Mark: BWWM Romance (Members From Money Book 11)

by Katie Dowe

  "Let me at least walk you to your car." Jason offered his arm with a disarming smile. "I'm a gentleman; I don't leave ladies to walk anywhere alone at night."

  Carla laughed and rolled her eyes but she took his arm, feeling his muscles flex under her fingers.

  "That charm is going to burn you one of these days."

  Jason winced. "Ouch."

  They laughed and made their way down the street, Jason's driver bringing the limo slowly down the street behind them. It was still relatively busy at that time of night and several people were either entering or leaving the bars and clubs that mingled around them. Several of the women who walked past them openly ogled Jason. One of them even rubbed herself up against him, saying she could fuck him better than the black bitch - Carla guessed that was her - and he should come home with her. Jason had merely smiled and detached himself, saying he had more important things to do. Then he had left the girl staring after him open-mouthed.

  Carla wasn't sure she liked the attention Jason was getting. He was clearly a handsome man and women were experts in telling who had money and a lot of it. But it did make her feel powerful that, for now, she was the one Jason was walking back to her vehicle. She was the one he was having a date with. What he did after he left her she didn't care but for now he was hers.

  A nauseous feeling settled in her stomach and Carla wondered what that was about. She told herself not to be so stupid. She didn't own Jason. What he did once he left her was his business, not hers. She shouldn't be feeling possessive.

  Should she?

  They entered the parking lot and Carla reached into her purse for her keys. Then she pulled up suddenly when something flickered just out of her eyesight and she looked around. Cars were parked around them but there wasn't any movement. The place was quiet.

  "Carla?" Jason had stopped with her and was looking at her with a frown. "Something wrong?"

  Carla shook her head. It was probably just a trick of the light.

  "No, nothing."

  She had tried turning back when someone shoved her in the back. In the heels she was wearing her ankle gave way and she fell to her hands and knees. Beside her Jason gave a loud grunt and hit the ground, laying unmoving.

  Gritting her teeth against the twinge in her ankle, Carla pushed herself up and saw a slim figure wearing black running away. They were carrying a cosh, wearing tight-fitting clothes and a hoodie with the hood up over their head. They seemed to run a little oddly as well.

  Her ankle was complaining. Carla pulled off her heels and checked it over. It was swollen but there didn't seem to be anything untoward. It was probably just a bad twist.

  That was the last time she wore high heels to a dinner date.

  Beside her, Jason groaned. He pushed himself up onto his arms, pressing his fingers to his head.

  "Jason?" Carla shifted to his side and touched his back. "Are you okay?"

  "I think so."

  Jason sat up and turned to face Carla. The light hit his face and Carla saw the blood running down his face from a cut above his eyebrow. Jason blinked and wiped the blood away with his sleeve.

  "Mr Liu!"

  A huge man with arms like a gorilla came running towards them. Carla reached into her purse and found her can of pepper spray but Jason spoke to the newcomer.

  "I'm fine, Tony. Nothing to worry about."

  Carla snorted. "You say that with blood running down your face."

  The man Jason had called Tony knelt beside Jason and looked closely at the wound, fingers tenderly touching the area. Carla was surprised that Jason let him and wondered at their relationship. Then she remembered Jason referring to Tony as his driver and how they were close despite their working relationship. She was guessing this was the driver.

  "It's just a simple cut." Tony drew back and gave his boss a look. "You won't need stitches but it does need cleaning up."

  But Jason was already shaking his head vigorously.

  "I'm not going to a hospital." He said firmly. "No way."

  From the way he said it Carla guessed that he wasn't the best of people when it came to hospitals. But the cut did need cleaning up. She looked at Tony.

  "Can you follow us in your car?"

  "Yes, Miss Romaine."

  "Then help me get him to my car. We'll go to my place." Carla gave Jason a hard look. "That non-hospital enough for you?"

  Jason opened his mouth to say something but decided against it, simply nodding meekly.

  *****

  Carla didn't live far away and Tony kept close to her as they negotiated the busy night traffic. She led the way into her underground parking area and parked in her space. Tony was parked and at her side as Carla opened the passenger door and helped Jason out. Jason shrugged their help away, only to stagger when they weren't holding him up.

  Shaking her head at his stubbornness, Carla hurried across to the elevator, Tony helping Jason along. They rode up to her floor and Carla let them in. For a moment she was overcome with nerves at showing Jason Liu her apartment. It was a mess. There were clothes on the couch, the dishes weren't done, and the remains of her breakfast were still on its plate on the counter.

  Her bedroom was even worse but Carla wasn't planning on taking Jason in there.

  She pulled herself together. It was just to patch Jason up and send him on his way. There wasn't much point in worrying about the state of her apartment; he wasn't going to be here long enough to care.

  "Sit him down on the couch." She ordered, slinging her jacket across the armchair and dropping her purse on the coffee table. "I'll get the first aid kit."

  Ducking into the kitchen, Carla retrieved the first aid kit from under the sink. When she came back into the lounge, Jason was sitting on the spare space on the couch, Tony standing by the wall, hands folded in front of him as he stared straight ahead. It was a little unnerving seeing him like that.

  Jason was looking around the lounge, taking in her eclectic tastes. Carla wasn't one for matching things; she liked to have an individuality that separated her from everyone else.

  "Nice place."

  Carla arched an eyebrow at him.

  "Was that a sarcastic comment?"

  "No, really. It's a nice place."

  Carla decided to take that comment with a pinch of salt. She knelt at the coffee table and put the first aid kit on the glass table top.

  "Thanks." She opened up the kit and fished out a packet of antibacterial wipes. "Does your head hurt?"

  "It stings a little."

  "I promise I'll be gentle."

  Carla opened the packet and shuffled across on her knees until she was in front of Jason. Jason sat up and opened his legs so she could get closer. Carla was very aware of how close he was as she gently wiped at the cut, removing the blood. Jason winced but he didn't jerk away.

  "This wasn't exactly how I wanted the date to finish." He joked.

  Carla gave him a wry smile.

  "I don't often have such adventurous first dates."

  "You call this adventurous?"

  "Usually adventurous classes as finding out you've been stuck with the entire bill and trying to wangle their share of the money off them." Carla wiped away blood that was beginning to crust on the outside of his eye, trying not to look directly at him. "That often means tracking them down later and billing them."

  "Ouch." Jason's mouth twisted as if he was trying to hold back a smile. "Good thing I was paying."

  "I might bill you all the same. For a deductible."

  Jason blinked. "Deductible? Why?"

  Carla finished cleaning the blood away and lowered her hand, settling back so she could look at him without feeling like they were about to enter something intimate. The thought of intimacy with Jason had her belly fluttering and her pussy contracting but Carla concentrated on the matter in hand.

  "I always pay half. No arguments." She said firmly when Jason opened his mouth. "I always pay my way."

  Jason closed his mouth and raised an eyeb
row at her in amusement.

  "You don't let the man treat you once?" He asked.

  "It'll come back to bite me eventually." Carla tossed the bloody wipe onto the table and found a square bandage. She ripped open the packaging and placed the bandage over the cut. "Hold that in place?"

  Jason obliged, his fingers brushing against hers. Carla's hand was still tingling even after she pulled away. Biting her lip as her body decided to go haywire, she reached for the medical tape and tore off a strip.

  "I was engaged a few years back." She placed the tape on one end of the bandage and then did the same on the other side. "When we broke up he billed me for all the times we went to dinner and he paid the entire bill."

  Jason stared at her in stunned amazement.

  "He billed you for all the dates you went on as a couple?" He sounded incredulous. "That's mad."

  Carla shrugged. "That's men for you."

  Did she really say all of that to him? Nobody at her job knew that she had been nearly married when she was in her early twenties. The only person in the city who knew was Amy and only because Amy was the one she had stayed with after being kicked out and got her back on her feet. And here she was telling a man she barely knew and who might be a criminal what had happened to her.

  She turned away and shut the first aid kit with a sharp snap as Jason stood. He held out a hand and pulled her to her feet.

  "How about we go on another date and you pay for it?" He suggested with a smile. "That'll make us square."

  Carla raised her eyebrows.

  "Was that a subtle hint you want another date?" She asked.

  "Not exactly subtle." Jason looked sheepish. "But I do want to go out with you again. I enjoyed myself tonight."

  "Me too." Then Carla realized they had been standing there staring at each other with Jason still holding onto her hand. She gently extricated her hand and took a step back. "Okay, we can do that. What do you suggest?"

  "There's a new high wire center that opened up just outside Boca Raton."

  High wire. That meant going up in the air. Carla felt panicky. Not with heights. Please, not anything with heights. But she didn't want to upset Jason's suggestion so she nodded.

  "Okay. That and dinner?"

  "Sure." Jason grinned. Then he reached up and tested the bandage gingerly. "Thanks for this, Carla."

  "You're welcome." Carla moved towards the kitchen. "Now go home and get some rest. You're going to have one helluva headache but you'll be fine."

  "Okay. I'd better be going then."

  Carla heard the words but when she came back after storing the kit away Jason was still standing by the couch staring at her. She rolled her eyes and laughed to cover the awkward moment.

  "That means moving your feet towards the door." She teased.

  "Sorry." Indicating to Tony to lead the way, Jason looked back at Carla. "See you on Saturday. Pick you up at ten?"

  "That's fine."

  Jason looked like he was going to say something else but thought better of it. He turned and went towards the door. Carla followed him and stood in the doorway.

  "Bye, Jason."

  Jason turned back. His eyes flared when he looked at her and Carla found herself frozen to the spot. Jason stepped back, leaned his head, and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. Carla closed her eyes as his lips brushed over her skin. It was an intimate moment she hadn't experienced in a long time and her body was humming from it.

  Jason pulled away. "Goodnight."

  By the time Carla finally managed to open her eyes Jason was gone.

  Chapter 4

  The incessant ringing broke into Carla's deep sleep, vibrating around her head as it broke the silence. Carla rolled onto her back and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A glance at her clock by the bed said it was just after two.

  Whoever was calling had better be important. She wasn't in the mood to deal with someone calling her up for a laugh or a cold call. However those buggers got mobile numbers and unlisted numbers she had no idea. One cold call had been an escort service calling her at half past three in the morning. Carla had given them a piece of her mind before hanging up on them.

  She hoped it wasn't one of them. The ID display was showing it was a private number, which was an indication it could be.

  She was tempted to ignore it but had a feeling they would keep calling and even on vibrate she wouldn't be able to get any sleep.

  Carla reached for her phone and swiped it open, putting it on loudspeaker.

  "Hello? Who is it?"

  "Stay away from Jason."

  That had Carla awake immediately. It wasn't a cold caller but it wasn't a friend or colleague either. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "If you value your life, keep away from Jason." The caller's voice was raspy, probably disguised with a voice enhancer. "He's going to get you killed."

  "How's that?"

  But then all Carla heard was the caller hanging up and then dead air.

  Carla hung up her end and stared at her phone, wondering if she had dreamt that call. But after pinching herself and feeling the pain through the back of her arm, she knew she was awake.

  Putting her phone down, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Someone knew about her case and had decided it would be a clever idea to threaten her to back off. It wasn't clever and it didn't make Carla back off.

  It just made her all the more curious. There was nothing like a little bit of zest in a case.

  And Carla liked a bit of zest.

  *****

  After three hours trying to get back to sleep, Carla gave up. There wasn't any point when her brain was turning over the phone call and why they were calling her now. Calling in the middle of the night was usually meant to put the one getting the call off-balance and then they would be on edge.

  Carla was on edge. But not because she was scared. She was pissed off. Someone thought they could scare her off with a measly phone call. That and she had a confrontation to deal with that wasn't going to be overly pleasant.

  What possessed the damn man to attack them she had no idea. But Carla was determined to make sure she didn't ruin the case for her.

  After getting up, showering and dressing, Carla was out the door by ten to six. She drove through the city until she pulled up outside the designated address in Miami Shores, a quaint one-story condo. Carla knew from checking the records that the condo was rented at one-thousand dollars a month. How a publishing assistant, and a lower grade at that, could afford something like this monthly Carla had no idea.

  That was suspicious in itself. But it could also be a simple explanation. She could have had an inheritance or rich parents. Carla wasn't sure but made a mental note to ask Faye to check it out for her.

  The sky was starting to tinge pink as the sun rose. Nobody stirred on the street as Carla climbed out and walked up the path to the front door. She pressed the doorbell three times. There was movement inside and after a while the door opened a crack. Joanie peered out through the gap. Her hair was rumpled from sleep and her eyes were half-open, her face free of makeup. She blinked in surprise.

  "Miss Romaine. I wasn't expecting a call this early. Couldn't you have phoned at a reasonable hour?"

  "Sorry, Miss Oldham, but it couldn't wait and I was in the area." Carla lied. She raised her eyebrows. "Do you mind if I come in?"

  Joanie looked like she was about to argue but decided against it. Hiding a huge yawn behind her hand, she undid the door chain and opened the door, allowing Carla to step through. She moved into a lounge and open-plan kitchen. Everything was black and white and leather. It was all spick and span like no one lived here. Carla felt like she had stepped into a show home.

  Joanie shut the door and turned to face her. She was wearing a silk kimono with a short hem that brushed near the top of her thighs. It opened a moment and Carla saw that she was wearing a barely-there white thong and nothing else. While it had been a warm night
it hadn't been that warm. But whatever floated her boat.

  Joanie pulled her kimono together and tied the belt before rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  "Have you any news?"

  "Not as such." Carla paused, knowing that wouldn't go down well. "I just wanted to ask you something."

  "Couldn't it have waited until it was daytime?"

  "I'm afraid not." Carla watched Joanie closely. "Why did you attack me last night?"

  Joanie blinked. She stared at Carla in stunned amazement.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Jason Liu and I were attacked last night out in the open. I was only given a shove but Jason was hit over the head with a cosh and was injured." Carla stepped forward, noticing that Joanie stepped away and was not making eye contact. "And I saw the attacker running away. Tall, slim in tight-fitting clothes. No regular thug would wear tight-fitting clothes if they wanted to stay unidentified. That and the fact the running wasn't normal running told me the attacker was a woman." She raised her eyebrows as she folded her arms. "You're the only one I know who would do something like that."

  "It could have been any one of the women who had been out with him." Joanie protested. But Carla could see she was floundering now, she had been put in a corner. "They all get jealous."

  "I doubt it. They would've done it face to face. Plus they would've gone after me, not Jason." Carla shook her head. "Are you willing to jeopardize my investigation to get your own back?"

  For a moment she thought Joanie was going to argue that it wasn't her. But Carla knew it was. It didn't take a genius to put it together.

  Joanie's body sagged. She moved to one of the couches and sat on the edge, wrapping her arms around her middle.

  "I wasn't thinking straight." She said timidly. "I was that angry with him."

  "And if he finds out it was you that beat him over the head then there could be criminal charges pressed against you and you'll be arrested."

  Carla couldn't believe the woman would be that stupid to get her own back when she knew Jason was already being investigated. She should tell Jason who it was and let him handle it with the police. But Joanie was her client and Carla had a duty to protect her. For now.