Chapter 3
Elijah
I jogged up Crowley’s ornate staircase, discreetly snooping through the different floors. On principle, I never made a business decision without putting the legwork in myself, and this store was bleeding money.
I liked the bones of it, though. The history.
Besides checking out Crowley’s and its chain of high-end boutiques, I had three days in Deadwater and a list of opportunities and acquisitions to explore both in the city and further afield.
I should’ve been buzzing with the freedom to be out of the boardroom. Except ‘bored’ had followed me.
There was an itch under my skin I couldn’t scratch, and I couldn’t work out the problem.
For twenty years, I’d worked my backside off, and I’d created an empire of businesses.
A diverse portfolio I was committed to expanding.
I’d gone from nothing to self-made billionaire, and the world was my playground.
Except I didn’t roll like that.
I moved on to the next floor, passing through kids’ clothes and toys.
I’d arrived in the city last night, late for a party with a potential business associate after air traffic control kept my jet circling. When I’d finally got there, after midnight, it was to a woman bursting from the mansion’s entrance and stalking away down the street.
Topless. In fact, almost entirely naked, aside from her gold thong.
Startling, instant attraction hit like a fist to my balls, and I’d commanded my driver to trail the beauty until I’d watched her safely board a late-night bus, thankfully clothed by that point.
It told me all I needed to know about the kind of party the men were having. I hadn’t returned.
The seedy world of paying women for company, or worse, had never interested me. Though I hadn’t stopped thinking about sex since. Or the woman who’d done a runner.
I travelled up to the fourth floor, emerging at the very back corner of womenswear.
When was the last time I’d truly been happy?
Oddly, back when life was harder. When I’d started my first business on the mean streets of Boston at sixteen as a way to help my single mom support my younger siblings.
I’d gone between mechanics shops, offering to do their dirtiest jobs in the time I had around school.
Early mornings, late nights. I loved the toil.
The buzz of making enough so our power didn’t get cut off.
Or so that we could buy the asthma inhaler my little brother needed so badly.
Picking up businesses now was child’s play. There was no fun in it anymore.
My phone rang. I was waiting on a call from the same Deadwater businessman I’d bumped into last night, but Mom’s name lit the screen, as if my remembering those days had summoned her.
“Hey,” I answered. “You’re up early.”
“I wanted to catch you before your busy day started.”
She asked the usual questions of how I was doing, and I smiled with my replies. Mom had never slept well, but with the apartment I’d bought for her outright and the investments I’d put in her name, she didn’t need to worry about being fresh for work anymore.
Across the expanse of the room, my gaze touched on a lone figure. Perched on a bench seat, the woman sat ramrod straight, her smile ready as if she was trying to make a good impression, though she watched the room with curiosity.
Job interview, had to be.
She twisted in her seat, giving me a better view.
My body took a screenshot. With rich, chestnut hair in loose waves and a wicked curve to her lips, she was pretty. Fuckin’ gorgeous if I allowed myself to gawp. But it was something else that pulled me in like a magnet.
She was the naked girl from last night.
Mom’s voice continued in my ear. “Did I tell you how grateful Carrie’s daughter was about you letting her stay in your apartment?”
I forced my brain to restart. I was so rarely in London anymore, it hadn’t mattered. “As I recall, you gave her the codes to get in.”
“Semantics, Elijah. Maybe you could take a trip to visit her while you’re there. Escort her to a show, perhaps.”
“I’m not in London. I’m in the north.”
“What’s a few hours of travel between friends?”
The beautiful stranger across the room took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back when another person passed, but they carried on up the main stairs.
My gaze shot to the glimpse of collarbone at her open-necked pink shirt.
That hint of flesh stirred my blood as much as her nudity had last night.
I let my gaze wander over the swell of her breasts that the shirt only emphasized and down to mile-long legs under a tight skirt. Shit. I needed to stop.
Mom said my name, claiming back my attention. “Is it too much to entertain a family friend who’s so far away from home?”
I pressed my lips together, finally catching on to her ploy. “Quit it.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“C’mon. Matchmaking.”
“I’m not! What possible reason could I have to matchmake for my unmarried, wealthy son, who is rapidly approaching the big four-oh, so he gets to spend a romantic evening with Melinda, a nice girl who has a Harvard degree, a good family, beautiful manners…”
I made a gagging noise.
Mom huffed and changed tack. “Unless you don’t like girls anymore? The MacArthurs have a sweet interior designer son. He’s charming, and I know he’ll make a great father. You should see how caring he is to his grandmother.”
I saw where this was going, and any setup my mother could manage wouldn’t interest me. “If I were gay, I would have told you. In the nicest possible way, back out of my love life, Mom. Love ya. Got to go.”
I hung up on her laugh.
At the same moment, the woman across the room raised her gaze to mine. Electricity fizzed in my veins. I expected her to look away. Or drop her gaze with a hint of a smile. The stranger didn’t. Instead, she cocked her head and drew her eyebrows in, that curiosity choosing me as its subject.
I stood taller, wondering what she saw. Despite the day of business meetings, I wasn’t in a suit.
It was part of my persona that I stayed close to my blue-collar roots.
It kept me honest and my mind on the important things in life.
I didn’t make money for money’s sake, though I happened to be good at it.
Today, I wore a dark-grey t-shirt with the brand of a mechanics’ chain I owned in Brockton, snug for my build, along with dark slacks. Neither entirely casual nor business-smart. I liked that people read me wrong on first impression. The ink on my arms enabled the same.
For unknown reasons, I had to know the stranger’s mind. Why she was here. What had happened last night to have her running.
Still, she didn’t drop my gaze on my approach. In fact, her lips quirked. “Lost? Or have men’s boxers started hanging out in the push-up section?”
Ah fuck. She was funny, too.
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “They haven’t. Yet. But give the fashion houses time.” I nodded to the nearby desk. “Interview?”
“Something like that.”
If she got the job, she could be working for me.
She tapped her lip. “Let me guess, you’re here to buy a gift for your girlfriend and could use some advice from an owner of breasts.”
I fought like a madman to not stare at the breasts in question.
Again. Even though their shape was branded in my mind.
“No girlfriend, so guess again.” Then a devil inside me supplemented my answer with a better one, made of interest, lust, and other rising emotions.
“Unless you’re offering me a tour? I won’t turn you down. ”
She pressed her lips together, hiding a smile.
She’d shoot me down. No way she’d continue this. But again, she surprised me.
Gracefully, she stood, keeping a close hold on her bag. “What’s your name?”
I poked my tongue into my cheek. “Whatever you want it to be.”
Interest flared in her eyes. “Ethan, then.”
Remarkably close to the bone, and yet… “Choose another. That’s my little brother’s name.”
“Is Edward in the clear?”
I nodded approval. “And you are?”
She made a gesture for me to select one.
“Brenda,” I decided.
‘Brenda’ reached out a hand to shake mine. At the touch of her warm, soft skin, another bolt of that shockingly powerful energy shot through me. She released me and stepped to the end of the rack, ignorant of the effect I was still reeling under.
The deep, rolling lust that was tightening its grip.
Christ, she smelled good.
“New in town, Edward?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I repeated her words from earlier. “Anywhere I should be checking out?”
“I hear there’s a club down on the river called Divide.
” Her eyes sparkled. She touched the hanger of the bra at the front.
“I’ll start your tour. See if you can keep up.
All bras are designed to work in a specific way.
The selection you happen to be standing nearest to is the balcony bra.
Great choice. Designed with less material on the half-cups and wider straps, they make the most of what the wearer is rocking and have a boosting effect. ”
Her subtle but purposeful lift of her chest sent my mind someplace hot, with her in one of those bras and nothing else.
“What do balcony bras do, Edward?” she questioned.
Make her tits delicious? “Boost ’em.”
Her head incline went straight to my dick.
Either she was flirting with me or was a world-class saleswoman. I pinned my hopes on the former.
“I’m a fast learner,” I murmured.
She wrinkled her nose. “Guys probably shouldn’t admit to being fast in the underwear department.”
At my bark of a laugh, she meandered to the next rack of lace. I followed, stray dog style.
“This is a range of padded bras. Excellent for giving the wearer the shape she desires and making mountains out of molehills. Would that interest you, sir?”
Fuuuck.
It was the ‘sir’ that did me in. Sweet yet sarcastic, definitely playing with me in the best possible way. I hadn’t enjoyed flirting like this in the longest time. I was far too used to being hit on for my name and bank balance to not be jaded by dating.
That was it. What I was missing. The thrill of the chase.
Purposefully, I held her gaze then dragged my focus lower to the opening of her shirt, giving myself an eyeful of her incredible cleavage. If I was off the mark, she’d let me know.
“What are you wearing, Brenda?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Edward.”
“Can I find out?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
The moment hung between us, perfectly tense and heavy. My dick was half hard. I was a second away from snatching her hand and suggesting we find a lockable store cupboard.
My fucking phone buzzed.
Brenda tilted her head. “Are you going to answer that?”
I gave a single shake of my head, my muscles locked. “No fuckin’ chance.”
But a voice summoned her from the customer service desk. “Miss Braveheart?”
My brand-new obsession started. Her cheeks pinkened, and she whirled around. “Yes?”
Two women waited on her. She left me, taking her swell of energy, and fantastic tits, with her.
I sighed and palmed my phone with the call still ringing. The name on-screen told me it was the Deadwater businessman I’d been waiting to speak to.
I answered, still watching my girl. “Mr Tucker, good to hear from you. Douglas, of course,” I added at his correction.
The pretty lady whirled around and stared at my phone. A new emotion mixed in with her obvious anxiety over her meeting. Unpleasant recognition? Dislike?
I frowned, but my caller continued speaking, and the two women demanded her attention.
Whatever that reaction meant, I didn’t know, but perhaps it was connected with her leaving the party last night. Douglas Tucker had been another guest.
Tucker talked at me, and I stepped half outside the department’s glass doors to regain my concentration. But I kept one ear on the conversation between Brenda, or Miss Braveheart because I now had her name, and the two women.
I didn’t like the way they looked at her. Superior and judgemental.
The older of the two, a manager, I imagined, indicated to Miss Braveheart’s bag. “I’m going to need to see what’s inside there.”
Smiling broader, Miss Braveheart inclined her head. “Perfect. That’s exactly why I’ve come—”
The woman held up a hand, her upper lip curled like she’d smelled something bad. “I know you don’t have a receipt. You confessed it to my employee.”
“Wait, no. It isn’t like that.” She opened the bag and extracted a bra. A pretty, velvet-strapped, dainty thing in plush purple that I suddenly pictured peeling off her to wrap around my dick.
The manager recoiled. “No labels either. Did you cut them off? Where did you hide them?”
“Of course I didn’t. Let me start again. I’ve created—”
“Are there more in the bag? Which display did you take them from? We both saw you lingering over there.”
The manager tugged at the bag, claiming it to peer inside.
Miss Braveheart stared wide-eyed. “What are you talking about? Those are mine.”
“They most certainly are not.”
“They are! You don’t even have those designs on your shelves.”
The manager stuck a finger in Miss Braveheart’s face. “I know, because you stole them. I’ve seen your type around here before. You finished your shift at the strip club then come here to con us into refunding products you slipped into your bag after distracting my staff. Alyssa, call security.”
Sour-faced Alyssa tapped something into her phone.
I forgot my call and pushed open the glass door. Something was wrong here.
My insta-crush snatched the bag back, but the manager wouldn’t let it go. In the tussle, a handle broke and underwear flew out, a cascade of bras and panties falling around them. Brenda snatched up a few of the scattered pieces.
“Stop!” the manager shrieked.
“No, you stop,” I added my voice to the mix.
“What’s going on here?” another voice boomed from behind—the security guard, already arrived.
But Miss Braveheart’s eyes had rounded in horror. She swung her gaze between Crowley’s hostile staff, clutched the underwear to her chest, and ran.