A Deal With the Devil (9 page)

Shit. Double shit
. What to do? The glass shook more in her unsteady hand, her heart thudded so quickly she thought she might pass out. For some reason she held her breath. Then realised that was pretty unsustainable given she needed oxygen in.

“Kate?” Rey’s voice. She turned. A frown. From this distance she couldn’t read his eyes. “Kate.”

“Rey! Hi!” Her voice was too breezy. But that could have been down to the immediate and total adrenalin rush at just looking at him again. She’d thought she’d imagined his electric presence, but it was there still, almost shimmering around him as guilt and desire wormed their way into her smorgasbord of emotions.

“This is a surprise.” He raised his eyebrows to the security guard. “Talk later.” And then he walked towards her, a sinful smile playing along his lips. “Now, what are you doing here?”

She looked at the tray. At the empty, dirty glass. And felt the same; empty and dirty, being here, doing this. Her voice was shaky, but she steadied it. “I was glass collecting. This one was on the table over there and it caught my eye. I thought I’d pick it up.”

“This area is off-limits to everyone except management.” His eyes narrowed and she felt the full weight of what she was doing—it was reckless, stupid. Dangerous. Her cheeks burned and she looked down at his hands to avoid eye contact.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware of that. I was trying to help.”

“Really? How about you explain a little more?” His voice was cold steel as he pulled out a keycard, unlocked his office door and ushered her in. His narrowed eyes screamed suspicion.

She didn’t want to be so close and alone with him. She’d barely calmed down from being caught in the wrong place, but now her pulse skyrocketed for an altogether different reason. She tried to deflect—it was after all what they did. “So, um … Carlos said you were dealing with counters?”

“It happens.”

“And?”

“Let’s just say we won’t be hosting them here again.”

She put the tray down on his desk next to his laptop, which was closed. There were no papers lying around, nothing that could direct her to the fight club. But then he’d hardly have things like that on display, would he? There was a large filing cabinet in the corner. Maybe … He was looking at her. She needed to keep talking. “Do you always get so involved? You know, personally?”

“Most of the casinos—the big ones anyway—have systems in place to identify them. We have face recognition software, databases, cameras everywhere, well-trained staff … They rip one of us off, they rip us all off. We weed them out, spread the intel around. I like to reach a satisfactory conclusion.” Which wasn’t exactly a direct answer to her question. He lifted a decanter in offer of a drink. She nodded. He poured two fingers’ worth of what looked like whisky into each glass then gave one to her. She didn’t want to look at him, but as he handed her the glass his gaze clashed with hers. He was assessing, she thought, as he sat on the edge of the desk. Assessing, watching, adding things up in his head. How hard would it be for him to join up the dots? Jake, code breaking, her. Behind him the laptop light blinked like a lighthouse beacon, warning her of how close she’d come to getting caught. How close she still was. He beckoned for her to sit on the sumptuous tan leather chair facing him. “I also like to sort my own problems out, I don’t like to rely on others.”

“But I would have thought your men were quite capable of dealing with everything without you being so … hands-on.”

“I don’t like being ripped off. I take stealing very seriously.”

Was that a warning? She didn’t know. A sip of the liquor made her bolder and steadied her skyrocketing blood pressure. “Aren’t the tables fixed anyway? Everyone thinks they are.”

“The odds are stacked, not the tables. It’s a game, Kate. I just tend to have the upper hand. I like having the upper hand.” He leaned closer, calm. Controlled. Measured. And she decided there and then that she definitely did not want to be on the dark side of his humour. In some ways she was thankful she hadn’t touched his laptop, so her only crime was being in the wrong place. He scrutinised her, eyes a glittering gunmetal grey. “Clearly you got home safely the other night?”

“Yes. How did we do with Chin? Did you get the go-ahead for Macau?”

“We are a step closer.” Shoulders squared as he pierced her with his cool gaze. So Macau was off limits now. “I told you to wait.”

“And in here you’re my boss, that’s fair enough. But out there … then … you weren’t acting like my boss.” She felt once more the heat of that night, the soft caress of his thumb on her cheek, the tingling in her breasts. “And I don’t take kindly to orders.”

“So I see.” He tapped the crystal glass with his finger, a smile forming. “And in the middle of what could have been a dirty fight you ignored my instructions? He could have attacked you, you could have been hurt.”

She’d just wanted to get away before things got too involved. “I … didn’t think about that.”

“I did. Which was why I told you to wait. Why I kept you in my sights.” He shook his head as if somehow he’d been denied something that he had badly wanted. “Until you ran away.”

And that was why Rey had acted so swiftly? He’d been protecting her when she’d thought he was just gunning to get involved in a brawl? She didn’t know how to feel about that. The last thing she wanted was his protection and yet …
Damn and double damn
 … she’d bowled into this whole thing with all guns blazing, without assessing, like he did, without thinking deeper than getting revenge and a bloody good headline.

She’d thought it would be easy to betray him a second time, but it wasn’t. She’d thought it would be black and white. But where Rey was concerned there were shadows and brightness, dark and light. She hadn’t reckoned on that and now she was lost. All her convictions were challenged and she didn’t know what the hell to do. “I didn’t run. I left because I thought it was better that way.”

“And was it?” He put his glass on the desk and regarded her, waiting for her to answer, his question so loaded with intent.

She turned away because they both knew what he was asking. Was it better that they hadn’t kissed? That things between them hadn’t progressed. Hell, she couldn’t answer that because it was all she’d been dreaming about. A hot and restless ache. And a shocking regret that she hadn’t kissed him, just once.

“If ever there’s a next time, listen to me and do what I say. Dealing with dangerous situations is what I do best.” Then he was moving towards her, tilting her chin up so he could see her face. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’ll try not to then.” Looking into his eyes, so dark and deep she saw past the control, felt the heat between them flare into beautiful vivid life. This time it was fierce and shocking in its intensity. She tried to look away but she couldn’t, her world shifting a little as she was transfixed by the promise shimmering in his molten gaze. How could she want him so much? Him, of all men. It defied logic.

“And tell me the truth … why are you really here? In my office suite?”

“Just doing my job.” It wasn’t a lie—she’d told too many already—she’d just been doing her other job. Her chest constricted, her words a stammer, a muddle, like her brain. “In fact, I should go. Carlos might need me.”

“No.” A minute shake of his head. A warning. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling me everything?” Again, the eyes narrowed and she felt breathless under his scrutiny. “Who are you Kate?”

“You know who I am. I’m the same woman from the other night, the one you asked to lie for you.”
The one who wanted to sleep with you, but lost her nerve at the first glimmer of danger.
Adrenalin pumped through her. She wanted to tell him who she really was, to be honest, but she was scared. Scared that her feelings for him were getting in the way of her professional and personal perspective. Scared too of the ramifications of him knowing the real reason she was here. “I need to go. Carlos warned me not to disappear again. I don’t want him thinking …”

“I don’t care what he thinks.”

She looked down at Doyle’s hand on her wrist, surprised by the comfort of his touch, the memories mingling with new sensations until she couldn’t think of any kind of answer that made any sense. “I … have to go.”

“What do you want, Kate?”

She didn’t think saying
I want to have sex on your desk and then break your deal of the century
would go down well. Not least because she had no desire to find out what his idea of
talking
to someone who’d crossed him was. “Right now, I’d like to keep my job.”

“You have it.” He nodded. “I keep asking questions and you block me at every turn. Why? What are you hiding? What are you afraid of?”

You. Me. This.
The strength and power of this attraction, falling too hard for the very wrong man. “I’m not looking for any kind of … thing with you. I don’t want to get involved with anyone right now.”

“That makes two of us. Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun, though.” His lips twitched as he curled his finger into a lock of her hair. The suspicion from before had dissipated a little—or he was suppressing it. Or playing her. She didn’t know which would be worse. “All work and no play …”

“I can’t play.”
Not with you
. Not ever.

“In that case, I will take what I do with you very seriously indeed.” His words were like a whisper over her skin. “You have my promise.”

“I don’t want it.” She did want it. But she couldn’t want it. Reality was blurring dangerously with a fantasy of being in his arms. The heat from his hand set a fire raging in her belly that spread through her, warping boundaries, twisting her sensibility. As she looked at him she was aware of her breathing stuttering, quickening. Of the pull towards him, which seemed insurmountable, utterly overwhelming. Hopeless. Exciting. Her peripheral senses shut down, cocooning just him and her in a world of
take now
, or
leave and don’t look back
.

She could not leave.

Her fingers went to his mouth, she traced once more across his lower lip. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to press herself against him and have his scent on her skin, his lips on hers. She wanted him. And she let herself believe, just for a while, that she could wrap herself in this moment, with him, and nothing dangerous could ever reach them.

Then her fingers touched his scar and she remembered his reaction to it the other day. Why the hell she had the sudden need to ask him this now she couldn’t fathom. She wondered if this was a line she wasn’t ever meant to cross. Whether talking to him about something so deeply personal would push him further behind those barriers he put up.

But she crossed the line anyway—because there was so much about this man that she needed to know, wanted to know. And none of that curiosity was fuelled by revenge, or her job, or a newspaper angle. It was something else entirely, something that scared her. “The other day you weren’t entirely honest about this, were you? There’s more?”

“It’s nothing.” He turned away but she pulled him to face her. It was something, she thought, something tragic and painful, she could see it in his eyes. Something that held him back on a personal level. Something that gave him that dark edge.

“I don’t believe you. Your mouth says one thing and yet your eyes say something altogether different.”

His body tensed. “For God’s sake, Kate. Really? You want to talk about this now?” He reached for her hair, wound his fingers into her curls and stepped closer. So close she could feel his heart thunder against his chest. “Because there’s a whole world of things I’d rather be doing …”

He wanted to kiss her. That much was obvious. He wanted her and that gave her wings. And a little courage. “Call me old-fashioned, Rey, but I do like to know something about the person I’m spending time with.”

His eyes darted to the floor as he pulled his hand from her hair, reached for his glass, downed the contents. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

“Yes. It does.” Putting her hand on his shoulders she turned him to face her. She took his hand in hers, felt the shiver of electricity fire between them. This was real. “I’m listening. I want to know about you.”

“I’m sure you’ll find all you need to know on the Internet.” He lifted her hands from him, moved away from her and closed his eyes. Those strong fine fingers touched the silvered line across his mouth.

“Rey …”

His eyes opened, but he didn’t look at her, he focused on something ahead. Something from the past. Or nothing at all. “It was my father. A long time ago. He had a gold signet ring, with an old penny in it. Turns out it could pack a punch. Split my lip in two.”

“Oh, my God. Really?” The full horror of his life bloomed before her. She couldn’t imagine having someone you loved do such a thing, to destroy all trust, to break your spirit. In an attempt to keep him close she slid her fingers into his. “Why? Why would he do that?”

“Because he didn’t know another way. Because it was an outlet, a pressure valve. He was always totally calm afterwards. But mainly, each time, it was simply because I was there.”

“Didn’t someone stop him? How could he do such a thing …?” Her admiration for him was growing; deeper, more profound emotions were working in her chest. His eyes had a haunted quality to them and she ached to rewind to moments ago when she’d seen such playfulness and desire there. But this too was Rey Doyle. This man was complex. A fighter. A survivor. “How did you stop it?”

“I left. I walked away. Living on the streets was a far better option. At least if I died there it would have been from some kind of choice. To a greater or lesser extent I was in control.”

Which explained his pressing ambition to conquer, to be in charge. “I can’t imagine having to make such a choice.”

“He always said he was sorry, that he wouldn’t do it again. That each punch was the last one, promised … begged for forgiveness, wept like a child … But there was always, always a next time. We lived from breath to breath, watching the minutest changes in his manner, the clenched jaw, a certain look in his eye.” Making space between them he stepped further away, guarded once more, shoulders up to his ears. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want your pity.”