A Deal With the Devil (5 page)

“Ah, maybe the luck has run out for today.” Chin shrugged as if losing thousands of pounds was an everyday occurrence. It probably was. “I think it is time for us to go. My wife is tired and we must always put our wife’s needs first. Right, Mr Doyle?”

“Definitely. Every time.” Rey’s eyebrows rose and that dirty glint was back as he walked to the group and shook hands with them all. “Breakfast meeting, tomorrow. Then I have arranged for a trip for you to see some London sights by helicopter. Mr Chin, everyone, let me walk you to the exit.”

Their guest raised a hand to stop them. “There is no need. We will manage. Good night, Miss Kate, and thank you.”

“Goodnight, Mr Chin, everyone.” Kate watched them leave and blew out a deep sigh. Thankfully her job was done and it was time to go home, to shrug off this strange heated sensation, and shake away Rey’s overwhelming presence.

Only now were the ramifications of being here beginning to take hold of her body like a ripple of aftershocks. Rey Doyle was a heartless money-grabbing jerk.

That’s what she’d believed. Until he’d touched her. Until she’d seen hunger in his eyes and felt the same crippling need for him. Going back to Jake would be enough of a wake-up call to re form her resolve.

She turned, determined to go home right now, when she heard the smooth dark tones and slight accent, “Kate, not so fast …”

“W
here are you
going?” Rey wouldn’t let her go so soon, she had desire in her eyes and the sexiest dress he’d ever seen clinging to curves he ached to touch. She’d been charming and funny. She’d held her own with Chin and the thought of her walking out … damn, he hated that she had this effect on him.

Should he trust her? Hell if he knew, but she’d performed well, said all the right things in all the right places, so he’d have to go by gut feel. It had always served him well in the past.

“I’m going to the locker room.” She blinked as she looked up at him. Desire had almost been replaced by determination. Almost. “To get changed and then go home.”

“We haven’t finished.” He wanted to stop her, to trap her against the wall and have her. To see if she tasted as sweet as he imagined. To see how her body felt beneath his. But he would not follow through on his own desires, not here on the playing floor. Kate was better than that, even if he wasn’t. He may well have been one of London’s most eligible bachelors according to the glossies, but he was still a Whitechapel boy at heart.

“Oh? How so?” She gave him a thin smile that said she was well and truly finished with him. “My shift ended a long time ago, you don’t need me here any more. Your guests have all toddled off to bed, and now it’s time for me to do the same.” There was no hint of an invitation. “So, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Doyle.”

“No.” He touched her arm. “Come with me.”

“Where?” She looked at his hand on her skin, but she didn’t move away. “Why?”

“We had a deal. You upheld your side of the bargain, now it’s time for me to do the same.” He steered her towards the exit.

But they hadn’t left the playing floor before she stopped and shrugged away his hand. “Where are we going? What about my clothes? I need to go home.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have your clothes brought through.” He imagined her stripping off that dress, what lay beneath. And wondered what the hell was wrong with him that she affected him so much. It had to stop. “And it’s Rey, you don’t have to go back to ‘Mr Doyle’.”

There was a small smile. “Oh, no, I like to keep things delineated. That way we both know where we stand.”

Do we?
Because his reality was shifting uncomfortably and he seemed hard-pressed to stop it. As he pushed open the door to the management suite he asked, “What’s your locker number?”

“Forty-seven. But I can go and get them myself.”

“I know you can. But there’s our … unfinished business to attend to. It’s not appropriate to do it in the staff locker room or out there where everyone can see us.” He waited for her to react.

He noticed the sharp but almost concealed intake of breath. She was clearly struggling to keep control. She was fiery, reactive, knew what she wanted and what she didn’t. And he got the impression she hadn’t quite made up her mind about him yet.

Her voice was steady as she spoke. “Okay, get my things brought up, but quickly, it’s late and I need to go home sometime soon.” He felt her eyes on his back as he opened his office door and led her in. And, yes, he imagined having her there too, splayed over his desk.

He made the call to housekeeping, then hauled in a breath as he turned back and looked at Kate. With the toned down make-up and the chic clothes she was a far cry from the waitress of earlier on. His gut instinct had been right that time too—underneath the war paint she was beautiful. Breathtaking. But it wasn’t just the way she looked that intrigued him … it was the way she held herself in check, determined not to react to him. Why? What was so at stake for her? “I owe you, what was it … double wages?”

“Treble. But nice try.” She stuck out her hand, eyes weighing up first him, then his office. He nodded for her to take a seat, but she ignored him and continued to look around the room, glancing to the camera in the ceiling, the desk, the door. “Very … masculine.”

“Obviously.” He pulled out a wad of notes and offered it to her. She glared at it as if it was blood money.

But she took it anyway with a shake of her head. “And my clothes?”

“Will be here any minute. While we’re waiting we should debrief. Chin was quite taken with you. They’re leaving tomorrow, but they’ll be back. I may need you again, so we have to get our stories straight.”

She took a ragged breath. “Can’t you ask someone else to play girlfriend?”

“Not now. We’re madly in love, I can hardly bring someone else in at this stage. True love is one thing, threesomes are another thing altogether.” He let that thought sit for a moment. “Mind you …”

Her eyes widened and again she shook her head, slowly. “Not on your life, Rey Doyle. I know exactly what you’re thinking and that’s just one of a million reasons why I could never ever be your real-life girlfriend. Never mind fall in love with you.” Now her voice was laced with laughter, sweet and fresh.

“And you’ve just broken my heart.” Although he supposed she was right; he wasn’t exactly his favourite person either. “So what are the other million reasons?”

They were interrupted by a knock and he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or did Kate all but run to the door to collect her clothes. “Er … where can I get changed?”

He pointed to his en suite, watched that peach-perfect backside disappear behind the door. Heard the definitive drag of the lock, heard a zip, a curse. He called through, “You need a hand in there?”

“No thank you. I’m managing just fine. I’ve been dressing myself for twenty-odd years.” A pause, a wistful softness. “Beautiful dress, though.”

Not the dress, her. “So where were we …?”

“You wanted a list of my million reasons?” Behind the safety of a closed door she seemed less uptight. “You’re my boss, for a start. I don’t like things to be less than equal.”

And yet she’d met him match for match, play for play. “It’s only money.”

“Money … and you call all the shots at the casino …”

“I do own the damned place.”

“True. But money and power, in your world they’re king, not in mine. Wait. There. Okay.” She sighed loudly. The door opened and she stepped out, rich dark hair tumbling over her shoulders in thick sleek, looping curls, a faded red T-shirt under a thick grey wool jumper that looked two sizes too big, a long pink tasselled scarf strung loosely around her neck, skinny black jeans, black heeled ankle boots. Such a contrast to the demure casino boss’s girl. And yet, if he’d given thought to whichever fantasy woman he could choose—since he’d featured on the rich list, it seemed he could have his pick—he would previously never have classed this casual get-up sexy. But she rocked it. She looked around and bit her bottom lip. “Right, I think we’re done here?”

Not nearly done enough. He wanted to run his tongue along that lip, suck the tiny dent made by her incisor. More. A whole lot more. Damn. He shook that feeling off. It was late. She was tired. And he was clearly just too damned wired from the meeting to think straight. “I’ll walk you to the exit.”

More relaxed in her own clothes she gave him a warm smile. “Again, thank you, but I can manage.”

“I’ll walk you.”

“Whatever. You seem to do entirely what you want, anyway.” She seemed reluctant to talk more as they walked through the ground floor lounge, past the stragglers and the regulars, the party people, the ones with no home to go to. He supposed he should have headed to his, seeing as he had one—although it was just somewhere to sleep, not exactly a home. But there were too many questions running through his head. Like, why the hell was he distracted by her when he should have been sorting out the security breach? Getting a decent night’s sleep before the meeting in a few hours?

At the entrance he found one of his security team checking a couple in. He drew him to the side. “Bring the Sturgis round. And make it quick.”

Kate, meanwhile hung back, apparently disinclined to be seen with him … or to be seen leaving … or, who the hell knew? He was tired of playing games, of guessing, of cat and mouse. Whatever the hell happened to good old-fashioned honesty?

But he knew exactly what had happened to it; it had gone the way of trust and love and other such pointless sentiments. He hated that he lived like that, with no belief in anyone but his close team of advisors, but it had been a hard road to walk, clawing his way from the bottom up. Trust wasn’t something he did easily, never mind with Kate Wilkinson who he’d just met and who didn’t quite fit … He just had a bad case of old-fashioned lust.

The fun flirting over in the cold evening light, he returned to business. “One last thing: anything important you discussed with Chin that I should know about?”

At his beckoning she walked forward. “Well, there’s not much to say, really. We don’t go horse-riding very often. I like to make sure you get a break because you work too hard. We’re going to have a family. That was what you wanted me to say, right?”

And yeah, he knew all that. “Your mother died.”

“What?” She came to an abrupt halt, looking as if she’d been punched in the gut. Colour bled from her face as she pressed her bag to her stomach, like a barrier. Although, she didn’t need to use anything physical, the emotional lockdown was there in her face. “You were eavesdropping on a private conversation?”

“Yes. Of course. How the hell do you think we’d be able to match stories?”

“So if you know everything then why the debrief?”

“Because I understand.” He didn’t know if he did. Didn’t know what the hell had happened to his filter, his guard, why he was saying this.

“You understand …? About my mum? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.” Pale and shaken she turned sharply left and headed off down the road.

And now his interest was really piqued. It didn’t take long to catch her up. “Do you always block people out?”

“No.” She swivelled on those cute black heels. “Do you?”

Oh, she was good. Deflection. “This may seem a little late in the day, but I was trying to be compassionate.”

“I wouldn’t have imagined the words c
asino king
and
compassion
could ever be mentioned in the same sentence. And never at the same time as my mum. Do not talk about her again. Stick to gambling or boxing, you’re better at them.”

He supposed she was right, compassion wasn’t ever needed in a boxing ring. Show any sign of softness and you received an undercut that could put you out of action for weeks, if not kill you straight up. For the first time in his life he was sick of sparring. He caught her arm and urged her to stop, the sound of a deep throaty engine rumble behind them splitting the night. “Are you always this … argumentative? Because really, it’s a huge pain in my ass.”

“No … yes … I don’t know. It’s been a long day.” She closed her eyes for a second, pinching the bridge of her nose, and breathed out, as if she was taking stock. “I’m sorry.”

“I took you off guard, I know.” He tilted her chin to look at her, surprised at his need to make amends. “You’re very tense, you need to relax.”

Black-shadowed eyes gazed up at him. “I need to sleep.”

“How are you getting home?”

She glanced down at her watch. “Bus? The tube’s finished for the night. I guess I could call a taxi.”

“I’ll take you.”

“No.” She answered too sharply, and realised her error. “I mean, no thank you. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s dark. It’s late. I will take you. No arguing.” Turning, he saw the security guard astride his trusty Sturgis. God bless Messrs Harley and Davidson and their services to epic motorbikes. Rey wandered over, tugging Kate with him, and took the two helmets from the pannier box. He handed her one. “Put that on.”

“No way—” But she wasn’t looking at him any more, her attention had been distracted by a bundle of rags in the shadowed doorway, next shop front along. The bundle was groaning as she knelt down—no mean feat in jeans that hugged every damned curve. She didn’t seem to care that she was about to get dirty. Unlike other women he’d dated her focus was not on herself and her own needs, but on the sounds. “Hey, hello? Hey?” Her voice cooing. “Are you okay?”