I raise my hand to signal a waitress. Two notice my hand and eagerly start hurrying toward me. Both are aware of each other, but determined to get to me first. Once it flattered me, people falling over themselves to please me. But now I have become cynical. I despise them for being so weak and clinging. One of them has nearly reached me. She is smiling broadly, triumphant. Delighted to serve Jake Eden. She knows her tip will be astronomic.
Behind her I see the woman who is quietly but relentlessly driving me crazy. She is standing by the bar, so delicate that she is almost translucent and yet I know she is full of secrets and fire. There is a riot going on all around her, but she looks totally removed, entirely lost to her own thoughts. For a while she looks safe. Locked away in an ivory tower. Waiting for her prince to rescue her.
The waitress is two steps away from me when my blood begins to seethe and boil.
Oh! You hellishly jealous guy, you!
Lily
‘Hey, Lily.’
I whirl around warily, startled by the use of my name in this place. A man is leaning against the bar, a small smile playing on his lips. My eyes automatically rove over his face and body. God! These Eden men! They are so fucking gorgeous.
I relax, rest my back against the bar and smile up at him. He has beautiful eyes. Impossible to tell what color in these lights, but probably green or blue. ‘Hello, Mr. Eden.’
‘Shane,’ he corrects softly.
I smile mysteriously. Shane is the younger brother of Jake and the owner of the club. But unlike his brother, who is aloof and elusive, Shane is universally liked by everybody. He is everything you could want in a man. Movie star looks, charm, manners, and he is supposed to be genuinely nice too. He’s not just the kind of man you’d be proud to take home to your parents but will also make all your girlfriends green with envy. The kind of man you could so easily say I do to. I have seen him around, but this is the first time he has deigned to talk to me.
‘Wanna to go to a party?’ he asks, a lazy smile playing on his lips. Wow! He really has perfected his technique.
‘Sure. If I’m not working.’
He leans close. ‘You’re not.’
I grin. ‘I do like a resourceful man.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve got a room full of resourceful I’m not using, babe.’
I laugh back. It’s easy with him. ‘Where’s the party at?’
‘My brother’s.’
The DJ is playing ‘Dangerous’ by Sam Martin. I tilt my head up and pout, a disobedient, come-get-me pout. I know I am flirting outrageously with him, but I feel safe. ‘Which brother?’
‘Jake.’
My heart skips a beat. Now that’s definitely not the kind of man you want to introduce your parents to. Or you can flirt with safely. ‘Great,’ I say with a slow smile.
‘Pick you up from your place at seven tomorrow?’
‘OK.’
‘Got anything pretty to wear?’
‘What do you think?’ I say, batting my false eyelashes with exaggerated coquetry. I swear he makes it too easy.
He reaches into his wallet, takes out a thick wad of crisp notes, and puts it on the bar. ‘Buy yourself something stunning.’
I look down at the money, at his strong, long fingers, and then back up at him. He is watching, transfixed. Shit, he really likes me. ‘Thanks,’ I say softly.
‘Right, I’m off to have a shower. A cold shower.’
‘I…umm…am looking forward to tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, Lily,’ he says, pushing himself off the bar, a smile lighting his eyes, and then he is gone, only his expensive scent remaining.
I watch him leave—the scene is being set—before I pick up the money and stuff it into the red satin bag that comes with my outfit.
The first thing I think of when I open my eyes the next morning is Jake. I hear his call like an echo in a vast room. A lost, blind sound. I roll over to a cool spot on the sheet and remember the way he looked at me that morning of the audition. The attraction had been immediate, wild, and electric. The promise and the temptation of pleasure and release that only Jake Eden can give shimmer in the morning air.
So: I will see him again tonight.
But I will not let this crazy longing distract me. He uses women the way other people use tissues. And when he discards them he gives them as much thought as people do to tissues they have soiled. I will not be one of his conquests.
When I came home last night I counted the money Shane had put on the bar. Two thousand pounds! If I am going to a party thrown by a gangland lord then I am going in some seriously fabulous gear.
After breakfast I take a taxi into London and end up in Pandora, a secondhand designer store in Knightsbridge. There I find myself standing in front of a mirror wearing a sweetheart neckline, sheer illusion, cocktail-length gown. Its price tag is an eye-watering one thousand eight hundred pounds. Far more than I have ever paid for a dress, but it is gloriously and uniquely beautiful with beads and sparkling blue crystals embellishing the fabric. The assistant, a friendly South American girl, runs to the shoe section and comes back with a pair of blue high heels. I slip them on.
‘Wow!’ she exclaims dramatically.
‘It’s very expensive, though,’ I worry aloud.
‘It is one-third of the price when it was new. It has probably only been worn once.’
I turn my head to look at my side profile. It is a truly breathtaking dress.
‘Wait,’ she says and going to a glass case takes out a pair of long earrings. She gives them to me and I clip them on. They are so perfect that there is nothing left to do but buy the whole ensemble.
‘You’ll stun him,’ she says sagely as she is counting Shane’s money.
At that moment I know. I am not going to this party to be with Shane, but Jake. Even though he is a dangerous criminal and a sexual predator, he is the one for me.
Shane arrives at seven sharp wearing a white dress shirt with ruffles at the front and a black, single-breasted suit. He is a sight for sore eyes. In the daylight I see that his eyes are the brightest blue this side of heaven. Genuine admiration glimmers in the beautiful depths. He purses his lips and whistles.
I twirl around for him.
‘Wow,’ he says appreciatively.
I look at the huge bunch of flowers and the obviously expensive box of handmade chocolates he is hugging. ‘For me?’ I ask.
He holds them out.
‘Thank you,’ I say and relieve him of them. Truth is I was fourteen the last time a guy brought me anything. Andrew Manning bought me a bar of Aero, my favorite chocolate back then, and put it in his back pocket. I can still remember his red face when he fished the melted, shapeless thing out.
‘You look rather dashing yourself,’ I murmur, letting my eyes travel over his fine clothes.
‘I bet you say that to all the boys,’ he jokes in a low, throaty voice.
It could have been silly, but I had to listen to my father bringing the house down with Meatloaf while I was growing up, so it works for me. Suddenly it is as if I have known him for years. I know he’s going to be my ally. A friend I can count on. He waits while I put the flowers in a vase and then we leave the apartment together. The weather is unseasonably warm and still, so I don’t bother with a jacket. There is a gleaming black Maserati Ghibli parked outside. Shane unlocks it and settles me into the passenger seat before going around to his side. I have never been in such an expensive car before. It is the byword in luxury and it smells heavenly.
‘So where is your brother’s house?’
‘The party is in Essex. About an hour and a half away.’
The conversation is easy and fun.
We leave the highway and hit narrow country roads surrounded by lush forests and finally arrive at electric iron gates. There are paparazzi with long lens cameras hanging around outside. They start immediately snapping their cameras on the off chance that we are famous.
‘Why are the paparazzi here?’
‘They’re expecting a Hollywood A-lister.’
‘Who?’
‘Leonardo Dicaprio.’
‘Really?’
The gates open and we drive through. The road leads up to a fabulous purple-lit mansion with six tall Roman style columns at its entrance.
‘Wow!’ I cry. ‘This belongs to your brother!’
‘Nice, huh?’
‘What does one have to do to afford a pile like this?’
‘This and that,’ he says easily, but evasively.
I turn to look at him. ‘Is it a secret?’
He glances briefly at me. ‘No, but some things are better left alone.’
Well, that is some warning. I clear my throat. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
He grins, the sparkle returning to his eyes. ‘It’s OK, babe. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Jake’s not the baddest thing in town,’ he says, pulling up to the front of the large courtyard, and finding a parking space among all the other highly strung boy’s toys. Shane holds open my door and I get out of the low-slung seat as elegantly as my short dress will allow.
I look up at the magnificent house and the first flutter of nerves hits me.
‘You look beautiful,’ Shane whispers in my ear.
I look gratefully up at him. We walk up to the house and climb the flight of stone steps and two Josh lookalikes in black outfits stand at the tall doors.
Inside, the party is well underway. There are beautiful people everywhere I care to look. We cross the black and white antique marble floor polished to a high sheen and enter a large room full of beautiful furnishings. The music is loud and the room is full of glamour-soaked people.
A statuesque, deeply tanned blonde approaches us with a silver tray of champagne flutes.
‘Good evening,’ she greets. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Shane gets two glasses and putting one in my hand says, ‘Come. Let me introduce you to Leo.’
So I meet Leo—as charming and urbane as he was in the Great Gatsby but a bit rounder than I expected—and his escort, a very tall South American beauty. A lot of people seem to know Shane. I say hello to various characters—a TV celebrity, a news anchor woman, and a couple of Shane’s cousins, a few decidedly shady. But neither Dominic nor Jake seems to be around. I discreetly glance at my watch. It has just gone ten.
It is only when Shane excuses himself to go to the toilet and I wander over to the open French doors to gaze out at the long, immaculately manicured lawn and surrounding gardens that I hear a man’s rich and distinctively husky voice that seems to leap above the music and make my blood throb and rush to my clit.
‘Hello, Jewel.’
FOUR
For a couple of seconds I do nothing. Just stand there, a gentle breeze lifting my hair from my neck, savoring the sensation of unfolding drama and the reckless abandonment his voice has brought into my being. I know when I turn around the world will be different.
I prepare myself and face him slowly. Even so the breath catches in my throat. I blink and stare at him.
He towers over me in an emerald suit. Sexual energy glimmers off him like the wavy heat effect in a desert. His eyes—green marbled with violet or black, beautiful at any rate—glow with desire. Every fiber in my body contracts and buzzes as if he is a great dynamo and I am some dumb equipment that is absorbing too much energy. And the worse part: he knows it.
‘Or is it Lily?’ His sinful lips caress my name like a kiss.
Heat prickles up my arms. ‘It’s whatever you want it to be.’
He lets his wicked, smoldering gaze drift over my body. ‘I want it to be Lily.’
I shrug. ‘OK,’ I say carelessly.
He takes a drink from a passing tray and hands it to me. Our fingers brush and I shiver. Visibly. His eyebrows lift, but his eyes remain inscrutable. My cheeks flame with sexual tension. I grip the glass tightly. Shit. What the hell is this? Christ in heaven. Get a fucking grip, Lily. I can’t believe how affected I am by this man. I need time to sort myself out.
I force a smile onto my lips. ‘Thank you,’ I say politely, and make to move away. His hand shoots out and touches my bare arm. This time my reaction is clear. I jerk my hand away.
‘We don’t have a no touch policy in this house,’ he observes quietly.
‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Who are you?’
Green sparks of amusement dance in his eyes. He knows I know exactly who he is. ‘Who do you want me to be, Lily?’ His voice is lazy like a deadly snake coiled in the sun. One wrong move…
An unfamiliar warmth shivers and fizzles through my veins. ‘My lover’s brother.’
The amusement vanishes from his eyes—the reptile has been rudely awakened—replaced by a bolt of blazing fury.
My heart stops. I resist the instinctive reaction to back off. For a few moments, or it could have been thousands of years, we stare at each other and then he turns on his heels and strides away, his back ramrod straight.
I grip the champagne glass tightly and watch his tall figure cut through the human crush. He stands out the way a hawk stands out in a crowd of canaries. A woman in a sophisticated ivory velvet evening gown lays a manicured hand on his sleeve. He stops and bends his head to her. She says something. Her laugh is tinkling. I feel a furious tightening in my belly. I am jealous. I am sickeningly jealous of the horny bitch.
‘Did you miss me?’ Shane asks in my ear.
At the sound of his easy voice, relief floods me. It’s like having a stiff drink on a cold day. The warm waves radiate out from the middle of your belly. I turn toward him. ‘Desperately.’
‘How desperately?’ His teeth flash.
‘You don’t want to know.’
He laughs. ‘Come on. I want you to meet my brother.’ Before I can protest he puts his hand on my elbow and steers me along toward his brother and the beauty in the ivory dress. She has coffee-colored hair and empty silver eyes.
‘Jake, I want you to meet Lily.’
Jake turns stiffly toward me. ‘We’ve already met,’ he says dryly.
‘Oh! When?’
‘Moments ago.’ He seems cold and uninterested.
Shane looks at me quizzically.
‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ I say weakly.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, darling?’ the woman says adoringly, as she slides her hand up his black shirt. Her hand dislodges his jacket and I see its pale blue lining. Jealousy shoots like quicksilver into my blood, scorching it. I look up and meet his eyes. They are dark and carefully veiled.
‘Andrea Mornington, Lily Hart,’ he says curtly, then very deliberately curls his arm around her waist.
‘Hello, Lily,’ Andrea says, turning her empty eyes toward me, except they are no longer empty but precise and direct, like a key turning in a lock. She perfectly understands what has not been spoken.
I force a smile. ‘Please excuse me, I need to find a washroom.’ As I turn away, Shane’s hand falls on my wrist. ‘Are you OK?’
I look into his eyes. Already I can see the weight of responsibility he has taken for my well-being. It warms and saddens me. ‘Yes. I’ll be back soon.’
I don’t have to look at his brother to know he is watching me. I feel it like a dagger in my back or an act of fate.
I don’t find the washroom. Instead I drift inconspicuously into an adjoining room. It seems to be a salon of some kind. As with everything else in the house it is beautiful. There is nobody in there. I close the door and lean against it.
The attraction is so inconvenient, so absurd that I had never even considered the possibility. And yet here it is. I want him so bad it is like an ache. I push away from the door, put my glass of champagne on a low table, and walk to a tall window. I stare out of it into the dark and see only my ghostly reflection.
A dozen thoughts come and go. I know I should be going back to Shane, but the part of me that loathes to see them together is the stronger. My thoughts are interrupted by
a sound at the door.
I whirl around in surprise.
For God’s sake! An emerald suit and a diamond encrusted ring on his pinkie! He should have looked ridiculous, but he does not. He starts walking toward me—sure, confident, leonine. Dazzling.
There is an arrogance and authority to the set of his jaw that is not at all to my liking. His gaze is aggressively bold and virile. His eyes travel down my body.
‘Lost?’
‘No, I was trying to be alone.’
His eyes dip down and linger suggestively and I am certain deliberately on my breasts. The mental disrobing is meant to unruffle me.
‘Positively breathtaking,’ he murmurs softly, but with a hint of sardonic amusement.
‘Insufferably arrogant, aren’t you?’
‘It has been said,’ he concedes with a wry grin.
‘What do you want?’ I ask. My voice rings out like a bell in the vast room. I hear the panic in it, the revelation that I do not trust myself.
He stands in front of me, his cheekbones flushed with sexual heat. ‘Isn’t it perfectly obvious what I want?’
‘Not to me.’
‘I want you to stay away from my brother.’
I blush. Then I laugh mockingly. ‘You’re a gangster. Don’t act high and mighty with me.’
He smiles slowly, his eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Say that word again.’
I blink. ‘What word?’
‘Gangster.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you make it sound so sexy I want to go out and become one.’
‘Am I supposed to believe that you’re not one?’
He shrugged disinterestedly, but his eyes take on a new glitter. ‘I can be if you want me to be.’
Suddenly I feel so flustered I can’t even look at him. I drop my eyes.
‘Is that what you really want…Lily? A gangster?’
‘It’s the last thing…’
He moves, and fast. ‘So what the fuck are you doing playing nice with his brother,’ he snarls and gripping my forearms pushes me roughly against the wall by the window.
I do what I did when I was nine years old and I opened the front door of my nan’s house and there were two unsmiling skinheads outside. One of them was holding a hammer. I didn’t pause or consider. I simply reacted.
Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes) Page 25