Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
BLACK SAT BACK in his seat, watching me through soft eyes, relaxed but alert.
Mine kept trying to close.
“So,” he started. “Last night was interesting, wasn’t it?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“I think you have a rather unique skill set.”
“And…?”
“Last year, I started up a company with a friend of mine, providing security and investigation services. We’ve encountered certain situations where having a female on the team would have been extremely useful, and we’ve spent months looking for the right woman without any success. But yesterday evening, I found her.”
“Where?” Was I missing something?
“You, you idiot.”
Oh, yes, the wine. I remembered now.
“Well, I think you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know the first thing about investigating or securig…securitat…securitising.”
“Or drinking more than one bottle of wine, it appears.” He slid my glass away from me, laughing.
“Nope. Better than beer though,” I giggled. What on earth…? Giggled?
He turned serious again. “I want you to come and work for me.”
“I’ve already got a job. Two, in fact. And I even like one of them.”
“I know. You’d need to leave them both, and it would be a big commitment. Jimmy told me you’re saving up to go to university, and that’s admirable. So, my offer is that if you work for me for six months and give it your all, I’ll pay you two hundred thousand pounds at the end. After that, either one of us can terminate the contract. If you decide to come back here, you’ll have enough money to study and put a down payment on a house as well.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded.
“You’re insane. You’ve only known me a day, and I’m not exactly a model citizen.”
“I understand that. But I’ve also noticed your dubious talents.” He started listing, ticking off the points on his fingers as he went. “You stole my wallet without me noticing.”
I interrupted him, ignoring his dirty look. “You did notice.”
“Only because I went to get some gum out of the same pocket. Pure coincidence, that’s all. Then you knew I was following you without looking overtly behind and judged the right moment to start running. And when you took off, you were surprisingly fast. That climb up the scaffolding…” He shook his head and smiled. “That was impressive.”
Okay, yeah, it was. I couldn’t help grinning back.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table as he continued. “I spent several years in the Navy SEALs, and I barely kept up with you. Then you broke my nose and made me doubt for a few moments whether I’d ever father a child. I’ve been in fights with grown men who haven’t come close to doing that. I seriously underestimated you. You look like an angel but you fight like the devil, and I want to harness those skills.”
“And for six months you’d pay me two hundred grand? You’ve got more money than sense.”
“Maybe, maybe not. If you’re capable of what I think you are, it would be the best money I ever spent.”
“So, just suppose I did agree. How do you see this crazy plan of yours working? Would I have to leave England?”
“Yes. You’d need to move to Virginia. But I come to London every couple of months, and you could tag along if you wanted to visit.”
“I wouldn’t know anyone. I’d be on my own.”
And I’d never been completely alone before, not the way he was suggesting. In London, I’d spent years building up a network of acquaintances I could trade favours with, from the guys at the gym to the bouncers at Silk, local business owners, kids I’d been on the street with. Did I want to be by myself in a place I couldn’t even find on a map?
“You’d know me, and I’d soon start introducing you to people. Despite your somewhat abrasive personality, people seem to like you, so I can’t imagine you’d be lonely. And if you didn’t want to live in your own place, I’ve got a spare room. Believe me, my house has got plenty of space for two.”
“Is it as big as the one here?”
“Bigger. The pair of us could be there for weeks and never cross paths. Unless you wanted to, of course.”
“What would I have to do?”
Had I gone quite mad? Why was I even considering his proper…propa…his offer? Was I that easily bought? I slumped in my chair, confused. The money sounded attractive; that I couldn’t deny. And so did the posh house, especially if it came with a fully stocked fridge. And Black… He smiled, showing me his row of white, if slightly fuzzy, teeth. Boy, he was really pretty when he did that.
“Training. Physical fitness and fight skills. Shooting and knife work. Advanced driving, flying, scuba diving, parachuting, climbing, sailing a boat.”
“Sounds like you want to turn me into Wonder Woman. Is there anything you’ve missed? Ice skating? Teleportation?” I nudged him with my foot. “Would I get to wear a cape?”
He scowled and ignored me. “Then there are the soft skills, like learning how to talk to people without swearing at them or getting them annoyed—that’ll be the most difficult part for you. And you’d need to be able to do it in several languages. Towards the end, I might ask you to do a few simple jobs if I thought you were ready for them.”
Joking aside, he was giving me the chance to do things I’d never even dared to dream about. Learning to fly cost a fortune, something that would be way out of my price range even if I did go to university and get a decent job. And the physical side of it appealed to me—the chance to take the training I’d done at the gym to another level.
Yes, I’d have to leave JJ’s, but I’d never planned to stay there forever. Plus with two hundred thousand pounds, I’d be able to give Jimmy some cash as a thank you for everything he’d done for me. Maybe I could even hire him a new receptionist?
Then there was Black. He remained an enigma, but with all the stuff I’d dished out to him, he’d never once lost his temper or intentionally tried to hurt me. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d treated me like an equal even if I didn’t deserve it.
And in effect, he was offering me the world.
But I couldn’t do it.
Not because I didn’t want to. If he’d offered me the universe, my answer would still have been the same. Why? Because the little lie I’d told a couple of years ago came back to bite me.
I swallowed back a curse and stared at my hands, knuckles turning white as they gripped each other in my lap.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“I know it would be a massive upheaval, but I’d do whatever it took to make it work. Is it the money? Do you want more money?”
“No, it’s not that. I just can’t.”
“Tell me why. If you’re at all interested, I’ll find a way to fix whatever the problem is.”
“I’m fifteen years old. Can you fix that?” Adding a couple of years to my age didn’t matter in London. But if I needed to travel? My birth certificate, the one I’d liberated from my mother and kept folded up under my mattress, clearly stated my real birthday, and I’d need it to get a passport.
“Fifteen?”
He stared at me, eyes wide. I’d managed to shock him, and I couldn’t imagine that happened often.
“You’re kidding. Right?” he asked, a note of hope creeping into his voice.
I shook my head and stared blankly at the table.
He swore under his breath. “And I’ve just given you a bottle of wine.”
“Can you take me home now? And please, please don’t tell Jimmy. He thinks my birthday’s the fifteenth of May rather than December, and two years earlier than it is. I’d lose both my jobs for sure, and I really need them.”
Black ran his hands through his hair, once, twice, three times, tugging so hard I thought he’d pull it out by the roots.
“So we’re on the tenth of December now, which makes you nearly sixteen?”
I nodded.
“Do you have any family or friends, anyone who knows how old you really are?”
“No family, only Jimmy and Jackie. I haven’t seen my mother since I was ten, and I don’t ever want to. The foster care people don’t know where I am either. I’ve been out of the system since I was twelve.”
“I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but doing what you did at fifteen… I can only imagine what you’d be capable of at eighteen. If it wasn’t for the age thing, would you want to come with me?”
Would I? That was the question. If someone told me yesterday I’d be offered the chance to try things that I’d only ever seen on TV, and not just that, be paid six figures to do it, I’d only have asked one question: “How much crack have you been smoking?”
But here I was, and that possibility was sitting at the table in front of me.
“I’d have to sleep on it. I mean, all my plans, my future—everything would change.” The impact of the decision wasn’t lost on me, drunk or not. One word, and life as I knew it would be over. “And I’d need to speak to Jimmy and Jackie. I can’t leave them in the lurch, not when they’ve been so good to me.”
“But you’re not saying no?”
“I’m not saying no.”
Black let out the breath he’d been holding and his smile flickered back, just for a second. “Thank goodness for that.” His voice dropped, almost to a whisper. “I want you with me, perhaps more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
I realised at that moment, sitting in a little Italian restaurant in some back street in London, that I’d quite like to be with him too.
That evening, I went home with Black again. He offered to take me back to JJ’s, but if I was going to end up living with him for six months, it seemed like a good idea to check I could still stand the sight of him after one night. Besides, he had better food.
Ruth turned out to be a plump, cheerful woman in her late forties, who was bustling around the kitchen when I went downstairs in the morning. Today, I was wearing a more appropriately sized tracksuit, which Black had handed me in a paper carrier bag last night.
“I bought you this.”
A present? “More clothes?”
“I hoped you’d come back with me.”
“Am I really that predictable?” I rummaged around in the bag and fished out something pink and lacy. “Knickers? Isn’t that at bit…personal?”
He shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve bought underwear for a woman, Diamond. The sweats caused me the most trouble. I had to hunt for a sports shop.”
I held the matching bra up by my fingertips. “But it’s pink.”
He sighed faintly and shook his head. “What colour do you normally wear?”
Uh oh. I shouldn’t have started this conversation, and I felt my cheeks heat.
“Black,” I whispered.
“What do you want for breakfast, dearie?” Ruth asked.
The only choice I’d had before was cornflakes with milk or cornflakes without milk.
“Whatever’s easy; I don’t mind.”
When Black came downstairs, dressed in a suit undoubtedly made-to-measure on Saville Row, I was eating a plate of pancakes with maple syrup and bacon.
“I see you picked the healthy option,” he said.
“I didn’t pick anything, actually. Ruth did, and it’s delicious. How are you not the size of a tank, having her here all the time?”
“You’ll soon learn portion control.” He reached over and snagged a piece of my bacon. “But this morning, I’ll help you out.”
I went to smack his hand away, but he was too quick. “Oi! That’s mine.”
Aaaannnnd…he’d eaten it. I really hated him at that moment.
“I have a meeting to get to, and after that, I’m going to see a man about our little problem.”
The smug git actually patted me on the head, then leapt back as I tried to grab his hand. “Be good.” His laughter followed him out the door.
Good grief. What had I done?
Ruth proved to be friendly but frustratingly unforthcoming with information about Black. From the snippets that slipped out, I gathered that he was an intensely private person, and she was a little surprised to see me there at all because he never brought women home with him. So there was no Mrs. Black, then.
While he was out, I took the opportunity to explore the house. With it being a Sunday, the builders weren’t working, and Ruth looked busy in the kitchen with a huge array of baking products scattered on the counter. Keeping a careful ear out in case she came near, I went through room-by-room, starting at the top and working my way down. The place was surprisingly sterile, more of a show house than a home. And all the creeping around reminded me of my days as an amateur burglar.
On the whole, the place wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped. Half of the rooms were empty, and IKEA had more soul than the decorated parts. In Black’s bedroom, I found one hefty safe behind a mirror and another set into the floor of his dressing room. That was next to a bag holding a set of handcuffs and a coil of rope. Was Mr. Black into a bit of kink, or did he have a fetish for kidnapping people? More to the point, did I really want to know the answer to that question?
By lunchtime, I’d been through all six floors apart from a locked room on the second. When I’d peered through the keyhole, it looked like an office, but I’d have needed tools to get inside and I’d left those hidden behind my makeshift wardrobe at JJ’s.
The only other point of interest was the basement. Not because of the gym, the swimming pool, or the home cinema—those were quite normal, I imagined, if you were a millionaire. No, the strange thing was that the basement didn’t fit with the floor plan of the house. My gut told me there should be more rooms, but I couldn’t work out how to get into them.
I didn’t get the chance to search any further because Black returned at lunchtime, looking cheerful. Or, at least, what passed for cheerful in his world.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“Not too bad. What do you want to do for the rest of the day?”
“That’s all you’re gonna give me?”
“Patience is something else you need to learn. Now, are you going to answer my question?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember the last time I actually had a choice over how to spend an afternoon.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t often have free time either. We should get to know each other.”
“Okay, so let’s go out. What do you do for fun?”
He gave me a blank look.
“You know, fun?” I prompted. “Relaxing? Having a good time?”
“Fun isn’t a big part of my life. What do you do?”
He had me there. “Uh, practice chemistry questions?”
We locked gazes for a second then burst out laughing. We were as bad as each other.
“Why don’t we just go out and see where we end up?” I suggested.
“I don’t normally do that either.”
“You want me to change my life for you. I could do with a bit of give and take.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get our jackets.”
We spent the afternoon doing stupid tourist stuff. I’d lived in London my whole life, but I’d never visited the Natural History Museum or been for a ride on a river boat. But then again, I’d never had anyone to do those things with.
And it was indeed fun.
Even sober, I found Black surprisingly easy to chat with. Although he clearly didn’t like discussing his upbringing, as I didn’t enjoy rehashing mine, we found enough to talk about that we barely shut up all afternoon.
As darkness fell, we ate dinner in a small Japanese restaurant in Belgravia, which turned out to be where his house was. I tried sushi for the first time, and strangely I liked it, despite the raw fish. Black taught me how to use chopsticks, although I nearly rammed one through his hand when he kept laughing at my initial efforts.
“Are you staying tonight?” he asked as we walked out into the freezing night. “I can drop you back early tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
After all, I knew JJ’s wouldn’t be my home for much longer. I’d decided to go to America with Black. Crazy, maybe, seeing as I’d only known him for one weekend, but it felt like we’d been in each other’s lives a lot longer. Despite coming from worlds that were as alike as a Lamborghini and a Lada, we clicked.
I didn’t want to imagine the rest of my life without him in it.
Couldn’t imagine it.
Which was why five days later on my genuine sixteenth birthday, I sat nervously clutching my new passport. The passport that proclaimed me to be Amanda Emerson, born on May fifteenth, two years and seven months earlier than I came into the world. It sure beat the dodgy driver’s licence I’d bought in the pub around the corner from JJ’s last year.
Beside me, Black thanked the flight attendant for the two glasses of bubbly she’d just handed him.
He passed one to me. “Happy eighteenth and a bit, Emmy.”
I clinked my glass against his. “You should have bought the bottle.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
I drained every drop then leaned back in my seat for the ride.
Dulles International, here we come.