Thirty-Nine
“Wow.” Akira whistled when she swirled around in her chair and saw the huge bank of monitors that recorded movements of every part of the house. It was a massive affair, and a very thorough one, at that.
It freaked her out, just a little, that anybody could watch her while she was naked in a shower.
She slid a sidelong glance at the serious, brooding man who was currently typing something on a wireless keyboard. He was…unusual, she decided. And the only one she wanted watching her when she was naked in a shower.
“Wow, you guys take your job very seriously,” she reiterated, including Jared, the medic and Lucas, the TV guy in her smile. Murad, the resident computer geek was hidden somewhere, in some other part of the house. Lucas had told her that the man listened to incomprehensible death metal when he was working, at ear-splitting levels.
Brand had looked surprised, because even he hadn’t known that.
“Well, we are paid to.” Lucas shrugged, all self-deprecatory now.
“I think I am going to be very, very careful around you guys.”
Jared grinned. “There are no cameras in the shower stall if you’re worried.”
Brand’s head snapped up at the same time that Akira’s laugh sounded in the cellar. Resoundingly.
He casually turned from where he was checking on land records of Mantisse Corp. and NERVU’s current projects.
Lucas grinned at the storms he saw in his boss’s eyes. He must have it real bad for the pretty reporter if he was so jealous of Jared, who had a gamy leg.
“Maybe you can update us on the situation, Jared.” Brand was deliberately dismissive when he addressed his newest recruit.
“Not a lot of updates, boss,” Jared obliged, reading off the various screens he was operating simultaneously. “Geraldo De La Hoya is AWOL and Murad is trying his best to figure out what the whole of Mantisse Corp. has been up to since inception. There’s no dirt, no rap sheets on anybody. Nothing that can't be explained and hasn’t already been. The NERVU CEO, Cobalt Bernhardt, is in no way connected with San Magellan, Kevin Moya and Geraldo De La Hoya apart from when he approached the company for rigging rights. Everything checks out. It’s annoying.”
“Everything checks out a little too well maybe,” Akira murmured, when she dragged her chair to Brand’s computer.
She saw that he’d charted a neat tree with branches leading to the different parts of the conspiracy.
“What do you mean?” Brand asked her, calculating now.
“The ministers have all stuck to their story,” she replied thoughtfully. “The land was theirs, has been the government’s leased out to farmers, and yet nothing had been done to improve the condition of the people living on it. Ostensible reason? Lucre fell, so the mountains became inaccessible. Suddenly, a new government comes into power and someone decides there is oil there. And now there is a free for all.”
She talked faster as the pieces tumbled together in her brain. “A squeaky clean multinational wants a piece of the petroleum pie and that’s totally acceptable. It’s what Sebastian would want. But when you take in people who are running the land for their own nefarious and greedy motives, the picture changes. Don’t you agree?” Her question was rhetorical.
Brand nodded his head slowly. Lucas and Jared looked impressed as hell at the way she’d just boiled down their whole situation in a few logical, succinct sentences.
“The question to ask at this point would be, who knew about the possibility of the oil before Geraldo De La Hoya?” She shook her head. Answered her own question, “The lumber company. Dammit, the lumber company. When I looked at the memo, I just saw NERVU and jumped to conclusions. I have been looking at all of this the wrong way.”
She raised speculative eyes at Brand. “Why did we automatically assume that it was Mantisse Corp. that wanted a piece of the petroleum pie?”
Brand was already on his scrambler phone. “Murad, find out all that you can about the company that supplies lumber out of San Magellan, the one that Kevin Moya is a part of.”
Akira looked curiously at him. “Why are you doing this?” she asked him, suddenly.
He was thrown.
“I beg your pardon? We might’ve just gotten a fresh perspective on your career-making story and you ask me about motives right now?” His incredulous tone was designed to make her believe that he was supremely indifferent to what she thought about it either way.
She regarded his question thoughtfully. “Yes. I know why I am willing to risk my life, what remains of my career, to find out what’s going on. But, your duty to Sebastian ended when his life did. And you’re still here. Trying to figure out what went wrong. Why?”
Lucas and Jared looked with interest at their boss.
“Maybe I don’t like loose ends,” he offered.
“Loose ends or losing?” Akira was quick to ask.
“What difference does it make, as long as you get your story and I get my man?” He shot back.
She held his impassive gaze for a minute longer. “Fair enough.” She nodded. “Everybody gets what they want and lives happily ever after. Alright, Brandon, what’s your plan?”
“Sleep. Till Murad is able to come up with some concrete evidence that I can work with,” he answered.
And for some reason she really wanted to slap him. “Alright. You do that. I am going to work on my story till then. Get me my stuff back, Brandon. I need it.”
With that, she swept out of the room, looking like a tiny fairy princess in the robe that trailed the floor in her wake. Lucas and Jared stared open-mouthed while their boss looked flummoxed and irritated because a woman had just walked out on him.
Then he sprung up.
“Oh, no you don’t. I am done with dramatic exits.”
~~~~~
Five minutes later he flung open the door to the white room, where Akira was currently pacing.
“Murad has figured out what Le Reine De La Mer is,” he said. “The Sea Queen. A yacht docked in Monte Carlo.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” She flung back at him.
“Get dressed,” Brand replied grimly. “There’s some tee shirts and shorts in the wardrobe. We are taking a little trip to Monaco, sweetheart.”
“I hate you. And I want to go home.” She was mutinous, especially since she could see the latent anger shimmering in him.
“Tough luck. You’re coming with me. Even if I have to drag you by your wild hair.” He was grim, throwing a gray tee and black shorts on the bed.
“Why? I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me.” She could be nasty when she wanted to be. And she made no move to get the clothes.
He came towards her then, and curled one hand around her slender throat. A pulse was beating wildly at the base.
“Akira, there are consequences to your actions. One of them is that I can't stop wanting you now, so getting rid of you is out of the question.” Brand spoke in a soft, lethal voice.
“And the other one is that whoever was employing the man who kidnapped us is going to come after you with everything he, or they have. And I won't have you dead out of sheer stubbornness. Now, are we clear?” His black eyes bored into her very soul.
It made her skin go hot and cold all over.
Akira gulped as she saw the scorching heat in his eyes. “Yes,” she murmured, reaching for the shorts. “Yes, we’re very clear.”
Forty
The Mediterranean glimmered in night lights.
The port was a hive of activity, as was the famed Boardwalk. The balmy air was alive with the scents of the ocean, salt and sea. People milled around everywhere, in elegant clothes, a mix of accents and cultures. People with money to burn, it was the only criteria.
Elegance, quiet and understated. Style, effortless and timeless. Money, old and new, whispered under the stars.
And all roads led to the casino.
Akira stood in the balcony of the thirtieth floor suite of The Hilton on Princesse Alice Avenue and looked o
ut over a world that she’d sporadically written about and thought about fleetingly.
This world, with its diamond tiaras and cufflinks, was as far removed from guns and bombs as she herself was removed from her own situation, right now. Her mother, her sister belonged to such worlds. She was more comfortable in boxer shorts than a ball gown.
Akira shook her head with a wry smile.
Here she was, embroiled in the story of her career, involved with a man who had more issues than Amnesty International could deal with and spectacular sex was part of the problem. And if all this wasn’t enough, there were several unknown, unknowns, who might want her dead.
Wasn’t it just enough to make a woman wish for a different life?
One in which sisters didn’t die, and mothers loved you and you got a happily ever after complete with white picket fence, a black-haired, rough and tough husband, and three point four kids.
Akira sighed, leaning against the railing.
“If you look any further down, you’ll fall.”
She wanted to start, violently, as she heard his voice. That precise British accent with just a hint of the rougher Australian underneath it. All that fire banked by all that cold purpose.
It ran down her spine now, made the hairs stand on the nape of her neck.
It made her want to lean against him and forget the world, their lives, such as they were.
Akira straightened slowly, but before she could turn to face him, Brand was behind her, hands on either side of her, so that she felt the heat and strength of him all along her body. One inch back, one step back, and she could lean against him.
She stiffened imperceptibly, standing in the circle of his arms.
Brand dropped his chin on the top of her head. Didn’t say another word.
“Why didn’t you wake me up before you went out?” she asked quietly.
She’d woken up alone an hour ago, with no sign of Brandon. She’d been exhausted from the travel across time zones and they had only talked strategy on the flight over.
And it had pained her, for a quick moment that he always found it so easy to leave her.
“You were tired. I didn’t want to wake you.” He didn’t elaborate on the theme.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said irritably, moving her shoulders restlessly.
His hands moved down to her waist and pulled her against him, so that they were flush front-to-back.
And she felt the instant arousal in him. That it could tug at her, made her more miserable and more aroused herself.
“Do what?” he asked her.
“Take care of me.”
~~~~~
Brand wanted to laugh out loud.
Akira Ashwin Naik was a lot of things. Prickly, sexy, intelligent as all hell and self-sufficient. She’d survived the Amazon and three attempts on her life and she was telling him that he was taking care of her.
What a joke!
“I am not. You won't let me.” He corrected her impression.
That made her tilt her head up sideways and look at Brand with flashing eyes. Her head was neatly nestled against his good shoulder and they fit… she fit in a way that had him rethinking everything he’d ever known about women. And he’d known a lot of them.
Danger combined with adrenalin combined with a healthy sex drive had made him somewhat of an expert in the art of seducing a woman.
But when he saw Akira look at him with that touch of scorn in her brown eyes that were now black in the balmy night, he couldn’t remember a single lesson.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” She was haughty now.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing. Can't you take a simple compliment without turning it into an argument of epic proportions?” Brand complained with some heat.
She smiled then. A slow, knowing, female smile. Her hands, small and delicate, stole over his, where they were joined at her waist. And she threaded her fingers through his.
“God, you’re beautiful.” The words tumbled out before he could stop them. His accent less pronounced, more like his home. Rough and wanting.
The smile faded from her lips, but remained in her eyes. She was pleased, absurdly, although she was quick to hide it when she lowered those expressive eyes.
And he wondered why he’d never told her that. That she was beautiful. That sometimes she made his heart stop just by looking at her.
“You’re not bad yourself, Brand,” she murmured.
His hands moved under the robe and found bare skin. Desire quickened his blood, threaded his pulse, and made his head swim. With words, with sensations. With feelings too murky to separate from the desire.
“Thank you, I think,” he said wryly, nuzzling her neck through her hair.
She smelled of sleepy female and an alluring combination of jasmine and night lily. And she was soft and warm and willing.
What more could a man, could he, want?
As she turned in his arms and he trapped her between the railing and his rock-hard body, and saw the way she was regarding him with questions and need darkening her eyes, he knew the answer. A man could want a whole lot more.
He wanted a whole lot more. He wanted, for once, everything.
~~~~~
“Brandon.”
His name was both question and answer right now.
“A big bed. Really big bed, and white sheets and candles,” he murmured, running his hands over her back, under the robe.
She couldn’t hide the confusion, even as she stepped closer to him, and started undoing the buttons on his black, silk shirt. One of the designer ones. With it he wore grey trousers and black loafers.
“What are you talking about?” She raised curious eyes to him.
Her breath caught in the sheer depths of his pitch-black eyes. For once, there was fire in them. Incendiary and consuming. And as they stared at her in quiet absorption she felt herself melt, surrender, fall.
Oh, boy.
“I was going to seduce you on a really big bed, with white sheets and candles for our first time.” He shrugged out of the shirt, as he explained his comment.
Akira caught her breath again. This time at the perfection of his body, at the scars that only added to the appeal of the man, who wore them with unconscious grace. She traced the one that ran near his heart and ended near his stomach.
His hand caught hers, so he could kiss her wrist. Stunned pleasure lit her eyes and he cursed himself all over again.
He’d taken her on a damn jungle floor. When she should have floated in clouds of cotton and satin and sensation.
“You don’t have to, I mean, last night...” She couldn’t speak because her throat was rapidly closing up.
She could handle anger and aggression and last night had been both. But this gentleness, tenderness, she had no defense against them.
How was she supposed to react now?
“Last night was perfect. But, I am pretty sure we can top it.” Brand dipped his head and brought his lips to within an inch of hers.
His scent washed over her, musky male and Calvin Klein Obsession. “You’re awfully confident, aren’t you?” Akira managed, her brain threatening to melt down at his feet.
“Hopeful,” he admitted ruefully, swinging her up in his arms.
She clutched at his shoulders in delight and excitement and a deep pleasure that started somewhere around her heart.
“What kind of a woman would I be if I didn’t fulfill your hopes?” She teased him, sighing internally as he carried her through the French doors.
He placed her oh, so gently on the really big bed with white sheets.
For a minute, he just stared at her. Her robe half-open, her hair tangled and quietly flaming against the white pillows. Her eyes warm and inviting, giving him permission to touch her and hold her.
With a shivery laugh, Akira tugged at his hand and he tumbled onto bed with her.
She straddled him for a single second, before he gripped her hair and jerked her to him to kiss her.
The violence she could sense in him, the leashed strength that she associated with him… it was all there. She could see it in the pits of his eyes, in the inexorable grip with which he held her.
But when Brand kissed her, it was softly. Asking instead of taking.
And so she gave. She could hold nothing back. Breathing in the slightly musky scent of him; that told her he hadn’t yet showered. That told her he’d come straight to her from wherever he’d been, doing whatever.
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