Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (54 page)

“Mr. Russell is running a bit late, Ms. Tamworth,” the receptionist explained. “If you’d just like to go down the hall, you’ll see his office at the end. Take a seat outside, and when he shows up you can go straight in for the interview.”

I still hadn’t gotten used to people calling me Ms. Tamworth. We’d only had a week to prepare and put this assignment in place. The new name had been handed to me at the last minute, along with a fake social security number, résumé--complete with fake references--and a new hairstyle, just in case.  

At least the FBI had let me keep the same first name. There wasn’t much to be gained by changing my first name because it was so common anyway. It’s not like Mr. Russell would be able to find out my real identity just from the name ‘Chloe.’

I strolled down the hall in the direction the receptionist pointed, and found the office for Denton Russell right at the end. There were a few chairs outside, so I took a seat and pulled out my résumé to make sure I had all the information in my head.

Instead of being a Harvard graduate with a double major in sociology and criminology, I was now an experienced personal assistant, with work experience at a major fashion magazine and a Fortune 500 company in New York.  

When I joined the FBI just out of college just a few months ago, I had imagined spending at least five years stuck behind a desk before I got the chance to do any field work. I had barely been there five weeks when this assignment landed on my desk.

Instead of learning a foreign language, or being shipped off to an embassy overseas, like many of my Harvard peers, I was learning how to pass myself off as a personal assistant, which was a lot harder than I had ever imagined.  

Just trying to get someone like Denton Russell to the right place at the right time required a degree of calendar management that stressed me out more than any exam ever had done. I now knew enough to talk my way into the job, but the real challenge would be keeping it for enough time to get the information the FBI needed to put Denton and his dad behind bars for many years.

I was under no illusions as to why I had been picked for this assignment. It had nothing to do with my academic credentials--which were only average up against my peers who often had master's degrees and at least one other language under their belt--and it wasn’t because of my performance in the training.

I’d been picked because of how I looked. Not because I was especially beautiful. I wasn’t unattractive, but it would take more than good looks to catch the eye of someone like Denton. He never went out in public without at least three women hanging off him, and they were all far better looking--and far sluttier--than I ever would be.

However, the second the officer in charge of bringing down the Russell crime syndicate laid eyes on me, he knew I’d be perfect for the job. I looked like someone Russell used to date. A girl named Kara.

By all accounts, he’d been infatuated with her. But then she’d been killed. A pawn in the game the Russell family played with the Bartons. She’d been Denton’s personal assistant and they’d fallen for each other. Now he needed a new PA and who better than someone who looked like the spitting image of his former lover?

The whole thing sounded a little creepy to me, but my boss was convinced it would work. Besides, Denton was apparently the suspicious type and wouldn’t easily divulge information, so anything that made him let his guard down was considered a huge advantage.

I heard a man’s voice at the far end of the hall and a woman responded with “No, Mr. Russell.” He was here.

I’d been stressed out and nervous as hell when interviewing for the graduate program with the FBI, but that was nothing compared to this interview. At least with the FBI, I didn’t have to worry about getting caught as an undercover agent and killed or made to ‘disappear.’  

I quickly looked back down at my résumé as he approached, desperately trying to cram in all the dates and previous employers that seemed to be slipping from my memory at the worst possible moment.  

I tucked the résumé in my file in case it looked suspicious that I didn’t know my own background, and then took a deep breath to try and compose myself. That didn’t work, so I went to my tried and true back up plan.

Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one...

When I was young, Dad used to have lots of unsavory visitors calling round the house and on occasion things threatened to get violent. Mom and I would always hide out in the bedroom and wait for them to leave.  

I often got scared at the sound of the screaming, so Mom and I would recite prime numbers until the shouting stopped and they went away. Most kids my age didn’t even know what prime numbers were. I’d always been an odd one.

“You must be Chloe,” Denton’s deep voice said from beside me as he opened the door to his office.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, jumping up out of my seat and thrusting my hand towards him. Too late. He’d already turned his back to me and was halfway to his desk.

“Come in. Sit down,” he said impatiently, as he flicked through emails on his phone.

If I’d ever harbored the illusion that Denton Russell wasn’t the bad guy my boss made out, that notion was immediately dismissed when I saw the dried blood and scrapes on his knuckles.  

It was only nine in the morning, and he’d already been in a fight. He hadn’t even gone to the effort of cleaning up afterwards. Lois, my immediate supervisor, had explained that most of the employees here would be innocent of all crimes. Apparently, they thought they were working for the head office of a food packaging company.

I wanted to believe that was true, but if Denton just walked around casually with bloody knuckles, there must be a heck of a lot of people here deliberately looking away from uncomfortable truths.

I sat down and looked up, taking in my first impression of Denton in the flesh. I’d seen plenty of photos, but they hadn’t prepared me for what it would feel like to sit just a few feet from him.  

The cliché thing to say would be that the photos didn’t do him justice, but that wasn’t quite true. He looked fantastic in the photos as well. Every woman in the office had made some sort of cheeky comment when they saw him, and most of them thought I was lucky for the chance to spend time with a man like Denton.

But the photos hadn’t captured the essence of raw strength and power that he gave off. He’d thrown some aftershave on, but a heat emanated from his body, making it clear he had been sweating recently.  

In most of his photos, Denton had been clean-shaven, but he hadn’t shaved this morning, and there was a rough stubble coating his face and drawing attention away from his tired eyes.

Underneath his shirt were tattoos covering his arms and probably his chest as well, although I hadn’t seen any photos of that. He had looked every bit the low-life thug in most of the pictures I’d seen, but now he looked like any other businessman, albeit with knuckles covered in blood.

He looked just as comfortable in the suit as he did in the jeans and t-shirts the FBI usually photographed him wearing. He’d been attractive in those images, but I never thought for a second I would find him desirable.  

There was a difference between someone being easy on the eyes, and actually appealing. Much to my mom’s relief--and Dad’s when he’d been alive--I usually went for sensible, well-educated men, who spoke politely and would have good jobs and earn lots of money. I’d never brought home anyone like Denton.

I could just imagine the look on my Mom’s face if I introduced her to someone like him. Sexy, ripped, covered in tattoos, and a womanizer to boot. Oh, and he’s a criminal who kills and beats people up for a living when he’s not pushing papers around the office he uses for money laundering.  

Christ, we hadn’t even started the interview yet and already I was imagining what would happen if I introduced him to my mom. This had the potential to get awkward.

Lois had spent a couple of hours lecturing me on the importance of treading the line between sexual chemistry--which was important to get Denton to let me into his world--and actual sexual intimacy.  

Reading between the lines, I sensed that perhaps Lois had fallen for someone she was supposed to be investigating in the past, but she didn’t admit as much.  

That couldn’t happen here. I couldn’t pretend Denton wasn’t easy on the eye, but he was a criminal, and most likely a murderer. I could never be attracted to someone like that.

“You’re here to interview for the PA job?” Denton asked as he cast his eyes over a copy of my résumé that someone had left on his desk. He still hadn’t so much as looked at me, and to be honest, I’d happily go through the entire interview with him not doing so.

“Yes, sir,” I replied politely. Personal assistants and secretaries were likely deferential to their employers, so I just had to be overly polite and appear willing to take orders all day long for little pay.  

“You’re highly quali--” He trailed off as he finally looked up from my résumé and stared at me.  

His deep green eyes came to a rest on mine. That was another thing a photo couldn’t do justice to--the intensity of someone’s gaze. It was like being a kid and having my dad tell me off; I knew I had to maintain eye contact, but every instinct in my body begged me to look away before my head exploded.

I did my best to look puzzled, as if I didn’t know why he looked surprised to see someone the spitting image of his dead ex-girlfriend. I’d even had my hair specially prepared to look like hers, although the color didn’t match exactly, and I wore a pant suit similar to the ones she usually wore to work.  

We were playing with his emotions. It was a cruel form of torture, but nothing compared to what he did to his rivals on a regular basis. He deserved every bit of pain I could inflict.

“Is everything okay?” I asked sweetly.  

I didn’t sound like Kara. By all accounts, she’d had a slight Midwestern accent, and after attempting one of my own, Lois had quickly decided not to have me fake it.  

That wouldn’t have fit in with the rest of the background on my résumé anyway. To keep things simple and easy to remember, all my work experience was around New York and Boston, places I knew well from growing up and college.

Denton continued to stare at me for a few seconds that threatened to draw out into eternity, before finally blinking and shaking his head, as if snapping out of a daze.  

“Everything’s fine,” he replied. His voice sounded moody and aggressive, but I couldn’t expect anything else from someone with his background. “You’re highly qualified. How did you get the job at a Fortune 500 company without going to college?”

“I knew the personal assistant who was leaving her job, and she put me in touch with the boss. I got lucky, really.”

“I’ll say. Even the filing clerks have degrees at that place.”

Denton went back to staring at me. The longer his eyes lingered on me, the faster my heart rate got, until I felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. What if he’d figured me out? Maybe this was all a little too much. It was too obvious.  

If he knew it was inappropriate to stare at me for so long, he didn’t seem to care. It’s not like he was being subtle about it. At least I hadn’t worn a wire or any listening devices.  

Lois said there wasn’t much point at first, because Denton was hardly likely to divulge any useful information in an interview anyway. I had to gain his trust first, then I could start collecting evidence against him and his father.

“Why are you here?” he asked firmly.

“Excuse me?” I replied, my voice creaking under the pressure.
Did he know?

“I said, why are you here?”  

To put you behind bars where you belong.
“To interview for a job as a personal assistant.”  

“I meant, why are you here in Chicago. Why leave a good job in New York to come here?”

“Oh,” I replied.  

I tried to force an embarrassed smile--it was better than looking relieved at not being caught out as an undercover FBI agent--but all I could manage was a slight twitch of my cheek that probably looked like the onset of a stroke. “I just wanted a change of pace. New York got to be a little too much.”  

“You’re lying,” Denton accused.

“Sir?”  

Oh God, he knows. Will I make it out of here alive? Surely he doesn’t kill people in his office? I’ll probably be allowed back down to my car in the underground garage before some men jump me and throw me in the trunk.

“Boyfriend problems,” Denton said. “Or girlfriend problems, I suppose. People don’t just one day decide they’re going to move away from New York City and come live in Chicago. Judging by your résumé, you don’t have any connections here, so I’m guessing you had a relationship end badly.”

This was as good a time as any to weave in the next part of the made up backstory.  

“My father died,” I replied. “I just wanted to get away from the city.”  

That part was partly true, but it wasn’t recent. Dad died five years ago. His death made me want to stay at home even more to support Mom, but she’d insisted I go off to university as planned.