I jump, and for a millisecond I experience a sense of searing shame. He’s absolutely right: I am here to squeeze every last drop of money possible. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if we had not already assessed that a substantial sum can be gleaned from this establishment. And the moment we find a flaw we’ll be piling on interest charges and fines on top of any amount deemed to be owed to cover the cost of our involvement.
Then I remember my honest, hardworking parents. How proud they were that they paid their fair share even though all around them people were gaming the system. And yet now that they’ve both stopped working because my father is ill and my mother is his primary caregiver, their combined pensions are barely enough to get them through the month. And the reason there isn’t enough is because of people like him. People who refuse to pay their fair share. Corrupt, devious people who get away with it just because they have expensive lawyers and accountants who arrange all kinds of sweet schemes for them.
Well, I took this job with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) because I believe in the good we do and I’m here to make the world a fairer place.
I meet his eyes head on. ‘If it transpires that you’ve paid the correct amount of tax, we will not harass you in any way.’
Before he can answer, the restaurant door opens and Rob comes in. We turn to watch his progress across the room. As soon as the light hits him, I see that he looks a sickly shade of green. I raise my eyebrows enquiringly at him. He shakes his head imperceptibly at me, and turns toward Dominic Eden.
‘Sorry about that. I think I’ve picked up some kind of stomach bug. Can we reschedule this meeting for another day?’
‘Of course, Mr. Hunter,’ Eden says. There’s a taunting smile in his voice.
I gather up my files, stand, and take a couple of steps forward so Rob’s body is between him and me. Eden unfurls himself and stands, towering over Rob and me. Rob extends his hand, but he refuses to shake it, and Rob retracts his hand awkwardly.
‘Right,’ Rob says. ‘We’ll be in touch to make another appointment.’ He turns around and starts walking toward the door.
Eden turns to me.
I nod and quickly follow Rob without looking back, even though I can feel Eden’s stare like a dagger in my back. Rob holds open the door and I step out into the entrance foyer. My heart is racing. What happened in that empty restaurant was so crazy and so unlike anything I have ever encountered that I can’t even think straight.
I look at Rob as he enters the foyer and closes the door behind him. There’s a pinched look about his mouth, and his chubby face is shiny with perspiration. I must admit he doesn’t look too well.
‘Rude cunt,’ he mutters disgustedly.
My eyebrows shoot up. Rob is never so crude. He must be feeling really unwell—or Dominic Eden rubbed him up the wrong way.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask cautiously.
‘No, I feel bloody awful, but I’ll survive. I just need to get home. Will you drive?’
‘Sure,’ I say, opening the street door. Outside it is still raining steadily.
Rob turns toward me. ‘Damn, I left my umbrella in the restaurant. Will you be good enough to get it for me?’
I look at him in dismay. ‘Me?’
‘I’d go myself, but I’m not well, Ella,’ he says irritably.
I continue staring at him. I really don’t want to go back into that restaurant alone.
‘Can’t you see that I’m suffering?’ he asks through clenched teeth.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘It’s by the table. Hurry, please. I’m afraid I’ll have to rush to the toilet again.’
Without a word I go back into the foyer and, after crossing the small space, open the door of the restaurant.
THREE
The first thing I see is the muscular bulk of Dominic Eden sitting at the table. He’s hunched over with his forehead resting on his fist. At the sound of my entrance his head jerks up. His eyes are brimming with tears and the expression on his face is shocking.
He looks utterly tormented!
In fact, it appears to me that I have interrupted him in a moment of such extreme suffering that it seems impossible he is the same hostile, high-octane, sexual man I left a few minutes ago. This man could have just walked off a battlefield, the cries of the dying still ringing in his ears.
Horrified by the intensely private moment of grief I have accidentally stumbled upon, I begin to babble nonsense. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … Rob forgot his umbrella. I’ve come …’ My voice dies away at the change in his face.
It’s an expression that is raw and primal and impossible for me to understand. The closest I could come to describing it is to say that it’s almost a look of desperate yearning. As if I’ve taken something of great importance from him and he is silently begging me to return it, and yet … how could it be?
We just met in antagonistic circumstances. I have not taken anything from him. Not yet, anyway. It doesn’t make any sense.
Outside this closed, deserted restaurant, the world revolves inexorably: Rob waits with irritation, I have a two o’clock appointment I have to cancel, my mother will be cleaning the bathroom and waiting for my call to tell her what time I’m planning to pick her up tomorrow, my best friend Anna will have presented her dreaded sales report and be wanting to tell me all about it.
But in this strange world, I can do nothing except gaze at Dominic Eden in a daze. His suffering moves me more deeply than I care to admit and the part of me that I never allow out when I am at work, the part that gets angry when people are cruel to animals, propels me towards him. My hand reaches out and my finger lightly brushes his face. It is meant to be an expression of sympathy, but a small spark rushes up my arm.
The tax dodger and I stare at each other in shock.
We are connected at such a deep level it is even beyond attraction, desire or lust. I don’t know how long I would have stood there if not for the expression of fury that suddenly crosses his face. He jerks away from my finger. The rejection is like a slap in the face.
He blinks away the tears, and I unlock my frozen muscles and force my hand down. I turn away from him blindly, my mind blank with shock. I’m here for Rob’s black umbrella. I start looking around and spot it tucked under the table close to his leg. Yes, that’s what I came for. I bend, grab it and quickly straighten.
‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ I say awkwardly.
Without looking him in the eye again, I begin to hurry toward the door. I place my hand on the door handle and turn it.
‘Will you have dinner with me, tonight?’ His voice rings out and wraps around me like a cloak.
Dinner with him?
I take a deep breath. Oh my! It’s shocking how much I want to agree. I turn around slowly. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. It wouldn’t be appropriate,’ I say quietly.
‘Why not?’
‘You’re under investigation and I’m the investigating officer. It would be wrong.’
‘I thought it was the restaurant you were investigating.’
‘You know it’s the same thing,’ I answer more truthfully than I normally would have done.
‘Don’t you think you’d find out more about me and the restaurant over dinner than you would pouring through dull reports from your central computer.’ His voice is soft and persuasive.
Desire clings to my ankles like the waves that suck at your feet when you’re standing at the shoreline. ‘I don’t think that would be very ethical.’
‘Spare me the crap, Ella. They’ll fucking hang a medal on you if you bring in a rope of information to hang me with.’
‘Look, Mr. Eden—’
‘Dom,’ he corrects softly.
I bite my lower lip and hover uncertainly by the door. I have never been so confused or conflicted before. He gets to his feet and starts walking toward me. Instantly I feel a flare of panic. He comes within two feet of me before stopping. Too close. Way too close. His face is no longer
in the light, but deeply shadowed, the outlines faint. Only his eyes shine with lust.
The damp curls caressing his powerful neck make me itch to push the fingers of both my hands into them. I even imagine myself sluttishly dragging my fingers up his scalp. As if he has heard my thoughts he leans closer. His scent invades my nostrils and my breath hitches. Staring up into his eyes, I feel my body slowly inching toward him. There is no doubt in my mind that he is dangerous for my sanity. That I should say no.
That I must say no.
‘Will you come?’ His deep voice seduces in the dark.
I really want to say no. I really, really do. It’s the right thing to do. The most professional thing to do. But I remember again how we stared into each other’s eyes and I felt as if our souls were touching.
And there is this attraction: irrational, crazy and unlike anything I have ever experienced. My mouth is watering to taste him and it is beyond words or explanations.
Am I just behaving in this reckless way because he’s so drop-dead gorgeous? Or is it because I saw something I shouldn’t have seen? Or is it because beyond my professional pride, my life is pretty dreary, and he is one of those shining things that come by once, if you’re very lucky, in a lifetime?
Whatever it is, it makes me feel like an iron filing helpless in the pull of a giant magnet. This thing between us is unlike anything I have ever experienced and it is blatantly clear that I am not going to be able to think of anything but him for weeks. Either with regret that I succumbed to temptation, or with regret that I did not reach out and take what I wanted so badly. It is so hard to say no to someone your body craves, but say no I must.
Two throaty words tumble out. ‘All right.’
‘Good,’ he mutters, and I’m startled to hear the same conflict in his voice that I heard in my head. He doesn’t want to want me! It’s just as inconvenient for him.
‘I’ll pick you up at seven?’ he murmurs.
I nod.
‘Where from?’ he asks.
‘7, Latimer Avenue.’
‘Give me your phone,’ he commands.
I hesitate a moment. Every brain cell that I have painstakingly trained over the many years to be independent, strong and take no bullshit from anyone cries out HELL NO, and every untrained, uninhibited, natural cell in my body screams FUCK YES.
It’s just once in a lifetime.
I hand over my phone and watch him input his number into it and press call. A sound vibrates from his jacket. He ends the call and gives my phone back to me. The tips of our fingers graze and that brief, impersonal touch steals the wind from my lungs. The spark is undeniable. It lights up my body and makes my mind reel with images of us twisted together, our mouths fused, our sweaty bodies joined. I almost want to purr like a needy kitten. It’s a far cry from the woman who strode into this restaurant like a consul less than an hour ago.
My fingers are tingling as I raise my eyes to search his. ‘Why do you want to take me out to dinner?’
‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
Our mouths are only a heartbeat away. I shake my head.
The answer is throbbing between us. I have never met a man I wanted the way I want him. But what shocks me is that a man like him should want me in the same way. Yes, I’m good-looking, but he has access to the most beautiful women.
Sex. Sex. Sex. And so what?
‘Seven OK with you?’
‘Yes.’
FOUR
I make it out of the restaurant and drive Rob back to his flat. Then I get back to the office and try hard to be interested in a piece of gossip the receptionist has for me. I smile and nod at my colleagues as they walk by. I go to my floor and get myself a mug of coffee. Sitting at my desk, I put away the file marked ‘Dominic Eden’, and call my mother. She’s a terrible worrier, and she is quietly relieved to hear from me. I tell her I will pick her up at twelve tomorrow. With that arrangement made, I ask after my father.
My mother drops her voice to a whisper. ‘I think he’s feeling a bit down, love. His prostate is playing up. It keeps him awake at night.’
‘Let’s all do lunch tomorrow,’ I suggest brightly.
She seems pleased with the idea.
Almost as soon as I ring off, Anna’s call comes through. Even by the tone of her voice, I can tell that her meeting went badly.
‘I think I’m going to be fired,’ she wails.
‘They’d be mad to fire you. You’re the best salesperson they have,’ I say reassuringly. And that’s no lie, either. Anna can close a deal like no one else I know.
‘I kinda fucked up, Ella. I slept with my sales manager.’
‘What?’ I exclaim, shocked. ‘Tony’s disgusting!’
‘I was drunk,’ she says glumly.
‘Oh my God! And he’s married as well.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ she says sourly.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Last Friday.’
‘And you’re just telling me now?’
‘It meant nothing. I was, like, really drunk,’ she explains.
‘Oh, Anna.’
‘I’d already put it behind me, but now he’s acting all weird. I think he’s trying to get rid of me.’
Note to self: NEVER mix business with pleasure. Oh, DAMN.
After my conversation with Anna, I have a salmon and cucumber sandwich and some dark chocolate for lunch. That afternoon I get through an impressive pile of paperwork, answer the phone, and liaise with my workmates, but all the time my insides are clenched, and between my legs my cunt is fat with anticipation.
Before the clock strikes five, I am already crossing the reception concourse. Stepping outside into the hot evening, I walk down to the Underground station and take the Tube back to my apartment building. Ignoring the slow, smelly lift, I run up the three flights of stairs and let myself into my matchbox-sized, one bedroom flat. Yeah, it’s tiny, but it’s all mine—well, at least as long as I pay my rent.
I run to the mirror and look in it.
Unbelievable.
I still look the same. I pulled it off. No one knew.
My living room is west facing and it’s like a sauna in my home, so I quickly open all the windows, switch on the fans and go into my bedroom. Even though it’s very small, I’ve made it look pretty and cozy with blue and white vertical stripe wallpaper, an old-fashioned chrome bed and a painted French dressing table. It’s my sanctuary. So far only one man has been in here, but he turned out to be a giant jerk. I quickly banish all thoughts of him and open more windows. The sounds from the street below float up as I start stripping the bed. I put on fresh sheets and stuff the soiled ones into the washing machine. I don’t turn the machine on, because I don’t want to come home to a crumpled wet mess.
I tidy up, dust all the surfaces and run the vacuum cleaner quickly around the place. By now I’m hot and sweaty. I glance at the clock: five past six. I stick a green apple scented refill into the plug-in air freshener and go into the bathroom. There I do what I’ve not done in months.
I trim down my bush and shave my legs. No nicks. Yay! I step into the shower and wash my hair. With a towel wrapped around my head and body, I come back into the bedroom and pad over to my closet.
It’s been a long time since I cared this much about looking good. There are all kinds of options I can go for: sexy, or casual, or elegant, or professional. In the end I decide to go for subtle. A black lace shirt that my mother bought for my birthday teamed with a red pencil skirt that I got in a seventy percent off sale. I guess there’s not too much demand for red pencil skirts. But the nice thing about the skirt is the slit up the back. Modest, but an invitation all the same.
You’re not on a date, I tell myself even as I’m slipping into little bits of sexy underwear. Standing in my bra and panties, I dry my hair and, brushing it back, draw on a black velvet band. I go for smoky eyes and nude lip gloss. My cheeks are already tinged with pink so I skip the blusher.
From the back of my closet I take out my most extravagant purchase yet. I saved up for weeks to buy them. I open the box and take out my big investment: a pair of zebra patterned court shoes with red heels almost the same color as my skirt. I step into them and … they are worth every penny.
Feeling like a million dollars, I dab on perfume and stand in front of the mirror on the closet door. I turn around and look at the back view.
‘Not too bad,’ I reassure myself.
I stuff my lip gloss, a twenty-pound note just in case it gets nasty and I need to get a taxi home, and a credit card into my evening purse. With one last look at my appearance, I go into the living room. It smells of apples. Satisfied that everything looks the way it should, I glance at the time.
I still have ten minutes to kill.
Until this moment all the activity has kept me going and in control. Now I’m suddenly a bundle of nerves. I feel as if I’m about to walk into an exam hall to take a test that I’m totally unprepared for. I walk into my kitchen and take a bottle of vodka out of my fridge. I pour two fingers worth of alcohol into a glass and down it neat into my empty stomach. It burns my throat, but the alcohol is good. Its warmth radiates quickly through me, warming my body, stirring my blood. I switch on the TV for some noise, and try to concentrate on the sounds and pictures on the screen.
The doorbell makes me jump like a startled cat at two minutes to seven.
The man is punctual!
I smooth my skirt and, taking a deep breath, open the door. And … oh wow! If he looked good before, he is devastatingly dashing now in a snowy white silk shirt that contrasts amazingly with his tanned skin, a beautifully cut gunmetal gray evening suit, and black shoes polished to a mirror shine. Is that jaw for real? Freshly shaved, his jaw seems to me to have been chiseled to perfection by the gods themselves. As Anna would say, ‘Gurllll! I’ma gonna have to call you back.’
‘Hi,’ I say awkwardly.
Silently, he holds out what looks like a box of very expensive, handmade chocolates. Wow, I certainly didn’t expect that from a twenty-eight-year-old gypsy tax dodger. I take the box and finger the dark blue ribbon.
Wounded Beast (Gypsy Heroes Book 2) Page 2