Take the Edge Off

by TA Moore

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Twenty-Five Years Ago

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  More from TA Moore

  Readers love TA Moore

  About the Author

  By TA Moore

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Take the Edge Off

  By TA Moore

  You don’t end up an ex-car thief and ex-con because you’re good at resisting temptation… and Cal Tate’s rich new boss is very tempting.

  Cal has always been the bad boy who lovers don’t bring home to Mom, but now he’d like someone other than a debt collector waiting for him. He has a legit job as a driver with his brother’s company, and he’s got a doctor on the hook, but he still can’t help crawling into bed with Joseph Bailey.

  Joe has never met anyone as easy in their own skin as his new driver—or as ridiculously beautiful. He’s in London to downsize the family business… and to investigate the abusive emails that imply a dark secret around his mother’s death. But unpicking the lies he’s been told makes Joe realize he isn’t sure who he is without them.

  When his life falls apart, the only person he can be himself with is Cal. But with the escalating threats from his anonymous stalker, Joe doesn’t know if there’s any chance for a happy future for him and Cal.

  To Mum, who always knew I could do it,

  to the Five, who convinced me I could,

  and to Gran, who loved a good romance.

  Twenty-Five Years Ago

  FROM NOWHERE the fire spluttered to life on the hood of the wrecked car—like a burning bush, like God had given a pass on this one.

  Then the baby started to cry. It was shrill and hiccuping, the inconsolable wail of something that had never gone uncomforted, never known more than passing pain.

  No.

  One step forward, off the road and onto the wet grass. Later the lie would be that they would have tried if they had the chance. The truth they could never quite escape was that they took that one step to get a better view. That strange, sick moment.

  A big silver car swerved off the road and onto the hard shoulder. Chips of gravel spat up from under the tires as the driver scrambled out, half-tangled in a seat belt.

  “Jesus Christ,” the man spluttered, his voice almost reverent with horror. “What happened? Is there anyone in there?”

  The baby screamed again, a throttled screech that cut like razors.

  “Oh God.” The man pulled his jacket off and wrapped it around his hands. He yelled back to the car. “Call the police. The ambulance. Tell them there’s been an accident.”

  In the vehicle the woman, tarty-looking thing with ratty hair and a muppet-skin coat that didn’t match the nice car, fumbled with her phone. Her voice was so shrill it cut through the crackle of the fire. The man wrenched at the door with coat-mittened hands. When that didn’t work, he picked up a rock and smashed the window.

  God gave one last wink, and the car flared with an almost solid whoomph. The man fell back, arm raised to shield his face. The baby cried, and the car burned.

  Later the lie would be that they’d done all they could. The truth would be that it would have been easier if the man had given up then.

  Some people just had to be heroes.

  Chapter One

  CAL TOOK a drink of his piss-weak beer and listened with half an ear as his date bitched on about his day. It was easy enough to keep up. The guy was a doctor, nurses didn’t respect him, and had he mentioned he was a doctor? That left Cal free to focus on other things.

  Like what the fuck was the guy’s name again?

  “… but enough about me.” The doctor tucked his napkin into his collar and smoothed it down over his tie. He was a compact man with wiry forearms and a nervous mouth. “I’m here to get away from work for a bit. What do you do?”

  Cal ran his finger around the inside of his collar. It was too tight, and it still smelled of prison starch. It had been months, but he didn’t wear shirts often.

  “I’m a driver.”

  The doctor nodded as though he cared. Cal doubted it. A poke in the back of his brain reminded him he was supposed to actually try to make a good impression. He shifted on the skinny wooden seat and took another drink of whiskey.

  “It’s a family business,” he said. “Limos and stuff.”

  “You’ll have to give me your card.” The doctor chuckled and took a sip of his wine. “It would make a hell of an impression if I had you drive me up to the next big fund-raiser at the hospital.”

  Not as a date, then, Cal thought dryly as he glanced toward the kitchen. If they’d gone to McDonald’s, he could have had something to eat already, and he was pretty sure the doc would be a lot less irritating facedown on a bed. The guy looked like he had a nice enough body under the tight shirts and fussy manners. If nothing else, Cal could give him something to do with that mouth other than talk.

  Make an effort. He heard El’s voice snap in the back of his head. Act like you’d rather have a second date than sex.

  “It’s not cheap,” Cal said. “But people always seem pretty impressed when we pull up.”

  Of course that probably had more to do with who was in the car than the low-slung Bentley itself. Evade Inc. wasn’t in the top tier of the UK’s close-protection industry, but they were the solid middle-of-the-road option. Soap stars and Japanese businessmen might not need—or be able to afford—a bodyguard, but they could appreciate a driver with muscle and evasive-driving qualifications.

  “It’s for charity,” Doc protested light-heartedly. “Surely you can volunteer your services for that.”

  The beer was gone. Cal rolled the glass in his fingers and wondered if another IPA was a good idea. It usually wasn’t. Another beer was how he’d gotten half the scars on his knuckles. Of course, he got the other half when he hadn’t drunk enough beer and he had to listen to someone run their mouth.

  Swings and roundabouts, that’s what his dad had always said.

  Cal swapped his tumbler for the iced glass of water on the table. It tasted like tap, that tinge of pipe and limescale.

  “Let us know,” he said with a lazy grin. Someone who knew him better than Doc would have known that wasn’t a good sign. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  Doc looked smug, as if he’d scored something in some game only he was playing. He took a drink of wine, and an awkward silence fell. It felt louder, somehow, against the background lilt of conversation and cutlery.

  “So, ah.” Doc reached up and rubbed his thumb under his ear. “I see you’ve got some ink there.”

  “You do,” Cal said. He didn’t want to talk about his tats. It was too fucking hard to talk about them and not get stuck in his past.

  The waiter finally brought their plates out—white china too hot to touch and a pinwheel of steak Cal could balance in the middle of his palm. Doc had gone for some sort of broth with flakes of fish floating in it.

  “Is this like the wine?” Cal cracked. “We swill it around to see if we like it and then order a full plate?”

  Doc looked embarrassed for him. He adjusted his black-framed glasses and leaned over the table.

  “No, it’s haute cuisine,” he said so
tto voce. “This isn’t Wetherspoon’s.”

  Cal caught the waiter’s eye and raised his glass to show he needed another drink. He took a bite of his rolled steak and heard the familiar deep-bass twang of his ringtone.

  “Work,” he excused himself as he wiped his hands on a napkin and reached into his jacket pocket. Not just work, he realized as he fished his phone out. It was El’s number.

  “What?” he asked gruffly as he swiped his thumb to take the call.

  “Date going well?” El asked.

  Cal glanced over the table at Doc. He had his napkin pinned to his chest with one hand as he lifted the broth to his mouth. Gran used to eat soup like that. She’d fancied herself classier than the rest of them.

  “Okay,” he said. “What?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to cut it short,” El said. “But I need you to come in. One of our legacy clients. How much have you drank?”

  “A beer.” Cal nudged his chair back from the table. “Where do you need me?”

  “Hold on.”

  There was a beep as El shifted to the other line. While he dealt with the client, Cal glanced over the table at Doc.

  “Sorry, I gotta go and make nice with a client,” he said as he stood up. “Can’t be helped.”

  Doc frowned. “A limo emergency?” he said skeptically.

  Cal plucked his leather jacket off the back of the chair and shrugged it on. The leather settled over his shoulders like an old friend. “Yeah, if I wanted to leave, I’d not bother with an excuse.”

  “Well,” Doc said reluctantly as he stood up. He blinked nervously behind his glasses. “Maybe another time.”

  “Sure,” Cal said. “Call me.”

  He tucked the phone back against his ear as he wove his way through the clutter of small overpopulated tables. The door jingled as he nudged it open and stepped out into the chilly evening air. His breath smoked as he headed down the road to where he parked his bike.

  “Renaissance at St. Pancras,” El’s voice broke the silence on the phone. “Don’t be a dick. Do your job. Make an effort.”

  He hung up before Cal could growl at him. Cal clenched his fist around the phone until it bit into his fingers and then shoved it into his pocket. This was what he’d asked for—a chance to clean up his act, even if it did mean that his brother constantly reminded him to get to it.

  With that in mind, Cal supposed he should have learned what Doc’s name was. Too late now.

  RAY WAS already at the hotel when Cal got there, parked on the gray swoop of drive outside the gothic fairy-tale castle of the Renaissance. The doorman on duty watched suspiciously from under his bowler as the squat middle-aged man in the expensive suit handed over a folder on the client—Cal didn’t know why El bothered; he knew Cal would never read them—and keys to the Bentley in exchange for Cal’s bike.

  “El said he was legacy,” Cal said as he tugged his helmet off and tossed it to Ray. “You know him?”

  Ray shrugged as he slung a leg over the bike. “El just said to keep him happy,” he said. “Don’t think he’s been around since the old man’s time.”

  Evade Inc. had been their grandad’s business. Not that it had a name back then—it had been a rotation of cars far too fancy to be parked outside their council house and pocket money for El and Cal if they detailed the smell of cigar, whiskey, and sometimes blood out of the leather. Grandad wasn’t a crook. He was an incurious man with a lead foot and two kids to feed after his son was sent to jail.

  “Coulda been anything,” he’d told Cal once after Cal found a tooth in the boot. “Some novelty shite. Bastard didn’t eat enough fruit. I don’t know, because I didn’t see anything.”

  He’d flicked the tooth into the drain and then cuffed Cal around the back of the head. “Neither did you.”

  After Grandad died, El had taken the company legit. They had a website. Invoices. The back seat still reeked after a job, but it was weed and champagne instead of fear and the occasional puddle of piss.

  Well, usually.

  They still owed the old guard, though. Or the old bastards thought they did, and that was basically the same thing. Most of them were out of the business now, retired to Spain, full of complaints about gangs, Russians, and kids with no fucking respect. But they liked to be squired around in style when they came home.

  “Oh,” Ray added as he thumped the helmet down over his ears. He stretched over and gave the corner of Cal’s collar a sharp tug. “El said to keep the tie on. Make a good impression.”

  He revved the bike and pulled off before Cal could give him a message to take back to El. Probably for the best.

  “Fucker,” Cal muttered under his breath.

  He fished the crumpled tie out of his pocket and strung it around his neck as he headed into the hotel. Inside, it was all gentle music, glass ceilings, and artfully scattered leather chairs. A few people had wandered out of the bar to sit and chat in the lobby over glasses of wine and expensively crossed legs. Their pointed relaxation contrasted to the nervous businessman hunched over his tablet in a corner as he pecked out a presentation. The watery whiskey on the table at his elbow had obviously had a few refills.

  Behind reception one of the clerks popped up like a meerkat to give him a dubious look. Life wasn’t as simple as it had been in his grandad’s day. Back then a guy who looked like Cal, from the close-cropped head to the neck tattoo, could be assumed not to belong in a nice place like this. Now she had her suspicions, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “Can I help you, sir?” She hedged her bets. “Do you need a room?”

  Cal gave her his best bad-boy grin as he walked over to the polished wooden counter and leaned on it. It didn’t soothe her suspicions any, but it did make her cheeks go pinker under the blush.

  “Evade Inc.,” he said as he pushed a card over the counter. It was black and minimalist, with muted gray letters stamped onto the card as though even the contact details were evasive. “I’m here to see Joseph Bailey?”

  The girl glanced from the card to Cal’s face and back to the card. Her eyebrows creased together, and a narrow wrinkle grooved crookedly into the skin between them.

  “Mr. Bailey is expecting you?” she asked as she reached for the phone.

  “What I was told,” Cal said easily. He leaned farther over the desk to nod at her phone. “Check with him?”

  She scooted her chair back from him and punched a number into the phone.

  “Mr. Bailey,” she singsonged. “This is the front desk. I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s someone here who says you’re expecting him?”

  There was a pause, and she pursed her lips as she visibly got the wrong end of the stick. “Oh. Of course, Mr. Bailey. Yes. I’ll send him down now. Immediately.”

  She hung up the phone and swiveled her chair to the side to fish a key card out of the dispenser. As she slotted it into the computer, Cal wondered idly what she thought he was there to do. People used to think he was a rent boy, but he was over thirty now and the market for middle-aged rough trade was limited.

  That was why he had worn a shirt and tie on a Friday night, after all. Signed up for fucking Tinder like he cared more about what someone liked to do than what their cock looked like.

  “Here you go, sir,” the receptionist said. She plucked the card out of the computer and held it out to him. “This will give you access to the lifts and all available floors. Mr. Bailey is currently in the spa. He said you should go and meet him there.”

  Cal plucked the card out of her fingers with a rough “thanks.” Great. He got to watch some poor sod rub wrinkly old flesh. That was how he wanted to spend his one night off.

  He knotted his tie on the way down in the elevator and smoothed the black ribbon down over his chest as they reached the spa. The doors bounced open to reveal a minimalist space of steel, glass, and pale wax-smoothed wood. A tall, gray-haired man with a face that looked as though someone had chiseled it from pissed-off granite stood on the other side. He looked Cal up and
down, from cropped blond head to boots, and grunted.

  It was hard to tell if he was disappointed or had gotten what he expected.

  “You’re Elijah’s brother?”

  It actually took a second. No one called El by his given name, probably because it made him sound like a Mormon who had gotten lost on the wrong side of town.

  “Yeah.” Cal stepped out of the elevator before the doors could close again, and he stuck out his hand. “Cal Tate. Evade Inc.”

  There was a pause, long enough to make the point that Chisel could fuck with Cal if he wanted to. Then he grabbed Cal’s hand with his rough, scarred mitt.

  “Edward,” he said. “I knew your grandfather. He was a good man. Didn’t talk much. I always admired that about him.”

  Cal scratched the back of his neck as he weighed his crappy bank account—for the work he did Cal made okay money at Evade, but he’d never saved anything in his life—against the fact that even his long-suffering brother would wash his hands of him eventually if Cal kept fucking up.

  “If the police flag us down,” Cal warned, “I’ll pull over.”

  Edward smiled as though someone had drowned his dog and then told him to say cheese. “That side of the business stopped being profitable a while ago,” he said. “Come on. Mr. Bailey’s waiting for us.”

  He turned on his heel. There was a precision to the movement that Cal recognized. El moved the same way sometimes. The military trained that into you. No surprise there. Most of the good close-protection pros in the UK had a military background. There were a few ex-cops in there, but it was mostly the forces. Edward had probably been something a bit more specialist than a squaddie like El, though.

  Cal fell in behind Edward as they walked through the curved tiled halls of the spa. It felt mostly empty. Most of the doors were open to reveal leather beds and smooth cream-plaster walls. Soft music and gentle voices leaked from under the few doors that were closed, and the air smelled like jasmine and oil.

  He heard the sound of water before they reached the pool. It was tucked away down a low, black mirror-tiled tunnel, and the sound of the two men’s footsteps was loud off the bare walls. He tasted salt against the back of his throat instead of chlorine as the tunnel opened out into a low, dimly lit room, tiled in a small rust-red pattern. The irregularly shaped pool was the brightest lit space in the room, as underwater lights made it glow a flickering sapphire blue. The dark shadow of a body cut through the water like a knife, with strong, impatient strokes.