ESCANTA: A James Thomas Novel (The James Thomas Series Book 1) (23 page)

“Go to the supermarket and pay cash?”

“What kind of supermarket?”

“The closest one,” Mak suggested.

“No, you go to the smallest one, the mom-and-pop one, the one without security cameras.” James grinned. “Now, what are you going to buy at the supermarket that doesn’t involve cooking?”

Mak was quick with her answers. “Cereal and a carton of milk. Or a frozen dinner.”

“Cereal has little nutritional value and it’s loaded with sugar, which will give you a rush, followed by a crash. Too much dairy can also make your body sluggish. And, unfortunately, at the mom-and-pop store you’re probably not going to have a huge range of frozen meal choices, so chances are they won’t be high in protein or energy. Now, two weeks later, they’ve found you again. You try and run but you’re too tired and you’re not fast enough. What happens then?”

“They catch me?” Mak said.

“And then what happens?”

Mak rolled her eyes. “Then, James, I wait for my Prince Charming, you, to come and rescue me.”

“Prince Charming might come too late and then your fairy tale won’t have a happy ending,” he said seriously. “So, if we’re going to date, you’re going to have to learn to cook. You’re also going to have to learn how and what to eat in the wild, but we can work up to that.”

Mak groaned. “If this is normally your approach to seducing women, I now understand why you’re single.”

James laughed. “Oh no, this is not normal, this is all just for you.”

“Just to clarify, where and how do you think I would end up in the wild with the need to hunt and gather?”

“Impossible to say at this stage, but anything could happen—you wouldn’t believe the places I’ve ended up stranded in. Once, on what I thought would be a routine trip to Tokyo, we had to take a detour and then ended up stuck in a forest for ten days. Anything is possible where I’m concerned,” James said.
An unexpected detour that was definitely Kyoji Tohmatsu’s fault. “
Omelet?”

“Please,” Mak said. “So, what else, as your potential girlfriend, would I have to agree to?”

He pulled the omelet ingredients from the fridge and gathered a knife and chopping board and placed it all on the bench in front of Mak.

“You will need to be able to protect yourself, so you will need to be physically fit and acquire a few new skills,” James said, chopping the onion.

“Such as?”

“Such as working out in the gym for an hour every day, and then doing an hour of weapons training. Given your size, learning how to shoot a gun will be your priority.”

“Two hours every day?” Mak asked.

“Yes,” James responded as he chopped the rest of the omelet ingredients. He knew this wasn’t going to be an easy sell.

“I’m not applying to be a bodyguard,” Mak said. “I’m supposed to have bodyguards protect me. Absolutely not, I don’t have time for that—particularly when I have a big trial on.”

“You make time,” James said. “Cami does it, even with the hours you spend with her.”

“It’s Cami’s job, it’s not mine,” Mak said. “How about half an hour of each, an hour in total?”

“It’s not negotiable, Mak,” James said.

“Everything is negotiable. Or, what if I agree to it, but during a trial I would get a pass for at least some of the days?”

“How many of the days?” James said with a smirk.

“All of the days,” Mak suggested guiltily.

James shook his head. “No. How long do your trials usually last?”

“Mm, somewhere between a couple of weeks and a couple months.”

James mixed the ingredients in the bowl and then cracked the eggs. “This is my offer, and it’s a huge compromise, so you should take it,” he said. “During the trial you can get a pass, for all of the days, but you make up every single hour in the days after the trial.”

“I’ll make up one of those hours if you train me,” she said, biting her lip.

“I’m not sure how productive that will be,” James said, his eyes lingering on her lips.

“That’s my final offer,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Fine,” James said, thinking that if he offered to train her for those make-up sessions he could entice her into the gym for a few additional hours. “Next, I’m serious about you learning to cook. But I will teach you that, and you will enjoy it,” he said, winking at her.

“I accept,” Mak said, grinning.

“Next, if you needed to travel within the United States, Cami would go with you, and preferably myself as well depending on the situation. If you need to go overseas, you wouldn’t be able to go unless I go with you.”

“What?” Mak said, the playfulness disappearing. “I’m planning to meet Maya in Spain in a few months.”

“This one is definitely not negotiable, Mak. I would have to go with you, or you couldn’t go. That’s a risk I’m not prepared to take.”

“Why is overseas more of a threat? It’s not like I’m going to go to Syria,” Mak said.

Because I have more enemies overseas than you can imagine
, James thought but did not say aloud. “Do you agree or not?”

“No, I’m not agreeing.” She was adamant, and James’ heart felt heavier than he thought it would.

He put the knife down and frowned. “This isn’t negotiable, Mak. I told you that you wouldn’t like the security requirements, and this is one of the most important ones. If you can’t agree…there’s really no point in discussing anything further,” James said, pressing his lips together.

Mak eyed him, not reacting at all. Several moments passed. “What are the other requirements?”

“It doesn’t matter what the others are, since you have to agree to all of them,” James responded.

“Well, I’ll consider that one while you talk about the others,” she said.

James thought it over. It seemed pointless to continue, but he supposed if she could live with the other requirements, in time, with a miracle, she might come to accept the travel arrangement.

James walked over to the stovetop and warmed up a pan. He added just enough oil so that it wouldn’t stick and then poured in the mix. “You would have a driver at all times, a minimum of two bodyguards at all times, cameras in your apartment. Which, speaking of, I have found one for you. It’s in a very good building and it’s not far from here.”

“When can I see it?”

“This weekend, if you’d like? Or any time next week. I would prefer you stay here at Thomas Security, though, until we work out exactly who is behind the notes and recent events,” he said, sliding a white envelope that had been sitting behind the fruit bowl in her direction. “This is the apartment. We refer a lot of clients to this developer, so we get a subsidized rate. Take a look…if you don’t like it I’ll find something else.”

Mak opened the envelope and looked at the images and the floor plan. “This is a very expensive apartment. I can’t afford this even with the subsidy, I’m sure.”

“If you can afford the apartment you were in before, then you can afford this one. We give them a lot of business, Mak, and I don’t normally negotiate such a substantial subsidy, so they did this kindly for us,” James said, checking his omelet—it was nearly done.

“And while we’re on the subject of money,” James continued, “I would cover the costs of your security. You can’t afford this level of security long-term, and you would need it because of me, and therefore I should pay for it.”

Mak narrowed her eyes. “How do you know I can’t afford it?”

“Unless you have millions stashed away somewhere, or your name is Jayce Tohmatsu, you can’t afford it,” James said, watching her carefully. He had no intention of telling her about the double life her husband had led, nor the money she could claim.

“Unfortunately, I have not, and I am not,” she said, resting her elbow on the counter and folding her hands beneath her chin.

James didn’t think she knew about the offshore accounts, but at least he knew for sure now.

He lifted the omelet out and sliced it into two. He plated each serving, retrieved some cutlery and put it down in front of her, remaining on the opposite side of the island.

“Would you agree to me footing your security bill?” James said, noticing she was listening but not actually agreeing to much.

She took a bite of the omelet, letting the fork linger between her lips.

James loved it, but he wasn’t going to let her distract him. “Yes or no, Mak?”

“I’ll have to consider it,” she said casually.

“Yes or no?” James pressed.

“Can you afford it? Is your name Jayce Tohmatsu?”

Mak took another bite and James was glad that she was at least eating.

“My name is not Jayce Tohmatsu but I assure you I can afford it. Yes or no, and stop stalling.”

“Okay, then, but I still haven’t seen a bill for your damages thus far. Where is it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check with accounts—I’ll follow it up on Monday morning.” Her bill didn’t exist, he’d already made sure of it, but he hadn’t quite worked out how to sell that to her yet.

“Thank you. This omelet is very good,” Mak said, taking another bite.

“You’re welcome. What do you think about the apartment?” he said, not letting her sidetrack him.

“What’s not to like?” she said. “Is this your apartment of choice, though? I really don’t want to move again.”

“It’s the best building for you to be in, other than this one, so you wouldn’t need to move again. I promise.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“No, but you haven’t agreed to the travel requirement, so the ball’s in your court.”

She put her fork down. “I don’t know how I can agree to that,” Mak said.

“I get that, but I can’t offer you anything else. I’m not prepared to do this by halves, Mak—I don’t normally take risks with any of my clients and that’s why this business is as successful as it is. And when it comes to you, you’d better believe I will be even more cautious. Having a girlfriend at all is a huge risk and I have to try and minimize that with more extreme measures—not imposing this level of security would just be stupidity on my behalf.

“I wish it wasn’t this way, but it’s the only way it can be. I understand if you want to walk away, in fact I encourage you to. My life comes with a ton of baggage and risks and worry that you shouldn’t have to concern yourself with.”

James could see the mental war raging in her eyes.

“Can I think about it?” Mak finally said.

“Of course you can—for as long you need,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. He wouldn’t force her to make a decision until she was ready to, especially not one she might soon come to regret.

She gave him a small smile.

James felt his phone vibrate in his pocket:
Deacon Thomas
.

James didn’t know why he was calling, but he wasn’t expecting the news to be good.

Mak ate the remainder of her omelet but her attention was on James. She’d noticed his telephone conversations were almost always a combination of one-syllable words: yes, or no, or fine. Every now and then he strung a sentence together, giving away the only clues to the conversation.

“Ah, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with Cami to see what she has planned. I’ll give her a call and get back to you,” James said, and then hung up and put his phone on the bench top.

“What are your plans this weekend?” he asked her.

“Me?” Mak asked, surprised.

“Yes, you. The client Deacon is with wants to go for an unscheduled trip this weekend, and wants Deacon to accompany him. But depending on what you’re doing, I might need him here.”

Did both James and Deacon watch her all the time?

“I haven’t gotten that far. Given the trial is done, I just want to relax, go to Barre…have a quiet weekend.”

“If I tell Deacon to go, you have to have a very quiet weekend,” James said.

“How do you define a very quiet weekend? I’m starting to think I need a
Terms and Conditions
document to go with your requirements.”

James gave her that sexy smirk that she loved. “It means that you stay in this building for majority of the weekend.”

She brought the tip of her thumb to her lips, thinking it over. What was she going to do in this building all weekend? “Well, that depends. While I think over this travel requirement, are we going to spend time together?”

He didn’t answer her immediately and she knew what he was thinking: there’s no point getting to know each other if it wasn’t going anywhere. But at the same time, she wasn’t going to sit in her apartment all weekend with nothing to do but roam the Internet. If she wasn’t going to be with him, she was definitely going out.

“For this weekend, yes,” he said finally.

Mak nodded her head. “Tell him to go, then.”

James brought the phone back to his ear, holding it in place with his shoulder while he loaded their plates and cutlery into the dishwasher.

Mak listened as he told Deacon she was ‘more or less’ staying in for the weekend. She noted he didn’t say he’d spoken with Cami, or that he’d spoken with Mak—he omitted that part of the conversation completely, leaving Deacon to assume the route he’d taken.
Crafty move
,
Thomas.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” James said with an odd expression on his face.

Mak shrugged her shoulders, playing dumb. “Like what?” She knew with a man like James it was best if he didn’t know what she was thinking—the more she could put together about him, without him realizing, the better. There was a lot you could learn about a person via keen observation.

He tilted his head to the side, studying her now. She gave him nothing, and then, when he’d obviously given up, he walked around the island and sat down on the bench seat next to her, his legs forming a
V
around her.

“Are you tired?” James asked.

Mak looked at the time on the oven clock, seeing it was well after midnight. She was exhausted after the week she’d had but she wasn’t quite ready to say goodnight either.

“Not particularly,” she said.

“You’re a good liar,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss her.

She brushed her lips over his and she felt her chest flower with lust. She closed her eyes and kissed him. He moaned and then dragged her stool closer. He took control of the kiss, exploring her mouth with his fluid tongue. When he said her name, it sounded equal parts lust and torture.