by Tory Hayward
‘This time no is the answer. I’m not changing my mind. Go away. You’ve caused enough trouble already.’
I brushed past him, towards the front door, but he reached out and grabbed my arm.
I looked at his hand, then up at him, letting him see my anger. ‘Take your hands off me.’
He didn’t let go. So I stepped close and twisted my arm upwards to break his grip. In the same movement I grabbed his wrist and bent it cruelly sideways. He grunted in pain.
I jutted my chin towards him, our noses mere inches apart. ‘You are being a dick, Mr Jones. Now leave my property before I call the police.’
So quickly I didn’t see it coming, he leaned into me, whipped a leg around mine and shoved me backwards. He scooped an arm around my waist and held me cradled in his arms. For a moment time stopped; I hovered above the ground, supported by him.
I could kick up, flip out of his embrace, and knock his legs out. I could have him on the ground in a moment. But I didn’t. He’d retaliate. It’d attract attention, and my goal here was to get him away from the house, not engage in a physical altercation outside my own front door for the amusement of my neighbours.
‘Put me down.’ I stared up at him. His sapphire blue eyes were flecked with a hint of golden hazel at the very centre. He wasn’t even breathing quickly.
‘Down?’ He let me slip a little, as if to drop me.
I glared harder.
He bent his head towards me. So that his warm breath tickled my ear.
‘Say please,’ he murmured in my ear, his voice like honey, and lowered me, just a few centimetres more.
For a moment I said nothing. It wasn’t easy to summon the words past the firm ball of annoyance lodged in the centre of my chest. He thought it was all a game. I had so much to lose and this idiot thought it was all a game. I didn’t want to say please. I didn’t want to let him think he’d won. Not when it was so obvious I’d let him win.
A footfall from outside the gate made me glance sideways. Nosey neighbour, June Humphreys, and her fluffy little Pomeranian, Sir Barkalot, stood at the front gate looking startled.
‘Please,’ I hissed at Jack.
He hesitated.
‘Please. Please.’
He swept me up to standing. Then reached out and straightened the bottom of my t-shirt, which had rucked up around my ribs, and smoothed a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
‘Stop it.’ I slapped at his hand.
‘Morning Mrs Humphreys.’ I spoke as neutrally, as if I hadn’t been doing anything except examining the white rose bushes that ran along the paved path to the front door.
‘Is everything alright, dear?’ She glanced from me to Jack, a world of speculation in her expression. I could almost hear her making up stories to tell everyone from the mailman to my barrister neighbour.
‘Yes, just fine.’ I flapped a hand breezily, as if it was usual to find oneself outside one’s house in the embrace of a warm, broad-chested man with blue eyes and some serious self-defence moves.
‘Just delivering her paper.’ Jack scooped up the morning paper from where it had been delivered at the edge of the path and waved it.
Mrs Humphreys pursed her lips into what I like to call her cat’s-bum expression. ‘Your father still hasn’t responded to my invitation to my musical soiree. The RSVP date was yesterday.’
I sighed inwardly. The wretched woman spent a lot of her time luring wealthy neighbours into her front room and making them drink vile coffee until they wrote a substantial cheque for one of her charitable foundations in the hope of escape.
‘Dad’s in India.’ I trotted out the usual lie. ‘He’ll be in contact when he returns, I’m sure.’
‘Well, good morning then.’ Mrs Humphreys tutted under her breath and, interrupting Sir Barkalot’s perusal of a nearby power pole with a tug on his leash, carried on with her walk.
I turned to Jack and held out my hand for the paper. ‘Go please. If you don’t, I’m calling the police.’
He nodded. Face set and grim, no hint of the playfulness that’d been there a moment before. ‘This is not the end of this.’
‘Have a nice day.’ I stamped into the house without a backwards glance and slammed the door behind me. Then I swung around and peered out the peephole, watching as he strode out of the garden gate. Something told me it wasn’t the last I’d be seeing of Jack Jones.
Chapter Nine
Jack couldn’t decide which emotion to feel first.
He got into his jeep and slammed the door shut, then glared at her front door. It took effort not to punch the steering wheel in frustration. She had to be the most infuriating, stubborn, beautiful, intriguing, incredible, annoying woman he’d ever had the misfortune to come across.
He shifted in his seat, hating himself for the hard-on that had stirred as he held her in his arms.
She wasn’t his type. He avoided the pampered high-maintenance ones, with their guilt trips and nagging. So why, each time he met her eyes, did it feel like someone had landed a fist in his solar plexus?
She felt it too. He knew she did. It vibrated through both of them. He could still hear her tiny, barely perceptible groan when he’d held her close in the ballroom. The memory had kept him awake half the night, and he knew he’d relive that moment until he shuffled off the mortal coil.
He didn’t want to want her. He had to get the jewels and get out.
The girl knew how to defend herself, he acknowledged grimly. She’d stopped the fight, he hadn’t won, and they both knew it. Meredith Taylor, so tall and slim that she looked like she’d fall over in a strong breeze, had pretty much been his equal.
No way he’d met his match. That was simply not on.
Jack tried to clear the unwanted lust from his mind. Tried to imagine the judgemental neighbour naked, but only got as far as her first blouse button. An unrequited hard-on was better than that mental image.
He groaned and leaned back against the seat.
The terrifying thought he might not get the jewels hadn’t really occurred to him. Everyone had a price. Especially people like the Taylors. He couldn’t understand why she was being so difficult about it. Surely it wasn’t out of spite because he’d tried to steal them.
Jack knew he should’ve acted like a normal human being and approached her properly. Wuu Sing Chow had sworn him to secrecy on pain of death, and he couldn’t tell her the whole story without landing them both in a pile of trouble. Even so, sneaking up on the beach house had been a mistake.
He rarely took a straightforward approach. It wasn’t something he was used to. Most stuff was a close-guarded secret—otherwise other treasure hunters would get there first and he’d spend his time grubbing about for someone’s leftovers rather than discovering legendary artefacts, which were often hundreds of years old.
His recent adventure in Outer Mongolia was a perfect example. He’d been just an hour ahead of his rivals. The race to locate some of the rarest jade known had come down to the fact he’d known the area they were heading into was accessible on horseback, but not jeep. So when they’d tried to outstrip him in their vehicle they’d become stranded, and he’d ridden off with the loot. Ridden off on a short-legged, foul-tempered steed with no suspension to speak of, but ridden off nonetheless. He was ninety-eight per cent sure his testicles had recovered from the experience.
But this time he’d screwed up. He didn’t do it often, but he was the first to admit when mistakes had been made. To himself, anyway.
He should’ve sat back. Considered who he was dealing with and taken steps accordingly. Now he had to deal with Miss Frosty Knickers in a snit. Refusing to sell the jewels out of pique.
That brought up the mental image of her in a pair of knickers, long legs, round breasts. He wondered what colour her nipples were, pink, or pale brown. He bet pink. Light delicate pink. He could imagine the feel of them, hardening in his mouth, as his tongue played over its sensitive tip.
He pressed his fists to his eyes, wi
lling the image away.
It wasn’t fair to call her frosty either, because beneath the ice-queen veneer heat flowed.
He sighed and started the engine. He didn’t want to leave the house. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He felt safe near her. She had the jewels. She held his life, and Dan’s life, in the palm of her hand. Though she had no idea. And he wanted to keep her as close as possible.
But it was better to go now and stay off her radar, let her chill out a bit. He needed a shower anyway, he’d slept in the car after he’d followed her home from the ball, and he probably looked like hell. Jack glanced in the rear-vision mirror and met his own bloodshot eyes.
Yep. He looked like a tramp.
Then he huffed into the palm of his hands and sniffed with a grimace.
No wonder the usual Jack Jones lady-killing charm wasn’t penetrating her icy exterior.
Chapter Ten
Jack wearily pushed his room door open.
It was pitch-dark. He frowned, confused. He hadn’t closed the curtains when he left the night before, he remembered glancing at the view.
A dark shadow moved behind the door. A thick hand clamped itself around his throat and threw him against the wall. He grabbed at the arm, and brought a knee up in a move that would’ve ruptured testicles had it made contact. But his assailant stepped deftly aside and hissed, ‘Move and I will stab your eye out.’
Jack froze as a knife tickled against his eyelashes, and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. His heart pounded in his chest, and a trickle of perspiration made its way down past his ear. With a quiet click, a table lamp was switched on and the upmarket room was bathed in a warm golden glow.
First Jack focused on the fine bladed stiletto knife that hovered inches from his eyeball. An image of himself wearing an eyepatch played across his mind and bile rose in his throat. Eye things freaked him out.
He took a long calming breath; the wrong move meant blindness.
‘Good evening, Mr Jones.’ The man seated comfortably in one of the room’s plush armchairs addressed him with a slight southern Chinese accent.
Jack looked out of the corner of his eye, unwilling to shift his head when the knife hovered so close.
‘Wuu. You could’ve texted, mate. This is unnecessary.’
‘Oh really?’ Wuu Sing Chow came over to where his hench-goon held Jack. ‘Hold out your hands.’ Jack held them out, with a wave of dread, and remained rigid as Wuu snapped a pair of heavy handcuffs around his wrists.
The hench-goon dropped the knife and Jack breathed a little easier. Handcuffs he could deal with, eye stabbings made him want to pass out.
He shouldered past both men and sat on the edge of a chair, taking the few seconds to find composure. As he’d expected, Wuu returned to his armchair and the goon guarded the door, trapping him. ‘Look, I know you’re keen for the jewels. I said I’d get them, and I will.’
Wuu vibrated with impatient irritation, and Jack reminded himself that he sat opposite one of the blackest, nastiest members of the Chinese mafia presently alive on earth.
‘I let Mr Daniel Evans leave my country in good faith. I should have handed him over to the government’s police. I caught him stealing the Piprahwa Jewels, artefacts that are part of our national heritage. He deserved the hard labour camps, if not the death penalty.’
‘I’ve repeatedly expressed our gratitude for your consideration.’ Jack spoke through clenched teeth. It was his fault Daniel had been caught and was still recovering from the injuries Wuu had dished out.
Daniel should not have been there.
Jack should have.
It had taken everything Jack had to negotiate the release of his best friend and business partner. ‘I told you I’d get the jewels. I’ve asked for your patience. I’m so close—’
‘Enough,’ shrieked Wuu, making Jack start, and wish he had a drink. His head was starting to ache, and he was not in the mood for cranky Asian despots.
‘I will not listen to your excuses a moment longer. I am taking Mr Daniel Evans back into my custody. I have men closing in on his villa in the south of France, I believe his wife and newborn son are both there.’
Jack dearly wanted to leap up, wrap the handcuffs around Wuu’s narrow throat and choke the life out of him. He could do it without much effort. The goon and his knife would be easy to defeat as well. But that would unleash a world of misery on himself and Dan. The Asian mafia with a personal grudge was not a pretty sight, and Wuu Sing Chow had many friends in the government and the underworld.
‘Touch one hair on Daniel Evan’s head and you will not see the jewels. Ever. I will personally see to it that they are destroyed.’
For a moment Wuu Sing Chow wavered, but then his usual bravado asserted itself. ‘You threaten idly, Mr Jones. Don’t forget your life is forfeit as well. You and Mr Evans die if I do not get the jewels. We agreed on it.’
‘I know where the jewels are. I am in negotiations. You must be patient.’ Jack wondered for the hundredth time how it had come to this.
‘I have been patient long enough. You know that I will gift them to my daughter on the eve of her wedding. That wedding is just a week away.’
Jack raised an eyebrow. Wuu Sing Chow had been quite emphatic about his wedding story. However, Jack would put money on the fact the evil man wanted them for himself. The jewels were hugely important in the Buddhist culture, and Jack suspected Wuu planned to exploit that importance for his own profit.
Jack smiled, digging deep to get past his fury and find some charm. ‘And how are plans for wedding of the decade going?’
Wuu shifted in his seat, clearly keen to discuss his favourite topic but loathe to let Jack off the hook.
‘Have you outspent every other wedding yet?’
Wuu gave up the fight and smiled slightly. ‘It’s chaos. Utter chaos. The money, the arrangements, the demands.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘My wife is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown.’
Jack held out his hands. ‘Undo these, please. There is no need. I shall get the jewels, your wife and daughter will be thrilled, and have the happiest wedding imaginable. Time is all I need. You have my word.’
‘I am returning to Hong Kong on Monday.’
‘I shall bring the jewels to your plane at Sydney airport on Monday.’ Jack promised.
Wuu reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a key, and placed it on the low table beneath the lamp.
‘Give me evidence that you have the jewels by tomorrow, and you deliver them as promised by Monday.’
‘I can do that.’ Jack put every ounce of confidence he didn’t have into his words.
Wuu Sing Chow stood. ‘I warn you, Mr Jones. Should my plane depart without the jewels, Ping here will find you and he will kill you. Is that understood?’ He nodded at the hench-goon.
‘It is understood.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ said Wuu Sing Chow magnanimously. ‘I have always found you a most entertaining man, and it would disappoint me to have to end your life.’
‘Not as much as it would disappoint me,’ muttered Jack, with deep sincerity.
The door closed behind both men with a clunk.
Jack ignored the key on the table. He fished his phone awkwardly out of his pocket, called Dan Evans and told him what had happened.
‘Christ.’ Dan’s voice was breathy from pneumonia, and a slight lisp made his words soft as he spoke around missing teeth. ‘We’ll get out of here now.’
‘I’ll be in contact when it’s over.’
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ said Dan. ‘I owe you my life. It’s all my fault. I can never repay you …’ In the background the wail of Dan’s newborn son rose, thin and helpless. The sound pierced Jack’s heart and sliced it in two, as efficiently as the stiletto knife could have. For a moment he was so busy blinking back emotion, he didn’t speak.
‘Just take care of that kid.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Get your
selves up to my place in the north of Scotland. You’ll be safe there until this is over.’
‘Thank you. Did I tell you we’ve named him?’
‘No, what did you inflict on the poor kid, Eustace? Percy?’
‘Jack.’
‘What?’
‘No, we called him Jack. Jack Junior. After you.’
Jack couldn’t speak. Tears shimmered in his eyes. Damn allergies. Not that he was allergic to anything, except for murderous Asian warlords.
And blondes named Meredith.
‘We both know I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you. I owe you—’ Dan’s voice caught.
‘It’s okay.’ Jack interrupted. If he heard any more there’d be tears and overflowing emotions, manly emotions, but emotions nevertheless. ‘Thank you. I’ve got to …’
‘Yeah, I’ll call from Scotland.’ Dan spoke quickly, as uncomfortable with the conversation as Jack was.
‘Good.’ Jack hung up the phone.
Fishing for the handcuff key, he fumbled for a moment and then rang down to the reception and asked them to send someone up. A few awkward minutes later he was free. Though it was a high-class hotel, and known for its discretion, having to free a guest from a set of handcuffs was going to be remembered. He’d have to leave an extra large tip.
Grabbing a beer from the bar fridge even though it wasn’t yet 11 am, he downed a couple of painkillers to knock off a growing tension headache and headed for the shower.
Standing under the hot stream of water, he closed his eyes and tried to think what to do. Meredith Taylor stood between the safety of Dan and his family, and Jack’s own life. For a long foolish minute he considered fronting up and telling the truth. He remembered again when she’d talked to the kid on the phone; her face had softened, she’d seemed gentler and so much more approachable. But he wasn’t some kid with a loose tooth. She wouldn’t understand. Anyway, it might put her in danger from Wuu. Jack dismissed the idea.
Dan had been in China illegally, trying to get the stolen jewels from Wuu Sing Chow. They’d been asked to find them by the Dalai Lama, and it was a job they could neither refuse nor put off. But Dan made mistakes. In fact, he’d been a first-class idiot. Which wasn’t like him.
