Rules of Harte (Harte Series #1) (17 page)

***

‘You’re too vanilla for your own good, Evangeline. I’ll let myself out, shall I?’ Julian said, speaking to an empty room. He stood up from the couch and looked at the open door. He didn’t see that coming. Eva was more of a challenge than he thought. She had fire. He always suspected it was there, but now that he had seen it, he wanted her more than ever. Julian picked up Eva’s masquerade mask. It was still damp from earlier and he was careful not to smudge it as he slid it into his inside jacket pocket. He allowed himself a brief glance around the apartment before closing the door behind him. He stopped abruptly in the corridor and punched the wall a couple of times before shaking out his hand. Ignoring his grazed knuckles, he pulled himself to his full height and straightened his tie. ‘Evangeline Andrews,’ he said under his breath, ‘this just got interesting.’

Eva looked up every time the main office door opened. It had just gone half
past ten, and Nathan still hadn’t come in to work. She’d gotten soaked chasing after him in the rain last night. She’d reached the street corner just in time to see him hop into a taxi and he hadn’t looked back. She’d sent an email, well, five actually, to his work address. And she was purposely ten minutes late this morning so he’d have time to read her explanation and apology before she had to face him.

             
She refreshed her inbox for the tenth time that morning. Nothing. Nothing from Julian either. She wasn’t surprised he was gone by the time she got back to her apartment, but she was disappointed. And she hadn’t heard from him since. Not that she could blame him, she’d decided as she’d polished off the left over wine. She’d been horribly rude. Maybe it was best that he was ignoring her now. He was probably saving them both the embarrassment of pulling out of their arrangement for the ball, she thought. She suspected the longer she went without hearing from him, the more likely it was that she never would again.

             
She hit refresh again. Still nothing, not even spam. Damn it. She thumped her first on her desk and then blushed, noticing everyone in ear shot staring. She punched numbers into her calculator quickly and pretended to be busy. She even threw in a fake stressed out sigh for good measure. Everyone’s attention quickly fizzled. Eva folded her arms on her desk and flopped her forehead against them.

             
The smell of fresh coffee and a gentle tap on her shoulder startled her. She shot upright, cracking her back and almost falling off her chair.

‘You okay?’ Shelly asked softly.

Eva patted tiny tears from the corners of her eyes with the tips of her fingers and tried to smile.

‘Yeah, think so.’

‘Guy trouble?’ Shelly returned Eva’s smile.

‘How did you know?’

‘Only a man can make a women feel as miserable as you look.’

‘Thanks.’ Eva half laughed half sighed. ‘Do I really look that bad?’

‘Panda eyes are so the eighties.’ Shelly handed her a tissue. ‘It’s clean, I promise.’

‘Hope so.
’ Eva laughed.

‘Come on, we’re going for coffee. I’m buying and you’re talking.’

Eva shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’m waiting on a really important email, and I’m due to go on a late lunch today.’

‘So…bring your phone.’ Shelly shrugged. And Mr Doe isn’t in today. No one else gives a shit what time you go on lunch.

‘I’m swamped. Honest. I just can’t.’ Eva really hoped Shelly wouldn’t push it any further. She was already struggling to hold it together. She just wanted to get through the day without melting. And Shelly was so lovely and friendly, it was making her poker face hard to keep straight.

             
‘A few of us are hitting the shops after work. You know, picking up a few last minute bits for the ball. Why don’t you come along?’

Shelly tilted her head across the office towards some of the other girls’ desk. Eva followed her stare. Mia looked up, and seeing Shelly, she smiled and waved. Eva froze. Shelly seemed lovely and she could really do with a friend, but Mia was baggage she just couldn’t deal with.

Shelly waved back at Mia and pulled a smile so huge, her jaw looked distorted.

‘Fucking hell, I hate that bitch,’ she whispered turning back to Eva. ‘Loves herself, doesn’t she?’

              Eva giggled…and snorted and then quickly slapped her hand across her mouth as Mia stared. She’d liked Shelly from the start, but now she absolutely loved her.

‘Please? You’d be doing me a favour.’

‘Okay.’ Eva agreed. ‘But I’m holding you to that coffee first.’

‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll meet you at the main reception at say…5.15?’

‘Perfect.’ Eva was suddenly a little giddy.

‘I better get back. Mr Doe awaits.’

‘But you said he wasn’t in today?’

‘Oops
,’ Shelly winked and scurried away, swishing her hips as her ridiculously high heels pitter-pattered across the tiled floor.

             
Shelly was fast becoming someone Eva really liked. She trusted her, and she always made her smile. She was pretty but not affected. Confident but not cocky. Slim but curvy. And she talked about fucking her boss and buying shoes all in the same conversation. Not surprising really, since all that boss fucking came with a huge salary and a girl had to spend it on something. Shoes were as good a place to start as any. Eva wondered if she’d ever be that comfortable in her own skin. She’d given a pretty convincing performance of a confident, Sexy Goddess last night, but that was in the heat of the moment. The heat of a Julian moment. Any moment with him was like fire. But the smouldering ashes of today were a different story. She closed her eyes and hit the refresh button one more time.

---------------------------

From:
[email protected]

To
: [email protected]

Subject:
Unfinished Business

Date:
Thursday 16
th
July 11.05

Good morning, Ms Andrews.

We have a little unfinished business to attend to, don’t we?

J x

Unfinished business?
And the riddle for today was
… Eva bit her bottom lip, partially to stop it from quivering, but mostly because it just came as a natural reaction. He still wanted to play.
Fuck.
Eva took a deep breath and sighed, relieved.

----------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From
: [email protected]

Subject
: Re: Unfinished Business

Date:
Thurs 16
th
July 11.06

Good Morning, Julian.

What unfinished business?

Eva

Evangeline Andrews

Administrator

Ignite Technologies

Block 6

Plaza Exchange

Dublin 2

----------------------------

From:
[email protected]

To
: [email protected]

Subject:
Re: Unfinished Business

Date:
Thursday 16
th
July 11.07

Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but we were in the middle of some pretty amazing sex when we got interrupted. I wasn’t finished. And correct me if I’m wrong, but you weren’t either. Shall we reschedule? Say, starting with dinner, tonight? My place - eight o’clock

J x

Eva stood up from her seat, brushed her hands over her hair, rubbed her finger tips across her face and lastly straightened out her clothes. She sat back down. Christ
, he made her so nervous, and excited. And hell yes, she definitely wanted to reschedule.

------------------------------

To:
[email protected]

From
: [email protected]

Subject
: Re: Unfinished Business

Date:
Thurs 16
th
July 11.09

That would be lovely, Julian. Thank you.

But I don’t know where you live.

Evangeline Andrews

Administrator

Ignite Technologies

Block 6

Plaza E
xchange

Dublin 2

Eva hit send and tapped her index fingernail anxiously against her tooth as she read back over her words. Lovely?
Oh shit
, that wasn’t very specific. Had she just told him dinner would be lovely…or sex? She’d meant dinner, obviously, but she’d come to learn that with Julian, you had to be painfully clear or you were just eating out of his hands.

Eva quickly typed out an instant message. She couldn’t allow any more time faffing about with emails. She had to set the record straight.

Eva135
: I mean dinner. Dinner would be lovely. Thank you.

Oh God
. Her hand covered her mouth. How embarrassing. She’d just made it worse. Now he knew she was thinking about sex. And she was. She was replaying the feel of his hot tongue lapping against her clitoris.

Julian:
It will be lovely. And just to clarify, I mean both dinner and sex. See you at eight. PS Don’t worry about my address. I’ll send someone for you.

             
Sex? He’d said it like he was offering ice cream for dessert or something. Eva’s face singed just thinking about it. She tried to distract herself with more immediate thoughts. Like who was this someone? Did he mean a driver? He had a driver? Of course he had, he was insanely wealthy. A driver was probably compulsory or all the other multimillionaires would tease him at their annual
We Are Rich festival
. Eva giggled at her own foolishness and began to wonder what to wear. Maybe she should go shopping for some more sexy underwear first. Shopping? Oh no, she had completely forgotten her arrangement with Shelly. She couldn’t cancel now, it was too short notice. She would just have to try to do both. She could explain about her dinner and rescheduled sex. Okay, maybe she’d leave the sex part out. Hopefully Shelly would understand and not ask the dreaded, but likely question…with who? Eva practised an excuse that didn’t involve the explanation, ‘well, he’s a Sex-God escort, actually’ just in case

Chapter 16

The rest of the day passed in a blur of incessant email checking. She still hadn’t heard from Nathan
, and she felt beyond bad, but that feeling struggled to compete with her nervous excitement about seeing Julian later. She’d visited the bathroom more often than she could count after excessive coffee consumption and checked her watch so much she almost gave her wrist repetitive strain injury.

             
At a minute shy of five o’clock, she powered down her PC and dashed to the bathroom one last time. She visited the mirror every time she passed, gradually becoming more content with her reflection. She patted down stray strands of hair and sleeked them back into her precision bun and added just enough lip gloss to give her lips a noticeable hint of colour. Her tummy felt like an entire swim team were battling it out for gold inside her. She couldn’t decide if she was hugely excited or gigantically nervous about her evening with Julian. Whatever she was, she’d definitely never felt like this before.

             
She glanced out the window. Commuters were staring to pour onto the street below. She cracked her neck, tossed her bag onto her shoulder and forgot about her enemy, the mirror. She didn’t want to keep Shelly waiting.

             
Shelly was already in reception when Eva got there. Shelly had changed into skinny jeans and an oversized blouse. Eva almost didn’t recognise her. She kissed the air at each of Shelly’s cheeks and Shelly giggled like a school girl.

‘What?’ Eva said
, raising her shoulders.

‘Nothing. It’s just you’re so sweet.’

‘I am?’

‘Yeah. You know… the whole mwah, mwah thing? We don’t really do that in Ireland.’

Eva blushed.

‘No, no it’s nice,’ Shelly said. ‘We just usually hug or something here, you know?’