Beating Ruby (13 page)

March drove toward the parking entrance, and I gazed at the shoppers hurrying into the place, fighting a smile. “Maybe. But when Sheikh Djahkobh holds her captive in his palace, Hedwardh comes to save her. I think that’s all that matters in the end.”

The car had stopped. March remained quiet for several seconds, his hands still on the wheel. “Biscuit . . .” His voice was low, laced with the tenderness I had missed so much. I held my breath. “Simply because Djahkobh is bad for Swanella doesn’t mean Hedwardh is a better choice.”

There was this ache in my chest, as if it would collapse on itself. I sat up straighter and swallowed. “You know what? You’re right. Swanella deserves better than this,” I snapped, opening my door and stepping out of the Mercedes.

I heard March’s door slam shut and his footsteps behind me as he followed me toward the exit without a word. I never looked back on our way to the elevators; I couldn’t face him yet. My heart was pounding, and I knew that if I turned to look at him, I’d say something stupid, something that would cause him to retreat even further back in his shell and hurt me. Again.

I looked at the tip of my ballet flats on the garage’s dull gray paint. How could a man who had read
Accidentally Married to the Billionaire Sheikh
for my sake be so totally, infuriatingly, painfully blind?

THIRTEEN

The Kraken

“Give Trenton a chance, Jess! For Christ’s sake, he’s bending over backward for you!”

—
Lane Tempest
,
Wrapped Around Me: The Octopus Sh
ifters Series #6

Given all the rumors about his icy and controlling character, I could see why a guy like Ellingham would enjoy the Time Warner Center. The whole thing felt austere and monumental, with its massive incurved atrium enclosed on one side by a glass curtain, smooth gray stone columns, and steel cables holding the structure together. A perfect showcase for the trendy shops lining the floors.

We made our way across the lobby toward the elevators and stepped into one of the cars, along with a couple of Asian tourists carrying shopping bags. March pressed the fourth and last floor’s button, and soon we were rising toward the top of the huge hall, the elevator’s glass doors a window to this modern temple of self-importance. It was a nice view, though, and I’m sure March enjoyed it too, until a pair of brown boots appeared in our field of vision. Khakis. Rugged leather jacket. The rest of Alex’s body was progressively revealed as the car slowed down and stopped at Mesa’s floor.

He stood in front of the doors with his arms crossed, one eyebrow cocked at us. “Did you enjoy your ride?”

Next to me, I felt March shift. I took a step forward in case there might be more throttling coming. “Alex, let’s go.”

The three of us made our way across a minimalist hall toward Mesa’s entrance, marked by a sober black
noren
curtain bearing two white kanji forming the restaurant’s logo.

A long corridor with dark wood walls led to the dining room, where a young Asian woman stood near a waiter and a few burly-looking guys in dark suits. Alex and I probably didn’t fit the dress code in this den of super-elegant Zen; the hostess did. Her silky, straight black bob, high cheekbones, and impeccably cut short-sleeved red dress—designer stuff, no doubt—felt almost intimidating.

“Miss Chaptal, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. November?” she asked with a suave voice. Dammit, that beige lipstick was so perfectly applied it looked tattooed on her lips.

We all nodded, and I saw Alex cock an eyebrow at March upon hearing his “name.” Oh well, if we were going to work with March, Alex would get used to those aliases like I had, eventually. Since my first encounter with him in October, I had heard March introduce himself with half a dozen different months, and there was at least one thing I was almost certain of: I’d never hear his real name—if the man even had one.

The young woman stepped aside to reveal a long sushi bar with a wooden counter. “Mr. Ellingham has been waiting for you.”

Now, my dad was a banker, so he was pretty wealthy. After more than a decade spent killing people for two hundred grand a day, March was frankly rich (but I had been told he saved most of it and lived in a cubicle house). Finally, Dries, my biological dad, I filed in the category of the supervillain-rich, and he had no qualms about showing off a little. None of that was billionaire-rich, I realized upon scanning the barren dining room with beige walls and minimalist black furniture.

No. Billionaire-rich is when you can privatize the most expensive restaurant in New York on a whim. The place was empty, and I assumed that those big guys with the crew cuts acted as bodyguards for the blond man in an anthracite suit sitting at the sushi bar. He seemed busy examining a bottle of sake celebrity chef Mesahiro Hikuyama was showing him—damn, that guy looked even balder than on
Top Master Chef
.

I stole a glance at March and Alex. They looked cool as cucumbers, whereas my palms were getting clammy and my stomach was doing flips. When our host turned to acknowledge our presence and got down from his chair, I couldn’t help but stare, trying to file every
detail of what might be my only close encounter ever with my big boss.

In my mind, Hadrian Ellingham had always been more or less a stock
photo: some aristocratic Ken doll, smoothed by makeup and studio light
ing. I thought it made sense that he looked like a Nazi cyborg, since every
body said the guy had this terrifying aura about him—think Max Zorin minus the creepy mental illness. Even the Bad Sex Sloth meme hadn’t been able to help that part of his image, and that’s saying something.

So, imagine my shock to discover a mere mortal in his late thirties, with dark circles under somewhat downturned blue eyes, and a few wrinkles in what was no doubt an Egyptian-cotton shirt. My gaze lingered on the faint oblique scar linking the underside of a straight nose to his upper lip. Prince had once told me that the guy smiled so rarely that it wasn’t his real mouth on those magazine covers: they always photoshopped some random model’s smile on the pic so Ellingham would look more human. Well, here’s a scoop: they didn’t photoshop his mouth just because he looked too stern. They did it because the guy was born with a cleft lip. I wondered if he had a problem with it and asked for that particular retouch himself.

He extended his hand to March for a firm handshake. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. November.”

I thought his voice sounded a little deeper than on TV.

“And you are Mr. Morgan, I presume,” he went on, greeting Alex in the same fashion.

Then it was my turn. And apparently regular employees didn’t deserve a handshake. Had those blue eyes been that cold a second before? God, they were so pale they looked like ice. “Please sit down, Miss Chaptal. I’ve heard a lot about you in the past couple of days—perhaps more than I wished to.”

I shuddered. Alex and March wouldn’t have told him things about me . . .
right?
“I . . . uh . . . It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” I mumbled as March took the chair next to Ellingham’s and I sat between him and Alex, safely away from our host.

As soon as we were seated, the young waiter in a black suit with a long white apron waltzed toward us, carrying four sake cups on a platter. Someone dimmed the lights in the restaurant, leaving only the large sushi bar under the spotlights, illuminated like a stage.

Chef Mesa, who had been chatting with Ellingham before our arrival and had since retreated into the kitchen, came back from the shadows. I realized that low atmospheric music was now filling the room, mixing notes of dramatic Japanese flute with birdcalls and the sound of water running. I looked at March and Alex alternately, in case either of them might have an idea what was going on.

“Making food.”

I jumped at the ominous echo of Chef Mesa’s thick Japanese accent. He stood before us, head bowed, arms along the sides of his body, legs apart. He looked like Madonna before starting a show. His bald skull shone bright under the ceiling’s lights, his outfit and apron blinding white patches against the darkened background. Each crease and wrinkle on his solemn face was sculpted by the golden hue bathing him.

“I seek the essence of food. The life within the ingredients. The
shibui
sensory experience.
Tamashii. Umami
!
”

I gawked as he struck a little ninja pose and grabbed a long kitchen knife with a beautiful Damascus steel blade. Behind us, I realized that the waiter and the young woman who had greeted us were applauding discreetly. Ellingham consented to a few lazy claps; March, Alex, and I took the hint and did the same too while Chef Mesa started slicing a horseradish in half, ignoring us to concentrate on his art.

“Now, I understand you haven’t made any significant progress at all in your investigation?” The tone was cordial, the voice soulless, and Ellingham was looking at the three of us with a sort of rictus I think he had intended to be a smile.

“Actually, we
have
made some progress. We’ve yet to understand who engineered the theft and where the money was wired, but we now have a clearer understanding of the chain of events that led to Ruby’s activation,” Alex ventured, at the same time that the chef raised his knife with a dramatic gesture and grabbed a couple of bananas. I stared in confusion at the strange recipe being prepared before our eyes.

“But since the servers got destroyed, it’s difficult to know what files were used and what happened to them. Ruby’s code might have been replicated with the intent of being used again,” I added, not daring to look at Ellingham, and instead focusing on the way Chef Mesa was superimposing millimeter-thin slices of horseradish and banana on large black plates.

Ellingham’s fingers tightened around his chopsticks when the chef handed him the first plate and announced a “Vegetal Essence Carpaccio.”

“When will you leave for Zürich? I’ve already warned Professor Premfield of your imminent visit. He’s the head of research in our Swiss subsidiary.”

Alex seemed a little taken aback, while my mouth just fell open. How
the hell
could he already know? “Sir, are there, like, bugs in our offices?”

“No, Miss Chaptal.” Ellingham exchanged a smug look with March. “You might, however, want to invest in a metal case for your phone.”

On the counter Alex’s fists clenched. “She certainly will.”

So that was how March had known about the progress of our investigation. As too often, I had no idea if I wanted to strangle him for his controlling streak or hug him for being my guardian angel. And it was neither the place nor the time for either. I let out a long, calming breath. “Can I ask you to refrain from accessing my personal devices in the future,
Mr. Novembe
r
?
”

March’s eyes softened. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Seriously?
Okay, next time we were alone together, he was definitely getting that slap.

Around us, the musical ambiance had changed to something more spa-ish, with light bells and shamisen. I looked down at the plate I had just been served, sighed, and grabbed my chopsticks. It wasn’t awful, but the whole combination didn’t work all that well, mostly because of the banana. I could tell Alex was a little resigned as well, whereas March sported a faint smile, no doubt due to the perfect organization of each element on his plate.

All three men were done with their carpaccio, but I was still toying with mine when I noticed the music had stopped. Above us, the spotlights turned red, and Chef Mesa moved to stand before us again in his Madonna position, while threatening Japanese flute notes rose in the darkened dining room. Two sous-chefs appeared from doors located at each end of the kitchen behind the sushi bar, scuttling toward their rock star. One was struggling with a couple of live eels, while the other carried . . . a Japanese sword? I cast an alarmed look at March, who responded with a reassuring smile. On his left, Ellingham seemed perfectly at ease with whatever the hell was going on.

Chef Mesa took a deep breath through his nose and extended both arms, receiving the unsheathed sword in one hand and a wiggling eel in the other. He spoke in a sepulchral voice. “The essence of life . . . is death. The beauty of death.
Unagi
!
”

I bit back a scream and shielded my eyes when he secured the eel on
the wooden counter with his left hand and brought the sword down with a
battle cry to chop it in half. I think right afterward Alex leaned toward me
to make sure I was okay, but I couldn’t focus. Because in the dark, March
was holding my hand, squeezing it tight, soothing me and wrecking my defenses at the same time. Neither Alex nor Ellingham seemed to have
noticed, and while Chef Mesa cut his eel to pieces, I looked up at March.
He still hadn’t let go. His touch felt hot; his thumb kept drawing light cir
cles on my knuckles. He glanced at me with a masterfully controlled
poker
smile, but the slow caress on my skin belied his mundane expression.

My breath was getting a little short, and I think time stopped. Until that obsequious waiter snuck between us to serve us glasses of mineral water
from Easter Island or whatever, forcing March to let go with an imperceptible sigh. My cheeks felt on fire, and I registered Alex’s questioning eyes when I fidgeted on my chair. I tried to concentrate on the way Chef Mesa was sprinkling cherry flower petals on what were essentially dices of raw eel, all while prattling about the beauty of birth and death. I didn’t give a damn. All I knew was that for a few blissful seconds, my connection with March had returned.