Bane: Trillionaire Shifter Club Book One (3 page)

CHAPTER TEN

It was close again. Now that they
were talking about it. This wasn’t final. This wasn’t the end. Whatever dilemma
Harper was facing within herself, it was bound to come out now. It had to. It
was eating her up inside…

“Okay,”
Cordelia said after a moment. “So he’s a bear. So what?”

Harper
breathed into her glass. “So what…?”

“Yeah, so
what if he’s a bear? It doesn’t change anything. I mean, you don’t want to tell
the cops about him do you? Not after he –”

“No, no, no,”
Harper said waving the idea away. “I don’t want to mess with any of that.”

“Anyone you
do tell is going to think you’re crazy anyway,” Cordelia said. “And frankly it
really undermines our accusation towards Jayden.”

“Have you
published that post yet?”

Cordelia
shook her head. She picked up the tablet from her lap and switched it off. She
stood up and set it on the table on her way to make her second drink.

“I don’t
know,” Harper murmured. “This guy’s just really in my head now.”

“Who? The
bear shifter?”

“Bane.”

“Well, you
gotta let it go. It’s behind you. You’re not going to ever see him again.”

Harper
reached into her pocket and placed the card on the table.

Cordelia
glanced over at it. “What’s that?”

“He gave it
to me. Said I could find him there.”

Cordelia
picked it up. “T.S.C. What’s that stand for?”

“I don’t
know,” Harper shrugged.

“Well, let’s
look it up,” Cordelia suggested.

“You mean on
your –”

“Yeah, I got
this.” Cordelia picked up her tablet again and went to the sofa with her drink
and Bane’s business card. Harper watched on apprehensively from her place by
the table.

“Find
anything yet?” she asked after a moment.

“I’m doing
searches,” Cordelia answered. “What did you say his name was again?”

“Bane.”

Cordelia was
silent for a moment. Harper looked away.

“Oh my God!”
Cordelia exclaimed. “I found him!”

“What?”
Harper said hurrying over. “You did?”

Cordelia
handed her the tablet and Harper turned it over.

On the screen
there was a picture of Bane from
The Dark Knight Rises
.

“Very funny,”
Harper muttered tossing the tablet back at her.

She flopped
down on the sofa, deflated.

“Jesus,”
Cordelia laughed. “You’re taking this so seriously.”

“I’m not, I’m
not,” Harper said quickly. “Let’s just forget about it.”

Cordelia put
the tablet to one side and looked on the other side of the business card. “You
know I looked at this address, and it’s bogus.”

“It is?”

“Totally
fake. The only thing that’s on here is those three magical letters. And of
course the telephone number.”

“Telephone
number?”

“Yeah.”

Harper
snatched the card away. She saw that Cordelia wasn’t lying.

“You didn’t
see the number before?” Cordelia asked.

“No,” Harper
admitted. “Doesn’t matter anyway though. We’re not going to call it.”

“We’re not?”
Cordelia grinned.

“Bane said I
should only try to come to this place if I was ready to leave everything
behind.”

Still
grinning, Cordelia pulled her cell out. “Since when weren’t we ready to do
that…?”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

It took a moment for Harper to
realize what she was doing.

“Hey,” Harper
piped up. “What are you –”

Cordelia put
a finger out to silence her. “Yes,” she said into the cell. “Yes I’m wondering
if Bane is there. If we can chat to him.”

“Stop it!”
Harper screeched reaching out for the phone.

Cordelia
pushed her away and stepped off the sofa.

“Uh-huh. I
understand. I’ll just ask my friend.”

She held the
phone away from her as Harper stood.

“Ask me
what?” Harper blurted out.

“Do you want
a driver to come pick us up to go to see Bane tonight?”

“No,” Harper
said. “That’s – that’s insane –”

Cordelia
nodded and moved her hand away from the phone. “As soon as you can get us. Our
address is 134 Poulton Road –”

“Bitch!”
Harper lunged at her.

They both
collapsed to the ground, Cordelia giggling.

“134 Poulton
Road, Manhattan, come at once!”

She tossed
the phone away laughing as Harper yanked at her hair.

“I’m going to
kill you!” Harper yelled. “You are so dead!”

“Stop it!”
Cordelia laughed. “You’re hurting me!”

She then
screeched as Harper yanked a bit too hard. Harper climbed off her and reached
out for the discarded cell, only to find the call had ended.

“Call them
back,” Harper said. She threw the phone at her. “You’ve got to call them back.”

Cordelia sat
up. “What is with you?”

“You don’t
seriously want to go off in some strange car right now, do you?”

“What – you
don’t
?”

“No, I don’t
want to,” Harper insisted. “This is – this is so stupid. Why have you done
this? He’s gonna think I’m – Oh my God!”

“What’s he
gonna think? Tell me.”

Harper
crossed her legs on the floor. “He’s gonna think I want to be with him.”

Cordelia bit
her lip. “Sorry. Sorry, Sunshine. I just – we have to see what this is about.”

“What what’s
about?”

“Is he really
a bear shifter? Did he really save us? If he did, I think I owe him a thank
you. Don’t you?”

“He’s not
going to be happy,” Cordelia whispered.

“Why wouldn’t
he be happy?”

“Well, I’m
not breaking up with Josh. I’m getting married on
Sunday
.”

“So what?”

“So – Bane’s
going to try it on with me and I’m going to have to tell him no. He’s – he’s
not going to be happy when I do that.”

Cordelia
smiled slyly. “Just tell him you want to be friends.”

“Oh yeah,
like he’s going to go for that.”

“If he
respects you he will. And then whatever happens after that, happens.”

“Oh no,”
Harper shook her head. “I feel so bad. I feel so guilty.”

“Why? What do
you feel guilty about?”

“I don’t
know,” Harper said. “I think I feel bad for Josh. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Oh honey,”
Cordelia said getting to her feet. She helped Harper up as well. “It’s not like
you’ve fucked Bane yet.”

“Yet?” Harper
winced.

“Save your
guilt for afterwards.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Harper wasn’t going to have sex with
Bane. Not tonight, not ever. She wasn’t going to do anything romantic at all.
She wasn’t going to give him a hug or let him hold her hand. Well, if he was
crying she might give him a hug. Josh couldn’t be mad about that. That wasn’t
cheating. But why on earth would Bane be crying?

“You’re over
thinking this,” Cordelia said, putting her shoes back on. “Nothing’s going to
happen.”

“How do
you
know?”

“Look, he
doesn’t get to tell you what to do. He can’t be all like mad because you showed
up and you won’t sleep with him. If he is mad, he’s a piece of shit you don’t
want to be friends with anyway.”

“Well, who
says we want to be friends?” Harper remarked.

Cordelia
raised her eyebrows. “Lovers then?”

“Oh, shut
up!”

Cordelia’s
cell started buzzing. She picked it up. “Text from the car company. They’re
outside the building.”

“Oh shit,”
Harper said standing up. “This is happening way too fast.”

“Breath
mint?” Cordelia asked. She opened her handbag and tossed one to Harper.

She accepted
it.

Cordelia
walked with Harper to the door of the apartment. “If you really don’t want to
go, I’ll tell the driver to fuck off. If you are that upset.”

Harper looked
at her friend nervously. “Maybe that would be for the best.”

“You’re not
up for this?”

“I don’t
know.”

“So you are
up for this?”

“Just – give
me a second –”

Cordelia
would give her a second. Not much more after that.

Harper closed
her eyes and reflected on her confrontation with Bane before he left. She was
torn between the fear of seeing him again, and the fear of not seeing him
again.

But why
should she care about that anyway?

Did he really
mean that much to her?

“I’m waiting,
gorgeous,” Cordelia said prompting a response.

“Let’s go,”
Harper whispered.

Cordelia
smiled as they stepped out and closed the door behind them.

“This won’t
be anything, trust me,” Cordelia said. “We’ll be back here in a couple of
hours.”

She couldn’t
have been more wrong.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

A man in chauffer’s attire was leaning
against a long black limousine out the front of Cordelia’s building when the
girls exited. Harper stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of it.

“You girls
the ones who asked about Bane?” he sang out in a polite voice.

“Yes, that’s
us,” Cordelia said eagerly.

The chauffer
stepped across to the back door and held it open. They ducked their heads
inside the vehicle and the chauffer closed it behind them.

Cordelia
stretched her legs across the leather. “Comfy.”

“Why are we
in a limo?” Harper murmured. “Who said anything about a limo?”

“This Bane of
ours,” Cordelia mused, “maybe he’s rich. You ever think of that?”

“I don’t know
what to think,” Harper replied.

It wasn’t a
long drive they had in front of them. About a quarter of an hour north of the
city, they reached a woodlands terrain where the road began to constantly twist
and turn. They eventually came to a large property walled off with iron gates,
they had to wait to be opened. The limo then traveled slowly across the gravel
towards the parking area where a dozen or so other limousines were present.
They didn’t really get a look at where they were though until they were outside
the car.

As the driver
held the door open, Harper stepped out into night atmosphere to gaze upon the
wonderfully lit building before them. It wasn’t a house exactly – more like an
establishment. It stood a grant three stories tall and had a wide spanning deck
that ran around the entire building.

Flashing neon
lights above the open front door filled in the blanks for what T.S.C. stood
for.

“Trillionaire
Shifter Club,” Cordelia read out loud, standing beside Harper. “Well, I guess
we’re in the right place.”

Harper
approached the chauffer as he attempted to return to the car.

“What are we
supposed to do?” she asked. “We haven’t been here before.”

“Bane will be
waiting for you inside,” the chauffer replied. “Just ask the hostess to point
you to his table.”

“Okay
thanks.” She turned back to Cordelia. “You hear that?”

“Sure did,”
Cordelia replied. “Now come on, Harps. One foot after the other.”

She turned
back to the chauffer. “You’ll take us home when we’re ready, won’t you?”

“That’s up to
Bane,” the chauffer replied.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Bane was on the second floor of the
clubhouse, looking out towards the window where the girls had just gotten out
of the limo. He was standing far away enough in the shadows that they couldn’t
see him peering out, and that hopefully his companion wouldn’t notice either.

“Is that
them?” Chilton Burrows asked walking past him.

Bane turned
away sharply. “Yes.”

“I thought
you said you didn’t think they would come.”

“I guess I
was wrong.”

Chilton
walked back to the bar Bane was leaning against, and patted him on the back.
“So which one is yours?”

“The
red-head,” Bane said in a low voice, and picked up his shot glass.

He tossed it
back.

“So I guess
the brunette’s mine?” Chilton said.

“If she wants
you, I won’t stop you,” Bane said.

“And if she
doesn’t want me?”

Bane eyed his
cheeky companion. “I would be very careful with coming on too strong with her.”

“Why is
that?”

“She’s been
through an ordeal tonight. Some guy, was trying to take her by force.”

“Really?”
Chilton beamed. “And let me guess? Big, Badass Bane came along to save the
day?”

“No one else
was going to.” Bane signaled for the bartender to pour him another.

“So what’s my
girl’s name? You know what it is, don’t you?”

“I didn’t
catch it.”

“What about
your one?”

“Didn’t catch
that either.”

“Well, your
apathy is really impressive,” Chilton said, “but it would still be nice to know
what to call them, don’t you agree?”

Bane picked
up the refilled glass. “I still have doubts about her.”

“Doubts?”

Bane lowered
his eyes. They both took a shot together.

Bane put his
glass back down and ordered another refill.

“She’s
supposedly getting married,” Bane said. “I somehow doubt that will have changed
by her coming here.”

“Didn’t you
tell her though, not to fuck around with this?” Chilton pressed. “We don’t have
time for women in committed relationships. We don’t have the patience to just
let anyone in and out of this world.”

“I told her,”
Bane said.

The door
opposite opened, and the hostess Melanie walked through.

“Couple of
girls downstairs to see you, Bane,” she announced. “Do you want to come down to
see them, or should I bring them up here?”

Bane looked
at Chilton.

“Send them up
here,” Chilton said.