by Anne Calhoun
From Ryan’s perspective, the only thing worse than being a rat was being a half-assed rat. Finish what you start, he thought to himself. Finish it and finish it well.
It’s a long way down . . .
“I can’t get Sarah McLachlan out of my head,” he said to Daniel when the Special Agent in Charge, “Wilson” by his badge, and highly ambitious by the way he carried himself, set down the laser pointer, signaling a break.
“It’s a sign of stress. I’ve had Drake in my head for days.”
Most people rose and stretched, seeking coffee, planning food deliveries. The Jock disappeared with a white sack labeled SYMBOWL, and returned with a steaming bowl that smelled fantastic until Ryan’s stomach weighed in by lurching in disagreement. Daniel stayed seated so Ryan did, too. Daniel swiveled his chair to face Ryan, then braced one elbow on the conference room table and his chin on his bent fingers. “You understand what you need to do,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Yes. You’re going to set me up with a recording device. I take it with me everywhere I go, and turn it on when I’m in situations where I think I can get information. This isn’t rocket science.”
“No,” Daniel agreed equably. “But it is a situation that’s going to involve a swath of devastation and destruction through people’s lives. Reputations will be ruined, fortunes will be lost, and if we do our jobs right, MacCarren will cease to exist. People have died for far less.”
Ryan almost laughed. “No one’s going to kill me over this,” he said. “This isn’t the mob. It’s a bunch of investment bankers.”
“All I’m saying,” Daniel said, “is to be careful. Ask questions but try not to make them suspicious. Get involved, get inside, but avoid raising red flags.”
Walk a razor-sharp, hair-thin tightrope, in other words. “Trust me,” Ryan said. “When I walk into that office and tell them that I figured out what they’re doing and I want a piece of the action, that’s right in character for me. I’m smart enough to have figured it out, and I’m greedy enough to want some.”
Logan’s eyes sharpened. “Why didn’t you do that?”
He’d answered this question a dozen times since he’d walked into Logan’s office, but he got the feeling the man wouldn’t stop testing him until this was over. “I’m not a thief,” he said bluntly. “I’m competitive, driven; a shark, even. I’ll exploit loopholes until the SEC screams, but I’m no thief.”
It’s a long way down . . .
Unbidden, an image of Simone bloomed in his brain, her thick red hair flowing over one shoulder to lay against one breast, the tight control in her blue eyes. But it wasn’t her hair or her eyes, nor was it her pale skin that was absolutely covered in freckles. There was an honor, and integrity, in the way she moved, the way she handled herself, in the way she looked at the clothes she made. She was authentic. He couldn’t even remember authentic.
Apparently satisfied, Logan picked up his cell phone and lifted it to his ear, listening to the voice mails that accumulated during the presentation. As Ryan watched, his face changed, the veneer of professional dispassion melting into something shockingly close to anguish. “Christ,” he said as he dropped his shoulder. His phone slid to his lap as he swung his laptop around and pulled up a travel Website. “Oh, Christ. Not now.”
Ryan felt his eyebrows war between shooting up in surprise and drawing down in disbelief. He’d been working with Logan for weeks now, and unlike many of his law enforcement colleagues, never heard him swear.
“What’s going on?” asked the Jock.
“My wife’s grandmother just died. I need to get to London,” he looked at his watch, “shit, right fucking now, one seat left.” He pulled out his wallet and fumbled a personal credit card from the leather slots, entered the credit card number, then grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contacts. Before he could tap the call button, Wilson wandered up to see what was going on.
“Logan?”
“I need personal leave, sir. For a funeral.”
Wilson looked around the packed room. “Where? I hope you mean in the Bronx.”
“England. Cornwall.”
“England? Now? After you made such a big fucking deal about being in on this? No.”
“Sir,” Logan said, and the way he was clinging to his temper reminded Ryan of Simone. This was someone who understood what mattered. “Three days. My wife’s grandmother, the woman who raised her, has died unexpectedly of a pulmonary embolism. I’m going to the funeral.”
The whole room went quiet. Ryan waited until it was clear that either Wilson backed down or Logan would quit, then said, “Charles and Don are flying to France for vacation,” he offered into the tense air. “Nothing’s going down until they get back.”
“Go,” Wilson said, his jaw tight.
Daniel hit the call button on his phone. “I need a ride to Kennedy,” he said, and rattled off the building’s address.
Whoever was on the other end didn’t say anything. Logan shoved his laptop into a bag, then bolted for the stairs. The sound of sirens wailed in the distance. Like lemmings to a cliff, the remaining agents and Ryan gravitated to the front windows. At street level Daniel burst out of the building’s doors and hurled himself into the open passenger door of an NYPD cruiser parked at the curb, sirens wailing. The door still open, the car screamed off into traffic, running the red light and taking the corner, tires squealing.
“What’s the fastest time to Kennedy?” someone further down the line asked.
“Whatever it is, I bet he beats it,” said a woman standing next to Ryan.
The phone Logan gave Ryan vibrated in his pocket. Don’t do anything I’m going to regret while I’m gone.
Understood, he texted back.
No one could regret him spending more time with Simone. She fit right into his life of beautiful women in exquisite lingerie, and with a family reputation that would gather attention, God knew sex sold like gangbusters. His stomach flipped at the thought; part excitement, part disgust at himself, but he shook it off. He would keep her out of the public side of his life, keep her out of the world that he lived in, and visit Simone in hers. The FBI owned his ass for the rest of the summer, longer than that if he were honest with himself. But Simone would be his, all his, the one thing in his life that was for him alone. Because, for the hour he’d spent in her shop, he hadn’t felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin.
Like the rest of his life, the motivation worked as long as he didn’t examine it too closely. He wanted to see her again. Alone. If he needed an excuse, he’d compliment her on how well she’d dealt with Jade, how beautiful her designs were. That was truth enough, for now.
***
Ryan pushed the button for Irresistible’s showroom and waited. A few moments later Simone’s smooth voice burbled from the speaker. “Mr. Hamilton,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“You could start by letting me in,” he said, flashing a rather charming smile at the camera set in the intercom.
“It is Sunday, and I am closed.”
He wore a pair of jeans too well washed and faded to be stylish, and a black cotton T-shirt free of advertising. Maybe he needed the hand-tailored suit, the silk tie, the custom wingtips, the aura they created. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Silence, as if she were considering this. Ryan knew the most elite designers routinely opened their showrooms on evenings, weekends, and the middle of the night for their most coveted customers. When movie stars, politicians, socialites, and their stylists and personal assistants had your home phone or mobile number, the understanding was that wearing clothes to red carpet events got the star or celebrity special access.
The buzzer to open the street-level door went off. He took the stairs two at a time to the showroom’s door. Bells tinkled as Ryan shouldered it open and walked in. She waited for him beside the counter, w
earing a pair of faded jeans, her feet bare, a simple blue Oxford unbuttoned to just between her breasts, the sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms. “How can I help you, Mr. Hamilton?” she asked, her hand occupied with massaging the thumb of her left hand into the palm of her right.
The air conditioning wasn’t running, and the room was just a little warmer than comfortable. Just a little closer than comfortable. His hands in his pockets, he strolled through the showroom, stopping to examine the enormous four-poster bed that was her primary display space, then a body suit of sheer lace displayed on a mannequin. He looked at her, thought about smiling, but couldn’t muster it.
“What are you doing here on a Sunday afternoon?”
Her head tilted just a little bit, as if his question or his expression bemused her. If pressed, he’d claim to have been in the neighborhood, and rung the doorbell on a whim. Surely she was accustomed to clients’ whims. She gestured behind her to the door at the back of the workroom. “I live on-site. It was one of the advantages to this particular space.”
He filed away that detail, hoarding it like a dragon-hoarded gold, her lilting French accent almost musical in the silence he couldn’t bear to break. He flipped through a rack of panties. Felt like a creeper. Stopped, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let himself do what he’d wanted to do since he left with Jade: look at her. Breathe with her. Absorb her through all his senses, the scent of her skin and perfume, the slight sound of her breathing, the impenitent glory of her hair. Not tasting or touching. Yet. But this was good, if he could ignore the sand in his shoe of using her without her knowledge or consent.
“I’m glad you came by while I was closed,” she said finally. She walked over to the cash register, unlocked one of the drawers with the key hanging from the stretchy band around her wrist, and withdrew a thick envelope. She held it out to him. “This is far too much.”
He made no move to take it. “I looked at your bill. It was reasonable and appropriate. That’s an outrageous, inappropriate tip. We both held up our ends of the bargain.”
She gave the envelope an impatient little shake, half entreating, half demanding that he take it. “Mr. Hamilton, there’s twenty thousand dollars in this envelope. I simply cannot take that sum of money from you. Why on earth would you even think I could?”
“Of course you can,” he said. “You did.”
Her voice raised, she said, “A bike messenger showed up to collect the items. He gave me this envelope, and took off before I could even respond! If I’d had any idea, even the slightest idea, I never would’ve taken it.”
The bike messenger was Seth Malone. A former marine Ryan put on personal retainer when he started his second career as an FBI informant, Seth was fast, discreet, utterly trustworthy, and followed directions to the letter. Ryan had told Seth to give her the envelope and not let her give it back.
“I’m not taking the money back.” When the news about MacCarren investments broke, it was entirely possible that all of his assets would be frozen for an indeterminate length of time. Until that happened, he was going to spend money like it was his last day on earth. That included tipping Simone until it made him smile.
She stood in front of him, in her weekend clothes, her hair up in a messy knot. Even holding his money out like it was contaminated, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“What strings come with this money, sir?”
Implied in that statement was the reality that a man like him threw money around because it bought favors of all sizes and stripes. “I don’t pay for sex.”
Arm still extended, she lifted one burnished red eyebrow, calling him on his bullshit with that single movement. He remembered Jade and all the ways men paid for sex flashed through his mind. He switched gears. “It pleased me to give it to you, for the quality of your craftsmanship,” he said. “That’s all. No strings.”
She looked at him, suspicion crackling in every line of her body. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.” He didn’t move, focused instead on looking like he was telling the truth. He was. It was a rather unsettling feeling, to be in a situation where his authenticity and his honesty mattered more than his ability to make money, throw it around, or to deceive people. It mattered more to him very much that she understood he was giving her this tip, because he wanted to with every atom in his being.
Something must’ve worked. He wished he knew what, because that ability to appear honest was right now more valuable to him than an insider trading stock tip. Her body relaxed. “I apologize. Very frequently, clients assume that because of the nature of my work, I am also for sale.”
He didn’t want to buy her. He wanted to seduce her, to tempt her into eating out of his hand. But one thing at a time. “I understand,” he said. “I have no intention of trying to buy you.”
She took the money back into the drawer and locked it again. “What brings you by, Mr. Hamilton?”
“You’re very diplomatic. Is that because you’re French?” he asked, willing to do anything to get her talking about herself.
“I’m diplomatic because I make my living selling extraordinarily expensive couture lingerie to people with the money to purchase it. People with that much money are accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it, and hearing what they want to hear while they’re getting what they want.”
“Ouch,” he said mildly. Hands still firmly shoved in his pockets, he braced himself against the counter.
“It’s not meant as a criticism,” she said. “It’s simply the way the business works.”
He flicked her a glance from under his lashes. “So you’re playing a role,” he said. “In today’s production, the role of the wealthy spoiled customer will be played by Mr. Ryan Hamilton and the role of the subservient accommodating modiste will be played by Simone . . .” He looked at her. “How do you pronounce your last name?”
“Demarchelier.”
He tried to copy her, with the end result of sounding like he was talking through a mouthful of mashed potatoes, then shook his head. “I took Spanish in school. Come again?”
Apparently amused by his willingness to make a fool of himself, she said her name again. He tried once more, with slightly better results the second time around. “See what I mean? Even now, you’re accommodating me.”
“Would you like me to stop?” she asked, then immediately looked like she regretted it.
The heavy summer sunlight glinted off the silver walls, gilding her hair with silver. “Don’t stop on my account,” he said. “I have a feeling that being accommodating is a bit of an effort for you.”
Laughter flickered in her eyes, but she remained calm, even serene. “I can’t imagine what I’ve done in the short time we’ve known each other to make you think I’m anything less than always accommodating.”
“It’s the red hair,” he said. “In my experience there is always some fire to a redhead.”
“If there’s any truth to that generalization, it’s because we’ve been teased for being redheads for most of our lives. Eventually, we get tired of being teased, and we fight back.”
“Were you teased for being a redhead?”
“Not for long,” she said. This time the room’s silver light vibrated like the steel in her backbone, and Christ, he wanted her. The air between them quivered like a rung bell, and a deep flush swallowed the freckles on her throat and cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she tidied the tissue paper stacked behind the counter. “I’m sure you have many things to do this afternoon. How can I help you?”
“And there you are, being accommodating again.”
“You’re a client,” she said quietly.
“What if I want to be more than a client?”
He saw her startle. It was a tiny reaction, the slightest hesitation in her graceful movement as she put the money back in the desk.
“I’m flattered,” she began.
He cut her off. “No, you’re not. You’re not the kind of woman who deals in flattery. You’re either interested or you’re not interested. I think you’re interested.”
“What would your girlfriend think about this?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” She was using him as an introduction into the rarefied social circle of the one percent. He was fine with that. What wasn’t sitting as well, what made him wish he could reach into his pocket and take two antacid tablets, was that he was using Simone, and not in the usual way.
“She’d like to be.”
He shrugged. “Trust me, she’s forgotten all about me.”
“It’s over already?”
He shrugged again. With her, he could be quiet, not put on the show that grew brighter and hotter and louder and wilder with every day that passed.
“Who got bored?”
“She did,” he said, telling the truth. Jade needed a man enthralled by her face, her body, the way she wore lingerie. It fed her ego, and enthralled men spent more money to keep what they bought. Right now Ryan was too strung out to be enthralled enough for her.
Simone studied him for a moment. “I think you could use a beer.”
He chuckled. “Hell yes, I could use a beer.”
She left him standing in the showroom while she went through the door that led to her apartment and returned with two bottles of beer. He twisted the tops off both of them and handed her back the first. “I get the feeling this isn’t how you planned to spend your Sunday afternoon.”
She gave a shrug that somehow conveyed more emotion than the typical American lifting of the shoulders. A Gallic shrug. The French were so eloquent without saying a word. “Shall we go sit outside?”
