Beneath These Chains

by Meghan March

  She crossed her arms, and my eyes dropped to the cleavage bared by the neckline of her dress. When I finally dragged my attention back up to her face, her mouth was set in a straight line—the most serious expression I’d seen on Elle yet.

  “I want a job, and you’re going to give me one. That’s it. End of story.”

  “The answer is still no. Now take your hot little ass out to your car and head back to your side of town.”

  The tap-tap-tap of her sandal on the industrial linoleum floor was the only sound in the room.

  “You standing there looking fine as hell isn’t going to change my mind.”

  “I—” she started.

  “Anything else you say is gonna be a waste of breath.”

  “Would you just let me say one damn thing?”

  “Fine. But I’m telling you it ain’t gonna change my mind.”

  “I’m not leaving without the job.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t reply; her expression only turned more determined.

  I scrubbed my hand over my face. It’d been a long, shit day, and I was ready for it to be over. “You don’t want to tell me? That’s fine. Because there’s no earthly reason why you’d want this job, and I’m not up for humoring your rich girl rebellion today. Fresh out of patience.”

  “You’re underpricing several of the items in the case behind me. Do you know which ones? Because I do.”

  “Then why don’t you share. Tell me what I’m missing.” The idea that my prices were too low bugged the shit out of me.

  She pursed her lips. “Just for starters—there’s a Jaeger-LeCoultre diving watch in there that’s worth at least three grand more than you’ve got it listed. Oh, and the enameled flower brooch? It’s antique Tiffany. You’re leaving at least a thousand bucks on the table with your price. Not to mention the Swarovski figurines—” she gestured to the shelf behind the case, “—and the Waterford decanters, oh, and that silver pitcher? It looks a lot like a Gorham, and if I’m right, it’s worth a hell of a lot more than you’re selling it for.” Elle propped her hands on her hips. “If you’re a smart businessman, you’ll recognize that I’ve got a skill set you obviously don’t, and I’m here to let you take advantage of it.”

  Her words carried a thread of innuendo, and my body responded instantly. Bad idea. But … if she was right—even about just one piece in the list she’d just rattled off—then maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea… My bottom line was looking pretty damn ugly right now. I was dangerously close to running in the red after Bree’s bullshit. But would a few bucks really be worth the trouble? My gut said anything was worth the trouble to make sure I didn’t let Chains fail only a few months after I’d signed the papers to make it mine.

  She had to have a motive though. There was no way she’d just waltz in here and ask for a job without one. And I didn’t like anyone walking around in my territory without knowing what the hell had brought them to my door. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

  She shrugged. “Like you said—rich girl rebellion. Looking for a new way to piss off my mom and step-daddy.”

  I sized her up. “Aren’t you a little old for rebellion at this point?”

  Elle’s eyes narrowed, and I realized I’d stepped onto some dangerous ground. “Don’t you know how to accept help when it’s offered and call it a day?”

  “There’s no way I can pay you enough to even put gas in your fancy car. That would put me in the red for sure.”

  Elle dropped her arms and cocked a hip. “Then I guess it’s lucky I didn’t drive.”

  “How the hell did you get here?” I snapped. Just the idea of this woman walking through the rough neighborhoods and pockets of gang activity had my protective instincts roaring to the forefront.

  “Took the streetcar, walked the rest of the way.”

  I stalked closer to her. “Are you an idiot?”

  She lifted her chin and reached into her bag. “No. What I am is well-armed.” The small silver pistol she produced did not give me any comfort.

  Staring up at the ceiling, I muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Woman, put it away.”

  By the time I dropped my gaze back to her, the gun had disappeared into her purse.

  “You even know how to use that thing?”

  Her cocky posture turned defensive. “I may not have been a soldier, but I can damn sure use a gun.”

  The front door chimed as Mathieu retuned with a bag of takeout. His eyes widened, presumably because he didn’t expect Elle to still be here. I lifted my chin.

  “You good to hold down the fort for a piece? I gotta make a run.”

  Mathieu looked at Elle, and an approving smile curved his lips. “Whatever you need to do, man. Whatever you need to do.”

  I’d set him straight again later, but for now, I needed to get this girl out of Chains before I did exactly what he thought I was about to do: take her somewhere without an audience and wrinkle the hell out of that pretty green dress while I fucked her senseless. My dick jerked at the thought, but I ignored it. It didn’t matter how fine her tits and ass looked in that dress—she was not on the Lord Robichaux menu. I’d spent too much of my life watching out for Con to step into something that might fuck up his new relationship with Vanessa. I could just imagine the holy terror she’d rain down if I screwed around with her best friend and things went south.

  I turned and headed for the back door. “Come on, sweet thing, I ain’t got all day.”

  I didn’t wait to hear her heels clicking and following me down the hall, but within a few paces, I knew she was behind me. How? Because she was spittin’ fire. “Sweet thing? Really? Did you already forget my name?”

  I stopped abruptly and turned. She ran smack into my chest. I lowered a hand to her hip to steady her. “I didn’t forget your name, Elle.”

  “Then the nickname is unnecessary, isn’t it? I don’t know what it is with you and your brother and nicknames, anyway. I mean, Lord? What kind of nickname is that?”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the question, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. “Not a nickname … you can check my birth certificate if you want.”

  Her mouth dropped open just the slightest bit, and I fought to keep my mind from going to all the things I could do with and to that mouth.

  “No way.”

  “I’ll give you the rundown on the ride. Let’s move.” I dropped my hand from her hip and headed for the back door. The clicking followed immediately this time. Outside, evening was descending, and a pink and orange sunset blazed over the rooftops of the rundown buildings across the alley. I cringed to think of her walking alone through this neighborhood in even a hint of darkness. Not fucking happening again.

  I crossed to the service entrance of the big brick building covered in graffiti. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my ring of keys and flipped through until I found the one I wanted and unlocked the bars shielding the door and then the double dead bolt.

  “Jeez, what are you hiding in there? Fort Knox’s gold?” I glanced over my shoulder to see Elle watching closely. Instead of answering, I pushed open the door, entered the alarm code on the panel on the wall, and flipped the light switch. Elle followed as the old sodium tube lights came to life. Slowly, the darkness revealed the other piece of the equation that had Chains running so close to the red. A few big purchases, and then Bree’s stealing, and I was dangerously close to having to sell off what I’d just bought, and not nearly at the profit I knew I could make.

  “Whoa. Not what I expected in the creepy, graffiti warehouse.”

  I shut the doors before doing up all the deadbolts, but Elle wasted no time closing in on the gleaming black Hemi ’Cuda, skimming her hand along the hood.

  “Now that is a sexy car.”

  The fact that she went to the ’Cuda first—restored over the last two years by my own hands—boosted my ego. Out of the four classic cars parked in this garage—and the half dozen bikes and choppers—tha
t was the only one it would absolutely gut me to sell. I grabbed the metal box hanging from a ceiling cable and pressed the red button to lift the door as Elle strode to the next car. Eleanor. A 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500.

  “Damn, I didn’t know cars could be so mean and pretty at the same time.” She was right, but I snapped myself out of enjoying watching her excitement. Off limits, I repeated to myself.

  “Come on, let’s go.” I pulled open the passenger side door of the ’Cuda before returning to the driver’s side and climbing in. I waited for damn near an entire minute before Elle slid into the black leather bucket seat. The flash of her thighs where her dress rode up—and the slow and sexy way she smoothed it back down—was not helping. I’d get her home and out of my car. End of story.

  I fired up the engine and let the rumble run through me. Never failed to calm me down. You want to soothe a big, tatted-up motherfucker like me? Put his hands on the wheel of a muscle car with 425 horses under the hood. Worked every time.

  “Buckle up,” I said, my eyes cutting to Elle. But she was already belted in. Shifting into first, I pulled out of the garage, reaching up to hit the remote to lower the overhead door. I slowed in the alley to make sure it closed all the way before punching the gas again.

  “So, you were going to tell me how the hell you ended up with a name like Lord?” Elle asked.

  I kept my eyes on the road, sliding into the flow of traffic.

  “You tell me where you live first.”

  “The Quarter. You ever heard of a vintage clothing store called Dirty Dog?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I live right above it.”

  Like most any real estate in the Quarter, it wasn’t cheap. I slowed to a stop at the light.

  “So … Lord? Not a nickname?”

  She was like a dog with a bone. It wasn’t a story I particularly liked telling, but then again, I didn’t particularly like sharing anything about my past or myself. But on the scale of shit I didn’t want to share, this fell on the mostly harmless side.

  “My mom was a junkie; she ran off when Con and I were kids. I was six, and he was three. Con doesn’t remember her at all, but I do. Pop told me a few months later she OD’d in a gutter.” At six, it was the stuff of nightmares—and I still vividly remembered mine about walking home from school and finding my ma’s bones in a gutter.

  “Oh.” The sound was more of an exhale than an actual word.

  I accelerated when the light turned green and headed for the Quarter. Even though it was only a couple miles away, it was a completely different world from the one I’d made my home. I continued, “And if that’s the truth, then she OD’d just like her idol—Janis Joplin.”

  “Janis Joplin?”

  “Yeah, Ma came from Texas, and Janis was the girl who’d made it big. To hear her tell it, she’d listened to that song ‘Mercedes Benz’ over and over while she was pregnant. She named me Lord because she wanted me to grow up and buy her one someday.” I huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Just one reason you’ll never see me drive or buy anything but American muscle.”

  “You made that story up, right?” Elle asked. “That can’t be true.”

  I changed lanes and glanced over at her. “You really think I’d go to the trouble of making that up? I could just as easily have given you some bullshit excuse about her thinking I was going to be a prophet. Probably would’ve sounded better.”

  I slowed to dodge the people already clogging the streets near the Quarter.

  “It’s not a bad story … just surprising, is all.”

  We finished the rest of the ride in silence, and I parked in front of Dirty Dog. A few mannequins—one with jeans and a ripped T-shirt and one with a funky dress—stood in the front window. “Charlie used to work here, didn’t she?” I asked, remembering the tatted-up badass of a girl who’d worked for Con at Voodoo Ink.

  “Yeah, but not anymore. So, I’ll see you Monday?” Elle said as she pushed open the door.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She climbed out of the car and ducked her head back in. “For my first shift. At Chains. I told you I wasn’t leaving without a job—and you’re giving me one.”

  “We’re not open Monday.” It wasn’t an invite, but apparently she didn’t get that.

  “See you Tuesday, then.” Elle shut the door without waiting for an answer, and I was left staring after the sway of her hips and that goddamn green dress.

  Shit.

  I thought about jumping out of the car and chasing her down to make her understand—in no uncertain terms—that she did not have a job. But something kept me in my seat. She won’t show, I told myself. Don’t even waste the headspace thinking about it.

  I checked my mirrors and pulled away.

  What the hell would I do if she did show up?

  On Tuesday morning, I got called out to look at a bike someone wanted to sell and completely lost track of time. I’d put the odds of Elle actually showing up at Chains between slim and none. Which was why, when I walked in the back door of the shop, I didn’t expect to hear Adele pumping on the sound system, and I sure didn’t expect to see a fine as hell ass bent over and wiping down one of the glass display cases.

  I stopped in the middle of the shop because—first, I had to appreciate the view, and second, I needed to decide how I was going to handle this.

  “You do realize you can’t just decide you work somewhere and show up, right?”

  Dark red hair swung as she looked over her shoulder.

  “You do realize that’s how I got my last three jobs? I don’t exactly go through the whole interview and offer process.”

  “You’re not normal, you know that?”

  Her bright smile hit me in the gut … and lower. “At least you didn’t call me an entitled rich bitch, so I’ll take not normal as a win.”

  I looked at the coffee filter in her hand. “I don’t know many entitled rich chicks who’d come in and start cleaning my display cases with coffee filters. Did we run out of paper towel?”

  “They were spotty. I couldn’t see the sparkle, and if I couldn’t see it, customers couldn’t see it. You’ve got beautiful stuff, but it’s all about presentation. Besides, my mother’s housekeeper always told me cleaning with coffee filters would leave fewer streaks than paper towel. For the record—she was always right.”

  I was pretty sure I’d entered an alternate reality. “You’re really gonna keep showing up, regardless of how many times I haul your ass home?” A thought struck me. “You drove today, right? You didn’t walk again.”

  “Yes, I’m going to keep showing up, so you’re just going to be wasting your gas by taking me home every time and expecting me to stay there. Besides, I thought we covered the part where I actually have something to offer you in the way of skills. I mean, I was good at the Bennett Foundation because I had connections and excelled at playing on people’s philanthropic sensibilities, but I think I’m going to be even better at this whole pawn business thing. I’ve already sold two watches this morning for twenty-five percent more than you had them priced. If you think my case cleaning skills are good, then you should see me haggle.”

  I strode closer, because Elle had conveniently—and noticeably—avoided answering my second question.

  “Did you drive?”

  Her chin lifted. “I took the streetcar and walked.”

  “I told you—”

  “And I told you—”

  I backed her into the case and pressed a hand to the glass on either side of her hips. “You want to work here? You don’t walk. That’s my rule. You can’t handle that, then you don’t work here. End of story.”

  Her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. “You realize you just put handprints on my clean glass, right?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second before opening them and fixing my gaze on her face. From the challenge in her golden brown eyes to the determined set of her tempting mouth, she was absolutely stunning. But I would no
t let that distract me from the point at hand.

  “Are we on the same page, Elle? Or am I taking you home for the last time?”

  Her eyes dropped from mine. “I don’t drive,” she admitted. “So that’s kind of a problem.”

  My confusion mounted. I lifted a hand and tilted her chin back up. I liked her eyes on me—probably too much.

  “What do you mean you don’t drive?”

  Her forehead creased. “I mean I don’t drive. It’s a pretty simple concept, and I’m not really sure how else to explain it.”

  Just because it was a simple concept didn’t mean it made any damn sense. “You don’t have a license?”

  Her teeth closed over her bottom lip, and it took everything in me to not sweep my thumb over it and tug it free.

  “I have a license. I just choose not to use it.”

  She still wasn’t making any sense.

  “So you don’t drive at all?” I asked.

  “Right. Good, glad you’ve finally grasped the concept.”

  Something just didn’t add up here. This wasn’t New York or Chicago where you could easily get away without having a car. “How do you get around then?”

  “I walk, or I take the streetcar, or I get rides with friends. If I really need to get somewhere and don’t have any other alternative, then I call my mother’s driver or get a cab.”

  God save me from rich chicks and their weird ways. “Your ma doesn’t drive either? Is this a family thing?”

  She shrugged. “Can we move on to the part where I say I’ll probably keep walking because I’m not planning on calling her driver or a cab on a regular basis to get here, and the walk from the streetcar really isn’t bad? No one is going to bother me.”

  And that was where we were going to have a problem. I dropped my hand from her chin and stepped back. “You don’t know this neighborhood—I do. And you stand out way too much to be walking these streets and stay in one piece. No fucking way, Elle. I’d say you’re fired, but since I never actually hired you, let’s just call it a day, and I’ll thank you for cleaning my cases and making a few sales.”