He laughs, like he’s truly delighted with my sass. “Darlin’ if I was intending to track you like a creep I would have planted a tracker on you and you’d never know. I’m just bein’ a gentleman.”
My mouth opens and closes again. A gentleman killer. There’s nothing to say to that, so I nod uncomfortably. “Thank you. Oh- let me give you the mask back.”
“Keep it.” He’s looking me over, a slow visual inspection that seems to take forever. “It looks good with your hair, so silvery-blonde.”
I try to keep facing forward, but as the car leaves the parking lot, I look back to see him still standing there, arms folded and watching me leave.
***
“Wait. I’m going to need more detail here.”
My best friend Marcus moved to Glasgow last year, and he greeted me at the door tonight with a hug and a giant glass of wine. His flat is adorable - like him - located in an old industrial building repurposed into condos with lots of exposed brick walls and large, iron-paned windows. I’m sitting on top of a pile of cushions by the fireplace.
“Why is it so damned cold here?” I whine, holding my hands up to the fire.
“Girl, we’re from Nova Scotia. Aren’t you from sturdy pioneer stock? How can you be such a wimp about the temperature?” Marcus laughs heartlessly. His perfect, white teeth flash in the firelight. He’s got long black hair pulled back into a man bun which is a look very few men can pull off, and he looks effortlessly stylish in a black cashmere sweater and designer jeans.
“But back to my original statement,” he persists. “You’re here on…business.At a sex club. With a super hot guy.” He takes a huge gulp, which is disrespectful to such a nice Chardonnay, grinning at me shamelessly. “Business at a sex club.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be a sex club, you ass!”
“You should have asked me,” he says shamelessly, “I know every sex club in Glasgow. Personally.”
“We’re not having another discussion about your rapacious sexual proclivities, Marcus!” I snap, “I’m just trying to explain… you know… why the evening was so weird.”
“Well, I know better than to ask specifically what your business was,” he says delicately, “but did it all work out?”
Did it? Mr. Blue is clearly unhinged, though wrapped in an aura of competence. Men in that line of work must keep their word or no one will work with them. Defaulting on a contract is a guaranteed bullet in the back of the head.
He’ll do it.
“I think so.”
“Well, now that ‘business’ is out of the way, tell me about the club,” he says eagerly. “Did you happen to meet up with a MacTavish? God, those men are walking wet dreams.”
“I know the name… they’re Scottish mafia,” I say, “but I didn’t look around much. There was a full-fledged orgy going on in the middle of the room and I didn’t know where to look, so I stared at the bar.”
Marcus chokes on his drink. “I can just picture you, with your good girl expression and nice, ready-for-work wrap dress. What color mask did you go for?”
“You really do know about this stuff, don’t you?” I ask crossly, “It was silver.”
“Ooo, an observer,” he nods wisely. “Very sexy.”
“I wasn’t there to besexy,I was there to hire- to get my business done. I can’t believe he wanted to meet there.”
“So, back to the MacTavish men,” he pursues, “word is that Lachlan owns Dante’s Inferno. He’s the only brother left who’s single and if he owns a sex club as epic as that one, he must be bi, right? You couldn’t miss him. The man’s got to be 6’6, huge build and I am certain he’s got a dick that’s in proportion.”
I shift uneasily. “What about the rest of him? Aside from his dick?”
“Short, dark hair. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut you,” he says dreamily, “and his eyes! Black like the pits of hell. He can drag me down with him anytime.”
“Really? He sounds like he’s a walking STD,” I say, averting my gaze and gulping the rest of my wine. Did I just meet with one of the brothers from the MacTavish clan? Hecan’tbe an assassin. “You don’t need that nonsense in your life. He sounds terrible.”
“Let’s just relax,” Marcus soothes me, “your voice is getting to that pitch that upsets the cat.” Said cat -SeñorFluffypants - is perched on his lap, sneering at me.
I get through another hour of gossip while I’m silently panicking. What can Lachlan do with this kind of information? Would he sell me out to Uncle Bast- I mean, Uncle William? But, he must be the man I was negotiating with online, he knew the phrase! God, this is a mess.
“So, now that we’ve burned through two bottles of wine, tell me how you are,” Marcus says, his voice gentle.
