Chapter Two
“H ow old are you anyway?” Tate impaled the silence that grew and pulsated between us like a quiet, hulking beast.
Electricity raced through me at the sudden sound of his voice.
Low. Rough. Raspy.
I’d always harbored a slight, uninhibited infatuation with my boss, against my better judgment.
He reminded me of the Smiths’ song “Handsome Devil.” For every time I walked into a scholarly room with him, I wondered who would swallow whom whole.
He swallows you every time . Leaving no crumbs behind.
I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth without screaming. He tore me away from my birthday party because of a filing mishap. This could have waited until tomorrow. I always worked on weekends anyway.
“Twenty-six,” I managed to retort calmly, staring straight ahead at the back of Thierry’s seat as the Rover weaved through the dusky streets of London. I graduated young from college, as I skipped a grade in secondary school.
“You don’t smoke.” Tate skipped to another subject, eyes still trained on his book.
He’d been reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland since I started working for him. Either he was the slowest reader on earth, or he had an unhealthy fascination with the story.
Also, who on earth was he kidding? No one could read in the pitch black.
Anyway, it wasn’t a question, so I did not respond.
“Why did you take the cigarette he offered you?” Tate slammed the softcover shut, refusing to drop the subject.
“Sometimes I socially smoke,” I responded finally. “Not that it’s any of your bloody business.”
“And that boyfriend of yours, he lives here?” he poked bluntly.
A few years ago, I’d be astonished by my boss’s arrogant breach of privacy.
Now, I had become desensitized to his antics. If I didn’t answer him, someone else would.
Tatum Blackthorn always got what he wanted and made sure to leave a string of casualties behind.
“Yes, Ashley lives here in London,” I ground out.
“Shame we’re returning to New York on Monday.” He sounded quite chirpy.
My boss wasn’t usually a mercurial creature, but he did love seeing me suffer.
“I’m thinking we’ll stay there at least through April. We’re breaking ground in the Hamptons for that gated community project,” he added.
“I will need to return to London the week after next for Mum’s appointment,” I said matter-of-factly. “And will probably visit here every weekend to help her carers.”
My mother had early onset dementia. The first signs appeared shortly after The Accident. She was not doing well. Luckily, I could pay for the best aides and carers, thanks to my mammoth salary.
The company also allotted me a medical allowance for relatives, which paid for occupational therapy. The perks and salary were the only things that kept me here.
“Bring your mother to the States.” A demand, not an offer.
“I’m not changing her environment and caregivers so you can call me at two a.m. on a Friday asking me to fetch you condoms.”
File under things that actually happened in my second year of employment.
“You’re taking too much time off work.” His voice, like his face, was neutral and indifferent.
“Let me stop you right there.” I raised my palm. “Do not make me choose between my mother and my job. You will not like the answer.”
“Very well.” Tate returned his attention to the Victorian book. “Have your Centurion card returned to the bank. You just lost your shopping privileges.”
I shrugged. I never used it anyway.
“I will. Can I ask you a question?”
His lips curled in annoyance. “Clearly. You just did.”
“What’s your fascination with this book?” I cleared my throat, wanting to break the ice. At least some of it. It always appeared as though the entire continent of Antarctica was wedged between me and my boss.
“It is the first children’s book in the world without a lesson or a moral.”
“What’s wrong with morals?” I wrinkled my nose.
Tate looked up, eyes as dead as the useless heart in his chest. “I wouldn’t know. Haven’t got any.”
The rest of the drive was spent in silence as the vehicle neared GS Properties’ office in Covent Garden. I inwardly groaned. I’d been meaning to call it a night and check in on Mum. Now I’d likely have to wait until dawn.
Whenever I was in London, which was nearly every month, I stayed with Mum in our Wimbledon semidetached, but she also had a caregiver with her around the clock.
I pulled out my mobile and texted Mum’s carer, Jim.
Gia: Hi Jim. Terribly sorry. A work thing came up. Can I come at around 6 a.m.? x.
“Where’s the rest of your family?” Tate demanded suddenly, tucking his book back into his breast pocket and examining his long, swordsman fingers. “Why can’t they take care of her?”
I put my phone down after Jim replied promptly.
Jim: NP. Have fun bday girl. x.
Gia: How is she?
Jim: …
Jim: Don’t worry about it, Gia. I’ve got it.
She was deteriorating faster than I thought.
“I’d say the primary reason is because they’re, well, dead .” I hoped the dramatic piece of information would wipe off his bored, mocking expression, but not a muscle twitched in his face. “My father and brother died in a car accident,” I hedged. “Don’t you remember?”
I still had some extended family. An aunt I helped financially and some relatives I spent the holidays with.
“Why would I remember?” He shot me an incredulous look. “I’m not the one who ran them over.”
I gulped down a juicy curse. “I’ve been taking a day off and flying out to London every year to mark the anniversary of their death since we started working together.”
He turned to look at me. The hard, metallic glint in his eyes made a shiver roll down my spine. His eyes were like two silver bullets, his beauty haunting and cruel like a medieval painting.
As always, I met his gaze head-on. I’d seen Tate break people before breakfast. It was the only sport he actually enjoyed. I wasn’t going to become a statistic.
“How long ago was it?” he asked.
“Seven years.”
“So you were in college.”
“No, I lost them the summer before college.” I still had a lump in my throat every time I talked about it.
“Were you close with them?”
“Very.” I swallowed hard, trying in vain to keep my voice from cracking.
“They were…they were my everything. Dad was driving Elliott back from his tennis practice. Elliott was just sixteen. It had been raining like hell. They went back and forth on whether to go. In the end, Elliott’s good nature prevailed. He didn’t want to slack off.”
The sleepless nights I had spent stewing in red-hot anger at Elliott for always doing the right thing. For never taking the easy way.
Tate gave me an oblique smirk, like we were discussing something hilarious.
“Is this funny to you?” I scowled.
“Funny? No.” He yawned provocatively. “Boring? Absolutely. Be mindful of your days off, or I’ll fire you.”
He was loathsome to the extreme. Almost one-dimensionally villainous.
Yet I had to give it to him—he had this… pull .
Something otherworldly and charming, an aura that made you feel important simply for being in his radius.
He wasn’t beautiful, not in the traditional way at least.
His lips were too thin, his expression too sardonic, and his cheekbones too sharp.
But he had an angular, patrician face that resembled a marbled Roman emperor in Italian museums. His dark hair was pure midnight velvet, cut into a neat style.
With light gray eyes, a carefully shaved jawline, and a general aristocratic air, he was the kind of man to make women do a double take.
Under his impeccable designer clothes were broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and an unholy sculpted body.
I knew, because I had the displeasure of having him dictate entire emails to me while he did his forty-minute swim in his indoor pool every Thursday at six in the morning.
Tate found playing sports tedious and mundane.
Yet he maintained his physique by having two fitness trainers at his beck and call.
He worked out every morning, followed a strict paleo diet, kept three units of alcohol a week his upper threshold, and forged himself into something that was frighteningly perfect.
On the surface, at least.
“Miss Bennett,” he drawled. He called me that sometimes, because he knew how much I despised it.
“Mr. Blackthorn,” I countered blandly. If he wanted to do the period drama rubbish, I was game.
“Where the fuck is Fonseca Islands’ certificate of incorporation?”
Fonseca Islands was one of the trillion straw companies Tatum Blackthorn owned under the umbrella of GS Properties, the largest real estate corporation on planet Earth.
“On your desk,” I said through tightly pressed teeth. “Just like I texted you when I left the office.”
“And I texted back that it wasn’t there,” he snapped. “I fear you have to go through every single file in the filing cabinet and look for it.”
“You don’t fear anything.”
He smirked. “I don’t like cats or dogs, actually.”
The vehicle screeched to a stop. We both decanted into the frigid night and walked into GS Properties’ building. The twenty-four-hour security guard greeted us with a sleepy nod.
We took the elevator up to the fifth floor. Once at the office, Tate strode to the filing cabinet in my open-space office and, with a theatrical flourish, shoved it to the floor. The drawers spilled, the files flying out in every direction, skating across the floor.
My breath caught in my throat. He just ruined months of work. Each folder was organized alphabetically, and within it, every document was filed in chronological order.
Tate leaned a shoulder on the doorframe to his office, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Time’s a wastin’, Miss Bennett. The files aren’t going to sort themselves, and we need to find that certificate so we can open the Swiss bank account Monday morning. Ten o’clock meeting, remember.”
Actually, nine thirty, you arse.