Maiden and the Lion (2 page)

Bea dared herself to crawl farther into the river bank. There was a gravely spot where she could get into the water without having to jump and make unnecessary noise. She squinted, trying to distinguish between the reflections from the water and if there was a body floating.

Nothing.

She looked up to the bridge again.

It was pretty damn high. If that person had survived the bullet, there was only a slim chance he or she would still be alive after diving from such a height. The impact alone would crush that person’s lungs the moment the body hit the water.

Did people float after they plunge into a river? Like dead bodies on TV?

Bea got restless.

She should call nine-one-one and report what she’d seen.

Like, now.

There was no way…

Her breath stalled in her throat.

Holy shit.

She narrowed her eyes. At first, it was rather hard to spot, but it was there. A body slowly drifted along the current. The man was wearing dark clothes. Suit. Dark hair. His face was obscured by the water. Would he still be alive? Or was he dead already?

Her stomach lurched at her thought of touching a dead body.

But there was a chance he could still be saved.

Shit. What the hell…

Bea ditched her flip-flops and tiptoed into the water. She shivered. It was freaking cold. She crushed the last wave of hesitance and finally decided to swim silently into the river. Luckily, she was a pretty decent swimmer. She’d been part of the swimming team when she was in high school. A few dozen strokes and Bea was able to snatch the man’s collar. She pedalled back towards the bank. The man weighed a ton. Chills seeped into her bones. By the time she had reached the river bank, she felt as if she had competed for a marathon. Her lungs were burning.

Bea panted. She inspected the man.

He wasn’t breathing.

Damn. She didn’t know how to perform CPR. But she’d seen people do it on TV. Pump the chest. Pinch his nose and give him mouth-to-mouth.

Oh, man. Mouth-to-mouth on a stranger?

Bea cleared some stray hair from the man’s face. Her heart stopped beating for a second.

Christ on Crackers.

Mr Larousse? Mr Alexandre Larousse?

“Oh, no,” she muttered. She tried to wake him. There was no mistake. It was really him. Her boss. Her hot boss. The man she had been secretly fantasising over since she had started working for the firm. What were the odds of meeting him like this? Or under these circumstances?

For a moment, Bea didn’t know what she should do.

Oh, yeah. CPR. Pump his chest.

Bea put her palms on Alex’s chest. One. Two. Three. She pinched his nose and plastered her mouth on his, blowing as much air as she could manage into his lungs. It didn’t work. Bea tried to pump his chest again then repeated the process.

Under the moonlight, Alex’s handsome face looked frighteningly pale. Not good. Her gaze skated down. Her wet hands felt oddly sticky. Blood. Alex had been shot. On his upper chest. Bea frantically yanked off his tie and opened the front of his jacket suit and shirt.
God, no
. The entrance wound welled with blood.

She should call nine-one-one. Her cell was in the van.

But he wasn’t breathing.

CPR first, then call for help, she reasoned. Right.

Again, Bea pumped his chest, pinched his nose and gave him mouth-to-mouth. Alex still didn’t respond. Bea did it over and over until a deep exasperation convinced her that Alex was beyond help. He was dead. The jarred thought scared the shit out of her. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t! He hadn’t been her boss for even a month. It wasn’t fair.

Wake up, you bastard!
Bea pounded his chest with her fist.
You ignore me at work and now you ignore me when I try to save your life? Wake up, damn it! Breathe!

To her astonishment Alex coughed. Water spewed from his mouth.

Bea quickly helped him lean onto his side so he could clear all the river water from his lungs.

“Mr Larousse, are you okay?”

That was a dumb question. Of course he wasn’t okay. The man hadn’t even been breathing a few seconds ago.

Alex coughed and coughed, sounding as if he were trying to expel his lungs from out of his throat. He gasped and slumped against the muddy, gravely bank. His eyes opened to the sky.

“Mr Larousse?”

His gaze cut to her, bearing recognition. “Beatrice?”

She hadn’t expected him to remember her name, considering the way he acted in the office. He always called her ‘Miss’, as if he didn’t want to bother learning her full name.

“I’ll call for help. Just hang in there, Mr Larousse.”

Unexpectedly he grabbed her arm. “No.”

“What do you mean, no? You’ve been shot.”

“I said no!”

Jesus. The man was bossy at work, and now he was still annoyingly bossy as she was trying to save his ass. “But you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re bleeding.”

Alex closed his eyes tiredly.

“Mr Larousse?”

His eyes snapped open. “Don’t call the police.”

“Why?” Had he done something illegal that he didn’t want the police involved in?

“Just…” Alex inhaled a deep breath. “Don’t call anyone. Just…drive me home.”

But he was bleeding all over the place. He could die from losing too much blood.

“But, Mr Larousse…”

“If you want to keep your job, Bea, do as I say.”

Ugh. He had been like this ever since she had started working for him directly. Bea hadn’t been able to believe her luck when she’d got the inter-department transfer job. She had been promoted from a clerk in the mail room to Alex’s personal receptionist. She manned Alex’s office and his calls, working closely with Sarah Krueger, the Larousse brothers’ executive secretary.

Her supervisor, Jada—one of the few genuinely nice human beings in the firm—thought Bea deserved room to grow. So when Jada had heard Alex’s receptionist had suddenly quit, Jada had championed Bea with high recommendations to Ms Krueger. To Bea’s surprise, Ms Krueger had picked her among several candidates, many of whom had been prettier and more qualified than Bea. Ms Krueger had said she liked her style. Bea still didn’t quite understand what Ms Krueger had meant. She didn’t dress flashy or put too much makeup on like the other girls in the office. Nor could she afford to dress in expensive clothes. Not as she’d supported her alcoholic father since she had been sixteen.

Bea had had a crush on Alex since she’d first seen him in the elevator of the firm’s building. She’d had an interview for the mail clerk job and had been nervous. At that time, she hadn’t known who Alex really was. He had been a handsome stranger who had been kind enough to direct her to the human resource’s office and had wished her good luck. Later, Bea had found out the man was one of the firm’s owners. Whoa. Working for Alex had been a dream come true. Even though as her direct boss, Alex had turned out to be an arrogant and snappish jerk.

What’s up with that?

“Mr Larousse.” Bea prodded him gently. “I don’t know where your home is.”

He scrambled up to sit. Bea helped him stand. He staggered.

“Where’s your car?” His voice was hoarse.

“I’ve parked over there.”

“Show me.”

Bea held him, half supporting his weight as he trudged towards her van. He sunk onto the passenger seat and immediately passed out.

Oh, Jesus.
Bea sighed in frustration.
Now what am I going to do?

She couldn’t call nine-one-one. He had forbidden her. But Alex seriously needed medical attention. Bea scurried to the other side and climbed in, rummaging for something she could use to stop the bleeding. She had her clothes in plastic bags in the back of the van. She began pulling at random. Shorts. No. Dress. No. Blazer. Hell no. She didn’t have many decent clothes to wear for work. An oversized Hello Kitty T-shirt that she usually wore to sleep. Hmm.

Bea pondered for two seconds. Fine. She could sacrifice it.

She got into the driver’s seat and yanked open Alex’s shirt. The wound still oozed blood. She balled the shirt and pressed hard on it to suppress the bleeding. Alex jerked and flailed. Bea yelped in surprise. She was thrown out from the driver’s seat. Tawny fur and something with paws flashed across her vision.

Her ass landed on cold, wet ground. Her back hit a rock. “Shit!” she wailed.

For a moment, she couldn’t believe what had just happened.

As a matter of fact, what
had
just happened?

Bea hoisted herself off the ground and froze.

A huge, male lion covered in tattered pieces of Alex’s clothes growled.

“Mr Larousse?” Bea called, unsure.

A pair of luminous yellow eyes cut to her direction.

Fuck. That’s a stupid move, idiot!

Bea thought the lion was going to pounce on her and eat her as a snack. To her relief, the big beast leapt away and disappeared into the bushes.

Bea numbly put her hand on her chest. Yep, her heart was still pumping. No, she hadn’t died from a heart attack.

She blinked.

What the hell was that?

Was that lion Alex?

Impossible.

Then, how could she explain where he had gone?

Forcing her legs to cooperate, she dragged herself to walk around to the passenger side. She found torn pieces of fabric. White. Light blue cotton. Black Italian wool that used to be Alex’s expensive suit. Torn black leather of his shoes. Alex had gone totally Incredible Hulk on her. Only, he hadn’t turned into a green giant with a terrible temper. He had gone lion.

It just didn’t make sense. A man didn’t just transform into a lion. It was scientifically impossible. That lion must have weighed roughly about six or seven hundred pounds. He was way bigger than any lion she had seen in the zoo. Alex weighed roughly one hundred and ninety pounds. He was tall and very well-muscled. A two-hundred-pound mass couldn’t just shift into a six-hundred mass without gaining it from somewhere. Like those Transformers movies. Cars morphed into huge robots. Didn’t make sense.

She must have been having one hell of an hallucination. She’d got high on Harlem River water.

But how about this evidence?

Alex’s blood was smeared over the passenger seat and some had got onto the dashboard as well. Bea noticed something on the ground near the front tyre. She bent down to pick it up. It was Alex’s wallet—a brown leather Gucci. Bea found his driver’s licence, credit cards and insurance cards in it. Money. A few hundred dollars, it seemed.

Bea slowly exhaled her breath through her clenched teeth. She was cold, wet and bewildered.

Alex, where are you?

What are you?

She trudged back into the other side of the van to change into dry clothes.

* * * *

Alex didn’t remember exactly how he had gained entrance into Cat’s office. The next thing he knew, an irritated female voice was snapping him out of his lucid dream.

“Alexandre Larousse! How many times must I tell you, I don’t like seeing your naked butt.”

Ah, shit. He had heard his sister-in-law’s voice. Catherine. Gabe’s mate. She grumbled unhappily and fetched a blanket from somewhere then hastily draped it over his naked body.

Alex found himself slumped against the wall, near the reception desk. A vicious headache pounded his head. He felt as if he had been run over by a Mack truck. Dull pain began to form in his chest. Alex instinctively groped it and found the wound had completely mended. The bullet had torn his flesh but it had made a clear exit.

Someone had saved him from the river. A woman.

Bea.

Beatrice. His new receptionist. The woman he had tried to protect.

He remembered the man in a trench coat. Bullets. Water. And Bea. She’d tried to wake him.

Had Bea saved him from drowning? Fuck. How the hell had she done that?

And what had she been doing by the Harlem River?

He sat straight and checked himself. He was dirty. Smelt like a mouldy and damp closet that hadn’t been cleaned for years. Not a single thread covered his body. He had lost his gun, clothes, shoes and wallet. A dry leaf was stuck to his knee. Alex smelt coffee. His stomach suddenly gave a nudge of hunger. “You got coffee?”

“Yeah. And doughnuts.” Cat crouched next to him. She looked fresh, with minimal makeup. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. Her conservative clothes made her look younger than she really was.

“Can I have some?”

“Sure. Just do something about your nude habit first. I know it’s natural for lions to prance around bare-assed in the wild. Just not in Jersey. We’ve seen enough weirdoes. Thank you.”

Alex got up and made himself decent with the ratty old blanket Cat had given him. Where did she get this stuff? He wondered if Cat used to have a dog. The blanket smelt like one. Or a cat. How nice. “Happy?”

“Very,” Cat replied blandly.

He sank on the chair in front of the receptionist desk. Cat got two mugs and divided the Venti Starbucks cappuccino between them. She pushed one mug in his direction. He drank it with delight as Cat opened a bag of doughnuts she’d got from De Sals, a bakery two blocks down from the agency’s office.

The coffee was good, but the doughnuts were excellent. He had already eaten two when he eyed Cat’s share. “Can I have that one?” he asked. The glazed doughnuts were practically melting in his mouth.

“What? You go get yourself some if you still want more.” Cat guarded her doughnuts.

“I would, but I’m naked and got no money.”

Cat rolled her eyes and gave him the one doughnut left.

Alex demolished it in three bites. God. It felt so good to have something in his stomach. Especially after shifting. And especially after being shot. Healing took a lot of energy. He drank the rest of the coffee in several large gulps, not caring that it was scalding his tongue.

His sister-in-law studied him. “Wanna tell me what happened to you? You busted the front door. I’m going to bill you for that.”