by Clare London
“I feel like a bloody criminal.,” Tate muttered.
“Well, you’re not. We’re on the trail of one,” Alex muttered back. “We’ll search your office, see if anyone’s coming in overnight and messing with the records. Check the inventory, deliveries, and dispatches etcetera. Then take a look around the warehouse bays, see if there’s any more trouble planned.”
Tate shook his head wearily. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? All part of your undercover game.”
Alex’s expression hardened. “It’s not a game anymore, Tate, though I know my record’s not good. We need to start taking positive action. Whether you believe me or not, all I want is to catch this saboteur, once and for all.”
Tate watched Alex as he peered off into the warehouse bays. “Whether you believe me or not”… was that the issue? Did Tate believe Alex? It had been a night of shocking revelations. And while Tate appreciated Alex telling the truth—well, how did he know he was? Or whether it was the whole truth. Tate’s head hurt, worrying about it, what it meant for anything he and Alex had going on between them. Tate prided himself on judging everyone on their dealings with him, rather than any knowledge of their background or privilege. And yet… Alex was the son of the ultimate boss. Alex was a Bonfils, rich, powerful, from a different world. And who was Tate Somerton, in comparison to that?
He glanced into his office, dark and silent. All the filing cabinets were locked and didn’t seem to have been tampered with. “Nothing looks out of place here.”
Alex frowned. “Maybe this all started as a way to disrupt business and cause delay at this crucial time.”
“Perhaps a competitor’s behind it, you mean?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s not unheard of, industrial sabotage. I’ve seen plenty of vintners smiling sycophantically at Papa at industry dinners but letting the mask slip long enough for me to see they’re eaten up with jealousy.”
“Wow.” Tate knew there was heathy competition in the market but as he never went to events like that, he supposed he was sheltered from the commercial cut and thrust.
“I think the distraction is being stepped up, with the illicit movement of the pallets and—no easy way to say this, Tate—I think the next step could be theft of the new stock.”
“Shit. Not the Angel’s Breath? It’s not even ready for sale yet.”
“All the more reason. Can you imagine what it’d be worth to keep Angel’s Breath from its carefully timed launch? How humiliating for Bonfils to lose control of the product! To say nothing of competitors having access to the wine itself.”
Tate looked instinctively toward the secure store at the far end of the warehouse. “But whoever it is, they’d need access firstly to the warehouse, and secondly to the store. Only Percy and I have access to the key safe. You saw the cabinet. It needs a combination that’s changed regularly.”
“Hm. Maybe they’re planning something done under cover of the deliveries. They come and go around the secure store, several times a week. If stuff’s been moved around in the main warehouse, that could cause enough confusion to swap out Angel’s Breath for another line. Who sets the delivery schedule?”
“It’s organized and monitored separately by Percy and Stuart. And me, too—” Tate’s heart stuttered suddenly; a lump of hot anger formed in his throat. “You don’t suspect me, do you?”
“Of course not!” Alex looked horrified. “No one has ever mentioned any specific suspicions. I was just told that things had been going wrong. But I pay enough attention to know that if the aim is to destroy the Bonfils name and reputation, this would be the most devastating way. And for that to happen? It’s definitely an insider. We’re looking for someone already working in this warehouse.”
It was a contradiction Tate couldn’t get his head around. He trusted his workforce—but one of them obviously couldn’t be trusted. He glanced back into the deserted office. He knew it almost as well as his own home. The familiar, subtle smell of paper and printer ink; the tang of past cups of tea. A pen had rolled to the edge of the desk and hung there, equally likely to roll back or fall off.
“Why are you smiling?” Alex said.
Tate hadn’t been aware he was, but he definitely knew why. The semidarkness made him bold enough—insane enough—to speak it. “The first day I saw you in that office, on that chair, facing Percy’s interview with such arrogance I thought he’d see you off within ten minutes? I wanted you.”
Alex flushed. “You did?”
“There was something about you made my spine tingle. My palms itch.”
“In what way?” Alex said very, very softly.
The devil was in Tate tonight. His heartbeat quickened. “With hindsight, I think I wanted to come up behind you, push you forward over the desk, flat on your face. Then kick the chair away, and step between your legs.” He moved closer to Alex so they were mere inches apart. “Unzip your ridiculously well-tailored trousers and push them right down to your thighs.”
“Oh my God.” Alex’s words were no more than a strangled breath.
Tate ran a single finger down Alex’s arm, and watched the goose bumps spring up in its wake. “Run my hands over your arse. Grip the cool, taut, flesh. Slowly, slowly, spread you open….”
Alex’s pulse was fast, Tate could feel it at his wrist. Sweat had formed in the hollow of his throat. “How refreshingly spontaneous of you, Tate Somerton.” Alex’s voice was ragged. “I thought you didn’t just act?”
“I thought I didn’t, either. But there’s something about the imaginary vision of your arse stretched out over that table that gives me ideas.”
“Oh fuck.”
Tate reached for Alex a second before Alex grabbed him, their mouths coming together with force and need. Tate had excited himself as well as Alex. So what was he playing at? Did he finally believe Alex? Had he forgiven him? Part of him was bloody angry at Alex spying on the business, confused at the sudden change in their positions. Part of him was horrified at the thought of one of his staff trying to destroy Bonfils. And part of him was excited in a whole different way about creeping around with Alex in the half light, working together to try to save the company more drama—and being alone with a determined, sexy Alex. Inappropriate, he knew. But totally irresistible. He tugged Alex even closer, their gasps of breath unusually loud in the deserted warehouse. One step back for Alex, and he’d be pushed against the desk. Jesus, if Tate didn’t hang on to one shred of sense, he’d be tempted to act out his sexual fantasy right now, right here—
Alex pulled away, panting, but distracted. “What’s that noise? Some kind of machinery?”
“Nothing should be left switched on. The afternoon shift finishes at five on a Saturday, and Percy does the last run-through of the warehouse before he leaves.” But now Alex had mentioned it, Tate could hear it too. It was a rhythmic hum, volume ebbing and flowing. It could have been mechanical, or maybe part of the fittings being moved back and forth. His breathing sped up, and he swung his head in the direction of the noise, listening for the source. “It’s from bay twelve. Has someone broken in after all?”
Alex frowned. “Did you say Percy locked up?”
What? “No, Alex. Don’t even think it! I’d trust Percy with my life, let alone the Angel’s Breath.”
“Don’t jump down my throat! I wasn’t implying Percy had anything to do with this. But if someone’s breaking in after hours, they must be getting past security somehow.”
“So let’s find out, shall we?”
They crept around the edge of bay ten and eleven, their view obscured by the shadows thrown by the towering pallets. The noise increased in volume the nearer they got to the source. Tate grimaced and picked up a roll of plastic wrap from the end of the aisle. Alex raised his eyebrows at such a daft weapon, but if it was some kind of machinery gone rogue, or a group of mischief-makers who might even be armed, Tate felt happier with something in his hands.
Instead, in the middle of the aisle in bay twelve, they found one of th
e staff chairs. On the chair was Percy, eyes closed, arms folded. And he was snoring.
“Gracious,” Alex said with some awe. “I never knew snoring could be that loud.”
As they watched, temporarily stunned, Percy started to slump sideways off the chair.
“Shit!” Tate darted forward to try to catch him, arms barely meeting around Percy’s middle, but the older man fell like a dead weight. Tate tumbled backward onto his arse, losing his grasp, and Percy followed him, landing full stretch over Tate’s legs.
There was a large, wet stain on the chest area of Percy’s shirt.
“Oh Jesus. Has he been shot?” Alex had gone pale. “Is that blood?”
Tate sniffed—this close to Percy, he could smell something totally out of place. “No. It appears to be… chocolate?”
Alex started to laugh, then must have realized how inappropriate that was, and clamped his mouth shut. “What’s going on?”
Tate wriggled out from under Percy, letting the old man’s body down as carefully as he could. The snoring stopped as Percy rolled onto his side. “Hot chocolate’s his favorite drink, it’s like a guilty secret vice of his. He has a supply in his locker, and when he stays late, he mixes up a mug or three to keep warm.”
Alex crouched down beside him quickly, eyes wide. “There’s no more noise. Is he… he can’t be dead, can he?”
“No.” Tate answered automatically, but then surreptitiously touched his fingertips to Percy’s neck, just to check. “He’s just unconscious. He’ll be okay, right? But you need to get an ambulance here, to check him out. It’s not a normal sleep.”
Alex scrambled to one side to call 999. Tate remained on his knees beside Percy. Why was Percy in so deep a sleep? He didn’t seem to have been hit on the head, and he’d never been the kind of man to collapse in a faint. His breathing was low but quite steady and, to Tate’s astonishment and helpless irritation, the snoring started up again. He stood up when Alex came back over.
“The ambulance is on its way. How is he?”
“He actually seems comfortable.”
“Should we put a cushion under him?”
Tate shook his head. “Just leave him for the moment. We don’t know what other damage there may have been, but if there’s no threat to his breathing, we should let him rest.”
Alex looked down at the prone man. “He’s teased and challenged me since day one, you know.”
“I know.”
“But when it came down to it, he cared enough about my safety to discount my expensive smashing accident.”
Tate took a deep breath. “Which we now think may not have been accidental.”
Alex nodded. He’d gone a shade paler.
Tate remembered his horror when he thought Alex could have been seriously hurt. That feeling was as alive now as it had been then. Nothing had changed in his heart. “You’re okay now,” he said gently to Alex. “And Percy will be too. This isn’t some gangster movie.” But they needed to know what was going on, and fast, before things escalated further.
Alex still looked restless. “I wish the ambulance would hurry up, but they seemed to ease off with the urgency when I said the patient was breathing okay.”
Tate glanced quickly around. “We should check if anyone actually is here.”
“I did that while I made the call,” Alex said. “No one in the bays, no one in the delivery area. If they were here, we scared them off.” He looked down at Percy again. Tate had shifted him into the recovery position. “Tate, how do you always know what to do?”
Tate sighed ruefully. “I’m trained in basic first aid. All management is. But I’ve also got a house full of potential accidents, remember? The kids were always falling or crashing into stuff when they were younger.”
“How dreadful. Not now?”
When Tate looked at him, Alex had an odd, fond little smile on his face. “No, things are less hazardous as they get older. But now I have Gran instead to worry about.”
“Jesus. Family life, eh?” Alex laughed, but it was brittle, and he didn’t meet Tate’s eyes.
IT was an hour before they were alone again, after the ambulance took Percy to hospital, and Tate called Percy’s wife to explain and reassure. He walked slowly back to join Alex, sitting on a chair outside Tate’s office.
“The paramedics think he’s been drugged,” Tate said.
“What the hell—? In his chocolate, you mean?”
Tate had come to the same conclusion. “Yes, probably. If he put his usual tot of whisky into it as well, he probably wouldn’t have noticed anything odd about the taste. If we hadn’t arrived tonight, probably Percy would just have woken with a crappy headache and thought he’d fallen asleep on his watch.”
“So… you reckon someone came in after hours and drugged Percy so he could move around the warehouse without being watched.”
Tate nodded, trying so hard not to find this depressing, but it was a losing battle. “Must have been desperate, because he’d know we could check who’d been here.”
“Tonight may have just been opportunistic,” Alex said musingly. “Perhaps things aren’t going well for them. They’ll make mistakes as a result. All the better to catch them out. Wait a minute, though!”
Tate turned to see Alex staring, dumbstruck. “What? What’s the matter?”
“What did you mean, you could check who’d been in here?
“The security passes,” Tate said slowly. “There’s a log kept centrally at Head Office, with remote access from here. And at this time of night, when there shouldn’t be any other staff around…”
“Exactly!” Alex looked ready to dive straight back into the office, but Tate caught his arm.
“The remote access isn’t working,” he said wretchedly. “It’s being overhauled this weekend. And it’s my fault.”
“What the hell?”
“Remember we talked about what I’d change, what improvements I’d want? I’m already doing what I can. The remote access is run on a crappy old server that barely works at the best of times. I thought a quiet weekend would be a good time to schedule the transfer over to a new host. How fucking stupid was I, what a bizarre coincidence—”
“No!” Alex snapped. “No coincidence. Who else knew about the IT work? Someone knew they’d be clear to move in tonight.”
“Jesus. Me. Percy, of course, probably Stuart as well. The finance department, the security firm itself.” Tate couldn’t believe they’d come to a halt because of his bloody zealousness. Now they’d have to wait until someone was back in Head Office on Monday to check it on their behalf—
“So… did you see?” Alex broke into Tate’s misery. “By the secure storage? A sweet paper on the floor.”
What was he on about? “So?”
Alex shook his head impatiently. “After the cleaners have been. I know the schedule—I often chat with them at the beginning of their shift.”
Tate had no time to worry what shock there’d be in the cleaning team when they discovered they’d been chatting with a Bonfils son, no less.
Alex rushed on, “So someone was here tonight. And why would they be here unless they were up to no good?”
Tate smiled ruefully. “You mean, like us?”
“Tate, will you give me a break?”
“I’m sorry. I just feel I’ve let you down, now we have to wait until Monday—”
“Why? We can see the log right away at Head Office.” Alex all but bounced on the balls of his feet.
Tate frowned. “London from Bristol, remember? And it’s the middle of the night, there’ll be no one to let us in—”
“I can get us in, easily. Don’t argue, Tate. Isn’t it the most important thing to find out who the hell’s doing this? The lost invoicing, the defaced labels, the forged customs documentation, and now potential theft. Believe me, I’ve known enough scams and tricks over the years to guess where all this is going. And we must protect our wine!”
Tate wondered if Alex was even aware of the way
his voice had tightened, and his pronunciation smoothed. And his possessive use of the phrase “our wine.”
“So let’s go.” Alex slipped his arm into Tate’s. “Right now!”
“What?” Tate’s head was spinning again.
“To Head Office. Were you listening? We can be there and back by tomorrow afternoon. It’s Sunday, and the traffic will be light.”
“Overnight? But the kids—”
“I’ll sort it out,” Alex said. “Gran’s morning Zumba class has been cancelled—someone broke their hip last week—and there’s a shepherd’s pie I made in the fridge that Hugo and Hattie can heat up, so Gran only has to microwave the vegetables for lunch. Amy has a history test for Monday, but she’s pretty secure on the Tudors, we can catch up on revision when I get back.”
Tate went very quiet. What was happening here? When had Alex absorbed so much of the family routine?
“Too much?” Alex looked terrified he’d done wrong.
“No,” Tate said slowly. “Thanks. I think.”
Alex’s hand tightened on Tate’s arm. “This needs to be settled once and for all. We’ll check the access logs. We’ll find out who’s been in and out this evening, maybe other evenings after hours, too.”
“But… it’s at least two hours to London.”
“We’ll stay over somewhere and be in the office first thing tomorrow morning. Then as soon as rush hour’s over, we’ll start back to Bristol.”
“God’s sake, Alex. We don’t even have any transport—”
“And you’re Mr. Negative Vibes even more than usual,” Alex said, almost too brightly. “Leave all that to me!”
Chapter Twenty
THE Bonfils company had an account at a national car hire firm with 24-hour service, as Alex well knew. Papa often worked antisocial hours, and Alex himself had used it enough times coming back from a club. Funny how he wasn’t missing that party life while he was in Bristol, and he rarely felt the energy to go out on the town. That was what looking after three kids and a boisterous grandmother did to you, presumably. He was taking a chance the car firm would have a local branch, and also an available car at this late hour, but he was lucky on both counts. He’d worry later if it flagged up on the account at Head Office, and his cover was finally blown. After all, he was about to uncover the villain, wasn’t he?
