Chapter Seventeen
Melanie’s in the kitchen with Jo, both scarfing strawberries and yogurt. And Jo is…laughing. As in, actual laughing. Teeth, and tonsils, and all.
“You should do that more often,” I say as I walk into the kitchen and set my devices down on the table. “One could easily mistake you for human when those teeth are visible. And that’s to your advantage.”
Jo’s smile withers like a thirsty flower, her eyes narrowing at me in hate.
Uh-huh. That’s more like it.
“Good morning, Tim,” Melanie says in a tight, warning voice.
I give her an innocent smile, move to the fridge, and get out the milk. Opening the cereal cupboard, I scan for the Honey Bunches of Oats and pluck it out of the lineup. Collin’s cereal. He gave me permission to use whatever his name is on, seeing as the others constantly fight about who ate whose whatever.
Taking the chair on the other side of Mel, I pour myself a bowl.
The second I’m down, Jo is up. She makes a point of keeping her focus solely on Melanie as she speaks. “Got an early class today, so I’m gonna go.” She points a gun finger at her and winks. “See ya later. In the meantime, get your girl in line.”
Melanie scowls at me, and I shrug, unapologetic. She wasn’t there to see how mean Jo had been to me over the past few days. Knowing she won’t get into it with me—not with Jaxon’s all-hearing spy devices around—I give her a little smirk and take my cereal with me back to his office.
I can hear the shower running from his room, so I take a seat at his desk. Scooping a spoonful of cereal in my mouth, I use one hand to flip open his laptop.
Password protected.
Easy hack. But too risky with him being in the other room, so I close it, put my own laptop on top of his, and flip it open.
While I eat, I single-handedly navigate to his hijacked bank account, steal another 100K, and then change his password back to what it was originally. Because I’m bored and because I can.
Besides, his account balance is obscene.
Yet, judging from his fairly blasé reaction to being locked out of his account, I bet this is just one—and most likely the smallest—of his many accounts.
Fifteen minutes later, my cereal is long finished, and I’m giving intense focus to an advanced security hacking software I’d been developing pre-kidnap, when he walks out, finger-combing back his damp hair.
He comes to a halt when he notices me at his desk.
I close out of my work, shut the laptop, and sit up straight so I can see the full length of him. He’s wearing steel-gray trousers, a cloud-white dress shirt tucked in, a sleek Hermes belt, and even sleeker shoes. He looks as if he is about to walk onto a photo shoot for The Bachelor.
“What are you all dressed up for?” I find myself asking before I can stop myself.
He dips his chin, as if wondering who the hell do I think I am to question him.
Nonetheless, he exhales an easy breath and comes over to me. “Taking your partner on a trial run today. What’re you doing at my desk?”
“Mel was annoying me, so I came in here to eat. Does she know about this trial task?”
Two fingers pressed to the desk, he looks down at my laptop on top of his. “No. She wants to be a part of the team, she should always be ready. You hacked into my computer?”
I shake my head. “If I did you’d be on top of me.”
His head tilts to the side.
My blundered choice of words registers two seconds too late. I blink. Rapidly. Attempting to recover. “I-I— I meant to say yours would be on top of mine. That is, your laptop would be on top on my laptop, instead of my lap on top of your lap. Laptop! I mean laptop!”
Oh God, I’m just making this worse.
His unnerving presence is addling me.
Lips folded, he drops his gaze to the ground for a few counts before bringing it back to me. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind having your lap…top on top of mine. Who’s on top or who’s on the bottom doesn’t matter. As long as we’re…connected.”
Before I can flush YouTube red, his hands are in his pockets, and his body is retreating from the room.
I sit back and take more than a few minutes to convince my heart and flaring lust to be still. Once I’m in a safe, unmuddled place, I get up and follow him.
A door is open in the hall, blocking the path. A storage room door. As I’m about to push it shut so I can pass, Jaxon steps out and bumps into me.
His hand shoots out and grabs me before I can bang my head against the side of the door.
“Easy, there.”
“Sorry.” I right myself and quickly step out of his grasp. “I was trying to— what’s that?”
From his two long fingers dangles a hanger with what looks like a female bank teller’s uniform. Navy-blue A-line skirt, long-sleeved sky-blue shirt, and a red silk scarf.
“For the prospect,” he says.
Ha. This should be interesting. Melanie doesn’t wear skirts.
“Oh.”
He checks my hands. My right hand is clutching my cell phone while my left grasps desperately to my sanity. “So, you left my bed unmade, and now there’s a dirty cereal bowl on my desk.”
On the inside I wince, but my mouth says, “Oops. Sorry. That’s going to be a downside to having me as a housemate. I forget to clean up after myself.”
He studies me, then murmurs, “You’ll learn.” He turns and continues down the hall.
Okay. As long as he will be teaching me all the laws of tidiness, I won’t mind learning, at all.
Melanie’s still at the kitchen table when I trail in behind Jaxon. He throws the uniform over the back of the chair next to her. “We have less than two hours. Go put that on.”
Nonplussed, Melanie peers up at him. “Less than two hours for what?”
“Your first test. A job originally meant for Col. I told him to sit this one out. But the payout is still his.”
“Golly!” Melanie exclaims, her eyes lit with excitement. And then she does a double take at the uniform. “Um, I don’t wear skirts.”
“I don’t wear suspenders, Speedos, or bolo ties, either, but when the job calls for it, I do. Now, go put that on and make your hair nice. Clock’s ticking.” His tone brooks no argument.
Melanie is expressively unhappy with this, but she doesn’t argue. A true pro, she just picks up the uniform and leaves.
Spoilsport.
As he selects a banana from the fruit basket, I lean against the counter and ask, “Can I come?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You talk too much.”
“I do not!” I straighten, indignant. But then I remember, Yeah, I do. I lean onto the counter again. “At least, not when you’re around.”
In mid-bite of his banana, he pauses, brows lifted. Then, he bites off more than half the banana. Chews. Swallows. “Now that I think about it, you really don’t. When I’m around. Why is that, Timber?” He does that head tilt thing. “Is it because I make you nervous?”
I snort and wrinkle my nose. “Your ego is lots too tall for you, sir. You might want to adjust it, yeah?”
His expression doesn’t alter, as usual, but I’ll bet the 200K I stole from him that he really wants to scowl at me.
I explain, “I don’t talk because you’re a brick.”
“A brick?”
“Yes, a brick. You have no expression, no personality, no…nothing. You’re just there. Blank and impenetrable. Like a brick.”
No holding back this time, he flat out scowls.
Yes, victory! For about three seconds.
Then he’s impassive again. “I tried. Last night. You didn’t want to talk.”
“Rubbish!” I straighten again. “You didn’t try to talk to me. You tried to mess with me. And my sleep.”
He tosses the banana peel in the trash can. “I messed with you so I could get to talk to you.”
Huh? What?
“You did?”
Of all the moments. Of all the moments, Melanie picks that one to walk in. Hands on her hips. “So?”
We both look to her, with a mixture of annoyance and confusion on my end. The uniform fits her like it’s hers. Her black hair is knotted in a tight bun. Simple black pumps and stockings complete the picture.
My bestie looks…like a woman. A very gorgeous woman. I’m seeing curves I never even knew she had.
She points to her feet. “I found these in Jo’s closet. The only corporate type stuff in there.” She rubs her palms together. “So, what’s the mission? Are we robbing a bank?”
Jaxon fetches a bottled water from the fridge and starts out of the kitchen. “C’mon. I’ll explain on the way.”
“I’m coming, too,” I call out as I skip to the fridge to grab a bottled water for myself before hurrying after them.
I don’t hear Jaxon object again, and as far as I’m concerned, silence means consent.
The flat has three stories. The top floor, split into two separate wings by a T-hall and a large open room filled with exercise equipment, has four bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. The second floor has the living area, kitchen, lounge area, powder room, and another long hall leading to Jaxon’s office and the master bedroom suite.
The ground floor is being used as a very large garage, of sorts. At the back of the building is a garage door that opens onto the back alley. And to the front of the building are wrought iron double doors—the main entrance. A rustic staircase twists up to another steel door, which leads up to the second floor—this is the one Melanie blew off.
Parked down here are two Escalades—one black, one white—a ninja bike, a black limousine, and two taxi cabs.
Who drives in this city except for cabbies? People who need getaway vehicles, that’s who.
The white Escalade beeps to life as Jaxon approaches it. I’m itching to ask questions, but I remember his reason for wanting to leave me behind and prudently keep my lips zipped.
Melanie gets in the front with him, and I climb in the back. The garage door whines upward, and the Escalade rolls out.
“To answer your question,” he says, “yes, we’re robbing a bank.”
Whoa.
Whoa!
Mel gives no reaction. She’s fearless. I, however, am not. Guess I should have stayed home, after all. “You’re going to rob a bank right now?”
His eyes find me in the rearview mirror and he shoots me a wordless warning.
I clamp my mouth shut and slouch down into the plush leather.
“We’ll have approximately seven minutes to carry out this task.” As he explains the whole plan at a lucid pace to Melanie, I listen intently.
The bank we’re headed to is small and fairly new. He’s gathered inside information on their security system and aims to capitalize on its weakness rather than hacking it and risking triggering any backup traps. The goal is to get in and get out with no one the wiser, or even remotely suspicious.
They won’t be targeting the whole bank—thank heavens. Just one particular safe deposit box. A box to which Jaxon has acquired a key.
His job is to ensure Melanie has a safe, undetected entry. Her test is to get into the vault, locate the safe deposit box, remove the item he wants, and walk right out again.
How will this work? Apparently, he has been seducing the section manager for a while now—long enough that she turns stupid whenever he walks in. His plan is to distract her while he swipes her key card to the vault. Once he’s successfully acquired the card, he’ll signal Mel by removing a pen from his pocket. At that signal, she will walk by him and surreptitiously take the key card.
How will she just walk in as a new employee? The bank recently hired a new teller. Today is her first day. However, thanks to a fake email from the bank terminating her hire, the real new girl won’t be coming in. Therefore, the employees of that section, who do not yet know what the new girl looks like, will assume Melanie is the real new girl.
What about cameras?
That’s the weakness Jaxon’s taking advantage of. A security camera video download occurs at 11 a.m. daily…of all the cameras in the bank. It takes precisely seven minutes and three seconds, during which the monitors and video go dark. That is all the time Melanie has to get in and out without being caught on camera.
“So, I can just walk in and start working?” Melanie asks. “Won’t the section manager be all over me?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jaxon tells her. “I’ll keep her occupied.”
Fifteen minutes later, we pull up across the street from the bank. It’s small, nondescript, and on my own I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the building is a bank, as the small sign that says NYBS is, well, small.
Without an ounce of nerves, Melanie undoes her seat belt and hops out of the vehicle.
Jaxon cracks the windows a wee bit, switches off the engine, and twists in his seat to look back at me. “Stay in the car.”
“Okay.”
He frowns. “I’m serious. In the car.”
I give him wide, innocent eyes. “I know.”
Aiming for intimidation, he glares me down. But just exhales something akin to a resigned sigh, then jerks open the door and climbs out. Melanie moves to stand beside him. He dips into his pocket for something and passes it to her.
The key to the box.
Brief words are exchanged, then they both nod and jaywalk across the street.
He opens the bank door like a gentleman, allowing Melanie to go in ahead of him, and glances across the street, to the vehicle, to me. He can’t see me through the tinted windows, but I’ll bet he knows I’m smiling.
I’ll bet he knows I have zero intention of staying in the car.
After they’ve gone inside, I wait a good six minutes before I snag the dangling key from the ignition and jump out. Once I’ve locked up, I tuck the key into my bosom.
I smooth my dress, straighten my cardigan, and cross the street.
Cool air conditioning blasts me as I walk in. A number of people are waiting in lines, and the tellers all seem to have their hands full. On either side of the room are glass double doors with golden bar handles. An acrylic sign hanging over the doors on the right reads Mortgages, Loans, Transfers while the sign over the doors on the left reads Credit Cards, Safe Deposit, New Accounts.
I go left.
The security guard in a navy-blue uniform standing by the doors doesn’t even spare me a glance as I swing the door open and walk through. Guess the mounted telly across the room is more interesting than a nonthreatening dweeb like me.
The section has three workers. A pimply, gangly white male; a cute, petite young female; and a raven-haired Indian with high cheekbones and a smirk. Melanie.
Across from the cute young woman sits Jaxon, elbows on her desk, his lean-in posture intimate. This must be the section manager. Her cheeks are blushed tomato red, and her smile is coy. And, yep, she looks smitten stupid, her mind wholly occupied with romantic fantasies of the prince in front of her, no doubt.
Mr. Pimply Gangly types away at his desktop computer with intense focus while Melanie shuffles papers at her desk, giving the illusion of acclimatizing to her new environment.
Five people sit in the waiting room—one reading a book, one reading a magazine, and three on their phones. I take a seat next to the one with the book and cross my legs. But as soon as Melanie spots me, she gets up and walks—with impressive confidence in Jo’s pumps—over to the waiting area.
“Miss Morris,” she greets with a wide smile. “So glad you could make it in. Please, follow me.”
I’m sure the others will rise in complaint that I get to go ahead of them, but no one as much as gives me the stink eye.
As Mel leads me off, she murmurs, “No one wants to be assisted by the new girl. And thank God for that, because I know hell all about assisting these people. I’d probably end up playing the clueless card. Oh, sorry, I’m new. I don’t really know my way around here yet. Please, be patient with me.”
I snicker, and she gestures professionally for me to sit in the chair at her desk while she lowers onto her own chair.
“I trust your day is going well, Miss Morris?”
“Splendidly.” I’m grinning now. This is so fun.
“I bet it is.” She picks up a sheet of paper and slides it across the desk. “You will need to fill out this form before we can proceed.”
I pick up the paper. It’s a standard personal information form, but under each sentence, there are scribblings in Pig Latin.
As I mentally unscramble the words, Melanie slides a pen across the table to me.
I have the SCA hacker in my bra and T63 in my scarf. Jaxon is behind with the key card exchange. We might have to do this without his help.
With a double tap to the side of my glasses, I let her know I understand and then go about filling out the form with fake information.
I slide the pen and paper back to her when I’m done. Keeping up the act, she skims it and promptly begins to type on her keyboard.
For the next few minutes, she asks me bullcracker questions, and I spout off bullcracker answers, all the while watching the clock, waiting. At one point, Jaxon sweeps a casual glance around the room and notices me. Although he makes a teeny, tiny shake of his head, he’s clearly not surprised.
Whatever.
He has yet to swipe Miss Cutie’s key, so I don’t care what he thinks right now.
“All right, Miss Morris,” Melanie says as she gets to her feet. “I believe we’re all set. Come with me, please.”
I’m up and about to follow when Mr. Pimply Gangly passes by with a customer. A quizzical string tugs his brows together. However, he doesn’t break to question Mel, because his customer—a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair in an expensive suit—looks important. He walks alongside him, clapping him on the shoulder, kissing arse.
“Your co-worker is suspicious of us,” I whisper in French to Melanie’s back. “We need to do this quickly.”
I glance at the clock. It’s 10:59. In one minute the cameras will be out of commission for seven minutes. We have only that much time to get in and get out.
I follow Mel through a door that leads down a narrow hallway made of stainless steel. After about twenty seconds of brisk walking, we halt at what resembles a prison grill with swipe-card access.
With nimble hands, Melanie retrieves the SCA hacker from her bra, swipes, and the grill opens as smooth as olive oil. Once we’re through, it relocks with a loud beep.
We resume briskly walking down the claustrophobic hall for another twenty seconds. When we finally get to the end, the only way to turn is right, which slams us straight into a vault door.
“Bloody beheaded wife of a fickle king,” Melanie curses under her breath.
Yep, that’s correct. The vault door is nothing like we expected. No swipe-card access, or keypad, or monitor. Nothing we can hack. This is a back-to-basics vault door with a manual puzzle lock and bolt. Old school—a huge circle made of tons upon tons of steel, with all different lengths of steel going this way and that. Not even Iron Man could break through this thing.
“What the bloody hell am I supposed to with this?” Melanie hisses. “That arse-face American sod has set us up. For failure.”
“Shh…” I study the door intently.
“We don’t have time, Tim,” Melanie says urgently. “We need to call this a loss and get out of here.”
“It’s a distraction,” I mutter as I move in and attempt to spin the vault wheel. It doesn’t budge. Because it’s not real. I actually grin.
“Huh?”
“This wheel. This unnecessary crisscross of irons and bolts. It’s meant to intimidate, to throw off potential thieves, but serves no real purpose. I do the same thing when I build car engines. Helps the manufacturer make money—a regular mechanic gets confused by an engine that looks nothing like what he’s used to working with, so he sends the customer right back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer then charges a hefty fee to fix something as simple as a disconnected wire because, Hey, our engines are unique. Only we have the correct parts, only we know how to service it.” As I speak, I’m running my fingers along and under crevices and hidden pockets. “The real access to the vault is small and inconspicuous. Hidden. If you were a real employee, Miss Tahira, you would know where. Help me find it.”
Without questioning, she jumps into action, watching and mimicking me as I search with laser focus.
A whole minute later, I find it—a switch behind one of the crisscross irons. I flip it. Something beeps. I step back.
A square pocket in the middle of the wheel flips open and a small monitor pops out, asking for the employee’s PIN.
PIN access. Good. Easy hack. “You said you brought T63, right?”
But she’s already untangling the small case from her scarf. Within seventy seconds, the vault is successfully opened. We exchange quick glances of relief but waste no time swinging the door open and stepping through the circle.
“Tim, what’s the number of the box, again?”
Of course, she knows my overactive brain stored every last word Jaxon spoke in the car. Unlike him, she’d known I wouldn’t not come in to help.
“4329.”
For a small bank, the vault is massive. Melanie runs back and forth scanning the right wall while I scan the left. It’s taking us a lot longer than we have time for, but I eventually find it. “Over here.”
The box is higher up, so I run down to the back where there’s a four-step ladder and drag it over. I climb up and wiggle my fingers, “Key, Mel.”
The key hits my palm, then it’s in the keyhole, and the rectangular door cracks open. Seizing the handle of the cast-iron box, I pull it out of its slot and climb down the ladder.
We both rush to the stainless-steel table in the middle of the room, set the box down, and slide the top open.
Within it lies a black handgun, a thick stack of Euros, a cassette tape, and two velvet pouches—one small and black, the other red and twice the size.
Melanie was instructed to take the red velvet pouch.
Picking it up, she tugs at the strings and peeks inside. “Krugerrands.”
The curiously inquisitive part of me wants to know what’s inside the other pouch, but we don’t have time, so I slide the cover back in place, rush back to the ladder, and return the box to its slot.
I step down from the ladder to find Melanie staring at me. “What?”
She holds up the pouch, and it droops and dangles with the weight of the coins. “How are we going to just walk out of here with this thing? When he said red velvet pouch, I was imagining something small and easy to hide.”
Yeah, well, he said a lot of things that didn’t quite prepare us for what we walked into.
I twist my lips to the side and contemplate the pouch.
“Tim, we have less than two minutes to get out of here!”
I glance down at my attire. Welp, there’s only one solution to this problem. “Bring them here.” I hike up my dress and bunch it up around my waist. “You’ve got longer fingernails. Poke a hole through the top of my stockings and tie the strings through it.”
For a second, she looks dubious, but then she glances at her watch, shrugs, and gets to it.
When she’s done, she steps back and eyes the dangling pouch. “Um… I’m not sure that will hold up.”
I let go of my dress so it falls over my knees again and say proudly, “These aren’t bargain pantyhose. Collin ordered them on a really expensive website.”
“That’s a bag of gold coins, Tim,” she points out unnecessarily.
“Do you have a better option?”
She rolls her eyes, because she doesn’t. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
We exit a lot quicker than we came in, the pouch swinging like a pendulum between my thighs.
“I guess this is what it feels like to have balls,” I murmur as we swipe through the grill in the hall.
Melanie snorts. “Let’s just hope your balls don’t fall off before we’re out of this building.”
We make it back to the desk with just a few seconds to spare. Miss Cutie Pie has a new customer at her desk, and Pimply Gangly isn’t back yet. Amazing how a few minutes can feel like a lifetime when you’re committing a crime.
We keep up the act. I thank Melanie for her help with lots of teeth and a handshake, and I walk out, mindful of my gait lest the coins bang against my thighs and make jingling sounds.
No one bats an eyelash at me. Including the security guard whose attention is still transfixed on the mounted telly across the room.
I walk right out of the bank.
Across the street, Jaxon is leaning against the Escalade, his feet crossed at the ankles, sinking his teeth into a juicy, red apple.
Bastard.
As I’m crossing the street, I feel rather than hear the pantyhose rip. I stop in middle of the street. A car honks at me. I take a tentative step, testing. Another car honks. The pouch is still hanging on, so I hurry across the street, jingling sounds and all, counting on the angry horn honks to drown it out.
From my bosom, I retrieve the car key, press the fob, and toss it to Jaxon. He catches it with one hand. I climb in the back.
Seconds later, his door opens, and he folds in. At once, his eyes pitch to the rearview mirror, watching me as he bites into his apple.
He’s not going to ask if we succeeded. He’s that brand of annoying.
Smug bastard.
Holding his gaze in the mirror, I hike up my dress and begin to unknot the pouch from my ripped-to-shite stockings.
He frowns. He can’t see what I’m doing from that angle. Curiosity eats him alive, and he twists around, gaze dipping to where my hands are.
Pouch successfully removed, I hold it out to him.
Automatically, he reaches out and takes it, but his eyes are not on the pouch.
No shame.
But I don’t pull down my dress.
I look down to where his attention is lodged. “Well, I guess these are ruined. You owe me new hose.”
At that, his eyes snap up to mine, and I’m startled by the unconcealed heat in them. Until it’s not. “I didn’t send you in there. I owe you nothing.”
But if I hadn’t gone in, the whole mission would’ve been a cock-up. “Did you get the key card?” I ask this just for fun—and to rub it in—because I know the answer.
One shoulder jerks up, and his lips curl to the side. “Sometimes we fail.”
I snort. “The great Jaxon King failed at something as simple as swiping a key card from a clueless woman who was all over him like the pox?”
Impassivity. “Never said I was great.”
He’s far too casual about it. I don’t believe he failed. I believe he didn’t try to begin with.
I look at him. He looks back at me, daring me to call him out.
Abruptly, he stuffs the half-eaten apple between his teeth, and his hand shoots out to yank my dress down to cover my legs.
A second later, the door opens, and Mel climbs in. She immediately turns on Jaxon, mad as a hornet. “Are you sure a security video download happened at the time you said it would? And whose safe deposit box was that? How do you have a key to it?”
“Hold your hand out.”
She holds her hand out.
He drops the half-eaten apple onto her palm.
“Seriously?” She hisses like a cat and jerks back. The apple falls from her hand to her lap, and then to the floor.
Ignoring her, he tugs the strings of the pouch and peers inside. He dips a hand in and feels around. He’s searching for something specific. When he finds it, he holds it up between two fingers and examines it closely.
“Single 9,” I murmur.
“What?” Melanie asks.
At that, he shoots me a glance in the rearview mirror and instantly drops the coin back inside the pouch. He starts the car.
“South Africa’s only unique coin,” I explain to Melanie. “Most valuable because of its flaw, its rejection, and because it was the first one-pound coin made during the Anglo-Boer War. It was decided in 1899 to over-stamp the 1898 coins with a 99 below Kruger’s bust, to mark the war. Once the first coin was stamped, however, it was obvious that the 9 was too big, a slight overlapping of the design, intruding on the bust of President Kruger. Thus, only one such coin was made, and subsequent coins were punched with smaller nines, now known as Double 99 over-stamps. The Single 9 and the Double 99s are exceptionally rare. The Single 9 alone is worth about four million dollars. A bloody good steal, I’d say.”
As Jaxon eases into traffic, his gaze keeps flicking to me in the mirror, annoyed. Good. Because I’m damned annoyed with him, too. I’m annoyed because he’s obviously playing some kind of game, and I’m unable to figure it out. The guy’s a rock disguised as a nut, and I’m the hopeless squirrel banging it to no avail.
“Really? Can I see it?” Melanie reaches for the pouch, but he jerks it out of reach and drops it to the space between his thighs on the seat.
I bite my lip out of jealousy of that pouch.
Crossing her arms, Melanie openly glowers. “I don’t think I like working with you. You’re bossy, unreliable, and have no concept of teamwork.”
He gives a humorless chuckle. “Cute that you think we’re working together. Incidentally, you failed today. I gave you a task. Not you and your sidekick.”
Gob-smacked, Mel gapes at him. “You must be out of your bloody damn mind.” She twists around to look at me. “Tim, tell me this bloke is bonkers.”
“I already told him so this morning.”
“Even if you did get to swipe that woman’s key card, do you have any idea what you sent me into?” Melanie half-shouts at him. “Completely unprepared?”
When he just keeps on driving and continues to ignore her, it pisses her off even further, and she begins yelling, telling him about the grill in the hall and the vault door, and how a simple key card couldn’t have done squat.
Only twice does he interject—once to ask how we got through the grill and again to ask how we broke into the vault.
Both times I try to get Melanie’s attention to tell her not to tell him how we got in, but she’s so livid she just rattles off and dances right into his trap with her tirade. He just keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror. Oddly, with something that resembles reluctant respect.
Sometime later, he parks outside a fancy-looking Italian restaurant. Reaching under his seat, he comes up with an old leather satchel into which he drops the stolen pouch of Krugerrands. He then says pointedly, “Stay in the car. Be back in a sec.”
Before either of us can argue, he’s out of the car and into the restaurant.
“You shouldn’t have lost it like that,” I chide Melanie.
She twists and hurls me a scowl. “Why? Because you have the hots for him? His taciturn tyranny irritates the crap out of me, Tim.”
“I don’t have the hots for him!” I lie through my teeth. “And even if I did, that’s not the reason. You said Markus told you he’s the best at what he does, right? Yet, we’re to believe he couldn’t swipe a simple key card? Second, he knew down to the number of seconds the camera download would take, yet we’re to believe he didn’t know about the grill and the vault?”
A pensive haze of anger clouds her features.
“He’s playing a game, Mel. With you—or with both of us. I just can’t figure out to what end. This is no trial. He deliberately sent you in there blind and unprepared. And expects us to trust his word about the cameras being down.”
She chews on her lip in thought.
He walks out of the restaurant with a backpack. An older woman swans out behind him. She’s tall. Almost as tall as he is. Like an Amazon. Straight, brown hair parted down the middle, long and flowing, not a strand out of place. A beige, form-fitting dress ends below her knees, with high, brown boots that meet the hem. Pearl earrings and pearl necklace.
Money is spelled out in the letters of her posture. In the laughing-at-the-world curve to her lips. In the I’m-better-than-you glint in her eyes.
She reaches out to touch Jaxon on his shoulder, stopping him. They engage in a controlled conversation. One where both are mindful of their body language so they can’t be read. And from that alone, I know this woman is the same as him. Quite possibly, this is the “her” he ran off to see yesterday.
“Listen, Mel,” I say, talking quickly before he gets back, “I’ll come with you on all your trial tasks, whether he wants me to or not. We now know that if he tells us A, we should expect Z. We’ll complete the task if possible, but we won’t tell him our methods or complain about his deliberate omission of truths. That might throw him. And we can save our energy to determine what the hell he’s up to. And to find the music box.”
As she nods, her gaze shifts out the windshield, following as he approaches the car. “I still think you have the hots for him. He’s odious. And now you’re sleeping in his bed. It won’t be long before he cons you out of your virginity.”
My breath catches with another denial, but before I can get it out, the car door opens, and he folds in, drops the backpack on the floor between his legs, and peels into traffic. Without a word.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re back at the flat.
Still pissed as shite at Jaxon, Melanie jumps out of the vehicle and flounces off, ripping off the pumps and scarf as she goes.
As I climb out of the backseat, slam the door, and am about to walk past the driver’s side, the driver’s door opens and Jaxon steps out. Right into me. I’m knocked off balance as I collide with him. He catches me by my upper arms and steadies me.
I move back a step. Wait, did he just do that on purpose? Time it so he could step right out into my path?
“Hey,” he says.
Um… “Hey?” The word is tentative, because, well, we just spent the past two hours together. Why is he saying, “Hey,” as if seeing me for the first time today?
He shifts on his feet. “There’s something we need to do. You mind waiting here for a bit?”
My eyebrows jump. “There’s something we need to do? As in, me and you?”
Like what? Kiss? If so, I agree. Totally agree. We do need to do that. We should do that. Are we going to do that right now?
“Yeah. Us.” He reaches into the vehicle with one hand, his gaze still on me, and brings out the backpack. “Just give me a few minutes. Be right back.”
“I—”
But he’s already retreating with long, hasty strides.
Did he just say “us”? There’s an “us”? Since when? Does sleeping in his bed automatically make us an us? Or did that us became official when I flashed him in the car while he openly ogled what I was showing? What’s going on with “us”?
Damn it! Why is he so freaking confusing? Does he like me, or does he just enjoy toying with me? How deep should I let myself go to get this stupid music box? Do I truly believe I can con someone like him? Because, so far, it feels like I’m the one who’s being conned into being in lust with him.
Five minutes later he returns, his fingers combing back through his hair. I’m still planted at the driver’s side of the Escalade like a buffoon, but he goes straight to the passenger side and holds the door open. “Come around.”
At the command, my feet move, and I round the vehicle and climb in. He leans in to buckle my seat belt. As he’s pulling back, he stops, his face inches from mine, and he just…watches me.
Tongues of fire lick me from the inside, blood pumps harder through my veins, and knots of desire twist and curl in my stomach. God, I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much I want to kiss Jaxon King.
He moves, his long fingers lifting to tame my wild bangs, and I shiver on the inside, struggling to appear unaffected on the outside.
After backing out again, he closes the door and rounds to the driver’s side.
“Where—” I stop to clear my throat. “Where are we going?”