Gnawing on my thumbnail, I stared at my phone, then laughed. He was busy at work, and it could be hours before he even saw my message, let alone responded.
Rolling my eyes at myself for acting like a nervous teenager, I stuffed my phone into my pocket, then hopped to my feet. Max looked up, startled. He was an anxious guy sometimes, so I usually tried not to do things like that around him, but I hadn’t been thinking. I shot him a smile and his shoulders relaxed.
“Going out for a walk to grab lunch. I’ll be back by one,” I said to Max, who nodded absently. “You can get Vane’s afternoon-meeting notes ready if you’re back before I am.”
“JP and I are going to Greener Day. Want to come along?” He glanced up and gave me a hesitant smile.
“Very kind of you, but no. No… I need to stretch my legs.”
He flashed me another small smile, and I didn’t waste time. It was warm out, so I left my suit jacket and unbuttoned the cuffs on my shirt, rolling them up to my elbows on the ride to the ground floor in the elevator. I nodded at Maggie at the desk and strode through the lobby to get outside.
When I was on the sidewalk, I stopped to blink up into the sunshine high overhead. Warm breezes chased cotton-ball clouds across the sky. My heart expanded. I’d woken up with Cam in my bed. We’d made each other feel amazing. Excitement had a hold on me. In spite of what we were doing tonight—going to the lion’s den—I couldn’t wait to get back to my life with him. I missed the girls. I missed chatting with Olivia. I missed the tantalizing excitement of not ever quite knowing what Cam might spring on me when it came to sex.
Yes, I wanted to be with him for a long time to come. Smiling, I took off at a brisk pace down the sidewalk, not thinking too much about where I was going except I wanted to burn off some energy before I tried to eat anything. As I strode along, dodging other people who were walking at a slower pace, a black car stopped a bit ahead of me and pulled into an open parking spot. I only noticed the vehicle because the paint job was flawless, without a speck of dirt on it. It could have just pulled out from a car wash.
The back door opened and a tall man in a black suit got out. He had a vivid pink scar along his neck that had me stumbling. It looked like someone had tried to cut his head off at some point. He was almost Cam’s size, as well, which was another reason why I noticed him. In spite of his hard-to-miss scar, he had a strong nose and nice mouth. I smiled out of nervous habit as we made eye contact and he began to walk in my direction, but then I backpedaled as it became clear he wasn’t headingpastme buttowardme. A second man got out of the front passenger side and closed in on us.
“What—”
The man with the scar opened his black suit jacket and flashed a gun in a holster at me. “You have an appointment.”
My first impulse was to run. My body quivered for the sweet protection of flight. I could go fairly quickly, and if I could get around Cam, I could probably dodge this man on a busy sidewalk. But I wasn’t confused about who had sent these men. Firming up my jaw, I held up a hand. “What if I don’t get in the car to go see Madam Winters with you?”
“Then I’ll put you in the car.” The man didn’t sound like he really wanted to do that, though, and I sighed. It was clear he thought I was being difficult for no good reason.
“Fine.” I held my head high and walked between the men to the back of the car. The man with the scar held open the door for me as if I was a guest, and I kept an eye on him as I slid onto the plush leather seat. He got in on the other side, and his pal got back into the front seat. The driver turned on the signal and leaned forward to look for a break in the traffic. My heart clattered like it might tear free of my chest. The man with the scar didn’t stop me from getting my phone out as the car pulled into the busy lunch-hour rush.
Whatever you said to Madam Winters must have been a doozy because I’m being abducted as we speak.
I added a frowny face and a shrug emoticon—didn’t feel either quite covered the terror simmering in my gut—then added a couple of exclamation marks. “Where are we going?” I snapped at the men. They all shared a glance.
“Grounds and Gears,” the driver said. “It’s a—”
“I’ve been there.” I hated being rude, but there was no moderating my tone.
I added that tidbit of information to my text and sent it off to Cam but didn’t get anything back. With a growl I stuffed my phone into my pocket. The car slowed, and there wasn’t a parking spot outside the coffee shop, but that didn’t seem to matter because the scarred man who’d come up to me on the sidewalk got out and opened my door, for all the world like he was a chauffeur. He walked with me to the entrance of Grounds and Gears and opened that door for me as well.
The first thing I always noticed when I came to this place was the framed photos of motorcycles that decorated the dove-gray walls. Cinnamon and the tantalizing aroma of good coffee tinged the air, as usual. Sunshine spilled through the glass front of the shop and made the red globes of the light fixtures that dangled from the ceiling at intervals reflect scarlet circles around the room. Laughter and conversation bubbled from the customers.
Fear swamped me, but I held my head high as I strode inside, a dull fury taking me over. This was exactly why I didn’t want to be around Madam Winters. Being grabbed in the middle of the day downtown. No one would have ever noticed if I’d turned up dead. And she called herself Madam.How ridiculous.She was just a woman like any other, and I refused to think of her by that title. I’d worked myself up into a rage by the time I made it to the round steel table where she sat.
She sipped at a small red espresso cup but set it down on a matching saucer, and she stood as I approached, smoothing her hand along the skirt of a fluttery-sleeved summer dress dotted with strawberries. With her long blonde hair down around her shoulders, she looked damned near wholesome. It wasn’t right. She smiled, and there seemed to be exhaustion in the small lines around her mouth.
“Mr. Fenson. How kind of you to join me.” She held out her hand, but I didn’t take it, and with a graceful flick of her wrist, she lifted her palm to brush along her skirt again, almost as if that’s what she’d been aiming for the entire time.
“Did I have much of a choice, Ms. Winters?”
She shrugged in a very uncharacteristic way and sat down again. I dragged out the chair across from her to plop into it. We stared at each other for a moment, her beautiful lips, tinged glossy and pink, cranking down into a thin line. She circled a finger over the rim of the espresso cup.
“I did tell my men to insist, I suppose.” She closed her eyes, then snapped them open again, and there was a twinkle of humor in her gaze.
“Evasive.”
Her laugh was a warm, throaty sound that had other people nearby turning to look at her and smiling along. I wasn’t charmed. No, I was fucking furious.
The edge of the table cut into my arms as I bent forward. “Why did you bring me here?” As much as I wanted to be rude to her, it wasn’t something I normally did, and I wanted answers more. One surreptitious glance assured me her lackeys were nowhere in sight.
“Camden, who is the son of my dear friend as you know, indicated you wished to speak with me. In my business, I don’t have many people I count as friends.” She studied me in a way that had my face warming. “This is the time I have available, and I do love the espresso here. Red makes a fine cup.”
