Chapter 5
FIVE
Bennett
I scroll through emails on my phone as I stand with my back against the door to “Efa’s” apartment. I don’t expect her to appear, but if there’s the slightest chance, I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to confront her. I have to know who she’s working for.
I’m furious that my team hasn’t managed to find a connection between Efa or Eddie Cadogan, the woman I fucked last night, and any tech company. She’s good at what she does. So far, everything she told me checks out. I remembered she said she went to Exeter University in the UK, which the team confirmed. They’ve even tracked the owner of this apartment—Vincent Cove, the cousin of Eddie’s sister’s fiancé. I’m pretty certain she said he was her brother-in-law, but it’s close enough not to matter.
Vincent Cove doesn’t have much of a connection to tech. He has his fingers in a lot of pies, but there’s no obvious connection between him and anything Fort Inc. is doing. I just can’t connect the dots.
The elevator’s doors rattle, then open, and I stand up straight, hoping Efa’s got the nerve to show.
To my surprise, she rounds the corner.
She sees me and rolls her eyes. “What have I done to deserve this?” she asks. “If you get me fired, I’m going to lose it. A friend of a friend of my brother-in-law got me this job, and I don’t want to fuck it up.”
I snort. She’s still continuing with this made-up story. “Another brother-in-law. Yeah, right. Why don’t you tell me who you’re working for and they can be the subject of my ire instead of you?”
“Ire? How old are you exactly, Grandad?”
“A decent vocabulary isn’t exclusive to older generations.” What am I doing? I don’t need an argument about semantics. I want answers. “Tell me who you’re working for.”
She digs around in her purse and pulls out a set of keys. “If I have to, I’ll call the police. Move out of my way.”
“Efa, just tell me who you’re working for.” I deliberately block her path.
“Gretel!” she shouts. “She manages The Avenue. That’s my boss.”
“Shut up!” someone shouts from somewhere behind a wall. Our argument is clearly being overheard.
I step forward so I don’t have to raise my voice and instantly regret it, because I can smell peaches. Memories from our night together flash through my brain like a slideshow. I close my eyes and will them away. I need to focus on extracting information, not reliving my manipulation.
“Stop lying to me,” I bite out as quietly as I can. “It makes no sense that you’d be staying in an apartment like this and working as a housekeeper. It doesn’t add up.”
She gives a one-shouldered shrug. “So?” she whispers.
“Make it make sense,” I urge, trying to keep my voice as low as possible, while at the same time, fighting the urge to trail my fingers over her cheek and down her neck.
Her eyes flicker from my eyes to my lips, like she’s having the same filthy thoughts I am. “Why?” she mumbles. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Her words snap me out of my trance.
“You’re a liar,” I hiss into her ear and turn to leave. She’s right that I can’t make her explain herself. It’s absolutely infuriating. I’ll get one of my team to surveil her. There’s nothing she can do, no one she can call, without me knowing about it from now on.
“I haven’t lied about anything,” she calls after me, risking the wrath of her neighbor. “I’m working here for the summer. Just because my family is rich and has a fancy apartment doesn’t make me a liar.”
I stop and stalk back to her. I don’t need to attract any more attention to myself at the moment. “So why didn’t you tell me you were working in the hotel?” I whisper-shout.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were staying in the hotel? Did you want to get into my flat for some reason? What are you hiding?” She steps forward and jabs her finger into my chest. I glance down and she withdraws her hand. I’ve never hate-fucked a woman before, but I’m starting to understand the appeal.
The fact is, I’m staying at the hotel because I am hiding. So why didn’t she tell me she was working there?
“We’re not talking about me.” My voice is low, but I’m not whispering.
“ I am. Why would you want to waste time going to my place when we could have taken the lift to yours?” She transfers her weight from hip to hip, and I try not to notice the way her entire body moves so gracefully. “Make that make sense! Maybe you hang out at the hotel bar every night and pick up a different woman, and maybe it feels kinda icky to be fucking three thousand different women in the same bed.”
“Or maybe I just want to leave when I want,” I rally. “There are a thousand reasons to want to go to your place.”
“The thing is, I don’t really care. You didn’t tell me about the hotel room. So what? I didn’t tell you that today I’m due to start a summer job at the hotel?—”
“Not just a summer job. A summer job servicing my room.”
She gasps in exasperation. “I had no idea which department I would be working in. You think I personally passed around a vomiting bug to the housekeeping staff so they’d be short-staffed, guaranteeing I’d be assigned to fill the gaps? Then—what? I used my mind control techniques to make sure I was assigned your room? Have you heard yourself? You need a therapist. Or a holiday. Or both.”
I push my hands through my hair, exasperated at the way she has an answer for everything. “Why on earth do you need to do housekeeping at The Avenue when your family clearly has money?”
She puts her hand on her hip like I’ve just asked her a personal question I had no right to. She’s not wrong. “First, it’s none of your business. Second, I don’t have money. Not yet. Thirdly, my brother-in-law—or my sister’s brother-in-law? I keep meaning to find out if that makes him my brother-in-law or not. Anyway, Nathan used to work with Gretel, the manager of The Avenue, and he put us in touch. I wanted to have some fun this summer. I just graduated. Wanted a job I didn’t have to think too much about so I could keep myself busy and… you know… hang out in New York.” Her voice starts to rise as she speaks and someone starts banging on the wall. Do they know they’re in New York City and not Connecticut? I might have to buy this building and evict whoever it is for being an asshole. “I figured there are other opportunities here too. I’m just figuring shit out. I’m twenty-one. I’m allowed to be figuring stuff out.”
I sigh. I’m a good people reader. I can sniff out a charlatan, a liar, a cheat a thousand miles away. Efa isn’t who I’ve accused her of being.
“So it’s coincidence that you turned up in my hotel suite today?” I ask, my voice returning to normal. It’s not a question. I’m sure she’s telling the truth. It’s just a hell of a coincidence.
“New York’s a small place, I guess. But is it? Because I was there last night checking things out before I started work. You were at the hotel bar where you were staying… picking up chicks to bang. It’s not that big of a coincidence.”
I groan. “I wasn’t there to pick up chicks. Do people even say ‘chicks’ anymore?”
“Fine. A chick . To bang. If you want to be pedantic.”
This is an argument I have no interest in winning. She doesn’t need to know that I haven’t picked up “a chick” in a while.
“Coincidence,” I say, more resolutely this time.
“Right,” she says, her eyes widening. “So this is the bit where you apologize for acting like a dickwad.”
I want to raise an issue with the use of the term dickwad , but I have a feeling now’s not the time. “Yeah,” I say. “Look, I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.”
She rolls her eyes. “Very poor apologizing. You’re sorry if you jumped to conclusions? You definitely jumped to conclusions. And on top of that, you’ve maligned my character, been rude and aggressive and”—she lowers her voice again—“not nice.”
I pull in a breath. She’s not wrong. I also want to congratulate her on her use of the word maligned . She’s proved me right that a good vocabulary isn’t the preserve of a man in his thirties, but I have a feeling she won’t take that well, either. I’ve already been enough of an asshole without adding condescension to the mix.
“I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions and I’ve been rude, and aggressive and… what was it? Oh, yes—not nice.” Although it was the least offensive thing she accused me of, it’s the part that sticks in my gut. Call me an asshole and I can brush it off, but somehow, not nice feels like a bigger deal. Maybe I’m going soft in my old age. Or maybe it’s because this woman… last night was so… intense.
“Better,” she says. “That sounded more like an apology.”
“Enjoy your evening,” I say with a nod. It’s not like I’m expecting to get invited in. Not after the exchange we just had. But if she did ask me in, I’m not sure I could say no.
The click and snap of a door being opened catches my attention, and I whip my head around.
A woman with orange hair tied up with a headscarf puts her head out of the door. “Can you two lovebirds have your argument in your apartment? I’m trying to work in here.” I’m not sure if I imagine it, but a squawking sound comes from behind her. It sounds like an exotic bird. “You see?” she says accusatorily before slamming the door without waiting for our answer.
I turn back to Efa and raise my eyebrows.
“And now you got me in trouble with my neighbors. Be gone.” She sweeps her hands up in dismissal, like I’m completely inconsequential to her. I can’t remember anyone ever treating me that way. Then again, Efa is proving unique in more ways than one.
“See you around, knowing my good luck,” she says.
I let out a chuckle and head to the elevators.