“Yep.Proper date.Curry house after.”
The weekend after that date, he’d taken Ben to Paris, and they’d spent the whole weekend together.He’d taught Ben lots of good swear words in French as they’d fucked.
He’d deliberately allowed Ben more of himself, just as Ben had begun to dig in with Kate.He knew exactly how their relationship was progressing.He ran a black ops department, for fuck’s sake.He’d had Kate followed, monitored her calls.After that first mention of a date, Ben had never spoken of her again.But Nikolas had watched the growing intimacy with great interest.
It had been so easy.How could Kate compete?And it hadn’t even been done with presents and spoiling Ben, which he could do so much easier than Kate ever could.Nikolas was too clever for that.He’d won Ben over by giving Ben the one thing he desperately wanted—attention.Ben was forever seeking something he’d lost at eight years old.Nikolas—wealthy, sophisticated, intelligent, mature—had seen this need as his niche and had ruthlessly exploited Ben’s vulnerabilities.He found out about a day spent with Kate at the zoo?That weekend, he started teaching Ben how to ride.
Kate hadn’t even been in the race.She wanted anequalas a partner, amanin her life—not someone who wanted to beabsorbed.Nikolas had seized on the child in Ben, the lost innocent, and wanted that as much as the man.
Nikolas didn’t need to examine his motives too closely to see why the innocent child within Ben had attracted him.Ben wasn’t the only one with loss in his life.Nikolas had seen in Ben an opportunity to find his missing half—his better half.Ben wasn’t his brother Nika, but he was what Nikarepresented.A chance to do things better this time.
And what had Nikolas done with this second chance?This wild, savage creature he’d taken and broken and tamed to his own desire?
Premorbid tendencies.
That’s what he’d done.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-two
Ben made it to Grantham before dark.He had a satnav on his phone and used it to locate the headquarters of the film company: Tremour Productions.It was a nebulous office in a block of other commercial companies.It didn’t feel right.Too corporate.He took off his helmet and left it with his bike, walking into the reception in his leathers and boots.The girls on the desk looked up and…fell.They didn’t stand a chance.He was aware of their reaction to him, something he’d seen all his life from people, men and women alike, but always ignored.Now he used it.
Within five minutes, he had a date for that night, but, more importantly, the address of the studios where the films were shot—an old industrial estate on a farm ten miles east.
He returned to his bike and set the new address.
He had a feeling Nikolas wouldn’t be far behind, and he desperately needed to stay ahead of him.
The film studios were in farm buildings surrounded by temporary structures—mobile homes, camper vans and some tents.Ben reconnoitred for a while at a vantage point some distance away.One feature of the film industry appeared to be messengers on motorcycles.He intercepted one on the lane outside the farm, gave him a hundred pounds and relieved him of his ID, box and clipboard.
Totally anonymous now, he wandered around the set, watching, listening.
It actually didn’t take Ben long to find what he was seeking—whom he was searching for.At the back of one of the big sheds, in a separate room, a meeting was taking place.It was so incongruous compared to what Ben had expected in his mind when seeing this man again that he couldn’t help hearing Nikolas’s voice—surreal, the strong Danish accent mangling the word slightly, as it always did.Itwassurreal—Doctor Fergus Atwell sitting at a table, animatedly discussing…a script.Ben’s mind was in such a place of darkness, where blood and death stalked him, he actually felt his mouth go dry and a prick of anxiety washed over him.Could he do this?He stepped back from the window, discarded the box and clipboard, paused by the door for one moment, then strode in—six foot four, black leather and very, very angry.
Fergus Atwell glanced up.
Another man pointed out unnecessarily, “We’re in a meeting here, bud.”
Ben just nodded, not dropping Atwell’s gaze.The doctor stood uncertainly.
“It was a terrible mistake.I’m sorry.We didn’t…a scene, just like this…We needed something big, something that would get everyone’s attention.National news.”He held up some papers.
Ben nodded.“I know.”
“What do you want?”
Ben came closer, right up close and personal.“I want to leave darkness behind me.”
* * *
Nikolas shook himself from his reverie and realised they were talking amongst themselves, making their own plans.With the new information, Kate had also found the film company for which Fergus Atwell had been an executive producer on the movieDare.It had registered offices in Grantham, Lincolnshire, no more than a couple of hours from them.Squeezy said he’d be glad if Ben did take the fucker—Nikolas assumed he meant the doctor—out.He deserved it.
“I don’t think he’s going there to stop them.I think he’s going there to join them.”
His comment was met with silence.
Then total derision.
