Wicked Truths (Hunt Legacy Duology Book 2)

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  He pulls the door open and looks over his shoulder, finding my eyes. ‘Stop looking at my arse,’ he murmurs, and then exits, leaving behind a load of potty female hormones dancing around the bar.

  ‘What a darling!’ Mum sings, stumbling over to congratulate me. ‘Oh, Eleanor, he’s perfect.’

  I wince as she hauls me in for a hug. Perfectly sinful, that’s what he is. ‘You don’t know him, Mum,’ I sigh, breaking her hold.

  ‘So tell me, then.’

  I give her a look, one tinged with worry, and thumb over my shoulder. ‘You saw him.’ How pathetic. I can’t come up with something better than that? Actually, no, I can’t. Unless I tell her the truth. Which I can’t.

  ‘So why have you come running back to Mummy?’

  ‘Because . . .’ My words fade, and I frantically search through my mind for the plausible explanation I need. ‘I can’t get involved with my boss.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem to bother him.’ She clucks my cheek. ‘He seems wonderful.’

  She’s known him for all of three bloody seconds. Good God, if only she knew. I really can’t share, and it has nothing to do with my signature on Becker’s NDA.

  She rubs my arm comfortingly. ‘Did he cheat on you?’

  ‘No,’ I blurt out, and immediately regret it. I should have said yes. That would have swayed Mum’s opinion of Becker perfectly. She saw what I went through after what David did to me.

  ‘Not every man will betray you, Eleanor.’

  I adopt something close to a sulky face and turn towards the bar. What does she know? He already has, albeit it in a totally different way. ‘Another, please, Paul,’ I grumble. ‘A big one.’

  ‘Coming up,’ he agrees easily, swinging into action. ‘Want something stronger?’

  My ears prick up. ‘You got an anxiety pill?’

  Paul laughs, gesturing to the top shelf. ‘Take your pick, sweetheart.’

  My eyes drift from one end of the top shelf to the other. Yes, I should get plastered so I can’t physically walk outside to him. ‘Any recommendations?’

  ‘Limoncello,’ he suggests, pouring me a shot and passing it over. I neck it at once and slam the glass down, wincing, before I’m quickly baulking at the sight of my mother leaning across the bar kissing Paul.

  ‘Mum,’ I cry, watching, totally horrified, as she eats Paul alive. ‘Oh God.’ I help myself to the bottle of limoncello and pour another, throwing it back, then immediately another, anything to keep me busy. I come up for air and find she’s still at it, so I carry on downing the sweet stuff like it’s going out of fashion, hoping it might scrub my brain at the same time. Oh my days, this is too much. Trying to accept that she’s found a new lease of life is one thing, even if I’m struggling like hell. Watching her gobble the face off that new lease of life is a whole different story.

  I’m all out of limoncello.

  ‘Mum, please.’

  It takes Paul to detach my mother from his shirt and push her back onto her stool, and she doesn’t make it easy for him. ‘Sorry, Eleanor.’ Paul laughs, a little embarrassed. I want to run away but lurking outside is another brain burner.

  I signal to a bottle of limoncello behind the bar, but quickly snatch my hand back, thinking I could do with something even stronger. ‘Actually, give me a Jäger.’

  Paul fulfils my request quickly, sliding it across the bar saloon-style. I catch it accurately and throw it back, gasping. ‘Perfect.’ I cough, wiping my mouth. I just want to get absolutely shit-faced and forget . . . everything.

  ‘I’m not sure getting blind drunk is such a good idea, darling,’ Mum pipes up. ‘He looked like he wanted a serious talk.’

  I laugh loudly and point to my glass again. Paul obliges, and after I’ve downed another shot, I flop forward and let my forehead meet the bar. Hard. Then I lift and let it fall back down again and again, taking pleasure from the consistent thuds shuddering through my brain. I’m hoping to physically knock some sense into me, because there’s a man waiting outside and I’m having to lock down every muscle in order to stop them from engaging and taking me to him. It’s like a bizarre magnetic pull hauling me backwards, and it defies everything my pounding head is telling me.

  I let loose with a few more head thwacks on the bar, causing an audible bang each time, which I’m sure Becker can probably hear from outside the pub.

  ‘Eleanor,’ Mum cries, pulling me back up and checking my forehead. I let my body sag on the stool while she faffs all over me. Then she takes my chin and holds it firmly. ‘Now, then. Enough of that,’ she says, jiggling my face a little, probably because my eyes are wandering through drunkenness. ‘Paul, water, please,’ she orders as I blink rapidly. ‘Here.’ Mum tips a glass to my lips, and I gulp it all down ravenously, joining her in the urgency to cancel out the alcohol that I’ve just purged on. What was I thinking? Getting drunk would be stupid. I’m better than this recklessness. I pause for thought. Am I really? After all, recklessness got me in this mess in the first place.

  I take my palms to my cheeks, rubbing furiously before revealing my face to Mum. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Drunk,’ she says on a laugh, brushing my hair from my face. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Drunk.’ I grab another water and chug it down.

  ‘You’ve had eight minutes.’ Paul looks down at his watch and taps the screen. ‘You’ve spent eighty per cent of the time he’s given you trying to get blind drunk and the remaining twenty trying to sober up. I don’t fancy your chances.’ He passes a tequila over. ‘If you’re unconscious, he can’t make you talk, right?’

  I gasp at his genius idea and swipe up the glass, but it’s intercepted by my mother. Traitor. ‘No more,’ she snaps, shooing Paul away.

  Paul holds his hands up in surrender. ‘Sorry, Eleanor. I tried.’ He’s well and truly under the thumb. Pussy.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I grumble as I stand, surprisingly stable. ‘I’m fine.’ I drink in air and take a quick glimpse around the pub, noting that everyone is back to chatting and dancing. ‘I’m fine.’ I breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. ‘I’m really fine.’ Head first, Eleanor. Ignore your stupid heart.

  ‘One minute left, Eleanor,’ Paul calls, and I start to tremble, because one thing I know for sure, beyond all things I know for sure, is that Becker Hunt will be coming to get me if I don’t go out there. I’ll show strength. He won’t break me down. ‘Thirty seconds.’

  ‘Oh God.’ My shakes intensify as I look at Mum. She smiles. It’s a knowing smile. One that tells me she has me all figured out.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, darling,’ she warns encouragingly.

  A fool? Been there, done that. I look away from her before I spill it all, every little detail, so she can really gauge what kind of shit I’m in. This isn’t a simple boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy messes with girl, girl falls hard for boy, boy fucks up kinda scenario. I fucking wish it was.

  I manage another step, and another, until I’m in my stride and talking some courage into my drunken bones. When I reach the door, I click my neck on my shoulders before straightening them and pulling it open. Show strength, I tell myself. Be bold and strong.

  Then I see him.

  And all of those demands sink like they’ve fallen into quicksand.

  Becker Hunt doesn’t lose.

  And that fact douses down the fire in my belly.

  Chapter 6

  He’s leaning against the side of his beautiful red Ferrari, legs crossed at his ankles, arms folded across his chest. My head starts to spin, and it has nothing to do with the stupid amount of alcohol I’ve purged on.

  He watches me from across the pavement, his head cocked slightly to the side. ‘Just on time,’ he says quietly, glancing down at his watch. There’s victory leaking from every single delicious pore of his delicious body. I fucking hate him. I fucking adore him. They’
re conflicting feelings that are driving me positively insane.

  ‘What do you want?’ I ask, keeping my distance and grabbing onto my waning determination. I like his confident persona about as much as I like psychological thrillers. Not a lot. They screw with your mind and make you second guess everything.

  ‘What I want,’ he murmurs quietly but surely, ‘is standing six feet away pretending she doesn’t want me.’

  Time stops still as my mind sprints, reminding me of all the encounters we’ve had, all of the clashes, the kisses, the touches. ‘I’m not pretending.’ I could get over the map business, the fact that he’s on a desperate treasure hunt that his grandfather has forbidden him to pursue. I even got over his con move on Brent. It’s the breaking in and making me fear for my life that I have a problem with. The fact that I’m potentially in danger by association. Funny that.

  ‘The NDA.’ His lips barely move as he utters the letters quietly, but he may as well have thrown them at me, because I feel like they’ve just slapped me in my face.

  ‘We both know that stupid NDA is a pile of crap.’ I laugh, but his expression remains stoic, totally unfazed. ‘Do you honestly think it’s going to have me running back into your arms? Forgiving you?’

  ‘It was an agreement we made together. Are you breaking it?’

  I lob him a filthy look that says more than any words I could spit, and once I’m sure I’ve burned off a layer of his skin with the fire in my disgusted stare, I make tracks, walking on surprisingly stable legs down the street towards home. ‘Yes, I’m breaking it.’ I should have stayed at home tonight. Yes, I may have given David the proverbial finger, but I’ve also rid myself of one arsehole and found myself another to deal with. Except this one is so much harder to tackle – challenging on every level.

  ‘You know I’m going to come after you, Eleanor,’ he calls, his feet kicking in as soon as the last word leaves his lips. I speed up. Yes, I know that. I also expect he’ll be brushing past me any second and blocking my way. Then we’ll do our usual silly dance, me stepping one way, Becker following suit. And then he’ll touch me. The thought quickens my heartbeat as well as my feet. ‘Life’s too short, princess.’ He’s close, and my determined march turns into a steady jog. ‘And you’re too—’

  ‘No!’ I flip out, skidding to a stop and swinging around to confront him, but Becker doesn’t anticipate my move and fails to stop in time. He crashes into me, our chests slamming together, his arms locking around me to steady me. An electric current sails through me, sizzling and robbing me of breath. How? How, after everything that’s happened, do I react like this?

  Our hearts are pounding into each other. The front of our thighs are pressed together. His groin is pushed into my lower tummy. We’re welded together. Everywhere. Stuck. Negative on positive. My heated breaths are ricocheting off his suit jacket, my eyes fixed on his stubbled throat, watching him swallow repeatedly as he holds me. It’s not Becker’s firm grip keeping us locked together. It’s something else, something powerful and unrelenting.

  Something I positively hate. Because it feels like it is out of my control.

  ‘Curious not to,’ he finishes on a shallow breath of air, his hand sliding onto the back of my head and fisting my hair. He pulls me out of his chest and gazes down at me, face straight. His hazel eyes flit over every piece of my face, a slight frown on his lovely brow. ‘I was meant to find you, Eleanor,’ he whispers. ‘You were supposed to find me.’ He nods mildly, like he’s instructing me to do the same.

  But I don’t nod, so he goes on.

  ‘I know I need to prove . . .’ His words fade, and I wait pensively for him to find his tongue.

  It’s a few uncomfortable seconds before I realise that he isn’t going to. ‘What?’ I push.

  He looks past me to the wall, evading my eyes.

  ‘What?’ I repeat, standing firm. ‘Prove what?’ I have to force my breathing to become steady, have to force myself not to hold my breath. The lingering silence leaves space for my mind to warp, to think of what he might say.

  ‘I . . .’ His mouth opens and closes, his face twisting as the visible evidence of his internal battle holds my attention. ‘I . . .’ A long inhale of air swells his chest and puts extra pressure on mine. ‘It’s . . .’ He shakes his head in frustration, mussing his hair, closing his eyes tightly behind his glasses. ‘Damn it,’ he sighs, his refined body going slack. Everything against me softens. The muscles beneath his suit seem to lose their sharp edges, his tense arms fall limply to his side, his face drops, and his eyes take on an edge of desperation. ‘I need to prove to you that I’m not the bad guy, princess. And I’ll do anything to make you see that. Anything.’

  Anything? Would he lie? I don’t know, and that’s a serious problem. Every time I thought I’d figured him out, felt a fraction closer to being safe by putting my heart in this man’s hands, he proved me wrong.

  ‘I should have told you about my suspicions. I should have told you I thought the break-in was connected to me. You’ll never know how much I regret that, Eleanor.’

  ‘Do you know who did it?’

  ‘No,’ he answers assertively. ‘We couldn’t find a thing – no fingerprints—’

  ‘We?’ I recoil, and Becker bites at his bottom lip nervously.

  ‘Percy,’ he murmurs, blinking and looking away. ‘Percy was there, too.’

  My eyes widen. The geeky tech dude? ‘Where?’

  His expression takes on an edge of shame. ‘Behind your front door. He got out undetected.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because he studied forensics. If there’s anything to be found, he’ll find it.’

  ‘So you dragged him in on your crimes, just like you dragged me into them?’

  Becker laughs, and it’s all I can do not to slap him for it. ‘I dragged Percy nowhere. He works for me. Think Q.’

  For a moment, I’m completely confused, but then . . . ‘As in James Bond?’

  ‘Yeah, except he’s more qualified.’ He shrugs. ‘I met him at university. Been friends since, although he’s somewhat of a recluse.’

  Oh my days, someone wake me up. ‘And your high-tech genius forensic expert employee friend found nothing?’ I ask, and Becker shakes his head. ‘And you expect me to believe that?’ I move back. ‘Like I believed you called the police. Like I believed your pile of horseshit about opportunist thieves?’

  ‘What the hell did you want me to say, Eleanor? That I was worried one of my enemies had infiltrated your home?’

  ‘Yes! At least then I would know what I was dealing with, Becker. You can’t drag me into your corrupt fucking world without giving me the ammo I need to survive it.’ Or the ammo to survive you!

  ‘You don’t need to survive,’ he retorts, almost angry. He has a nerve. ‘You just need me by your side.’

  ‘Oh, I do? Because since I’ve had you by my side, I’ve become a fucking victim, Becker.’ My head could explode with stress, but more so with anger. I think, remembering the interest in my position from so many people who I’ve met since I started working for the Hunt Corporation. Brent, the man who grilled me at Countryscape, Alexa, Paula, various people who I’ve dealt with on the phone. The list is endless. But what on earth do any of them think they’ll find in my apartment? I’m not stupid. Everything I know is in my head, safe, and that’s where it’ll stay.

  The gravity of my situation suddenly feels suffocating. How many people will try to break into my apartment in an attempt to get information? How much danger have I put myself in? Or, more to the point, how much danger has Becker put me in? And what the fucking hell do they think they’ll find lying around my home? A long-lost sculpture? ‘I am not a victim, Becker. And I won’t let you make me one.’ I barge past him and get precisely nowhere. I flinch when his hand meets my arm and whirls me around, and an electric charge materialises from nowhere and assaults my ne
rvous system.

  ‘If you think I’m going to make this easy for you, Eleanor, you can think again,’ he grates. ‘I haven’t re-evaluated my entire life and purpose for nothing. I haven’t changed all my plans, just for you to walk away from me. No fucking way.’ He moves in closer, bringing his mouth uncomfortably close to mine. ‘You know in your heart that we were always meant to be,’ he whispers. ‘You know you can tackle me and everything I throw at you, and I know it too. Do not give up on us, princess. Quitting doesn’t suit you.’ Becker pulls back a fraction, searching my eyes, swallowing. ‘And if you want brutal honesty, I’m fucking lost without you. And though I can find anything in this world I put my mind to, I know I won’t find myself if you leave me.’

  My backbone goes ramrod straight. My lips part. His angel eyes holding mine are devouring my resilience, eating away at my invisible layers of protection. His words are denting my resolve. Reason is being distorted by the pleading look on his face. Sensibility is being crushed by a familiar riot of relentless hope.

  Becker Hunt is utopia. He’s a fucked-up kind of ambrosia. He’s the only wisp of joy that I’ve been blessed with in too long. He was meant to find me; I was supposed to find him. Is Becker Hunt my fate? Him and everything that comes with him? His thrilling, dangerous world. Is it where I’ve always meant to be?

  His jaw tightens, and he takes my hand, pushing my touch firmly into his pec. His heart bucks wildly beneath my palm, sending pulses rippling up my arm. ‘You know what makes me tick. You know my passion. No woman has ever stirred movement here beyond a regular, necessary beat.’ He starts to guide my palm around in slow, firm circles. ‘But you have. You’ve opened my eyes and pushed my boundaries. You accepted me. Stood by me. Comforted me. You’ve given me something besides my work to feel passionate about, Eleanor. And that makes you my most prized, priceless treasure. And you know how I feel about my treasure.’

  Tingles. They spring up onto every inch of my skin. Breath. I fight hard to find it. Hope. It’s back with a vengeance, and the wall around my heart starts to crumble. This womanising, arrogant player isn’t playing any more. I’ve never seen him look so serious or vulnerable.