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It’s a seedy place, overall. Peeling gray wallpaper lines the hallway, and the faded green carpet must have had some life to it at one point before being beaten almost flat by a constant parade of footsteps. It feels emptier now than during the early hour I checked in—go figure. Apparently, a place like this makes most of its business at night, from people who don’t plan on exactly sleeping.
God, I can only hope that Bellamy hung up before deciphering my location. Thankfully, he’s not in the hallway, lurking outside my door when I mount the stairs. There’s no sign of the housekeeper either, when I open the door to my room and spot the bed, still unmade. You get what you pay for, I guess.
“Hey.”
I glance over my shoulder to find that the man leaning against the wall hasn’t budged. He nods in my direction, his eyes dark, his beard scruffy. “Your name Evelyn?”
Shit.Alarm shoots down my spine, awakening old instincts. My right hand plunges into my bag, the fingers clenching around my can of pepper spray. I have the door open, but I’m unsure how quickly I can get inside and shut it before he can reach me.
“Never heard of her,” I say in the man’s general direction, fighting to keep my voice emotionless.
“You look like him, you know?” I hear rather than see him pull away from the wall, his hands still tucked within his pockets.
Shit. Shit. I scramble over the threshold and try to slam the door behind me. At the last second, it stops inches from the doorjamb as an unfamiliar hand curls around the edge, holding it open.
“You’ve got the same eyes,” a gruff voice says against my ear. The stench of stale cigarettes wafts from the man’s general direction—the typical scent of most people Danny likes to associate with. “That boy owes me a lot of money.”
He shoves on the door when I try to slam it shut in his face. A harsh chuckle warns me exactly what he expects me to do.
Scream. Cry. Cower while he spits out some threat for Danny’s benefit and hits me up for the cash supposedly owed to him. Unluckily for him, he’s about four years too late for that reaction.
Some things you never forget, like riding a bicycle.
I don’t even process turning on my heel and jabbing the nozzle of my pepper spray into the bastard’s face until he jerks back, his eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t dare, you little—”
Two sprays are all it takes to have him howling, shouting expletives as he swipes at his eyes with both hands.
“Forget my name,” I say over him. “And maybe I’ll forget your face, asshole. If Danny owes you money, you talk to him. Not me.”
I push past him and reach the stairwell. Two steps. Three. Four. I nearly trip down them all in my rush to enter the lobby first, and I race through the entrance without looking back.
Damn it. I don’t even have the time, or the desire to figure out how the shady bastard could have found me. That means Danny probably has as well, along with any other little “friends” who might get the idea to come after me to settle a score. All in all, this was shaping up to be the typical sibling bonding festivities where Danny was concerned. The chances are he’s already raided my apartment. I can’t even call the landlord to be sure because my phone is dead, and the charger is in my suitcase—the suitcase still locked in the trunk of Bellamy’s Mercedes. Not that I would chase the bastard down to get it back.
I flag down a cab solely out of the desire to get far and fast in the opposite direction instead. It doesn’t matter that I have only a few dollars to my name and no way of accessing my bank information without an I.D.
I’ll figure out a plan in the end. I am my mother’s daughter, after all, and Danny inherited his knack for trouble from somewhere.
CHAPTER20
graeme
Adrian Riley has outdone himself trying to bring dignity to a profession that most men wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. At least not with their legal, Christian name and assets on the line.
He’s made more than just a name for himself here, carving out a slice of esteem built solely upon the art of seduction and all the secrets that skill could glean from those with information to exploit. Had he been anyone else, I might have admired the bastard.
As it stands, I don’t trust him or his supposed “in name only” plans for a merger farther than I can throw him. Admittedly, it seems simple on the surface—but nothing ever is in Riley’s playbook.
I scan the stack of brochures he left behind for the tenth time, scouring the paragraphs of print for any hint of duplicity. The man certainly knew how to cover his tracks well. He framed a venue expansion in terms that resonated with the business side of me. He cited figures and potential statistics I couldn’t ignore. The man even had connections I might deem beneficial if the thought didn’t make me want to put a fist through the wall.
Rather than decide on an answer, I shove the documents into my desk and call for James instead. I don’t head for the Royal at first. I dine at one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan. I sample wine worth the equivalent of a certain woman’s salary. I eat bread out of spite.
Two hours later, I find myself standing in the middle of my suite, thoroughly checking the emails on my mobile. There were quarterly reports, reminders from Ann, and even the odd missive from Gloria.
But nothing from Evelyn King.
From the moment she first set foot in my office and met my gaze without flinching, I knew the woman was stubborn. But never this stubborn. How the hell she managed to survive twenty-four hours in the city without her damned planner—let alone her wallet—I would never understand. It wasn’t the recklessness of the matter as much as it was the sheer insanity that had me scowling out at the view of the city, picturing her scurrying from awning to awning to avoid the rain.
Though, there was always the possibility that she had another man’s apartment to seek refuge in. Until ten hours ago, I hadn’t even known the woman’s full name. Only god knew what else there was to discover about her.
