Inside, the clickety click of the roulette wheel and clink of glasses heralded another night of business as usual at the gambling den. Sliding to the bar, she ordered two drinks—one pink martini for herself and a gin and tonic for Munson.
She spotted him in the lounge, enjoying a quiet game of chess with a buxom model hovering near his arm. Jenny remembered the woman from the luxury lingerie catalog she received in the mail each month—not that she usually purchased anything. The glossy pages provided her roommates hours of entertainment as they made jealous fun of silicone-plumped lips and unnaturally waspish waists.
Engrossed in his companion, Munson didn’t immediately notice when she slipped up next to him and set his drink down by his elbow.
“I see you’re otherwise engaged this evening,” she said.
He looked up, the gape of his mouth painting him surprised. Recovering himself, he stood. “Ms. Ainsley. What an unexpected pleasure.”
Giving him her most brilliant smile, she felt something cold and calculating slither through her. All woman, all sexy, it was something she didn’t recognize within her. Powerful. Not to be trifled with. She didn’t like it, but she’d use it. If she had to.
“I can’t stay.” She sipped her drink and slid a knowing glance at his companion. “Tonight.”
Munson cocked his head to one side and swept her with an appreciative glance. “A pity.”
“Faust is such a bore,” she said. “But he has his uses. I think I can get away longer if you have an interest in company tomorrow evening?”
A leer spread across Munson’s face, turning his bulbous nose positively enormous.
“Where shall we meet? Your place? Mine’s out of the question with him lurking about,” Jenny prompted.
He rattled off the name of his hotel—an establishment she guessed catered to wealthy long-term residents and their every whim.
“Seven o’clock?” she asked, leaning as close to him as she dared. A stale cigarette odor emanated from him along with the sour stench of old gin and she forced a coquettish glance. “I don’t think I can wait longer. The B you gave me? Absolutely amazing.”
“I’ll do right by you. Won’t pump you up and leave you panting,” he said and yanked her close.
Jenny gasped as his lips came down on hers in a crushing kiss.
She yanked out of his grasp. “Gotta go before he finds out.”
Tomorrow night she’d bring drugs and dump them in his drink because no way was this ape of a man getting his mitts on her again.
* * * * *
“Why aren’t you complaining?” Günter stared down at Jenny. She blinked up at him innocently over the rim of a romance novel she’d had the concierge procure for her.
“Aren’t you going to be late?” she asked, pretending to go back to her book.
Günter considered her too-innocent expression. He didn’t trust her one bit. Especially after he’d found his lock picks missing this afternoon.
“Jenny…”
She gave a little shiver at his tone and closed her book.
He glanced away from the cover. A blond man and raven-haired woman, entwined and half naked, reminded him too much of making love to Jenny. He’d not come to her since the night in Oxford, but her brush with Bengal had unsettled him. When he’d had to touch her—bring her off—so she didn’t burst a blood vessel or worse, he’d felt as if he were raping her.
They hadn’t had penetrative sex, but the idea that he held an almost unconscious woman in his arms whose ability to consent had been chemically taken from her made him ill. He still felt vile and dirty—a complete scoundrel—even though he’d been unable to enjoy the experience. Dumping her into that tub of cold water had been self defense. Pure and simple.
“I’m tired.” She presented him with her best unblinking stare.
Bullshit. Earlier she’d showered and done her hair—pulled it into a fall of gentle curls that reminded him of her penchant for flirting with brass poles. What was she up to? He shook his head, but dropped the subject.
Tonight he and Simon had been invited to an underground rave club. While he knew the venue would scare her off after the Bengal, that she’d not shown so much as an inkling of interest in attending told him she was up to something.
“We’ll be back late. Don’t wait up,” he said from the doorway.
“Uh huh,” she breathed, and stared, unseeing, at the pages of her book.
The hem of her skirt peeked from under her bathrobe as she shifted her legs. His eyes narrowed, but he stepped into the hall after Simon.
“You can’t go,” his second said.
“I know.” Günter closed his eyes and mentally rearranged the evening’s logistics.
Things had been so much easier when he’d been paid to follow Jenny. She’d never gotten into real trouble. Now? It seemed as if he spent his life chasing her from one scrape to the next.
“Want me to go it alone?” Simon asked as they made their way to the lift.
Pressing the call button, Günter expelled a breath. “I’m going to wring her bloody neck.”
“No. No homicide yet,” Simon teased. “Follow her
then
kill her. Didn’t 5 teach you anything?”
“She’ll not sit down for a month of Sundays when I’m finished with her.”
Simon snorted. “I always took you for a kinky bastard.”
Günter worked his jaw from side to side and tried not to give anything away in his expression.
“Get going,” he said to Simon as the elevator doors opened. “I’ll follow her.”
Hiding in the service corridor, he waited five minutes before a flushed and excited Jenny slipped from their hotel suite. Whatever she’d planned required six-inch heels, lock picks, a thumb drive and a disposable camera she’d purchased earlier today at the gift shop.
He took in her flirty dress with its lightly ruffled hem. The lock picks said she planned to do a little breaking and entering, but the outfit said she had partying on her mind. Confused, he followed her as she got into a taxi.
“Bugger,” he said, and flagged down another black car.
Thirty minutes later he watched from the shadows as she disappeared into a swank hotel in Kensington. Creeping forward, he examined the basement window and determined it too small for him to pass through.
Rickety and splintered, an old service door presented the perfect place from which he could perform a little B&E of his own. One good push of his shoulder separated the rusty screws of the lock from the wood.
The grinding sound of a service lift made him pause as he propped the door shut behind him. He opened his cell and texted the address to Simon.
What the fuck is she doing here?
he texted.
It took Simon only three minutes to crack the hotel’s guest list. The answer—
Munson
.
Room 12
—flashed bleakly on Günter’s screen.
His heart clenched. Given the way Jenny had dressed, she fully expected to meet the man here. Beyond worries for her safety, an insidious whisper slid through his brain. Would she really fuck the man for information? Could she take their game so far? So low?
The rational part of him screamed a denial. Not his Jenny. The primal part of him didn’t care. He wanted to see Munson dead and Jenny under lock and key. He’d hold her prisoner until she promised herself to him. Only him. Once and for all.
Navigating the dark, damp basement he managed not to trip over a bucket as he found the glowing call buttons to the service lift. Waiting was the most difficult—knowing she could be getting into more trouble than even he could get her out of at any moment.
To think she’d looked him in the eye and promised not to go out. He’d known she’d disobeyed him when he’d smelled cigarette smoke and stale alcohol in her hair as she’d hugged him this morning—had been biding his time before confronting her.
The lift creaked open and Günter slid to the side, weapon drawn. A weak bulb illuminated chipped white enamel paint. He grunted. For a swank hotel the disrepair of the behind-the-scenes areas left a lot to be desired.
Thinking of Munson pawing at her breasts—or worse—he didn’t care if he blew their cover, he was getting her out of there. Slipping from the elevator, he strode confidently down the hall. First rule—always look like you belong. It could buy you time if nothing else. Trying the knob, he found it open and raised his brows. Had she wanted someone to be able to find her?
“It’s Munson’s room,” she said, turning from rifling through a console when he walked in.
She’d expected him?
The pulse fluttering at the column of her neck showcased her fear, as she pointed toward an unconscious Munson. Günter looked from the half-empty drink to the face of his imagined adversary, and snorted. She’d drugged him.
He stood back and swept out his arm. Now that Jenny’d done the leg work, she might as well do the snooping. A three-room suite—living area, bath and bedroom beckoned. Deco elegance buoyed with jazz-era art gave an air of prohibition era speakeasy. The room smelled of lime aftershave and was too warm.
A laptop blinked softly on one desk. Gloves still on, Jenny popped it open and fished a USB drive from her coat pocket. A password screen flickered to life and she sighed.
Günter hovered over her shoulder as she tried
WhiteTiger
. Then
Bengal
. Neither worked. She tried
Iniquity
and he realized she must’ve met Munson at the gambling den again last night. When that password didn’t work either she shook her head and tried the name of a model the man was known to have taken up with recently. When the screen flashed and opened the desktop to her, Günter felt her stunned relief.
“Men are so predictable,” she said.
He straightened at the remark, remembering how she’d cracked his password as well. “I’m hardly predictable.”
“Shush.” She waved a hand at him.
The files and email on the laptop were nothing to speak of—just some correspondence about business dealings. Apparently he had real estate holdings in Belgium and Paris. He also owned race horses and had played polo with one of the European royals last week. His browser revealed a love of clothes shopping and online betting.
A folder marked
London
almost escaped her notice. Günter was about to point it out when she clicked on it and opened one of the .jpgs it contained. What the graphic revealed took his breath away—and hers, judging from her shallow gasp. With shaking fingers she copied the entire folder to the thumb drive and pocketed it. Logging off the laptop, she snicked the lid shut.
No doubt about it. Given the information on that drive, if they were caught in this room they’d both be shot and dumped in the Thames.
“You need to undress him,” Jenny said. “Put him in bed. I’ll mess up the covers.”
Günter pursed his lips but did as she bid. By the time the man woke up with a bad headache and spied the empty bottle of gin, he’d figure he’d had the time of his life. Even if he couldn’t remember a minute of it.
On their way back to the hotel every noise and motion—each footstep, car tire and creaking doorway—had her jumping. Heated breath puffed from her open mouth, adding focused streams of moisture to the winter fog. Bright light at the Ritz beckoned and her footsteps quickened—
Touch the light and you’re safe
, he could almost feel her thinking.
Reaching for her wrist, he drew her back.
“Slowly,” he warned. “You were out for shagging, not espionage.”
When she looked at him blankly, he made a decision. He needed to get her upstairs in a way that made that panicked look on her face believable given the night she’d supposedly had. Hand caressing her throat, he lowered his head to whisper against her lips, “Time to pay for your sins.”
“Gun?” Simon’s whisper made Jenny jump.
They’d reached the suite door and Günter paused in unlocking it.
“Thank God,” Günter said, and fished in Jenny’s pocket for the drive. “You know where to take this.”
Simon looked at the tiny red drive in his hand and frowned at Günter. “I can’t. Meeting in two hours. That’s what I’m back here to tell you.”
“This is more important.”
“More important than a meeting with Nick Teso?”
Günter yanked Jenny along with him, away from the door to the suite.
“What?” he asked, looking over Simon’s shoulder as they stood at the end of the hall.
Nick Teso, Jenny knew, was reported to be second-in-command to the White Tiger. If they’d gotten that far, they were one bite from the main course.
“A man approached me tonight. Said it was a one-time-only offer.”
“Who was it?”
Simon shook his head. “I’ve never seen his dossier. Had a French accent I think.”
“I’ll go,” Günter replied.
“They said we had to bring Jenny.” Simon looked at her. Worried. “They want assurances…and a million pounds.”
“A million pounds?” Sure, she could get it, but not tonight.
Simon looked thoughtful. “They’ll take an I.O.U. I think.”
Ice dropped into the machine behind the service door, making them all jump.