Raven (Kindred #1) (7 page)

“You’re still watching me? You said you were going away.”

He circled her foot in his grip. There was no reason for him to be examining her still, except if he needed the distraction from establishing eye contact. “How’d you get mixed up with those guys?” he mumbled.

“Kahlil and his men?”

His whole demeanor changed. He grew tense, and his awareness became acute as his eyes slid up to hers in time with the whisper of his hands skimming up her shin. If she’d been vulnerable to him before, now that susceptibility intensified until her throat began to parch and her muscles ceased. Inching closer, he forced her to lean back when he propped a fist on the couch cushion by her hip.

Intimidating her with the intensity of his mysterious brown eyes, his fixation tested the limits of her rapid heart rate. Doing her best, though it probably wasn’t enough, she tried not to reveal how affected she was by having his body within a few centimeters of hers, but her insides were beginning to feel like simmering soup.

“How do you know his name?” he growled.

The accusation laced through his question didn’t provoke distress as such, but she did feel small caged here beneath him at his mercy. “I went to the executive suite after my date with Julian,” she admitted. “Grant was there talking to a man he called Kahlil.”

“What were they talking about?” he asked, using his size to ease her back further until she was in a submissive reclining position against the arm of the couch.

His physical authority meant he didn’t have to ask her to lie down. He leaned forward and made her bend to his will. Having broken the seal of eye contact and proximity, he took advantage of the opportunity and examined every nuance of her expression. The way his gaze gobbled up her features made her feel like prey being dominated and toyed with by a starving predator.

While she had been slowed by her own hormones, she hadn’t thought his were on alert. But nothing else could explain why his eyelids grew heavy over his sharp eyes. Off-kilter in the swamp of his unanticipated amorous attention, she tried to focus. “I don’t know exactly,” she stuttered. “A deal I think. Kahlil wanted to buy something that Grant was selling.”

“Did they talk about what it was?” he asked, keeping his volume low. Curling a finger around a tendril of her hair, he let it slip free, then curled it around his digit again. The repetition of this private, personal contact calmed her.

“No,” she said, taking the liberty of sliding her hands up his chest because she wanted to feel the heart that beat beneath his clothes. But his solid breadth made her catch her breath. She stroked up and down then up again until her hands floated around to the nape of his neck. “Do you know what it was?”

The murmurs of her words were small gasping exhales that made her mouth water. Maybe it was the lack of light, the terror of the night, or the weight of him resting against her side, but this moment was intimate and somehow familiar, and she found herself transfixed by the proximity of his mouth. Lying in the cage of his arms, her next inhale made her shoulders slip back, causing her to arch into him.

“Did they see you?” he asked, letting her hair fall from his grip for a last time.

“Does it matter if they did?” she murmured, curious about the tinge of concern she deciphered in his tone.

When he tipped his chin a fraction higher, her mouth was tempted to ease closer. “If they did, I’ll need to alter my strategy.”

Still trying to maintain the thread of conversation, while not being distracted by their fascination for each other, she made herself look into his eyes. “Your strategy?”

“You’ll be in danger,” he said, moving his hand onto her face.

Moving her head, she stroked her cheek against his palm, encouraging him to widen his fingers. “And your strategy is to keep me safe?”

“Part of it.”

Dazed by his considerate words, her eyes closed as she smiled. “That’s very sweet,” she whispered.

“Sweet’s got nothing to fucking do with it,” he said.

Seizing the back of her head, he tugged her forward to close his mouth over hers. Opening for him, Zara welcomed the mass of his tongue that plunged against her own, cool and delicious. She opened her hands on the leather of his jacket and tilted her chin to signal her own compliance. This was new. This man was dangerous. Yet, her body was alive with sensation and eager to explore every facet of him. Questions outweighed answers, but all she cared about was pressing her body up to his.

He kissed her deep then sucked her lower lip as he withdrew and cast his eyes down. The tension in him made her stroke the width of his shoulders in solace and encouragement because she wasn’t finished, she wanted more, but her bubble was burst when he spoke.

“I wasn’t supposed to do that,” he exhaled.

Catching her breath, she barely recognized her raspy tone. “Not in your timetable?” she asked.

“You’ve been through a trauma and you’re still in danger.”

Scooping her hands up over his jaw, she made him look at her while she confessed. “The last man who kissed me ended up with a bullet in his head. I think you’re the one in danger.”

Because he had returned to examining her mouth, Zara wondered and hoped that he might kiss her again. It seemed somehow right in this night of madness that she should embrace her desire to be reckless.

“He didn’t die because he kissed you.”

She smiled and loosened. “One day you’ll tell me what you mean by all these cryptic half statements you make.”

“One day, I might,” he said, though she didn’t assume it was probable. A man who wouldn’t even give out his real name was unlikely to hand out his secrets without imminent cause.

Clutching the open edges of his jacket, she inhaled the scent of this man and this moment. She wanted it to be real because she hadn’t felt an attraction this strong in her life. But she had to ask, “Is this your way of gaining my trust? Like you said Tim was trying to do?”

“You don’t trust the men you sleep with, not in the way I need you to trust me.”

Again, he revealed how well he knew her, though she couldn’t imagine how he knew something so personal. Especially being that she hadn’t had a long-term boyfriend for a couple of years. Zara was accustomed to holding herself back in relationships. It was what came with being disappointed by men one too many times.

“Then kissing me was probably not a good idea.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. Sweeping his arm around behind him, he trailed his fingertips down the length of her leg and elevated her foot onto the cushions stacked at the end of the couch. “Tell me what happened upstairs at CI.”

He didn’t kiss her again, although she got the sense that he wanted to by the way his interest flicked to her mouth and over her body. Flattered by his attention, Zara’s arousal didn’t cool, but it was obvious he had returned to business, insinuating that they probably weren’t going to explore their attraction further, at least for tonight.

“Nothing,” she said. “They didn’t see me. I listened for a while and then I left.”

“Grant didn’t see you?”

Now that they’d acknowledged the want of their bodies, it was easier to maintain her senses. “No.”

“And you overheard their conversation?”

Measuring his gaze, she anticipated his next question with suspicion. She wanted answers and didn’t want to reveal too much because despite his odd behavior this week, Grant had never given her cause to betray him.

“Some of it,” she said.

“What did they say? Give me specifics.”

Releasing all of her weight onto the scroll arm of her couch, she told the truth. “Grant has been good to me. I’m not going to sell him out just because you kissed me.”

When he sat upright, their trance of familiarity was broken. “How about because I saved your life tonight? Or because I’ve been looking out for you for weeks?”

Wondering about what he might have protected her from without her knowledge, she asked, “Have you seen any danger?”

He propped a hand on the back of the couch. “Danger like your boyfriend being shot dead in the street? Or thugs jumping you in an underground parking garage?”

His point was valid. She didn’t need to know about unseen danger when the seen danger was scary enough. “I don’t want harm to come to anyone,” she said. “But I don’t believe that Grant would endanger people. He’s a good man and CI’s remit is to help people with what we create.”

Switching position, he removed himself from her couch and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Resting his elbows on his knees, he joined his hands. “Why didn’t you show yourself to Grant tonight?”

Driving her fists into the cushion beneath her, Zara tried to get upright while keeping her leg elevated because somehow it seemed more civilized to talk while sitting up. But the position was awkward and strained her abdominals because there was nothing substantial at her back to support her.

“I wasn’t expecting him to be at the office and when I heard that he wasn’t alone, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Simple as that, yet Raven wasn’t buying it.

His sneer betrayed that he didn’t believe the excuse and called her on it. “I’d guess that a woman with your credentials has interrupted meetings before. Does he usually have late night meetings that you don’t know about?”

Averse to being brow beaten, she returned his derision. “How would I know?” she asked, willing to match his icy tone with her own. She worked late often and got enough late night calls from Grant to know tonight’s events weren’t the norm, but she wasn’t going to reveal that to Raven yet. She had to give Grant the benefit of the doubt.

Some of Raven’s frost dispersed and he seemed to be trying to appeal to her better sense. “Because you’re astute and conscientious, Zara. You know that something else is going on here.”

“I do because you’ve drawn my attention to it. You’ve made me so paranoid that I’m preoccupied by every suspicious detail.” Falling back onto the arm of the couch, she ran her hands through her hair and exhaled. “You’re making me crazy.” With the danger and now with the kissing too.

“No, I’m preparing you for what’s coming,” he said and didn’t sound as flummoxed as she felt. In fact, he was positively cool and collected. “I’m proud that your blinders are coming off. If you don’t want to trust me, then don’t. Others will approach you and they won’t be as gentle as I’ve been.”

And because she truly believed in her boss, she knew she could turn to him for help. “Grant won’t let anything happen to me.”

Raven rose. “Then you’ve picked your side. You go to him and you tell him everything. Ask him for the truth… If he’s the man you think he is, then he’ll give you the full story and order round the clock protection for you.”

“Protection?” By standing up for Grant, she’d managed to lose Raven’s goodwill. Without him, she’d be unguarded leaving her at the mercy of any other attackers intent on causing her harm.

It seemed he was severing their association, but he did relax for a second. “I’ll give you one last warning for free,” he said. “What Grant plans, what he’s about to do, it will test your loyalty to him and once you’re on the inside of the secret, there’s no getting back out.”

He began to walk away. “Raven,” she said before he could leave her. Seeking him out, she had to tip her head all the way back to locate him beyond the couch. “I won’t tell him about you.”

“You owe me nothing, Ms. Bandini, and you don’t know enough about me to give me up to anyone. Take care of yourself because no one else will.”

The tattoo of his heavy steps receded. The door opened and closed. He was gone. Her life at CI had kept her busy and she’d never assumed Grant was capable of dubious dealings, but there was definitely something unpleasant about what had happened tonight.

Steadfast in her loyalty to Grant McCormack, she was almost disappointed by the truth that she would never see Raven again. Reaching over her head, she groped for her cordless phone and speed-dialed her boss. It was late, but she knew he was awake because he’d been at the office. Except the line rang out until it went to voicemail.

Grant might be busy now, but she’d clear a space for them to talk on Monday because she was tired of the questions and she wouldn’t deceive him anymore.

Grant didn’t return the missed call and he was late to the office on Monday. He said nothing about his Saturday night meeting with Kahlil and not a word about the men in the parking garage. Either he hadn’t been told about what had happened or he hadn’t put the pieces together and identified her as the woman who was attacked. If she had to, Zara would put money on the former because the Grant McCormack she knew would be outraged by any woman being intimidated, especially on his property and as such would no doubt have brought up the incident with her as a prelude to strengthening security.

Executive parking was one of the few areas in the building without video surveillance. A directive had been issued to remove all cameras from there a couple of months ago. At the time, it hadn’t made much sense, but no one questioned it. Now she had an inkling that Grant’s motive was to conceal these secret meetings with shady characters.

After lunch, he was alone in the office with the blinds open, as they were when he was present. With no imminent meetings, Zara decided that now was her chance to speak to him. She hurried away from her desk, ignoring the pain in her ankle, which had slowed her down throughout the day. At that moment, her injury was secondary to talking to her boss.

Having walk-in privileges meant the front desk assistant didn’t blink when Zara entered Grant’s office. Because she sometimes came into Grant’s office just to leave a document or pick one up without them exchanging a word, he didn’t acknowledge her entry, even after she closed the door.

Creeping forward, she was nervous about bringing up what she knew because she didn’t want this man she revered to believe she’d been snooping. They had never had an outright confrontation before, but she’d witnessed him arguing with others and it was obvious that he didn’t like to be challenged.

But there was no backing out of this, she had to take a risk. “Sir, do you have a minute?” she asked.

While he was still writing, a smile quirked his lips. “Oh, she pulled out the sir, it must be serious.” Grant pushed aside the document he’d been working on and opened his hand toward the chair beside his desk.

As per his silent invitation, she crossed to seat herself while considering how to broach the subject. “It is serious,” she said, and his smile fell away in light of his new interest.

“You know I’ll help you out of any jam,” he said, swiveling his chair in her direction.

She took a breath. “It’s you that I’m worried about,” she admitted, trying to judge the subtle changes in his expression to figure out if he was angry or just confused by her statement.

“Me?”

Their professional relationship was integral to both of their lives. They saw each other every day and were often informal, but neither had attempted to intrude on the personal life of the other. But from what she’d heard of Grant’s meeting with Kahlil they were doing some sort of business together, so as far as Zara was concerned, she was well within her rights to bring it up. Especially if Kahlil was the same caliber of man as she’d met in the parking garage, because she couldn’t believe Grant would do business with them if he knew the truth.

Except his shoulders straightened and the groove between his dark brows deepened, and for the first time she thought she might be crossing the line into inappropriate and was terrified that she might offend or disrespect him.

But she couldn’t retreat, not after being assaulted. Raven indicated that all of her recent experiences were linked to something that Grant McCormack was cooking up and after Saturday she’d come to the same conclusion herself. She needed answers.

Licking her lips, she wasn’t afraid to make eye contact because she wanted to judge his veracity when he spoke. Her respect for this man prevented her from being abrupt and so she chose to approach the subject with tact. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been distracted and erratic recently,” she said.

His brows rose. “You’ve noticed a difference in me?”

She nodded and tried to stay loose, to appear as unthreatening as she could. “I know there’s something on your mind, something going on,” she said, offering a soothing outlet in the hope it would encourage him to talk.

When his lips thinned, her initial thought was failure because she thought she read displeasure. Leaning back, the chair reclined a little and his concern turned to a greater intrigue. “What have you noticed?”

If she wanted honesty, she had to give it. “You’ve been late to work. You were delayed in your return from New York. You’ve had clandestine meetings and are expecting mysterious clients to call the private line. Something is going on.”

He locked his fingers together. “Are you concerned or is this you reprimanding me?”

Horrified that he would think her so haughty, she inhaled. “I would never reprimand you. That’s not my place,” she said. “But I am worried. As you said to me, you would help me out of any jam and I want you to know… I’m here to help you as well.”

His gentle expression of concern had been replaced by a hard frown. “Your worry is noted, although I put in many hours here at Cormack Industries. My dedication to this company has never wavered. I treat my role here with great respect.”

“I didn’t... I didn't mean to suggest otherwise... But...”

The impulse to back away from the subject and apologize engulfed her because it was clear that Grant had been offended by her suggestion he was giving less than a hundred percent. Her heart was hammering so loud that it reverberated to her eardrums and for a second she wondered if Grant could hear it.

But her gumption only returned when she visualized Raven walking out of her apartment after she had clammed up and claimed allegiance to Grant. She couldn’t chicken out of being honest with the man she had defended. As long as she had faith in Grant’s good intentions, she would remain his ally.

Raven wouldn’t be coming back, but she still needed to know what was going on. That left her with only one option: to tempt Grant into proving that her faith was founded and her trust reciprocated. He had to tell her the truth.

“What is it, Zara?” Grant asked, making her realize she hadn’t said anything for a while.

With a deep breath, she ventured to prove her trust. “I had a date on Saturday night,” she said, crossing one leg over the other and brushing her hand down her thigh. “It didn't go particularly well and... I decided to come into the office to do a little work—”

“Your own dedication is“—the furrow in his brow grew deeper. He stopped talking for a moment and she assumed he’d put the pieces together—“you were here on Saturday night?”

“Yes,” she said, with a gentle nod. “I overheard some of your meeting.” Zara had thought it was better to lead with that than with the attack. But she reconsidered her approach when he flew up out of his chair.

“Zara! I… I expect far better from you. Eavesdropping? I didn’t think that was your style.”

Having never offended him before, she tried to backpedal, which made the pace of her words kick up. “I didn’t,” she said, rising to match his stance. The glow of his disappointment cut her deep. “I heard very little. When I realized you were here, I left.”

“What exactly did you hear?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head because his disappointment merged with the anger that simmered just beneath his surface and she didn’t want to face his wrath. “I just… I wanted you to know that you don’t have to keep secrets for me. Whatever the time of day, you can call me and I’ll come in if you need someone to record meetings and—”

“No,” he said, holding up a firm hand that suggested his own panic. “That meeting is not to be recorded anywhere, do you understand? It happened in the way it did for a specific reason.”

Grant was keeping secrets. If Raven hadn’t brought that to her attention, Zara wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken her to come to that conclusion on her own. She and Grant had an honest working relationship and she couldn’t figure out why that would change when there had been no big event to cause such a fracture in their rapport.

“You know that I’m with you, don’t you?” she said, locking her gaze on his while lowering her chin a fraction. She touched the sharp tip of a pencil in the pot on his desk. “Whatever is going on, whatever you’re doing… you’re not alone.”

Grant’s anger and disappointment cleared and he scrutinized her for a few seconds. Whatever he was looking for in her, she wanted to portray her fidelity to the company and to this man who made good business decisions and had provided her with a lucrative career.

Raven was a tempting figure. Alluring in the sense that he was dangerous and fleeting, something that few women could hold onto. He’d come into a woman’s life, smash it to pieces, and then fade into the night never to be seen again. Zara did not want to trash her own life only to be left with chaos when Raven had taken what he wanted from her. Grant and this company were the solid foundation of her life.

He must have gotten the message, because his frown faded. “I’m setting up a deal,” Grant said. “To sell a piece of tech that’s been protected by those in the highest levels of Cormack Industries for decades.”

“Decades?” she asked, and he again gestured for her to sit, which she did in time with him.

All previously frazzled emotion receded into their familiar corporate calm. “Technology has evolved, and in recent years there have been great advances. However, not every piece of technology is some whizz kid’s invention. Many things have been theorized for a long time. Some of our most elite R&D guys have been working patents filed in years gone by for products that were not viable with the contemporary technologies.”

“And now this piece that you’re trying to sell, it’s viable.” With a single nod, he smiled and linked his fingers in front of his chest. “I don’t understand. If CI has refined this piece and gotten it ready for market, why not sell it through conventional means? Why have unrecorded meetings in the dead of night?”

“This piece is revolutionary,” he said. A glint of excitement in his eye came closer when he leaned on the desk. “The bidding has to be private because whoever gains this prototype will require exclusive rights and they may further develop the product. Such information will of course be proprietary.”

“You’re handling the negotiations personally?” she asked.

Grant handling initial negotiations was unusual. Preliminaries were always done by vice-presidents or lower associates. If Grant wanted to be part of a significant deal, he didn’t enter the boardroom with clients until the latter stages. And giving out the private phone number was unheard of.

“This deal was important to my father and to Frank,” Grant said. “It’s the least I could do.”

Family. Grant never brought up family and he wasn’t a man who liked to expose his vulnerabilities. But it was too much of a coincidence that Raven had mentioned the McCormack family and now Grant was bringing it up for the first time in their association. Tim’s death, the meeting, her attack, it was all linked to this product.

At least she now understood one thing, if this was a deal important to his father, it made sense that Grant would want to handle it himself. “I understand,” she said.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what you saw or what you heard to anyone else,” Grant said. “A sale is imminent and I wouldn’t want to disrupt our chances of making a deal.”

“Of course not,” she said, shaking her head and straightening her spine to display her determination. “But if you need me… if you need assistance. You know that I’m here for anything you need.”

“I understand,” he said, widening his short smile. “You’re a good girl, Zara.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and he barked out a laugh.

“We’re long past the need for formalities,” he said, steepling his index fingers under his chin. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“I take my role here seriously,” she said, allowing herself to smile. “And I respect how hard you work and… after all you’ve been through…”

“Yes, ok,” he said, getting up to come around his desk. Taking her arm, Grant helped her out of her chair and guided her toward the office door. “But ‘Grant’ will do just fine when we’re alone.”

“Ok,” she said, clasping her fingers around his as he opened the door. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Thank you for coming to me,” he said and his warm gaze reassured her enough to relax. “Now get back to work.”

On leaving his office, she felt much better and couldn’t understand why Raven was so disturbed by a simple business deal. Going back to her own desk, she was sure she’d made the right decision to discuss the situation with Grant who offered a benign explanation. The clients who wanted this piece of technology were determined and Grant was experienced enough to handle them.

Zara hadn’t gotten as far as logging in to her computer when she blinked and got a flash of Tim’s prone body on the ground. Her outstretched fingers curled into her palms and the frost that crackled over her shoulders lowered her gaze. The men in the parking garage came into her mind. If Raven hadn’t been there to pull her out, to take on those men for her… she could be dead by now.

Grant made it sound so simple and for a second there she’d been appeased. A deal to sell a piece of equipment, there was nothing sinister about that. But there was something sinister about Tim’s death and something sinister about secret late night meetings when goons congregated in the basement.