Rebel Love (Kings of Corruption Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  Locke stopped in front of the magazines, picked up the latest issue of SNOWBOARDER magazine and started flipping through it. There was no real point to his being here, but this was part of his process: case the place, get a feel for the vibe, check out the staff, the layout. It didn’t matter that those things would be irrelevant when he went after Malcolm Glover. Leaving them out felt like an omission.

  Like bad luck.

  It had nothing to do with the fact that Elle’s bookstore was across the street.

  Nothing at all.

  He put the magazine back on the shelf and made his way down the aisle. He hated this fucking place, but as long as he was here, he might as well pick up a few things. Then he’d make his way back to his house on the cliff above the sea. Back to the water and sky and the memories of the one woman he couldn’t forget.

  3

  Elle waited in the lobby of the executive office, the decor surprisingly plush given the generic nature of the store. She was surprised she’d gotten this far, and her stomach twisted at the thought of the confrontation that lay ahead.

  She’d assumed she would be turned away at the outset. That someone would make excuses for Malcolm Glover, claim he was in meetings or had already left. Instead she’d given her name, said she was from the bookstore across the street, and had been promptly escorted to the back of the store by an employee whose name tag identified him as the Store Manager. The manager — a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a paunch that overflowed the store’s regulation chinos — had unlocked a steel door at the back of the store and deposited her in a wood-paneled waiting room.

  Now she fidgeted on the waiting room chair, her eyes catching the gold sandals she’d chosen to wear with the Moroccan print dress that flowed around her knees. She should have planned better. Should have worn something more professional. How did she expect someone like Malcolm Glover, someone who ate competitors for breakfast, to take her seriously? She felt like a child posing as a grown-up, wearing her mother’s clothes.

  “Eleanor Matheson?” She looked up to find a smartly dressed young man in a suit staring at her from the doorway. “You can come with me,” he said.

  She got up, followed him down a carpeted hall past several closed doors and an open one that seemed to be the conference room. They stopped at a set of wood-paneled double doors at the end of the hall. Her escort knocked.

  “Come in.” The voice was deep and authoritative.

  The young man opened the door, stepped across the threshold, and stood to the side so she could enter. She hesitated, then walked into a huge office lined with rich mahogany paneling. Several pieces of fine art hung on the walls, each illuminated by a tiny brass light. The wood floor was covered with a massive, intricately patterned carpet.

  “Please, come in.”

  She followed the voice to the man standing behind a massive desk, its clean lines a perfect foil to the more traditional furnishings scattered around the room.

  Malcolm Glover was tall and slender, his expensive suit tailored to fit his lanky frame. She placed him in his late-forties, his dark hair just starting to gray around the temples, the lines around his eyes making him look dignified rather than old.

  She walked toward the desk and extended her hand. “I’m Eleanor Matheson. I own Matheson and Matheson, the bookstore across the street.”

  There was no warmth in his smile as he shook her hand, his eyes traveling appraisingly over her body. A few seconds later he nodded at the young man who had escorted her to his office and she tried to tell herself she’d imagined the whole thing. The assistant stepped back into the hall and closed the door quietly behind him.

  “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Eleanor.” She felt silly hearing her given name spoken aloud. She’d used it to give her presence weight, but now it just felt like part of the sham. No one had called her Eleanor since her father died. “Please, sit.”

  She lowered herself into one of the chairs opposite his desk and waited as he did the same, unbuttoning his jacket in one motion the way men like Glover seemed born to do.

  “I’m always happy to meet our neighbors.” He was all business now. “What can I do for you?”

  She hesitated. What could he do for her? Shut down the bookstore initiative that had probably already cost Bolton’s millions? Give up all that profit so she could keep the small amount of income she generated from Matheson and Matheson?

  She drew in a breath, tried to center herself.

  “I’m here to discuss the bookstore initiative,” she said. “I know you’re opening soon — ”

  “A week from today,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “We’re all very excited.”

  It felt like an unnecessarily mean thing to say, like he was twisting the knife, and she blinked back her distaste.

  “I’m sure.” She hesitated. “I guess I’m wondering what sort of initiatives the company is taking to mitigate damage to indie businesses in the vicinity.”

  His mouth turned up at the corners. Was it meant to be a smile? It didn’t feel like one.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Initiatives?”

  “To offset the loss of business.” She hurried to explain. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Bolton’s is in the business of profit. At the end of the day, we all need money to stay in business. I get that.”

  He turned his hands over, raised his palms to the ceiling. “So?”

  She drew in a breath. “I’ve been reading up on Bolton’s corporate policy, and it seems like you have green initiatives to offset your impact to the environment, labor initiatives to ensure your employees are treated fairly…”

  “Those were put in place by my predecessor,” he said. “They’re under review.”

  “Under review?” She hated herself for repeating him, but she was too surprised by his response to do anything else. She needed time to get her head around what was happening, because she was getting the feeling that the person sitting across from her was no ordinary man.

  And not in a good way.

  He leaned back in his chair. “As you said, we’re in the business of profit. It is my intention to follow the letter of the law, beyond that…”

  “You don’t feel a responsibility to your neighbors?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “To the community that supports your business?”

  His mouth turned down in a sneer. “Customers don’t support our business. They spend their money here because we make it affordable and convenient. It's a mutually beneficial business arrangement, and one of the ways I plan to keep things affordable is to do away with unnecessary policy.”

  “But surely you know how strongly this community feels about corporate responsibility.” She hesitated over her next words. She wasn’t a confrontational person. She preferred compromise to conflict. “They might not appreciate a company like yours taking advantage of the small businesses in the area, not to mention the elimination of the other initiatives you mentioned."

  He smiled and she was surprised to realize it almost seemed sincere.

  “Are you threatening me?”

  He almost sounded pleased by the prospect.

  “I… no.” She sighed. “I’m not threatening you. I suppose I was hoping we could come to some kind of agreement. There’s plenty of business for everyone. 100% of your current book business is based on bestsellers. Of course, that will inevitably expand into other areas with the opening of your full-service section, but surely there are certain genres you’d be willing to steer clear of to benefit indie bookstores like mine. Perhaps I could expand my offerings in those areas, create a niche in some of the less popular sub-genres.”

  “I don’t know the details of our planned inventory offhand,” he said. “But I can assure you it does not — will not — have anything to do with what you may or may not be selling.”

  She looked at her hands in her lap. She thought about her father. His strength. His kindness. She wished he was with her now. He would know what to do. Wha
t to say.

  “Mr. Glover, I’ve worked hard to keep my business going, to develop the clientele I have now. I’m just looking for neighborly consideration. Your full-service book section won’t just hurt my business — it will hurt The Big Bean across the street, too. Zach worked two jobs for ten years to save enough money to open his coffee shop.”

  Malcolm Glover steepled his hands in front of him. “I suppose you’ll have to innovate like the rest of us. My business is making money. It’s what I do. What I’ve always done.” He stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”

  She stood, forced the appropriate words from her mouth. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

  She extended her hand even though touching him was the last thing she wanted to do. He took it, held it a beat too long, let his eyes drop slowly to her chest, not even trying to hide the fact that he was checking her out. Her dress wasn’t revealing. Not really. But she felt suddenly naked, wished she’d already retired the summery garment for fall.

  “I’m sure you’ll be just fine, Ms. Matheson.” His eyes pierced hers. “I have no doubt you have… other talents. Should the bookstore thing not work out, I mean.”

  It took her a few seconds to work past her shock. When she did, she yanked her hand from his, slipped the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and hurried from the room, wondering if it was her imagination that his eyes were on her body along the way.

  She pulled open the door so fast she almost stumbled, then rushed into the hall and out the door leading to the store. She hardly registered the brightness of the lights, the low hum of conversation as shoppers went about their business. She kept her gaze focused on the front of the store, weaving through the crowd, past the toiletries and cash registers. Then she was pushing through the front door, sucking in the fresh air like someone long deprived of oxygen.

  She was shaking, a swell of unidentifiable emotion rising inside her like a hurricane. She was almost to the corner when she realized it was rage.

  She stopped at the traffic signal, the white light indicating it was her turn to cross already blinking, marking down the time before it would turn red. She suddenly saw everything that led to this moment with such clarity, it was like watching her life play out on a movie screen.

  Her parents getting the notice from Hathaway Holding that their building had been bought, that the lease would be increasing threefold.

  The nights when she’d been home from school for Christmas and had walked in on them running numbers at the kitchen table, cups of coffee growing cold while they tried to find a way to keep the store profitable.

  Her father, the lines on his face etched deeper by the day, his skin sallow and pale in the hours before his heart attack.

  And finally, the closing of Matheson and Matheson. The store her parents had opened together when they’d been barely out of college themselves. She would never forget that last day: the sad boxing up of twenty years worth of memories.

  None of that was Malcolm Glover’s fault, but it was the fault of people like him. Lachlan’s parents hadn’t cared about anything but money either. Maybe it was the way the world worked now. Maybe she was just naive.

  But she was also breathtakingly angry.

  Who did that asshole Glover think he was? It was one thing to blow her off. He didn’t owe her anything. Asking for some kind of consideration had been a long shot.

  But he’d been a total dick. Had treated her like a child, then like a piece of ass he could demean and ogle. He was probably used to getting what he wanted.

  Used to taking what he wanted.

  She didn’t know how people like him became the way they were, but she was willing to bet they hadn’t been told no very often. That people tip-toed around them, kissing their asses and letting them get away with murder because they were rich and powerful.

  Well, she didn’t have much, but she had a voice. She could let him know that she wouldn’t go quietly.

  She turned around, the anger building, spreading out from her chest, up her neck until her face felt flushed. By the time she reached Bolton’s, adrenaline was surging through her body, the words she planned to say welling inside her throat.

  But she was so intent on her mission that she threw the door open too fast as someone else pushed from the other side. She crashed into a cotton-clad brick wall so wide it blocked out everything else and stopped her momentum cold.

  She stumbled backwards a little, felt a hand clamp firmly but carefully around her upper arm as she wobbled on her feet. Then she was looking up into familiar eyes, glowing like chips of amber as they stared down at her, a mix of shock and something like fear in their depths.

  She could only stare at him, her breath stuck in her lungs, every system in her body shutting down. She was still searching for words when he spoke.

  “Elle… jesus… are you all right?”

  4

  He couldn’t move, his hand still on her arm, the feel of her skin like satin in his palm. He hadn’t been paying attention when he’d pushed through the doors of the store, hadn’t seen that someone else was entering through the exit at the same time. Reaching for her had been a reflex, the same attempt he would have made to keep anyone from falling.

  But this wasn’t just anyone. It was her.

  The woman who haunted his dreams.

  She’d frozen, her green eyes growing wide when she realized it was him. He braced himself for her anger. To feel her wrench her arm free of his hand. To walk past him like the ghost he was.

  Instead she just stood there looking up at him, seemingly as paralyzed as he felt. When she finally spoke, he was surprised to find that her voice was just as he remembered, low and soft.

  “Lachlan… I’m sorry,” she said. “I was…”

  She shook her head, and he noticed she was trembling.

  Someone bumped into them, and he gently led her to the edge of the crowd coming and going through the doors of the store. When they were out of the way, he removed his hand from her arm, not wanting to be presumptuous about touching her.

  Not wanting to be haunted by it later.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her. “You look upset.”

  It occurred to him that she might be upset because of him. Because she hadn’t expected to see him. Because she didn’t want to see him.

  But he didn’t think so.

  She’d been distracted coming into the store, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed even before she realized he was the one keeping her from falling over.

  “I’m just…” She lifted her hands to her forehead, rubbed her fingers lightly across them like the motion would erase whatever was going through her mind. It was a gesture he remembered, and he was suddenly twenty years old, staring at her in bed, wondering how it was possible to feel so connected to another human being. “I am a little upset, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.” He looked around, ready to beat on whoever had upset her, but no one moving in and out of the store was paying them any attention. “Can I help?”

  She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. It was something a child would do, something he’d loved about her. She felt things so deeply. When she laughed, it was loud enough to make people turn around. When she cried, it was in deep, shuddering sobs.

  “There’s only one person who can help,” she finally said, standing straighter. “And I’m going to talk to him right now.”

  “Hold up.” He took her hand as she went to move around him, then dropped it. “I’m thinking it might be best to wait this out.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Are you saying I’m too pissed to make a point?”

  “Far be it for me to say you’re too pissed to make a point,” he said. “I don’t even know what this is about. But I do know it’s better to confront someone when you’re not shaking with rage.”

  She exhaled and all the indignation seemed to seep out of her at once. “What are you doing here, Lachlan?”

  He shrugged. “Believe it
or not, I was shopping.”

  “Shopping?”

  He held up the bag in his hands. “Even monsters need deodorant.”

  She tried to suppress her smile, then gave up and shook her head. “You’re still ridiculous.”

  “And you're still beautiful.” He didn’t mean to say it, but he had never been able to downplay her effect on him.

  Her slender throat rippled as she swallowed. “I should go.”

  “Let me buy you coffee.”

  He didn’t know why he made the offer. It was absurd to think that Elle Matheson was going to let him buy her coffee after all that had happened between them. Crazy to think she would spend one minute longer in his company than necessary. Generous that she’d spoken to him at all, let alone given him a smile that would sustain him for the next eight years when she would undoubtedly be absent from his life.

  She tipped her head, like she couldn’t quite believe he was asking. “Coffee?”

  “Coffee,” he said. “Just until you calm down enough that whoever you’re confronting has a chance in hell of fighting you off.”

  She took a deep breath, nodded slowly. “All right,” she said. “I know a place.”

  5

  What are you doing, Elle?

  The question echoed through her mind as they made their way to the crosswalk. It rang through her body, too, Lachlan’s proximity every bit as heady as she remembered.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  It was worse than she remembered. Because now he wasn’t a college boy.

  He was a man. A big one with wide shoulders and biceps that bulged under his white T-shirt. With muscled thighs that filled out his jeans like he’d been poured into the denim.

  They crossed the street in silence, and she led him down the block to The Big Bean, crowded with customers. She felt a moment’s guilt. She shouldn’t have closed the store, even for an hour or two. Saturday was their busiest day. It was irresponsible to close while she vented her frustration against Malcolm Glover, while she tempted herself with a past she had no intention of revisiting. Especially now when her days as a business owner might be numbered. She needed all the business she could get.