. “But it was an expensive mistake. I want to speak to the owner, right now. Or a manager. Or
somebody
that’s in charge of you.”

The waitress hesitated. “He won’t… he won’t like it if I bother him.”

Joel gave her an icy look. “I don’t care if
he
won’t like it.
I’m
the customer.
I’m
the one paying for this meal. It’s not my problem if you’re bothering him. Just get him.”

She turned away and hurried out of view, leaving me shocked by this man’s absurd overreaction. He took his seat, cursing quietly under his breath as he threw the napkin down on the table.

“I’m not being unreasonable,” he told me, catching my irritation. “But everything in life costs money, Emma. She shouldn’t get away with something like this all because she made a mistake.”

I raised a brow. “What are you expecting to happen right now?”

“I expect to be compensated. I expect not to have to pay for this meal, either. I expect she’ll be dealt with accordingly.”

“And how do you think she should be dealt with?”

“I’d fire her if she were my employee.”

My mouth dropped but I refrained from using colourful language. Truth was, I was outraged, probably more so than him, and it wasn’t about the damn wine spilling on his fucking stupid, ugly suit, either. It was knowing what it was like to be on the receiving end of bastards like him. I’d had a few run-ins with shitty customers trying to make me feel little and pathetic, but this… this was just despicable. I was tempted to shove my plate aside and leave Dr Obsessed-With-Death behind, but I didn’t want the waitress fired, and I’d vouch for her if I had to when the owner arrived.