Chapter 10 Helena
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Malia sounded extremely doubtful.
“Of course.” I switched my phone from one hand to the other. “Anything that leads me closer to the truth is a good idea.”
It was Wednesday evening, and I was outside Simon Foster’s martial arts club, where my appointment was about to start.
Luckily, my parents had separate business dinners to attend and needed their chauffeurs themselves, so I’d ordered a taxi, telling them I was going to chill at Malia’s for the evening.
The driver didn’t speak much English, so I’d risked a call to Malia on the way to Brooklyn, asking her to cover for me.
She already knew what I was planning—I’d told her what I was hoping to gain from talking to Simon.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Len.” Malia’s skepticism was clear. She sounded like my mom.
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “Malia, come on—this isn’t some kind of underground fight club where people beat each other to death smeared in blood. It’s a martial-arts training studio, that’s all.”
“Which you’re intending to infiltrate so you can get to the owner—who is, presumably, a martial-arts expert himself,” she reminded me.
“Right. But it’s not going to be a problem. Trust me.” I was hoping I could count on Simon’s support, so I was just going to be friendly and ask for his help. If I got the sense he wasn’t interested, I’d simply leave and come up with something else.
All the same, Malia muttered that she’d swing by with a unit if she didn’t hear from me in two hours max. Then we hung up.
I put my phone away and pushed open the door. I made my way down a hall with exposed brickwork until I reached an open-plan reception area, with a counter that seemed to be made of welded metal. There was nobody there, so I waited, looking around inquisitively.
The club consisted principally of one big hall divided into different areas—there were several boxing rings, an MMA cage, and various other zones with mats.
Some of them were occupied by people practicing various kicks and blows with a trainer, or taking part in practice fights.
Ropes and punching balls hung around the bare, untreated walls, along with punch bags that seemed to be waiting for someone to set upon them.
Despite the raw vibe of the place, it felt like coming home.
The equipment, the sound of shoes on the gym floor and fists on leather, the smell of fresh sweat and rubber—all of it had become so familiar in the last few years.
I almost felt something like homesickness for England then.
I hadn’t enjoyed being so far away from New York, but at the sports club in Cambridge, where I worked out three times a week, I’d been happy.
“Hey, you must be Helen, right?” The young woman with the Afro who’d just come back to the reception desk flashed me a smile. I was glad she did; she had such a well-toned figure that I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. “Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s all a bit mad today.”
“No worries, it gave me a chance to look around. Pretty cool place you’ve got here.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty proud of Tough Rock.” She beamed. “I’m Demi; the owner, Simon, is my big brother. Good to have you here.” She passed me a clipboard with a form attached to it. “Can you sign this for me? It’s for the insurance, so you can’t sue us if someone breaks your nose.” She grinned.
I nodded. “Sure.” My signature had never been very legible, so I didn’t need to disguise it to pass myself off as Helen Miller on the form. I passed it back to her, and she placed it in a filing tray.
“Any questions?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so.” I didn’t ask for Simon—that would be too conspicuous.
Demi would want to know how I knew her brother, and I’d be at a loss to explain myself right away.
I’d rather keep my eyes peeled and see if I could spot him; I knew what he looked like from articles and photos about the night Valerie and Adam died.
“Great.” Demi’s reply was friendly, but she looked a little sheepish.
“Listen, normally at this point I’d give you the tour, and show you where you can get changed and warm up, but we’re down a trainer today, and I have to take over his session in a minute.
So I’ve asked one of our regular clients to jump in and show you around instead.
Believe me, it’s a good deal.” She turned around. “Oh, here he is.”
From out of the shadows at the back of the club, a tall man with a toned body came toward us, just like in the movies.
He was wearing knee-length gym shorts and one of those tank tops with huge arm holes—typical getup for a place like Tough Rock.
As he walked lithely over and I took in the definition on his upper arms, I was inclined to agree with Demi.
Until his face came into the light, and I froze.
Oh no. Please no. Not him.
“Damn,” I muttered, suppressing an aggravated sigh. Jessiah Coldwell came here too? And not only that, he was supposed to show me around? Great. What the hell had I done to deserve this from the universe?
Demi totally misread my reaction. “Ugh, I hear you. He’s so hot.”
She was right, purely objectively speaking.
But I was the least objective person of all time right now, and for a minute I forgot that I was supposed to be playing a role, and that Helen Miller would be delighted that a good-looking guy like Jessiah Coldwell was showing her the ropes.
But the real me was winning out, and I simply didn’t want to be in the same room as that guy for a single second, not even a room as big as this.
The look on his face when he recognized me told me it was clear he felt the same.
Demi didn’t pick up on anything. “Jess, this is Helen Miller,” she introduced me.
“She was supposed to have her first session with Rafe today, but he’s had to take on Aaron’s fighters and won’t be done for another twenty minutes.
Show her around until then, and let her know where she can warm up, yeah? ”
“Helen Miller?” Jessiah’s eyes narrowed.
Fuck.
I swallowed. If he told Demi who I really was, I’d be in trouble long before I could ever talk to Simon.
But that didn’t happen. After a brief moment, Jessiah’s face softened, and he reached out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Helen.”
I shook it, letting go again as soon as possible. “Yeah, likewise.” It was a good thing I’d gotten so good at lying.
“Well, come on, then.” He went around the counter and headed back in the direction he’d come from.
“Somebody’s a long way from the palace,” he remarked as soon as we were out of Demi’s earshot. “Hence the sneaky alias, right? You like getting into fights but don’t want your family to know about it?” He sounded amused.
“You have no idea how much I want to get into a fight right now,” I mumbled softly, though not quietly enough.
“With me? Forget it. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t hit women. Especially not beginners.”
Sweet that he thought I was a beginner. “Even if their last name was Weston?” I asked, affecting curiosity. “Surely you’d make an exception then.”
Jessiah stopped, measuring me with his green eyes, as if making it clear I would never beat him.
On paper, he was right: at five eight, I was relatively tall for a woman, but still a good bit shorter than he was.
And he wasn’t one of those super-ripped, pumped-up gym bros, but he was very athletic and much stronger than me.
Not that that necessarily meant anything against someone with better technical ability.
“No,” he said finally, shaking his head. “No exceptions.”
“Shame,” I replied. “Could have been interesting. But if you want to act the gentleman so as not to embarrass yourself, be my guest.”
He gave a short laugh. “You think someone’s a gentleman for refusing to throw a punch at you? Wow. I never would have guessed the bar was so low on Park Avenue.”
I rolled my eyes; he was being deliberately obtuse. “Why don’t you just show me where the changing rooms are? Everything else I can manage by myself.”
“Forget it.” Jessiah shook his head. “If Demi finds out I haven’t taken care of you properly, she’ll be pissed.
And no one wants to see Demi pissed.” He pointed to a dark-colored door in front of us.
“The changing rooms and guest lockers are through there—the keys are in the lockers already. You can get changed; I’ll wait here. ”
“Great,” I said darkly. If I didn’t want to admit to Demi that I already knew Jessiah—and how I knew him—it seemed I was going to have to play along.
Though I wondered why he hadn’t given me away.
Maybe he actually believed that I was using a fake name to hide from my parents and he was more amused by this than aggravated by our encounter at the award ceremony.
He wasn’t far off the mark. But it wasn’t the only reason I wanted to stay under the radar.
Without giving him a second glance, I disappeared through the door and put my backpack down in front of a row of black varnished lockers.
For a moment I considered deliberately taking my time, making the asshole wait, with the additional benefit of reducing the amount of time I’d have to spend in his company.
But then I decided I’d rather just get it over with quickly, and I took off the clothes I’d put on over my workout gear, stuffed them in the compartment along with my backpack, and locked up.
I made my way toward the door, vaguely hoping Jessiah might have left, but he was still there, hands in his pockets—and once again, for a moment, something in my body responded to him before my brain could kick in.
Deep down, I’d always liked guys like him—self-confident, slightly cocky types, rough around the edges, who didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of them.
Jessiah fell into that category one hundred percent.
Luckily, one second later, I remembered his insults about my sister, and the feeling vanished as swiftly as though it had never been there in the first place.
“Ready,” I said.
“Good.” He nodded. “Let’s go.”