Surreptitious (London) (2 page)

Chapter two

Taylor

Something about gorgeous coffee shop guy had me on edge most the night, even when Harper and Jase turned up at mine with ridiculous amounts of rosé wine and shots thrown in (just for good measure!) I still couldn’t get his sparkling grey eyes out of my mind. I mean, who’s eyes
sparkle
? They were beautiful, they were full of mischief, they were...driving me fucking crazy!!

What
is wrong with you? You never let people affect you this way!!
 

I decided I was going to go all out for a change that night, mainly to keep my attention on getting ready and not of Mr Gorgeous. When I’d finished I looked at myself in the mirror and you’re damn right, I looked good. Really good. Wearing my secret, (it’s a secret because I’m not usually a dresses kind of girl!!), favourite little red dress, an off the shoulder number that hugged my ass, hips and thighs like a second skin and my vintage silver wedges with a matching clutch, I needed the confidence boost of looking good that night. I might not give other people attention, but that doesn’t mean they can’t give it to me!!

Harp and Jase were sitting on the corner sofa when I walked into the lounge. I’m proud of my place; I’m not one to waste money, even though I could if I wanted. My parents ran their own business selling art and antiques and I’m not talking small time. This was £20,000 paintings and £45,000 vases, we were comfortable, to say the least. Since we didn’t have anyone else, they left the entire thing to me but after what happened I didn’t want anything to do with the stupid business so I sold everything and moved down here with Harp and Jase; hence me owning my beautiful apartment next to the river. I live on the top floor of the gated complex. Floor to ceiling windows decorate the entire lounge and even when the weather’s shit (and this is England...it usually is!!) I spend most my time staring out that window more than anything else!

I have a huge suede, black and grey corner sofa that reclines on the ends so we can slouch on movie nights and it really is one of the best things I’ve ever spent money on. Another of my favourite things happens to be my 60” 3D TV on the wall. I’m a huge fan of football and there’s nothing better than reclining the sofa and watching Chelsea beat Arsenal on a Saturday afternoon!!

There are three bedrooms in the apartment and mine is the biggest, obviously. I painted the whole room cream, left the original lilac carpet on the floor and hung matching curtains. It’s not fancy, I didn’t put in a lot of effort, because I only sleep there, so I didn’t care. Although it does have an en-suite bathroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub, separate shower cubicle and ivory coloured tiles with chrome fittings. I love it, it’s beautiful, my mum would be proud of where I am now and I decorated everything in this place to match what she would like.

I was thrust back into the room when I heard...

“Tay...damn girl you’re gonna have men falling all over you tonight!! I still don’t get why you don’t dress up like that all the time. God woman, I might be straight, but even I’m practically salivating over your arse!!”
Did I mention that Harper doesn’t hold her tongue?! Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen!!
However, her reaction was exactly what I was looking for, so I drained the rest of my glass and stood up to leave. The walk was only about five to ten minutes from my place but in heels? No thanks!

“Harp, babe, have you phoned a taxi? We’re all ready to go now” I asked, and she replied with the standard...

“Yeah should be here any minute, we should just go down stairs and wait for it.”

Outside my building, I was already regretting my decision to go with a short dress and heels rather than my usual skinny jeans and converse because damn it was fucking freezing!! I huddled closer to Jase and he put his arms around me to keep me warm, which really didn’t help, but it’s the thought that counts!!

The taxi pulled up just outside the gates and I attempted a little run...well...shuffle...ok ok...I full on stumbled across the car-park, jumped in and we headed straight to the opening of the new club. Seeing as it was nearly half ten and we kinda figured the place would be heaving, for an opening night.

Pulling up outside, I couldn’t help but feel ridiculously excited to see what it looked like inside. When it was called ‘Skank’ the place lived up to its name...and I mean it
REALLY
lived up to its name. Cheap drinks and decent music were the only things that kept us going there. Nothing’s cheap in London, and I might have had money, but Harp and Jase didn’t, so it suited us! But really, other than that there wasn’t anything else to get excited about. I mean, I’d walk in and immediately be accosted by sloppy drunk teenage boys (that likely weren’t even old enough to be out drinking, because the management really didn’t care whether you were eighteen or not) who really should stop drinking cheap shots because god knows what else would have given them the idea that I’d jump at the chance to take them back to my place?!
I mean...
really
?!

It was decorated with beige wallpaper that had black swirls all over it -
at a club?! -
that I suppose at one point was in fashion, but seeing as most of it had been peeled off the walls and people thought it was a good idea to write all over it, it wasn’t much more than huge graffiti boards by the end.

Even if you were the first person to walk in when it opened, it was advisable not to wear your best shoes there, because they really wouldn’t stay that way. Alcohol from YEARS of spillages was still left on the wooden floors and your feet would stick with every step. It really was
that
filthy! The tables were chipped, the lights were broken, and the toilets...well...we would only ever venture into them when we were seriously drunk! They were disgusting! I really don’t think they had a cleaner in the entire place...EVER.

So yeah, I was definitely excited to see what the new owner had done with the place, I was in the second year of my interior design degree so it was exactly my game. I didn’t really wanna get my hopes up though being as I couldn’t imagine how much they could have actually changed it in the month it was closed. Then again, maybe other people knew something I didn’t because the line to get in wasn’t just long...it was seriously
seriously
long. I swear we were nearly half way back to my place (possibly a slight exaggeration) by the time we got to the end but I was curious by how many people were there, so there was no way I was not going in!

After chatting shit for a good five minutes we were approached by a young guy, possibly Harp’s age...maybe 20-21? And I was all geared up to tell him to sling his hook being as we weren’t even inside the place and we were already going to be accosted, but then I stepped back to get a good look at him and he didn’t seem like he was exactly dressed for a night out. Black trousers that were pretty snug, black leather belt with a red bottle opener buckle and a fitted black shirt that had the top two buttons undone, seemed more like a uniform to me. He had sandy blonde hair that had a just-fucked look to it, if I didn’t think he was younger than me; I’d definitely want to run my fingers through it, maybe give it a good tug...not that I’d ever actually do it! I studied his face as he was approaching and the more I thought about, he held a slight resemblance to Mr Gorgeous. Same beautiful sparkling grey eyes, different colour hair, or maybe not seeing as Mr Gorgeous had his head shaved but I was almost certain that they could have been related. 

“Hey ladies, gentleman...we’re really sorry that you’re having to wait so long for entry, so I’ve been sent to give you these VIP passes. Free entry, free access to the VIP section, free first drink...and most importantly, free queue jump.”
What the fuck?!
Harp and Jase seemed to have frozen on the spot with their eyes bulging out their heads so I stepped up.

“Ok...this is a joke right? There must be 300+ people in this queue before us, and you’ve just been randomly told to give these passes to us specifically? Yeah nice one dude, just try it on someone whose actually foolish enough to believe ya yeah?”
How stupid does he think we are?!

“Sorry darlin’, I really don’t mean to annoy you, but yeah, that’s um...exactly what I was told. Boss described what you looked like, what the people you would be with looked like. He told me to find all of you and give you these.” He handed over three laminated passes that were all black and had red writing across the middle that read ‘VIP Pass’. I looked at them for a good 30 seconds before glancing back up at Mr Stranger and studying him further. I stared hard at him trying to figure out who the hell would give us these, or what game he was trying to play but he kept my eyes the whole time so I figured he was at least being honest about the passes being real.
So that begs the question, who the hell would want to give them to me!?

The thought entered my mind that It could have been someone that Harper had slept with but then I remembered that he’d said his ‘boss’ had described ME, and who
I
was with...not who Harp was with.
Hmm.

I grabbed his arm which was, surprisingly, considering he was fairly lean, seriously firm and pulled him closer to me so I could be heard clearly over the noise of hundreds of probably slightly inebriated people chattering away and spoke directly into his ear.

“Right here’s the deal, I don’t like this...I don’t like this AT ALL. I don’t know why someone would ‘send you to find me’ but I’ll admit, I’m intrigued and, more importantly, it’s fucking freezing out here and I don’t wanna spend half my night standing in this queue when I could be drinking and dancing. So lead the way, we’ll follow and you...you personally, can give us a tour of the new place yeah?”
Ha, didn’t expect that now did you Mr Stranger.

“Um, yeah sure, I mean I’m working but I’m sure my brother won’t mind if I take fifteen minutes out to show you all around”

We started walked amidst some seriously unattractive expletives and groaning from people who were around us in the queue that had heard the conversation and Harp and Jase fell into step just behind us. Then I thought about what he’d said and stopped dead.

“Wait, what? Your brother? I thought you said your boss sent you out here?”

“One ‘n’ the same darlin’...my brother owns this place, so yeah, technically he’s my boss.”
Hmm interesting.

“Ok so...your telling me, you brother, who OWNS this place, sent you out here to get us?!” He blew out a breath as if he was rapidly losing patience with my questions and answered me.

“Yeah lady, that’s what I’m telling you, that’s what happened, that’s what I did. So now can we
please
keep walking and get inside, because you might have had a few to drink and therefore not feel it so much, but jeez its god damn cold out here and if it’s all the same to you, I’d much rather be inside where I won’t end up losing any digits to bloody frostbite” Before I could even open my mouth to answer, Harp jumped in with...

“Yeah Ice, you know I’m always on your side babe, but seriously a girl who can’t stop her teeth chattering and has bloody goose-bumps all over her skin ain’t exactly attractive and I’m
on it
tonight girl. Let’s just go inside and if you wanna interrogate the poor guy some more, do it in there yeah?!”

And with a quick “agreed” from Jase, she linked her arm with Mr Strangers’ and carried on walking towards the entrance. When we got to the front door I looked up to see the old, mostly broken, sign that used to read ‘Skank’ had been replaced with sign that started neon orange at the bottom, blended into fire-engine red at the top and said ‘Blaze’ and was lit up by huge spotlights right at the base that made it look like London’s version of the Hollywood sign.
Interesting.

Walking up the front steps one of the, frankly HUGE, doormen stopped me and asked for my ID.
What the hell? You don’t ask Harp or Jase for their ID and I’m older than them!
He seemed to be studying it to memory which made me feel more then a little uncomfortable and then he handed it back, gave me a brief lip-twitch and told me to enjoy my night.
How odd.

I ignored him, strutted by him, and got my game on!

Jackson

I’d seen her and her friends walk past the CCTV camera and join the back of the queue earlier in the night.
Not that I’d been looking out for her or anything, definitely not, no, I wasn’t doing that AT ALL.
When I seen her, my jaw nearly hit the floor, earlier she looked gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but tonight?
Damn
. I couldn’t take my eyes off her! So I sent Mason out to get them in here quicker.
Can’t have the poor girl freezing her delectable little ass off now can we?!
So when I noticed he’d done his job and they were following him to the entrance I called down to security and told them to get her details from her ID –
Need to know what I’m dealing with here obviously.

I glanced down at my phone to see Mike, my head doorman had text me straight away with the details.
Hmm...

Name: Taylor Corsi

Age: 23 – Date of birth: 23/05/1990

Address: Apt 15, Riverview Appartments, Chelsea

Damn, that’s a nice area, maybe she’s a spoilt daddy’s little princess.
So now I had a name, I knew she was old enough to be on my radar and she clearly had money. This was not neally enough to go on so I spent the next half an hour watching her and her friends on the cameras. Ok ok, yes it might be slightly stalker-ish but I’ve learnt from past mistakes not to jump into situations without knowing as much as I can beforehand.
Don’t go there Jax.