TENDER DECEIT (Mystery Romance): The TENDER Series ~ Book 1

by H. Y. Hanna

  “Any chance you might be free for dinner tonight?” he asked, sliding an arm up around her shoulders.

  Leah smiled and gently disengaged herself. “Steve, you’re a lovely guy but—”

  “There’s someone else?”

  “No! No, there’s no one else,” Leah said, a bit too vehemently.

  “I see.” He gave her a shrewd look. “Well, here’s my card—and if there’s a chance that I might see you again before you leave Singapore, I would really love that. I mean it.”

  “Thanks.” Leah took the card and stiffened as he leaned in to peck her cheek.

  She watched as he went back to the table and tried to ignore Julia’s meaningful looks as her friend waved her goodbye. Turning, she headed out of the Raffles Hotel courtyard and stepped out onto the street. She had barely walked a few steps past the Raffles Shopping Arcade, however, when she felt a hand seize her arm. Leah spun around in surprise to see Toran. He pulled her aside, into the shadow of a large palm tree, so that they were shielded from the people walking past.

  “What are you doing here?” She stared at him.

  His face was dark with anger, his eyes like a stormy sea. “Who was that man?”

  “What man?” Leah asked, confused.

  “The blond one who was all over you just now like a bad rash and groping you at the table.”

  “The—you mean, Steve?” She was stung by his biting tone. Instead of admitting that Steve had made her feel uncomfortable, Leah raised her chin and said, “He wasn’t groping me.”

  “I saw him,” said Toran tightly. “He was… trying to touch your hair.”

  Leah felt a flash of anger. “How could you know that? Were you spying on me? How dare you!”

  “I wasn’t spying,” Toran bit out. “I was just waiting for you to finish lunch so I could catch you and talk to you.”

  “Couldn’t you have left a message like a normal person?”

  “I tried,” he said impatiently. “On Facebook. You never answered it. I had to see you so I waited for you outside your hotel and followed you here. It’s safer if I try to talk to you outside—I think they’re watching your hotel.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t want to talk to you,” said Leah childishly.

  “Would you rather talk to Steve? Is that it?” asked Toran, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

  “No, I—” Leah reeled back, staring into his eyes. She couldn’t believe that this hostile stranger standing in front of her was the same boy she used to know.

  “What did he want?” demanded Toran. “What was he asking you?”

  “It’s none of your business,” retorted Leah, furious to find tears pricking her eyes. Why was she crying? Because she had never heard Toran use that tone of voice with her before? Never seen him with such cold fury in his eyes?

  “I know men like him,” said Toran, his fists clenching. “They can’t keep their hands to themselves. They only have one thing on their minds.”

  “So what?” she flung at him, tears really threatening to choke her now. “What’s it to you? Why should you care?”

  “Because—ah, hell!” He pulled her towards him and his lips came down on hers.

  Leah gasped as she felt his mouth possess hers, hard and demanding. Her senses whirled as he kissed her savagely, his arms holding her in a crushing embrace. She had never been kissed this way before. If it had been anyone other than Toran, it would have been terrifying, but instead, she felt a strange thrill ripple through her.

  Then suddenly the kiss gentled as the anger seemed to leave his body. His lips became soft and caressing. Leah felt her own body melt against his as his mouth moved sensuously over hers, his hands sliding up to tangle gently in her hair. She sighed and was just about to slide her own arms up around his neck when he released her abruptly. She stumbled backwards, her lips parted in surprise.

  Toran ran an agitated hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Leah. I… I don’t know what came over me. That was unforgivable.”

  Unforgivable? Leah stared at him. He had just given her the most thrilling kiss of her life and he thought that it was unforgivable? Surely he had felt what had passed between them just now… or was it all just on her side?

  Toran cleared his throat, not quite meeting her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about you and… Steve. Of course, you’re free to do whatever you like, with whoever you like. As you said, it’s none of my business.”

  “Toran—” Leah reached out a hand towards him, but he stiffened. She felt the chill of rejection. She dropped her hand. They stood for a moment in awkward silence. Then she said in a quiet voice, “Why did you want to see me?”

  “I… There’s something I need to tell—” He hesitated, then gave his head a shake. “I was worried. After last night and the way you left… I thought you might have been upset or frightened. Anyway, I can see now that it was totally unnecessary. You were managing fine without me.”

  Leah felt something warm fill her chest. Was he jealous? Was that what this whole scene was about? She took a step closer to him. “Toran, I was leaving because I was going back to the hotel to contact you.”

  He looked up and something flared in his green eyes. Leah stared at him. It was time to decide. Trust him? Or keep him out? He was still a stranger, still an enigma to her, and yet somehow she felt safe with Toran in a way she never felt with any other man. But was this genuine intuition speaking—or was she just basing her feelings on an adolescent fantasy? Maybe the real question was whether she could trust herself.

  Leah took a deep breath. She made the decision. “I didn’t tell you everything in the cable car last night.”

  Quickly, she told him about the hidden safe and what she had found in there, as well as the similarity to Julia’s dry-cleaning tag. She also mentioned Steve’s connection with Warne and the upcoming party. It was a relief to finally tell him everything. “I was just heading back to the hotel to check out the pink tag I found in my father’s safe. But I think I’m right—I think it’s a receipt for something he’s left somewhere, maybe at a dry-cleaner or some similar service.”

  “Yes,” said Toran thoughtfully. “I said your father was a careful man. That would be the perfect hiding place.”

  “I have an appointment with the police this afternoon,” said Leah. “They want to talk to me about my father’s death. I don’t know how long that will take, but this place might be shut by the time I’m done.” She hesitated. “I was thinking I might go look for it tomorrow morning. Would you… would you like to go together?”

  Leah caught her breath as a smile lit up Toran’s eyes, turning them from brooding olive to dazzling viridian.

  “Yes. I’d like to do that,” he said. “Together.”

  Leah smiled tremulously back at him and, for a moment, she thought he was going to reach out and pull her close again. Then he stepped back and the shutters came down over his face.

  “Leah, there’s something else...” He hesitated, his eyes searching hers. Then he seemed to change his mind. “But it’ll keep. Listen, do you want to grab some lunch?”

  Together. The unspoken word hung in the air between them.

  Leah nodded and smiled. “I’m starving.”

  They found a food court nearby packed with enough people to give Toran some anonymity in the crowds. Leah ordered a selection of dim sum dishes and Toran watched in amusement as she sank her teeth into a steamed char sui bun with a blissful sigh.

  “You just don’t get food like this in London, even at the best restaurants,” she explained with a grin. “I’ve missed the food in Singapore.” She looked around the bustling food court, with its raucous din of voices talking in Hokkien, Malay, Tamil, Mandarin, Singlish, and Cantonese, and added with a faint note of surprise, “I’ve missed Singapore.”

  “Would you ever come back here to live?” Toran asked, wondering why his body tensed as he waited for her to answer. It wasn’t as if he cared.

  Leah hesitated. “I don’t know,” she fin
ally said, softly. “My life’s in London now. And anyway, it isn’t as if there’s anything here for me to come back for.”

  Toran felt a sudden urge to contradict her and bit his tongue on the words. He sat back, alarmed at his own reaction. What was he thinking? Okay, so he may have discovered that Leah had grown up into an incredibly alluring woman and it wasn’t surprising, given their past history, that he would still find her attractive, but he wasn’t fourteen anymore and after the way she had treated him then, he wasn’t making the same mistake again of offering her his heart. As for his powerful attraction to her… well, it was nothing more than that. A physical need. Easily satisfied. He knew she felt it too—this awareness between them. Why didn’t he just take advantage of that?

  “Toran? Are you okay?” She moved her hand across the food court bench and tentatively touched his.

  He shut his eyes briefly at the touch of her fingers. He felt a prickle of irritation at himself for letting her still affect him so much.

  He pulled his hand away from hers. “I think I’m going to get something else,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Standing up abruptly, he moved away, his body tight with tension. Sexual tension, that’s all it was, he told himself. It was just the temptation of the unknown, the frustration that came from wondering. He just needed to satisfy his sexual curiosity, then it would go away and he would be at peace again.

  He ignored the tiny voice in his head that laughed mockingly and whispered that with Leah back in his life, he would never be at peace again.

  CHAPTER 12

  Leah didn’t know what to think as she unlocked the door and stepped back into her hotel room. The lunch with Toran had been wonderful and awful and familiar and strange. One minute, it had felt like he was genuinely enjoying her company, the warmth in his gaze almost making her blush; the next minute, it was like sitting next to a stranger with hurt and accusation burning in his green eyes.

  She sighed. Maybe it was just her own overactive imagination again, putting meanings to things that weren’t there. He’d probably felt nothing more than a vague nostalgic enjoyment of her company and maybe a natural curiosity of being with her in a new setting. Leah told herself that it was good that they had finally done something together without the shadow of their past peering over their shoulders. Maybe it could give them a chance to start again…?

  She brushed the thought sharply away, slightly horrified at the direction in which her mind was straying. What was she thinking? Start what again? There was no future for her and Toran and she was a fool to even think about it.

  Leah turned resolutely towards her suitcase lying open on the rack besides the wardrobe. Rummaging through her clothes, she pulled out the small plastic bag where she had stashed the contents of her father’s concealed safe. The pink tag was there, tucked against the bundle of her father’s letters. She fished it out and took it into the bathroom, where she examined it carefully in the bright light above the sink.

  It was just like the one Julia had, with the perforated edge and the faint numbers printed on one side. There was a larger number on top, “0049”, and then a longer series of small numbers underneath. Leah turned it over. The other side was blank. There was no other identification. How was she supposed to work out where it came from? Leah heaved a sigh of frustration.

  Then she turned the piece of paper over and looked at the numbers again. Especially at the row of smaller ones. It looked like a phone number, Leah realised suddenly with a tingle of excitement. She hurried out into the room and picked up the hotel phone. The concierge answered immediately.

  “If I give you a phone number, would you be able to find the matching address for me? It’s a place of business, I think.”

  “Certainly, madam. May I have the number?”

  Leah gave it and waited with bated breath. The answer came a few seconds later.

  “The number matches a tailor shop, madam. It’s in Shop 11, at the Merlion Mall. That’s here on Orchard Road. You should be able to get there by walking, although we can call a taxi for you, if you prefer.”

  Leah tried to keep her voice calm. “No, that’s all right. I’m not going there now anyway. But thank you.”

  As she hung up, she felt a slight prickle of unease as she remembered her earlier thoughts about her hotel phone being bugged. Leah bit her lip. She should have gone down and spoken to the concierge in person. It was too late now.

  Anyway, she would be with Toran tomorrow, she remembered, her heart lifting. And whatever else she was uncertain about, she knew that she was safe with him. He would make sure that she came to no harm. The thought was like a warm, woolly blanket wrapped around her shoulders on a cold winter evening.

  The CID headquarters were in the Police Cantonment Complex in Outram district, next to the Singapore General Hospital, where Leah had gone to the mortuary to identify her father’s body. As she had expected, she was kept waiting a long time before being seen. The detective inspector in charge of her father’s case, an impeccably dressed Indian man with a carefully groomed moustache and dark, searching eyes, received her with courteous apologies. He admitted that they were making little headway with the investigation and still had no idea who the hit-and-run driver was, but they were following all possible leads.

  “So you do think that somebody hit my father on purpose?” Leah asked him.

  “No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. In fact, we are now downgrading this investigation. We are considering this to be more likely a case of accidental death rather than deliberate homicide.”

  “But what about the skid marks? I thought they showed that the car was accelerating towards my father.”

  Inspector Ravi pursed his lips. “Whoever told you that, Miss Fisher, was jumping to premature conclusions and should never have mentioned it to you. That is one possible interpretation. But Forensics have actually concluded that with the weather conditions that night—it was raining heavily—the evidence is ambiguous.” He raised his eyebrows. “You seem to be sceptical. Is there something you haven’t told me? Someone you know who may have wanted to harm your father?”

  Leah hesitated. Now was her chance to tell everything, hand it all over to the police. Her father’s possible connection with a murder, the threat from Bentley Warne’s men… but that would mean betraying Toran’s real status as well. She took a deep breath. “No.”

  Those dark brown eyes regarded her thoughtfully and Leah forced herself not to squirm under their shrewd gaze.

  “Oh, there was one more thing, Miss Fisher,” the inspector said casually. Too casually. “Do you know what mobile phone your father carries?”

  Leah looked at him in surprise. “I don’t know. Probably the latest iPhone.” She thought back to the last email she had had from her father—a perfunctory message a few months ago—and remembered the “Sent from my iPhone” label in the bottom corner. “Yes, he had an iPhone.”

  “And does he have a second phone that he also uses?”

  Leah shrugged. “I don’t know. He might have… for work… but I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.” She looked at Inspector Ravi curiously. “Why do you ask?”

  “There were two mobile phones found on your father’s body when he was discovered. One was an iPhone—the latest model, as you said—and another was a very basic Nokia. The iPhone matches to his normal mobile number, but the Nokia is a private, unlisted number.”

  Leah shrugged again. “I’m sorry—I don’t really know much about my father’s habits. We...we weren’t close,” she said lamely.

  Inspector Ravi nodded. “As it is, having two mobiles by itself is not unusual—I myself have a phone that I use for work and a second one for personal use. It is just something to note. Particularly as your father sent several texts from the Nokia on the night that he was killed.” He cocked his head and regarded her curiously. “Does the name Toran James mean anything to you?”

  “Toran? Yes, he… I… we were friends at school,” said Leah, feeling l
ike a great weight was starting to press down on her chest.

  “Was he a business associate or friend of your father’s?”

  Leah felt a hysterical urge to laugh. “I… uh… I don’t know, really. As I said, I wasn’t very close to my father. We didn’t talk often. He never really mentioned his work.” She hesitated, almost afraid to ask. “What… what did the texts say?”

  “It appears that your father was going to meet Toran James on the night that he was killed. From the time given in the texts, we believe he was run over as he was walking back to his own car, after the meeting with Mr James.”

  Leah gripped the edge of the table as she felt the room spinning slightly. Toran had lied to her. Her father hadn’t been mentioned by a contact—her father was his contact! Why hadn’t he told her? Why did Toran conceal the fact that he had met her father—and on the night that David Fisher was killed?

  “Are you closely acquainted with Toran James, Miss Fisher?” Inspector Ravi looked at her intently.

  Leah licked dry lips. “Uh… not… not really. I mean, we used to be in the same class at school, but then he remained in Singapore while I went to England.”

  “And you hadn’t heard from him recently?”

  Leah tried to keep her voice controlled. “No.”

  “It is just curious because Toran James was the victim of a fatal gas explosion on a yacht the night after your father was killed.”

  “Oh.” Leah tried to show surprise. “That’s… that’s awful.”

  “Quite.” Inspector Ravi regarded her silently for a moment. “However, overall, I must say that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of foul play in either your father’s or Toran James’s case. It is strange, but such coincidences do happen in real life sometimes.”

  Leah nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Then she remembered the break-in at her father’s study and quickly told Inspector Ravi about it, although she didn’t mention the concealed safe. The contents of that safe were a personal, private matter, Leah told herself, with no relevance to her father’s death. As for the pink tag… for all she knew, it could just be for a pair of trousers that her father had had shortened. Until she found out exactly what it was, there was no point mentioning it. Ignoring the uneasy stirrings of her conscience, Leah changed the subject and asked when her father’s body was likely to be released.