“Because of your unnaturally good looks,” I teased.

He sighed. “Because I know these things. A silent observer, very rarely wrong. It’s a survival instinct. Don’t doubt me.”

I didn’t. And I hated that I didn’t. Graeme didn’t lie. I trusted him with my life, and he was telling me all this because he cared enough to let me know I was being taken advantage of.

“What do you think she needed the money for then?” I asked him quietly.

He shrugged absently. “Does it matter at the end of the day? You should be more concerned about the lie, shouldn’t you?”

“Should I?”

He chuckled. “You have a big heart, Emma. That’s your problem. You’re not upset that she lied. You’re upset that she’s keeping something from you and you don’t know what it is.”

I looked back more closely on the way she reacted while we’d eaten. None of her actions or glances indicated to me that she’d been lying. Either she was a damn good actor, or she just successfully preyed on my emotions bad acting and all. I hated to think which one of those was the answer.

“What should I do? Let it go or call her out on it?”

He shrugged. “If you call her out on it, you could drive her away. Better to be patient. Lies usually find their way out, no matter how deep you bury them. Besides, it’s not your burden to carry. Let it play out.”

I blinked in surprise at him. “You should have been a therapist, Graeme. A lot of wisdom pouring out of your bushy mouth.”

He smirked. “What else do you expect from a fifty five year old?”

“Fifty five? You look thirty five.”

He laughed heartily, and I smiled at my lame compliment. I didn’t think it was possible, but I totally made Graeme blush. And I almost forgot about tonight’s dinner while I sat alongside him.

Almost.

Six

Emma

When we returned to the club, Linda strode up to me and Graeme on our way to the office. Her long red hair was piled high in a neat little up-do. With her make-up done up the way it was, her cheekbones were so accentuated, they looked like they could cut steel. She was gorgeous. Bitch or not, I had to appreciate it.

“Borden’s busy,” she informed us, her face neutral. “He’s having a meeting with one of those insane bikers in a private room. Said for you guys to go to the office and go about your day until it’s over.”

“Is he meeting with Hector” I asked her.

“I don’t know him by his name. But tall good looking guy with this cheeky as hell smile. Acted like he owned the place and stared at me like a piece of meat.”

Yeah, that was him alright.

“If it weren’t for the half dozen ladies striding in after him, I would have thought he’d force me in too,” she added distractedly. “Fuck, being a woman is tiring some days.”

My heart stopped for a beat, and I tried not to let my fears show as I asked, “There are girls in the room?”

She nodded once, running a hand over the top of her hair as she looked around. “Yep. A couple dancers from here, and a few others that came with him. Slutty little things.”

“Slutty how?”

Her eyes met mine. “Oh, you know, tiny little booty skirts and belly tops, big tits spilling out of their cleavage. And these girls were in their mid-fucking-twenties. They were rubbing up against each other, holding hands like sorority girls in a porn video. Pretty much warming up for their show. That sort of slutty.”

“Their show,” I repeated slowly.

“Mm. The biker said he wanted some background noise, and they jumped at the chance. They’re in one of the larger rooms. You know, the kind of rooms people hire their bachelorette parties in. Don’t ask me why it has to be that big for two men talking business.”

The raw feeling of anger shot up my veins as I pictured the women she spoke of. Hector’s kind of women, no doubt. What decent female would want to spend her time, intimately, with somebody like Hector?

I let out a long breath and glanced over at Graeme. I needed to be cool about this, not react like a crazy jealous person. “What do you think is going on?” I asked him.

Graeme shrugged in an unconcerned way. “Could be anything.”

Like, what kind of anything? The kind that would cause Borden to have some crazy orgy fest with a bunch of women in his own club? I remembered the hard ridge in his pants before I left for lunch. He’d been horny as hell and I hadn’t taken care of it. Was it being taken care of now? More anger bubbled within as I envisioned all kinds of horrid things. I fought hard to suppress my body’s urge to shake. I swallowed it down with a forced nod.

“Let’s return to the office,” Graeme suggested.

“I’ll wait for Borden,” I replied tightly. “If it has something to do with Hector, then it would be important for me to know straight away.”

Graeme raised a brow at my lame excuse, no doubt seeing straight through my bullshit. I wasn’t going to work when Borden might currently be getting a lap dance, or worse. No, if I was in the office, I wouldn’t see them emerge from the rooms and make their exit, and I wouldn’t be able to analyse the situation – meaning the state of undress he might be in – if I wasn’t around the main rooms. I’d never felt this paranoid before. I’d never been given a reason to feel this way, and I wasn’t liking how hard the feeling slammed into me. We turned back around and settled ourselves at the empty main bar area. All the while, I kept fighting to keep my mind clear.

Seated on a stool, I waited with Graeme standing nearby. He was looking around with this look of caution on his face – a face that was consumed with frown lines and dark circles beneath his eyes. Did the guy ever take a break? He desperately needed one.

“Everyone’s been real antsy,” Linda said, sidling up to me on a stool. “It’s got something to do with you, right? That’s the only reason Borden would have ten thousand men following you around.”

I turned to her. “No point in denying the obvious.”

Her cool eyes met mine. “So what’s going on then? Someone out to kill you or something?”

I suppressed the chill those words gave me and didn’t respond. All I kept thinking about were giant boobs and short skirts around my Borden, around my man, around the hard dick I’d put in his pants.