EDEN (Eden series Book 2)

by Le Carre, Georgia

  Tears press against my eyelids. I feel alone, helpless, and so incredibly lost. I have failed miserably. And I have only myself to blame. I pick up the cheongsam from the floor, and carefully hang it in the closet. It is my wedding dress. I let my fingers skim the silky material one last time. The chambermaid will find it. It will be a nice treat for her. Then I go into the bathroom and, avoiding my reflection, dress in my own clothes.

  Then I sit on the bed and wait for him. I am convinced he will come back through the door. He could not have just walked out on me. But an hour later I know he is not coming back. Reality hits. The truth is like switching on a light. All this time I had thought my eyes were accustomed to the dark. I had made out shapes from the shadows and guessed their names.

  But it was a lie.

  He knew I was an undercover cop the whole time and he was only pretending. Everything we had was a lie. Maybe the lust was real, but what is lust but dust without love? All that time he knew. I think of all the people and the planning that must have gone into hiring The Blue Man Group, the lavish wedding. He had lost all that money on purpose. To keep the invisible balance ledger between him and the casino straight.

  The breath comes out of me in a rush. Now I understand why he asked for this particular suite. The Provocateur suite.

  The message was there for me to see. Only I was too proud of my own ability to deceive and too blinded by my own feelings. I feel tears prickling at the backs of my eyes. No, I won’t give in now. I know what happens when I give in to grief. It takes over. I become a total wreck. No more introspection. I can’t stay here anymore.

  My instructions are very clear in the event that my cover is ever blown.

  I pick up the phone, make flight reservations. Then I pack my bag quickly and with little fuss. There is not much to pack, anyway. I open my purse and take out the black plastic chip. Worthless here, but worth ten thousand dollars at Eden.

  I remember that sweltering night as if it happened yesterday. How exciting it had all been then. How naïve I was to give in to temptation and not think it would scar me for life. I put the chip on the pillow on his side of the bed. I don’t know why I bother after the cavalier way he lost all that money in the casino earlier, but I know I can’t keep it. At the end of the operation you will ditch all the physical trappings of your undercover alter ego, the hair, the clothes, the people you have befriended, and return to your own normal world.

  Then I go out to the lounge to sit and wait. I know I am a wreck waiting to happen, but at this moment I feel strangely detached and calm. It is simple, I tell myself. My cover is blown. I am not the first undercover cop it has happened to. It has happened many times. I will simply report back and they will assign me somewhere else. Somewhere I can go to lick my wounds. Where there won’t be a Jake Eden I will fall in love with and suffer over.

  I look at the time. I call reception and order a cab. In thirty minutes the cab will arrive and take me to the airport. I will be fine. Of course I will be fine.

  A small voice says, ‘Don’t run away. Stay. Fight for your man.’

  But he is not my man. He is nobody’s man. He was pretending the whole time. I have been silly. I allowed myself to fall in love. It is not so despicable. Other cops have done it. Over the course of years of being undercover some have married their targets and even had children with them. I am not so despicable.

  I stand. I can’t stay in this room any longer. I will wait in reception downstairs. I pick up my luggage, take one last look at the opulence around me, and walk resolutely to the door.

  I open it and stop dead in my tracks. My luggage falls from my disbelieving hands.

  Jake Eden is sitting sprawled out in the corridor. His back is resting against the opposite wall and beside him is an empty bottle of Scotch. He has another in his right hand, which is already half empty. He looks up, trying to hold his lids open.

  ‘Leaving so soon?’ he slurs.

  Last part out sooner than you think… J

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  Want to know what the Billionaire Banker did to his woman?

  The Billionaire Banker Series

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  The Billionaire Banker Series

  Book One

  GEORGIA LE CARRE

  You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy.

  —Garth Brooks

  One

  Blake Law Barrington

  I

  drop a cube of sugar into the creamy face of my espresso, stir it, and glance at my platinum Greubel Forsey Tourbillion, acquired at Christie’s Important Watches auction last autumn for a cool half a million dollars.

  Eight minutes past eight.

  I have a party to go to tonight, but I’m giving it a miss. It’s been a long day, I am tired, I have to be in New York early tomorrow morning, and it will be one of those incomprehensibly dreary affairs. I take a sip—superb coffee—and return the tiny cup to its white rim.

  Summoning a waiter for the check, I sense the activity level in the room take a sudden hike. Automatically, I lift my eyes to where all the other eyes, mostly male and devouring, have veered to. Of course. A girl. In a cheap, orange dress and lap dancer’s six-inch high plastic platforms.

  You’re looking for love in all the wrong places, honey.

  A waiter in a burgundy waistcoat bearing the bill has silently materialized at my side. Not taking my eyes off the girl—despite the impossible shoes she has a good walk, sexy—I order myself a whiskey. The waiter slinks away after a right-away-sir nod, and I lean back into the plush chair to watch the show.

  It is one of those swanky restaurants where there are transparent black voile curtains hung between the tables and discreet fans to tease and agitate the gauzy material. Three curtains away she stands, minus the shoes, perhaps five feet five or six inches tall. She has the same body type as Lady Gaga, girlishly narrow with fine delicate limbs. Her skin is the color of thick cream. Beautiful mouth. My eyes travel from the waist-length curtain of jet-black hair to the swelling curve of her breasts and hips, and down her shapely legs.

  Very nice, but…

  At twenty-nine, I am already jaded. Though I watch her with the same speculation of all the other men in the room she is a toy that no longer holds any real excitement for me. I do not need to meet her to know her. I have had hundreds like her—hot, greedy pussies and cold, cold hearts. It is always the same. Each one hiding talons of steely ambition that hook into my flesh minutes after they rise like resurrected phoenixes from a night in my bed. Safe to say I have realized the error of my ways.

  Still….

  Something about her has aroused my attention.

  She comes further into the room and even the billowing layers of curtains cannot conceal her great beauty or youth. Certainly she is far too young for her dining companion who has just barged in with all the grace of a retired rugby player. I recognize his swollen head instantly. Rupert Lothian. An over-privileged, nerve gratingly colossal ass. He is one of the bank’s high profile private customers. The bank never does business with anyone they do not check out first and his report was sickening.

  Curious. What could someone so fresh-faced and beautiful be doing with one so noted for ugly games? And they are ugly games that Lothian plays.

  I watch three waiters head off towards them and the fluid, elegantly choreog
raphed dance they perform to seat and hand them their menus. Now I have her only in profile. She has put the menu on the table and is sitting ramrod-straight with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. She crosses and uncrosses her legs nervously.

  Unbidden, an image pops into my head. It is as alive and wicked as only an image can be. Those long, fine legs entangled in silky sheets. I stare helplessly as she pulls away the sheets, turns that fabulous mouth into a red O, and deliberately opens her legs to expose her sex to me. I see it clearly. A juicy, swollen fruit that my tongue wants to explore! I sit forward abruptly.

  Fuck.

  I thought I had passed the season of fantasizing about having sex with strangers. I reach for my whiskey and shoot it. From the corner of my eyes I see a waiter discreetly whisper something to Lothian. He rises with all the pomposity he can muster and leaves with the waiter.

  I transfer my attention to the girl again. She has collapsed backwards into the chair. Her shoulders sag and her relief is obvious. She stares moodily at the tablecloth, fiddles with her purse and frowns. Then, she seems to visibly force herself away from whatever thoughts troubled her, and lets her glance wander idly around the room until her truly spectacular eyes—I have never seen anything like them before—collide with my unwavering stare. And through the gently shifting black gauze my breath is suddenly punched out of my body, and I am seized by an unthinking, irresistible call to hunt. To possess.

  To own her.

  Two

  Lana Bloom

  I

  t can have been only seconds, but it seems like ages that I am held locked and hypnotized by the stranger’s insolent eyes. When I recall it later I will remember how startlingly white his shirt had been against his tanned throat, and swear that even the air between us had shimmered. Strange too how all the background sounds of cutlery, voices and laughter had faded into nothing. It was as if I had wandered into a strange and compelling universe where there was no one else but me and that devilishly handsome man.

  But in this universe I am prey.

  The powerful spell is broken when he raises his glass in an ironic salute. Hurriedly, I tear my gaze away, but my thin façade of poise is completely shattered. Hot blood is rushing up into my neck and cheeks; and my heart is racing like a mad thing.

  What the hell just happened?

  I can still feel his gaze like a burning tingle on my skin. To hide, I bend my head and let my hair fall forward. But the desire to dare another look is so immense it shocks me. I have never experienced such an instant and physical attraction before.

  With broad shoulders, a deep tan, smoldering eyes, a strong jaw, and straight-out-of-bed, vogue-cool, catwalk hair that flops onto his forehead, he looks like one of those totally hot and brooding Abercrombie and Fitch models, only more savage and fierce.

  Devastatingly more.

  But I am not here to flirt with drop dead gorgeous strangers, or to find a man for myself. I press my fingers against my flaming cheeks, and force myself to calm down. All my concentration must go into getting Rupert to agree to my proposal. He is my last hope.

  My only hope.

  Nothing could ever be more important than my reason for being there with such a man as him. I look miserably towards the tall doors where he has gone. This cold, pillared place of opulence is where rich people come to eat. A waiter wearing white gloves comes through the doors bearing a covered tray. I feel out of my depth. The orange dress is itchy and prickly and I long to scratch several places on my body. Then there are the butterflies flapping dementedly inside my stomach.

  Don’t ruin this, I tell myself angrily. You’ve come this far. Nervously, to regain my composure, I press my lips together and firmly push the sarcastically curving mouth out of my mind. I must concentrate on the horrible task ahead. But those insolent eyes, they will not go. So I bring to mind my mother’s thin, sad face, and suddenly the stranger’s eyes are magically gone. I straighten my back. Prepare myself.

  I will not fail.

  Rupert, having met whomever he had gone to meet, is weaving his way back to me and when our eyes touch I flash him a brilliant smile. I will not fail. He smiles back triumphantly, and coming around to my side drops me a quick kiss, before slumping heavily into his seat. I have to stop myself from reaching up to wipe my mouth.

  I stare at him. He seems transformed. Expansive, almost jolly.

  ‘That’s one deal that came in the nick of time. As if the heavens have decided that I deserve you.’ The way he says it almost makes me flinch with horror.

  ‘Lucky me,’ I say softly, flirtatiously, surprising myself. I tell myself I am playing a part. One that I can vanish into and emerge from unscathed, but I know it is not true. There will be repercussions and consequences.

  He smiles nastily. He knows I do not fancy him, but that is part of the thrill. Taking what does not want to be taken.

  ‘Well then,’ he says. ‘Don’t be coy, let’s hear it. How much are you going to cost me?’

  I take a deep breath. A bull this large can only be taken by the horns. ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’

  His dirty blond eyebrows shoot upwards, but his voice is mild. ‘Not exactly cheap.’ His lips thin. ‘What do I get for my money?’

  We are both startled out of our conversation by a deep, curt voice.

  ‘Rupert.’

  ‘Mr. Barrington,’ Rupert gasps, and literally flies to his feet. ‘What an unexpected pleasure,’ he croons obsequiously. I drop my head with searing shame. It is the stranger. He has heard me sell myself.

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of your companion’s acquaintance,’ he says. His voice is an intriguing combination of velvet and husk.

  ‘Blake Law Barrington, Lana Bloom, Lana Bloom, Blake Law Barrington.’

  I look up then, a long way up—he is definitely over six feet, maybe six two or three—to meet his stormy-gray stare. I search them for disgust, but they are carefully veiled, impenetrable pits of mystery. Perhaps, he has not heard me sell myself, after all. I begin to tremble. My body knows something I do not. He is dangerous to me in a way I cannot yet conceive.

  ‘Hello, Lana.’

  ‘Hi,’ I reply. My voice sounds tiny. Like a child that has been told to greet an adult.

  He puts his hand out, and after a perceptible hesitation, I put mine into it. His hand is large and warm, and his clasp firm and safe, but I snatch mine away as if burnt. He breaks his gaze briefly to glance at Rupert.

  ‘There is a party tonight at Lord Jakie’s,’ he says before those darkly fringed eyes return to me again. Inscrutable as ever. ‘Would you like to come as my guests?’ It is as if he is addressing only me. It sends delicious shivers up and down my spine. Confused, by the unfamiliar sensations I tear my eyes away from him and look at Rupert.

  Rupert’s eyebrows are almost in his hairline. ‘Lord Jakie?’ he repeats. There is unconcealed delight in his face. He seems a man who has found a bottle of rare wine in his own humble cellar. ‘That’s terribly kind of you, Mr. Barrington. Terribly kind. Of course, we’d love to,’ he accepts for both of us.

  ‘Good. I’ll leave your names at the door. See you there.’ He nods at me and I register the impression that he is obsessively clean and controlled. There is no mess in this man’s life. A place for everything and everything in its place. Then he is gone.

  Rupert and I watch him walk away. He has the stride of a supremely confident man. Rupert turns to face me again; his face is mean and at odds to his words. ‘Well, well,’ he drawls, ‘You must be my lucky charm.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘First, I get the deal I’ve been after for the last year and a half, then the great man not only deigns to speak to me, but invites me to a party thrown by the crème de la crème of high society.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He, my dear, is the next generation of arguably the richest family in the world.’

  ‘The Barringtons?’ I whisper, shocked.

  ‘He even smells of old money a
nd establishment, doesn’t he?’ Rupert says, and neighs loudly at his own joke. Rupert himself smells like grated lemon peel. The citrusy scent reminds me of Fairy washing up liquid.

  A waiter appears to ask what we would like to drink.

  ‘We’ll have your finest house champagne,’ Rupert booms. He winks at me. ‘We’re celebrating.’

  A bottle and ice bucket arrive with flourish. The only time I have drunk champagne is when Billie and I dressed up to the nines and presented ourselves as bride and bridesmaid to be, at the Ritz. We pretended I was about to drop forty thousand pounds into their coffers by cutting my wedding cake there. We quaffed half a bottle of champagne and a whole tray of canapés while being shown around the different function rooms. Afterwards, Billie thanked them nicely and said we would be in touch. How we had laughed on the bus journey back.

  I watch as the waiter expertly extracts the cork with a quiet hiss. Another waiter in a black jacket reels off the specials for the night and asks us if we are ready to order.

  Rupert looks at me. ‘The beef on the bone here is very good.’

  I smile weakly. ‘I guess I’ll just have whatever you’re having.’

  ‘I’m actually having steak tartare.’

  ‘Then I’ll have the same.’

  He looks at the waiter. ‘A dozen oysters to start then steak tartare and side orders of vegetables and mashed potatoes.’

  ‘I’m not really hungry. No starter for me,’ I say quickly.

  When the waiter is gone, he raises his glass. ‘To us.’

  ‘To us,’ I repeat softly. The words stick in my throat.