Black Collar Empire

by A. N. Latro

  “We have a reservation,” she murmurs into a brief lull in conversation. Seth seizes the opportunity and shakes the older man’s hand before he turns away.

  Emma eyes him in the car as he slumps in quiet relief. There are tiny lines around his eyes, worry evident even here, in this semi-relaxed state.

  “Do we really have reservations?” he asks without opening his eyes.

  She nods. “At Corton.”

  He mutters a curse, one with which she wholeheartedly agrees. The classy restaurant is a hotspot for paparazzi, and neither of them is particularly easy to miss. Seth leans past her, speaks to the driver, and she wonders, idly, if she should call and cancel their reservation, but she dismisses the idea almost before it is fully formed. She turns her focus back on Seth. He’s watching her, and there are questions in his eyes that she does not want to face. Instead she glances down at her hands. His eyes are heavy, warm on her skin, and she resists the urge to fidget, to cover the fading bite on her neck that is hidden by a silk scarf.

  “Have you been out with any of the kids from Irving recently?”

  The question breaks the silence suddenly, and her eyes jerk to him. He has leaned his head back, not looking at her, but she knows he is acutely aware of her—even in the quiet safety with just the two of them, he is ever alert and intent.

  “No,” she answers shortly. “Not since graduation.”

  One eye opens to peer at her. “Why not?”

  How to explain this? She sighs, a soft, barely there sound, and his eyes open to stare at her fully. There is sadness and knowledge there, and in that moment, he seems a thousand years older than her. She looks away first, unwilling to see the emotion she has never wanted to admit in him

  “Seth,” she asks, her voice taking on a different note, one that brings his head up questioningly, “have you ever used a whore?”

  His eyes widen at the question, incredulous and shocked. She blushes and looks away, aware of the intensely intimate nature of the question. They ride in silence for a long moment, and when she finally peeks back at him, his face is composed, the shock hidden behind careful amusement. He smirks. “Do you think I’d need to?”

  Anger fills her for a moment—he is baiting her. Her gaze grows lazy as she takes in his polished shoes, the too-expensive, delicious black suit that he wears as no one can, the unbuttoned shirt—he has discarded his tie. Her eyes leisurely crawl up him, and when she reaches his still-thin face, his jaw is clenched.

  It is his turn to look away as she laughs softly, and she is only a bit amused that he still turns away at her blatant attention. The sleek black car glides to a stop, and Seth reaches for the door.

  There are no cameras waiting outside Mandeley, a classic, classy mid-town bistro. How the gossip papers have missed this tiny restaurant, she still does not know. But as she steps out behind him, and the shutter clicks are absent, she is only grateful.

  She pauses inside the door as the maître d’ realizes who has walked into his uneventful lunch hour. The man barely blinks as he comes to them, escorts them to a private table with low lighting. Seth palms him a sizeable tip as Emma removes her light coat and slips into the dark green booth.

  They ignore the menus sitting out, but neither do they look at each other. From the corner of his eye, he watches her absorb the heavy white linen table cloth, the center piece of fresh water lilies floating with candles, the muted cream walls and vaulted ceilings with low hanging pinpoints of light. Soft instrumentals soothe over them as he orders a bottle of Chablis Vaudesir and seared salmon for them both. The waitress seems to float away, high on the brief attention, and Emma laughs softly.

  Then her eyes are on him, searching and intent, and he sighs. She will pursue this, and he would gladly forget the entire conversation in the car. She’s getting better at staying focused, although he wishes she would forget that lesson for now.

  “You didn’t answer me,” she says simply, tucking her hands beneath her thighs. It’s a move that echoes her childhood, and watching her, with her shoulders pulled up, her big eyes wide and curious, her gorgeous hair pulled up in a sleek ponytail, he feels a pang. She should not be so old that she would ask him such a thing.

  “What would you say if I did?” he asks, curious despite himself.

  Her eyes are troubled, and that is answer enough. The waitress intrudes, fumbling in her eagerness to impress. He smiles, charming and absent, plucks the bottle from her smoothly. Emma watches him as he opens the bottle and pours her a glass. She sips thoughtfully, and he wonders where her mind is. What prompts such a question from a girl like Emma?

  He pushes aside the niggling suspicion that perhaps he is not the only one with secrets, leans back against the booth as he assesses the bistro. He is familiar with it, comfortable enough in the space that he does not worry here—Emma is safe, as safe as she ever is when with him.

  “No,” he says abruptly, and her eyes dart to his face. He forces a smile, gentles his tone a touch. “I’ve never used a prostitute. I wasn’t the brother who enjoyed the impersonal aspect of sex for money.”

  “Caleb?” she asked, and her voice is startled. How well did his cousin know Caleb—it is hard to say. Was anyone close to him? Could anyone know Caleb, with all his secrets and suspicions?

  Her gaze wanders, assessing this new knowledge. Bamboo makes sense, seen in this light. She is mildly disgusted at the thought of her cousin with one of the women Rama had inspected, but there is guilt mixed with her disgust—is it fair, to be disgusted? The accusations from Rama float in her head, and she wonders if that is how they truly appear. What did he mean, that the king had murdered the heir? She shivers.

  “Caleb didn’t need them,” she says nonchalantly, pushing thoughts of Rama aside—they are not safe here, not with Seth’s too sharp eyes probing her as if he knows her every thought and secret.

  Seth smiles, a softly reminiscent smile. “Caleb appreciated the honesty of whores. Everyone wants something, Em. Working girls are honest about what they want.”

  She stares at him, wonders how they have come back to this. The waitress is back, setting down long rectangular plates. Seared salmon with a light lemon cream sauce, wild rice and onion, steamed baby asparagus. She sips her wine as the waitress retreats, and takes a moment to focus on her meal while her thoughts race.

  Since that interesting night in her mother’s bar, Seth has brought her closer, pulling her from her quiet waiting into a position at his side, somewhere between assistant and confidant. It has been over a month, and she is learning the subtleties that drive him. He never speaks without cause, even in casual settings such as this. So what is he trying to teach her, as they sit sipping wine, alone and unwatched—why is he pushing this?

  “Not everyone wants something,” she says softly, speaking to her food. It’s heartbreaking, the defensiveness, the naive hope in her voice. Seth stares at her, until finally she looks up, pushes hair from her eyes as she forces a smile. “You don’t think Nicolette wants something, do you?”

  “Of course she does,” he answers easily, taking a neat bite of salmon. “The difference with her is that we both want the same thing—we want peace and the city.”

  “What if you can’t have both?” she asks suddenly, and it is a loaded question. More even than the question about prostitutes. “What if ruling and peace do not coincide? What if control and power means spilling blood?”

  He frowns at her, but she senses that his thoughts are on something other than her—something that haunts him. “I don’t know,” he finally answers.

  “Is that what happened, to Caleb?” she asks, voicing the question so softly he almost does not hear it. His eyes, when they find her, are desolate, desperate.

  “I don’t know. I thought so—thought that he wanted the throne,” he says quietly. “But you knew him, Em. Nothing with Caleb is clear-cut.”

  They lapse into silence, she watching him as he stares pensively into his wine. When he speaks, it is hesitant, quiet, alm
ost grudging. “He didn’t trust Mikie. I don’t understand—in two years, what changed so much that he couldn’t trust our uncle?”

  Emma processes the words. With Rama’s accusation still ringing in her ears, she is forced to reassess her dead cousin. The caustic care he showed to her, the way he would position his allies around her, even at Irving Prep—was it more than just a possessive flair? Had he been protecting her from a threat of which she had been unaware? It would be like him—Caleb would hide his true motives behind a pompous superiority that made her grit her teeth. But she loved her cousin, and he taught her, cared for her when no one else was around to do so.

  Yet, that cousin is gone and his younger sibling is sitting before her, the prince she serves so well. She sets her fork aside, her food forgotten as she lets her fingers brush his arm. Seth startles, his eyes jerking to her. Hers are questioning, and he summons a smile, tired but there. “Don’t worry, Emma,” he says with a false confidence.

  “You have something that he didn’t, you know,” she says, and his eyes widen. “Caleb was so secretive. He accepted no help—no allies.”

  “I have no one,” he says, his eyes darting away, and she wonders what he is hiding that he denies it so quickly. She considers pressing and remembers Rama, his lips against her, her hands fisted in his silk hair, his exotic eyes almost glowing as they stared up at her. She flushes and looks away—secrets, some secrets, should remain that way.

  “You have me,” she answers, forcing him to acknowledge her.

  His eyes warm for a moment as he studies her. Secrets that weight so heavily on both fall away in a breathless moment of time before he reaches for his wine, breaking the quiet of the moment. “Eat, Em,” he says softly. “We have to meet Mikie soon.”

  China Town, New York City. June 15th.

  He stares at the phone, a smile curling his lips.

  She has stayed away for over a week—long enough that he began to wonder if she was gone. He told himself it was for the best and tried not to remember the ecstasy of being within her. He told himself that a daughter of the Morgan syndicate was not—could never be—right for the heir of Ratchaphure.

  But there was no way to hide the truth in the darkness—he missed her in his bed, missed her swaying on his dance floor, missed her voice in his car, missed her.

  She called unexpectedly, saying she wanted to see him. He is a prince, a king-in-waiting. The absurd urge to race to her is appalling and infuriating. The meeting he has tonight cannot be ignored, and he agrees to meet her at his apartment, later. He wonders if she will be comfortable there, with the memory of other women so fresh in her mind.

  Kai is watching him, and Rama straightens as the big man slides the newspaper to him. It’s folded to a picture, and Rama’s lip curls a little as he recognizes the newly returned heir. Seth Morgan.

  He’s been in the society pages almost constantly, a barrage of photographers following him, trying to glimpse him and his icy fiancée, Nicolette Oliver. They are hungry for the antics of the renowned playboy—he has been out of the city for two years. The photographer caught Seth in a rare moment, his dark eyes staring directly into the camera, a cocky half smile turning his lips. His arm is wrapped protectively around a young woman, and the first thing Rama realizes is that it is not his famed Nicolette. Red-gold curls. A brilliant, unconsciously sexy smile. Scarlet flowers glittering in the light, wrapping around her throat.

  He knew Emma was high in the Morgan family. Knew that someone powerful protected her. But seeing her on Seth’s arm, the man shielding her so carefully, is like a blow. His hand curls in anger, and a ripple of fear. Does she know?

  She couldn’t. The fury and revulsion in her eyes when she saw the girls in his apartment, she couldn’t possibly know about Caleb and the kings’ interest in branching out.

  He sighs, looks up. A ripple goes through the table, and silence filters through to him as drug dealers and thugs and pimps turn to him. He sets the paper aside, forces himself to focus and push all thoughts of her aside.

  Emma steps out of the dirty cab, and the stench of rotting vegetables and Chinese food and oil hits her like a wet slap. It shocks her again, the refuse and dirt, the flickering neon signs and scent of incense rising above the smell of poverty.

  A dealer stands under the overhang of a liquor store, his blue mohawk vivid in the neon light. Two girls in tiny skirts over stick thin legs loiter near him—working girls without the class and protection Rama offers. She can feel the pimp’s gaze on her, and Emma’s chin tilts up almost subconsciously as she tugs her light coat tighter around her. Her hand clenches around the key Kai had left with security at Bamboo, and she stalks to the side door.

  As the elevator doors glide open onto Rama’s elegant penthouse, her phone rings, startling her. She glances down at it and is surprised to see her mother’s name on the caller ID. She rarely uses the phone that Seth provided for her—is startled to see that Bethania knows the number at all. Idle curiosity is not enough to make her answer it, and Emma silences the shrill noise before she drops it carelessly back into her purse.

  He said she was welcome in his place, but it is odd, she thinks, to be here without him. She shivers at the slight chill in the air as she sheds her jacket and purse.

  In the kitchen, Emma pours a glass of filtered water and carries it with her to the low, satin couch in front of a black lacquered wood table. She sits, her legs crossed under her, uncertain.

  There are papers scattered messily on the coffee table, photos of young women. She frowns at them—they’re in Thai, and there is no way she could possibly understand it. A list of numbers on one sheet makes her eyes widen: even in another language, the accountant in her recognizes numbers for what they are, and she is startled by the profit prostitution can bring in.

  The haunted and smiling eyes gleam up at her from grainy photos, young women with ancient eyes, sultry and exotic and so unbelievably gorgeous, she feels her blood heat unexpectedly.

  She sits back, muttering a curse. Pushes to her bare feet and pads down the dim hall to his office. She shouldn’t snoop. She knows she shouldn’t. But Seth’s worries hang on him, and she can turn to no one else.

  Nicolette still believes that Rama is somehow connected to Caleb.

  The office is small, a simple desk and sleek computer, a printer, and two chairs. She can picture Rama and Kai, hunched here, talking in their fluid language. A photo sits on the desk, and she glances at it, curiously. Rama and Kai and a brightly smiling Thai girl, leaning on Kai. It was taken at Bamboo—she can see the familiar paper lanterns and décor in the background.

  And Caleb, his sardonic gaze on the threesome posing.

  Shock makes her drop the photo, and she winces when it lands with a loud clatter. She stands it up with trembling hands and hurries from the office to the relative safety of his bedroom.

  Rama finds her there, almost an hour later, asleep in his bed. Tears have dried on her cheeks, and he wonders what caused them. She jerks awake as he sits on the bed, wide eyes finding his in the dimness. She relaxes a little when she realizes it is him leaning against the pillow.

  “I am sorry,” he says softly. Her brow quirks, and something like confusion fills her eyes for a moment. He wonders if she has ever heard a prince apologize. Surely not the one who is her cousin.

  He leans down to kiss her, and she almost allows it. Almost lets the warmth of his lips wash away her questions. She pulls away, shakes her head. “We need to talk.”

  Rama nods and stands. She stares at him, a piercing gaze that makes him nervous, and nerves make him angry. “Seth is your cousin.”

  The words drop, flat and angry and accusatory.

  Emma blinks, startled. She should admit it, but his tone irritates her. “My family has nothing to do with you.”

  He laughs. “Do you really believe that, Em?”

  The picture in his office flashes in her mind, and her hands tremble as she shrugs, deliberately nonchalant.

  “Wh
y would my cousin concern you, Rama?” she asks, her eyes finding his liquid black gaze.

  Pain and hope flash in them for a moment before he goes blank. “Then it’s true? What the paper is saying?”

  He throws the paper onto the bed next to her, and she glances at it, recognizes the photo from three nights ago when she and Seth and Nicolette left Mikie’s apartment.

  She pushes her curls from her eyes as she looks up at him. “What of it?”

  Rama stares at her in surprise. She doesn’t deny it. She claims the drug lord with calm quiet. “How can you accept him and not my trade?” he demands, anger sparking in him.

  Emma blinks. “We deal in guns and drugs. It’s nothing like pimping.”

  “Your cousin disagreed,” he says so softly she almost misses the admission.

  Emma jerks, her eyes searching his. “Seth would never do that,” she says, and the certainty in her voice shakes him.

  He makes a dismissive movement with his hand. “It’s nothing, Em.”

  Her eyes are narrow as she stares at him, and he can almost see her mind working. It is not at all shocking when her head tilts, and she says, a statement more than a question, “Caleb, though, would. And you knew that cousin.”

  Rama’s eyes are wide and almost panicked when she stands and pushes past him. Stalks out of the bedroom and returns with a familiar heavy silver frame.

  Kai and Chenya smile at his side, but he sees what she saw immediately—the golden Morgan prince.

  Pain hits harder than Rama expected. It’s been almost six months, and it still startles him how much Caleb’s death hurt. But he understood Caleb, and they trusted each other—as much as Caleb ever trusted anyone. It had all happened so suddenly that it had been shocking, unexpected, brutal. The overtures from Mikie Morgan and Remi Oliver stopped as if they had never heard of the Asians and their expensive women.

  Rama wondered if it was not because of Seth and his ill-timed return to the city. Caleb had spoken increasingly less of his younger brother, but Rama knew the other man’s strangely protective way of sheltering Emma. Had it extended to Seth, that caustic care? And if it had, why had he died so soon after Seth returned?