Borden (Borden #1) (12 page)

It was the sudden silence that tore me out of my angry thoughts. Then, footsteps could be heard, growing louder and closer as the seconds passed. I saw the waitress first, slinking feet behind a suited man that had his hands in his pockets as he strode to us. Everything about him screamed strength and confidence and familiarity too. I swallowed hard as my eyes looked up that marvellously hard body and into the solemn face of Borden.

Fuck. Fuck. Would I
ever
escape this man?

He didn’t even acknowledge me as he stopped at the table, his gaze focused on Joel.

“What’s the problem?” he demanded, cutting straight to the point.

Joel’s eyes had widened at the sight of Borden. He was just as surprised as me. We were probably thinking the same thing. Since when did Borden own this restaurant on top of all the other places he had?

“There’s no problem,” I suddenly said, drawing his attention for a quick moment.

“I’m not talking to you, doll,” Borden replied, pointing to Joel. “I’m talking to the doctor here.”

Joel straightened himself and motioned to the waitress and then to his red stained shirt. “There was an incident.”

Borden’s eyes didn’t travel to his shirt. He kept them firmly directed to Joel’s face instead as he gritted out, “Explain.”

“She spilled wine on me, some of it’s on my food, too.”

“So what do you want?”

Joel paused, clearly taken aback by the question. It was fairly obvious what he wanted, but I supposed he hadn’t anticipated actually having to say it. “I’d like some compensation, at least. It was a four hundred dollar shirt, Mr Borden.”

My breath had thinned at the exchange of words. Everything felt tense and unsteady, like we were balancing on a thread and a single snap would send us into peril. Borden was indecipherable, his gaze rock hard in place, while Joel tried his best to appear as assertive and cool as possible. He was failing. I could see the beads of sweat begin to form at his temple, and what was made worse was we had the attention of the entire restaurant. Faces were turned in our direction, silently observing a man pretty much asking Borden to hand him four hundred fucking dollars.

Borden stared at Joel for several moments. Then, he pulled out a wallet from his pocket and opened it. My mouth dropped again in shock as Borden slowly produced one hundred dollar bill after the other, all the while levelling Joel with a stare that reminded me of how intimidating he was at the club and diner. He was scary. Fuck, he could possibly be the scariest man ever to grace my life. So why the fuck did my insides warm at that? Why did fear suddenly feel so arousing?

Joel relaxed in his seat, his mouth perking up just a tad as he watched the four bills leave Borden’s wallet. But Borden didn’t hand the money over. Instead, he tore his eyes from Joel and glanced back at the waitress standing behind him. He motioned her over, and she hesitantly obeyed. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he brought her to his side and slowly shoved the four hundred dollar bills down her top, nestling them into her bra.

“Go,” he then demanded.

With wide eyes, she turned away and hurried to the back of the restaurant. Borden turned back to Joel.

“Now let’s take care of that problem of yours,” he told him.

I nearly jumped as Hawke suddenly emerged from behind Joel. I’d been so consumed in Borden, I hadn’t realized we were surrounded by Borden’s men. Hawke took him by the arm and shoved him up to his feet, forcing him steady. Not a second went by before his suit jacket was violently pulled off and the buttons of Joel’s shirt went flying. It took Hawke seconds before it was completely off of him and thrown languidly on the floor by his feet.

“There,” Borden muttered, tilting his head at the piece of fabric. “No shirt, no problem.”

Joel’s eyes were wide as saucers. “But…she spilled wine on me! This wasn’t my fault!”

“She spilled wine on you and in return you treated her like shit,” Borden snapped back, his nostrils flaring. “She’s my employee, an asset to my business, and you walked all over that asset. Therefore, you walked all over
me
.”

Joel’s face reddened as he stood there for several moments, in nothing but his suit pants and undershirt on. He caught the look of all the diners around us, and that face grew redder.

“Joel,” I whispered to him urgently, leaning over the table, “just apologize.”

“Apologize?” he repeated in shock. “I didn’t
do
anything! This man’s the lunatic!”

I winced and shut my eyes. Dear God, what the hell had he done? Was he looking for a death wish?

“Lunatic?” Borden repeated carefully.

Joel didn’t reply. I could see it was beginning to dawn on him just how much he had fucked up. He glanced around the men again, this time looking more scared by the minute.

“I’m a lunatic, is that what you’re saying?” Borden asked, those eyes burning holes through the man.

“We should go now,” I told Joel just then.

“I agree,” Borden cut in coolly. “Here, let me help you.”

He went to him and abruptly grabbed Joel by the shirt, shoving him back against the table. Our glasses tipped and spilled over our food. Even though Joel was near Borden’s height, he didn’t have his mass. Fear shone in Joel’s face, and I knew there would be no way to get out of this without Borden getting his way.

“A man dines in
my
restaurant, eats
my
food, insults
my
waitress, and has the audacity to call me a lunatic,” Borden stated loudly to everyone at their tables.

I stood up, helplessly watching the situation unfold in stunned silence. Everyone was staring in awe as Borden then dragged him to the entrance of the restaurant gripping the back of his neck. I snapped out of my trance and raced after them, stumbling a bit in my heels along the way.

By the time they were outside, Borden threw Joel effortlessly onto the pavement. He landed with a big thud on his side, grunting in pain as his flesh scraped against the sidewalk. But instead of leaving him, Borden approached him again.

“Stop,” I yelled hysterically. “No more! We’re going!”

Borden ignored me and threw his suit jacket off. He began rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt, staring gravely at Joel. “You call me a lunatic and I’ll show you what a lunatic is,” he said, raising his voice no further than usual.

He bent down, grabbed Joel and stood him back on his feet. The doctor was too dazed to know what was going on.

“Call me a lunatic again. Go on.”

Joel shook his head pleadingly. “I didn’t mean –”

Borden interrupted him with a punch across the face. Blood flowed freely out of Joel’s nose as he fell back.

“Call me a lunatic again,” he repeated through clenched teeth, standing over his mangled body, looking deceptively calm. “Go on.”

He went to grab at him again, and all at once my anger swept me out of my stiff stance. I ran to him and grabbed his shoulder, screaming into his ear.

“Just leave him alone. Let go of him!” I screamed, looking up at the passerbys as they slowed. “Someone, stop him! Help!”

Nobody would help.

Without caring who he was, I frantically grabbed at his arm and stood between him and Joel. Borden went to move past me, but I forced myself in his way, pleading for him to stop.

Joel’s face was a bloody mess after just one punch and Borden would be going for another blow. I couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Leave him alone,” I told him, and without thinking, I grabbed his face with both my hands, trying to turn it to me.

“Look at me!” I said angrily, moving my face so that I was only a few inches away from his. He’d have no choice but to look at me now.

Borden’s blue eyes flickered for a moment to mine, then to Joel on the ground, and then to mine again.

“Look at me. Borden.”

He was clearly not expecting this. His wild eyes looked over my face for a long moment and he shook his head a bit, as if he was being roused from a dream.

“Look at me.”

His face relaxed a little.

“Leave him alone,” I said, maintaining full eye contact so that he wouldn’t fly off the handle again. “Leave him alone, Borden. He was an asshole, I know. He was being horrible and the waitress didn’t deserve that, but it’s done now. Just leave him alone. Hell, let’s talk about it. Just you and me. We’ll sort it out. I-I can talk for him and we’ll sort it out but just… don’t hurt him. Okay? You’ve done enough.”

He didn’t move for what felt like an eternity. His gaze travelled to my mouth, lingering there for several seconds. Abruptly, he turned away from Joel and I brought my hands down now that I had his full attention. His eyes never strayed from mine and it took everything in me not to look away. He was so fucking intimidating, it was unnatural. If I’d had a shred of rationality left, I’d have been shaking in my heels.

I startled when his hand rose up to my face. I suppressed a shiver and felt his fingers briefly moving along my jawline and over my bottom lip. That puzzled expression from before on his face. Then he dropped his hand down.

“Be at my table in five minutes,” he told me.

He turned away from me and casually picked up his suit jacket from off the ground. He headed back into the restaurant without so much a glance in my direction, his body relaxed and unaffected. I looked around and saw at least a few dozen people crowding the pavement around us, gawking at me with bewildered expressions. Yeah, they were probably wondering the same thing I was: what the fuck was that all about?

Turning back to Joel, I gingerly went down to my knees and used parts of my dress to wipe his face clean. A basket of napkins from the restaurant was placed beside us. I looked up at another waitress who appeared deeply disturbed by the bloody mess.

“Thank you,” I said, faintly.

“I can call an ambulance if you want,” she offered.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I asked Joel. “Can you hear me? Should I take you to the emergency room?”

“No,” Joel managed out, barely opening his eyes. “Home. Take me home.”

Before I could respond, shadows fell over us. I looked up at two men – one of them Hawke – and watched as they bent down and grabbed Joel off the ground.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Put him down!”

“We’ll be taking care of him from here on out,” Hawke snapped. “You get inside.”

“Will he be okay?”

They didn’t answer. I watched as they lifted him up on his feet and steered him away. Joel’s head was down in defeat, his body limp and barely moving.

“You really need to go,” the waitress told me solemnly. “Mr. Borden doesn’t like to wait.”

She returned to the restaurant and I just shook my head at myself. What happened to my quiet uninterrupted life? I felt like it was a different reality ago.

I turned my attention back to the entrance of the restaurant where a lunatic was waiting for me inside.

Joel’s creepy prison conversation suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

Emma

I felt absolute dread as the waitress from outside led me to his table in a discreet area on the second level. I was made to wait a short distance away from where Borden was already seated. He was looking casually down at his cell phone as he chatted with a man across the table from him. He seemed so unaffected. Did he not care that he just punched a man and made a huge scene?

I understood that Joel probably deserved to be treated like shit for what he did, but to be stripped of his shirt and punched for it? That was too much. A simple, “get the fuck out of my restaurant” would have sufficed.

The man Borden was dining with seemed to be doing most of the talking, and Borden responded in short sentences that I could barely hear.

“This would benefit you very much, Mr Borden,” he adamantly said.

“I disagree.”

“You would make a lot of money.”

“I already have money.”

“You can never have enough.”

“I disagree.”

“Well then what can I do to convince you to invest?”

“If I haven’t been convinced by now, it’s unlikely you can do anything.”

After several minutes, the man then stood up, throwing his napkin on the table out of frustration and left. Not even seconds passed before a waitress came around and quickly cleared up the table, and it was then she motioned me over.

The eyes of almost every person in the room were latched onto me on my way to his table. Borden, who hadn’t looked once at the man he dined with just minutes prior, suddenly looked up at me, and every head in our vicinity turned away in a blink of an eye. Just like the diner, his power was thick in the air. I felt this ominous feeling of helplessness as I grew nearer to him.

I tried my best not to tremble when I took a seat.

“Your food’s being re-cooked,” he stated, all casual-like.

“I’m not hungry,” I replied calmly, now avoiding his eyes. I kept mine pinned on the napkin on the table in front of me.

I heard him shift around in his chair. “You barely ate your food. You’re poor. You’re thin. You’re obviously hungry.”

“After your outdoor display, that’s sort of the last thing I am.”

“My outdoor display wasn’t as atrocious as it could have been had you not stopped me.”

I glimpsed at him, sharply replying, “Joel didn’t deserve to be punched like that, Mr Borden.”

“He disrespected my employee and called me a lunatic in
my
restaurant within earshot of my diners. Nobody gets away with that. I have a reputation to maintain, Emma. If I let little things like that pass, it’ll create a snowball effect. Shit gets ugly fast. That’s just the way it works, doll.”

“Besides,” he added, with a flicker of disgust on his face, “that doctor has quite a few alarming secrets. Fetishes that are… difficult to swallow, to put it mildly. You should be thanking me for ridding you of a weirdo. Wouldn’t want to find your shoes on the side of a highway anytime soon, right?”

While that was disturbing, after my talk with Joel I wasn’t all that surprised.

“How do you know that?” I wondered aloud, studying him closely.

He paused. “Because I wanted to know that.”

My brows came together in thought. “But did you already know? Or…” Or did you find out I was going to go to fucking dinner with the guy and had him checked out?

He seemed to understand my question, and he chose to respond with a small smirk that could have meant a million different things.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself, looking away and back to the napkin that didn’t glare or intimidate or, more importantly, entice me.

Silence filled the space between us for a few minutes. I kept thinking about how much I wanted to get out of here and be home. I would never be on this side of town again. Hell, I doubted I’d leave my unit for the next six months besides going to work.

A fresh plate of my order was placed in front of me, freshly cooked and smelling divine. I snuck another glance at Borden and then quickly down at my plate. He was staring hard at me, studying me with a kind of depth I’d never been subject to. It wasn’t anything like Joel’s creepy stare either.

No, it was more.

There was also something in his hands, and another little glimpse showed it was the same plain zippo lighter he’d been toying with before. He circled it in his hands, and I wondered if he smoked. I certainly didn’t smell it on him when he kissed me… and ugh, why did I have to think about that all over again? Imagining that moment when I was near him made me uncomfortable and red. It also made me paranoid enough to think he knew I was thinking it.

“I wonder the odds of us being in the same restaurant after what happened,” he finally remarked. “Seems a little strange to me.”

It
was
strange, but now I looked at him suspiciously.

“Where else am I going to find you next?” he asked. “The place I have breakfast? At my work? I’d rather you tell me now to avoid future surprises.”

I raised a brow in my confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I wonder if you’re something other than a waitress. What do you say to that?”

Oh, hell. He thought I was a cop? “I’d say you’re very paranoid.
Again
.”

He shifted again in his seat, and a small chuckle sounded out of his throat. I couldn’t help another glimpse in his direction. His ocean blue eyes were still fixed on me, and he looked amused, and that amusement made him look deceptively friendly.

He had remarkable genes in the looks department. It was such a shame he was a psycho. I had to remind myself of that over and over again. I wondered what happened to that man in those old photos of him. What changed him into this scary guy in front of me now?

I shook my head, trying to stifle my irritation. “If I was some cop, by the way, why the hell would I be a waitress working on the other side of town in a shop you don’t even own? Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

“I’ve seen it before. Sexy women approach me all the time, carrying a wire, trying to get me to talk–”

“Do you want to search me? I’m wearing nothing but this pathetically small dress of which I can assure you has no empty space to accommodate a wire.”

“Are you giving me permission?”

I willed myself to look at him sternly now. It was important he knew I took offense to this pathetic paranoia of his. But when I saw the wicked gleam in his eyes and the smirk at the corners of his mouth, I was nothing short of infuriated.

He was toying with me.

Of course I wasn’t a cop.

Of course I wasn’t carrying a wire and following him around.

He wasn’t just scary now, he was also a complete asshole.

“Is there a particular reason you wanted me at your table, Mr Borden, or am I just your entertainment for this evening?” I asked curtly.

He leaned forward, his large frame taking up my entire vision as his large hands clasped together. His face was halfway over the table and he drank me in with that stare as if he’d been deprived of the sight of me.

In a low voice, he huskily said, “If you were my entertainment for tonight, you’d be limping out of here – and it wouldn’t be from the kind of beating you’re thinking of.”

My breath thinned at his statement said in such a blasé way, and my cheeks heated, and not out of flattery, but out of shock! While a tiny, itty bitty, unnoticed and uncaring part of me wondered what these activities consisted of exactly, I focused on my outrage.

I leaned forward too, enjoying the adrenaline from the anger he’d incited in me. Quietly, I retorted, “I would never be a willing participant in what you find entertaining, Mr Borden.”

His smirk intensified as he eyed my lips. “We’ll see, Miss Warne.”

Was that a challenge?

“No we won’t,” I bit back. “We agreed to part ways, remember?”

“I remember everything we agreed to, doll.”

“Nothing changes, right?”

He tilted his head to the side, scanning my face as if he was trying to figure something out. I was too busy trying to control the nerves from turning me into a walking earthquake. I’d already dug my nails way too deep into my skin fisting them beneath the table to stop from shaking.

“You’ve always been hard, haven’t you?” he asked, out of nowhere. “From a kid ‘til now, you’ve got thick skin. I like that about you. Makes you worth having around.”

I blinked in surprise. “If it’s brought me back to your table, I don’t see how that’s a good thing.”

He chuckled again. “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Just going to threaten me?”

“Why would I threaten you when you’re so good at slapping me for it? That was certainly a first for me, Miss Warne.”

I fought the smile on my face and looked away, gripping the napkin now. I wanted to take that opportunity and ask him why he kissed me for doing it, but then that would mean acknowledging I kissed the cocky asshole in the first place.

He had a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“You’re intimidating.”

“Certainly doesn’t stop you from talking back at me.”

“That’s just years of being defiant.”

“I like your defiance,” he said even lower, that sex voice returning.

Enough to turn you on?
I wanted to ask.

“You also like power, don’t you, Mr Borden? And being in control.”

He shrugged, absentmindedly. “I don’t like it at all, actually.”

I pinched my brows together. What did he mean by that?

“What you just did to Joel,” I started, searching his face for any kind of emotion, “you didn’t like doing it? Is that what you’re saying?”

His eyes settled back to mine, and completely disregarding my question he said, “Why didn’t you talk to the police officer?”

Where was he going with this?

“Because,” I muttered.

“Because what?”

“Because…” I paused, already getting the gist of what he was saying. “I was scared.”

“And now that you know I don’t harm women, will you be running off to one?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m… still frightened of you.”

He nodded. “Right. Once that fear gets under your skin and settles inside your bones, it’s not something you can switch off overnight. You learned the fear from rumours spread throughout the city, but you experienced it the night you found my men thrashing a man that owed me money around. I own you now.”

My jaw dropped and I looked perplexedly at him. “You
own
me?”

“Yes. It’s how I control everyone. It’s the reason I’m at the top. You’ll do whatever I say because of your fear.”

“And is that what’s happening? Are you going to make me do something I don’t want to do?” Fuck, did he want my body? This could be why he was doing all of this, I realized.

He frowned, irritated. “I don’t fuck women forcefully, if that’s what you’re referring to. I don’t need to, either. I have enough throwing themselves at me, and a body is just a body at the end of the day. Sorry to disappoint.”

My shoulders slumped in relief, but I still glared at his egotistical remark. “I’m not disappointed, Mr Borden.”

“Of course you are. After your display in your boss’s office, I’m inclined to think you’d do anything for more.”

“I’m not the one that kissed you first, Mr Borden.”

“But you certainly didn’t stop it either, did you?” Another smirk.

I seethed. “I had no choice, and I certainly didn’t want it.”

“Don’t lie. A part of you is curious about me, alley cat. A part of you wants to know.”

“Know what?”

“What it’s like to be fucked by me. Because if one kiss feels that good, imagine the rest. I’m still surprised by how fast you melted into me, like butter. Sweet, melted butter. Fucking tasty, if I’m being honest.”

Jesus, he was good.

He was killing me.

My whole body heated in embarrassment. It took everything in me to mutter out unconvincingly, “I’m not curious to know what you’re like at all, and I think you’ve read a little too much into it.”

That was a lie.

A blatant fucking lie, and he knew it too. I felt like an open book. It was impossible for him to know how many hours I’d wasted the past few nights looking him up, reading through those rumours, staring at pictures of him and those lips, trying to figure out the mystery that was Marcus Borden. Yet here, right now, it was like he knew it all.

And did he? I suddenly worried how he might have gotten this information, or if he was simply capable of reading me meticulously.

One second I’d been too scared to make eye contact with him, and now I couldn’t turn away from those blue irises if I tried. He drank me in with a captivating look, one that was trying to scratch beneath the surface of my being. Why was my mind and body suddenly roaring with both indifference and interest for the man? It was so easy to rationalize how insane he was when I was alone, but here, with him so close to me, he was so magnetizing. I felt lured in, probably like all the helpless women before me, vulnerable and ready to explore him.