‘Because when I came back to the table after that dance with Mrs Willner, you looked like you wanted to rip off his head and spit down his neck,’ Parker said wryly. ‘And it’s what I would have done.’
Another smile, one that crinkled his eyes. ‘No, offered you a job.’
‘You wouldn’t have been quite so crass about it.’
‘Thank you – I guess,’ he said. He paused. ‘Mrs Willner thinks you’re a positive influence on her daughter, by the way.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ I said. ‘According to Dina, her mother’s the one trying to hustle her over to Europe.’
Parker nodded. ‘Uh-huh, and did she say why she’s refusing?’
‘Pig-headedness, mainly. Disguised as not wanting to give in and run away from danger.’
He sighed. ‘It’s never the cowards who get us killed,’ he said, then seemed to realise the implications of that. I felt his back stiffen under my resting hand.
‘Don’t say it,’ I said lightly. ‘You’ll lose concentration and trample on me.’
His muscles eased a fraction. ‘Just be careful. In a lot of ways, Dina’s younger than she looks. Don’t let her put you on a pedestal.’
‘Don’t worry, I keep putting my foot in it too frequently for that.’
‘I don’t know – you seem pretty light on your feet to me.’ He smiled again. ‘You dance well. Another of your talents.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and recalled his earlier compliment, and my reaction to it. ‘Look, Parker, back at the Willners’ place, you said—’
‘That I was sorry?’ he said. ‘I … embarrassed you, in front of a client. That was out of line.’
‘Embarrassed me?’ I shrugged, eyes over his shoulder to keep a watch on Dina, but her body language was perfectly relaxed. ‘All you did was tell me I looked nice.’
‘No, I said you looked wonderful. There’s a difference.’
My gaze snapped back to his. ‘Yes, you did,’ I murmured, feeling my skin heat, my mouth dry. Almost with shock, I recognised the signs of my own arousal. ‘Parker, I’m—’
‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I know. Just dance, Charlie.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was a while before either of us spoke after that. Why Parker kept his own counsel, I can only guess. Me, because I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say that wouldn’t make things ten times worse – for both of us.
Parker was my boss, Sean’s partner, our friend. He’d been a shoulder to lean on. More than that, he’d been a rock in a storm-lashed sea, and I’d clung to the support he’d offered since Sean’s injury. But I’d never expected for a moment that I’d start to fall for him, with all the emotional turmoil that entailed.
The music eventually segued into another number and Hunt, with gallant reluctance, led Dina back to her table. Parker and I followed suit. Torquil, laughing, declined to release Manda and swept her into another dance. He’d lost his miserable air, but I think that had more to do with making Gleason stay on the floor with Lurch. Torquil’s bodyguard had long since exhausted his repertoire of dance steps and the pair of them were looking increasingly uncomfortable.
If Torquil wasn’t careful, I thought, his own team would knock him off just to be rid of him.
He only tortured them for a few minutes longer, however, then handed Manda back to Benedict and swaggered off towards the restrooms. I saw Lurch move to follow him, leaving Gleason to finally hurry back to our table and plonk herself down next to Eisenberg like she was determined not to get up again.
Torquil, however, had no intention of being followed everywhere by his bodyguard. I saw him whirl and plant a determined finger in the guy’s chest. He was close enough for me to hear the exchange, which basically ran along the lines that Torquil felt he was old enough to take a leak unaided.
Lurch glanced over at Torquil’s father for guidance, which only served to infuriate the son even more. He gave the bodyguard’s face a light slap to bring it back to face him. I sucked in an involuntary breath, but Lurch had heroic self-control and didn’t punch the little brat’s lights out.
‘Don’t you look to him for orders!’ Torquil growled. ‘You work for
Surreptitiously, I leant closer to Parker and, with minimal movement of my lips, murmured, ‘When you said Eisenberg had all kinds of influence I did not want to tangle with, did you mean he was connected to the Mob?’
Parker’s lips quirked. ‘We don’t think so. Why?’
‘I just wondered why Torquil’s behaving like something out of a bad junior version of
‘Just be careful,’ he warned, almost into my hair. ‘After all, the Willners have horses – you do not want to wake up in bed with part of one of them.’
I pulled a face and got to my feet as casually as I could manage, collecting my evening bag to add a touch of authenticity to the exercise. And just when Torquil’s bodyguard might have overridden his principal’s wishes, I heard Parker’s voice behind me ask him some seemingly loaded question about his experience in the business.
I glanced behind me long enough to see Lurch torn between a possible job opportunity and disobeying a direct order. I think Gleason’s scowl finally swayed him, like she thought he’d been chosen over her. Lurch hesitated a moment, then turned back and took the seat I’d just vacated next to my boss. I could have told him that – by doing so – he’d just lost any chance he might have had of being offered employment with Armstrong-Meyer.
Beyond Torquil’s obvious charms, what was it about working for the Eisenbergs, I wondered as I headed for the restrooms, that made people so desperate to get away from them? But Brandon Eisenberg had offered to find a place for Sean in the best neurological rehab centre in the world. Despite the obvious drawbacks, was that temptation enough?
No, I decided. It wasn’t. Because if Sean came out of his coma and discovered what I’d done, there would be hell to pay.
I excuse-me’d my way out of the ballroom, through a set of double doors and down a plushly carpeted hallway, punctuated by spotlit marble busts of what I think were supposed to be Greek gods, although one bore an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt in laurel wreath and artfully draped toga.
I paused by the door to the men’s room, undecided. The music was more muted here, so that the piercing notes of the
I hesitated a moment longer. Parker had told me to tread carefully around Torquil, so I pushed open the outer door to the men’s room with great care. Like the ladies’, it had a little vestibule which I assumed was supposed to operate as a kind of airlock as well as a modesty screen.
Not that it smelt in there. The country club did not permit that kind of thing. When I cracked the inner door a fraction and peered through the gap, the overwhelming odour was of expensive perfumed hand soap. It could have been a lot worse.
Inside was an extravagance of marble tiles and subdued lighting, which made the usual row of urinals seem more out of place than usual. Torquil was the only occupant, something he had evidently been told to verify, judging by the way he was nudging each of the cubicle doors open with his foot, the phone tucked against his shoulder as he did so.
‘Yeah, yeah, so there’s no one here,’ he said into it then, his voice impatient. ‘Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why couldn’t you just …? Oh, OK, I get it …’ Then his voice rose, almost jubilant. ‘Cool, man!’ And then he seemed to realise how gauche he sounded and made an attempt to play it down. ‘Hey, listen. Just make sure they make a better job of it this time, OK? I’m not fooling around—’
Suddenly, the outer door behind me swung open and I was faced with a startled man in a tuxedo.
Unable to think of any reasonable explanation, I beamed stupidly at him and lurched against the nearest wall, putting as much slur into my voice as I could manage. ‘Hey, buddy, I guess one of ush ish inda wrong placesh, huh?’
‘Yeah, lady, and I think maybe it’s you.’ He gave a nervous laugh and steered me towards the outer door, edging around me. ‘Try down the hall.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I said with false brightness. ‘’Cause I need to pee-pee
