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The thought shot through my brain before I could help it, and I tried to stomp on it. But it was stubborn, and kicked back like a mule.
He wasn’t mine. He wasn’t.
He had been. Oh yes, he had been, once. Or twice. Or maybe three times? All right, maybe we had gotten a little bit carried away down there in South America. It had been even worse than that little escapade in Egypt. We had said things and done things that were hard to forget. But here in London…
Here it was even harder to forget that he was Mr Rikkard Ambrose, the richest, most powerful and most miserably miserly man of the entire British Empire, and I…
Well, I was Lilly Linton, his humble secretary, pain in the butt and ifrit extraordinaire.
Not that I harboured any delusions that he was above me. I knew perfectly well that I was worth just as much as any man, thank you very much. But I had my doubts that Mr Rikkard Ambrose agreed with that estimation.
I should just forget about him. I should forget what happened in South America, and Egypt, and in his office, and in that crate on that ship. And I would - as soon as all those bloody women stopped staring at him!
‘Excuse me. Pardon me, Miss. Excuse me.’
Shouldering through the crowd - yes, a crowd had formed around him, and yes, it was exclusively composed of giggling females - I reached Mr Ambrose and latched onto his arm.
‘Let’s get this over with, shall we?’ I suggested.
‘By all means, Mr Linton.’
‘What is this “business” you’re here to conduct?’
‘It is sitting over there.’
I glanced over - and my eyebrows rose. Where Mr Ambrose pointed, in a dark corner of the room, a smarmy little fellow with a hooked nose and bald head was sitting, smoking an opium pipe.
‘Well, well, Sir. I never knew your tastes ran in that direction. Oh well, to each his own, I guess.’
Mr Ambrose threw me a chilling look.
‘That, Mr Linton, is Mr Cox - the man whose shop I wish to purchase. He insisted on meeting here.’
I watched as a chubby woman slid onto the cushion beside Mr Cox and draped her arm around him. ‘What a charmer.’
‘Charm is not the issue here, Mr Linton.’
No, it wasn’t. Money was. And I had been with Mr Ambrose long enough to instantly see why he had agreed to meet this little worm here. Mr Ambrose liked negotiating with people who were ravenously inhaling opium smoke. It made ripping them off so much easier.
‘So…you really do have business here tonight? It’s not just another ploy because you’re scared of your mother?’
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘Stop. Saying. That.’
‘What, Sir? That you have business here tonight?’
‘No! That I am scared of my-’
He cut off abruptly and sent me a bone-freezing glare.
‘Go on,’ I encouraged him with a pat on the back. ‘You can say it. It starts with “M”.’
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
