Beating Ruby (25 page)

TWENTY-SIX

The Socks

“Sometimes I actually stare at your eyes instead of your rack, baby. That’s how fucking much I love you.”

—Piper Nightwings,
Renegade Rider from Hell

Seven fifteen . . .

March was supposed to show up to take me downstairs in less than thirty minutes. I had just gotten out of the shower. My hair was a mess, I was still wearing a towel, I couldn’t find my body lotion . . . but what I
had
found were more gianduiotti in the minibar, so we were getting somewhere.

A ring came from my laptop. I checked the caller ID: Phyllis. Perfect. I sat on the bed, a chocolate candy in hand, while her smiling face and flaming curls appeared on the screen.

“Good evening, Island, are you getting ready?”

“Yup, almost done.” Okay, maybe not almost.

“Fantastic. We’re done setting you up for tonight. That Hendry guy is actually a sweetie. I think March is too harsh on him, you know,” she said, shaking her head.

I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Those tomatoes won’t go down.”

In the chat window, Phyllis dissolved into laughter. “Yeah, my boss can be a little stubborn sometimes.”

“What about my cover? Can you brief me?”

She started reading the file to me. “You are now Maeva Rochebresse. You were born on May 6, 1991, daughter to Chiara Lisi and Bernard Rochebresse. Both deceased, no living relatives—makes it easier for us to weave some secret child into the picture. Your father served seventeen years in a French maximum-security prison for a series of bank robberies. He died there five years ago. The cash from the robberies was never found, and you miraculously inherited twenty million euros on your eighteenth birthday.” Phyllis paused in her debrief; over the line, I heard some typing. “Hendry had his guy set up a social security number and a birth certificate for you. What about those web pages you told me about?”

I checked the chat window on my laptop, in which Colin had just posted a Victory Baby meme to indicate he was done. “All the pages are online, and they’ve been pushed to the top of a dozen search engines’ results. Crawling bots work fast and they’re pretty smart, so these won’t last very long. They’ll quickly figure out our websites are nothing but copies of the real ones with some DNS spoofing. But it should be enough for now. If Van Kreft’s employees look me up in the next few days, they’ll get a consistent profile with social presence, school alumni, and even a mention on Wikipedia!” I said triumphantly.

“Awesome! Did you get yourself something sexy?”

I flushed at the memory of my shopping trip, and the way March had insisted on checking every detail of the gray silk dress I had bought. In the changing room. Needless to say, the saleswoman had imagined the worst, when he had in fact been examining the dress’s cut and seams, with, say, 90 percent pure intentions. “Yeah, I found a nice silk dress. I think I won’t look too bad.”

“Don’t forget the makeup. Your strong points are your eyes and those baby lips. Two coats of mascara; easy on the gloss. Sexy, but natural,” Phyllis instructed.

“Okay. Should I—” I cleared my throat. “Do you think I should pad my bra?”

Her lips twisted into a pout. “Permission to speak frankly?”

“Yes.”

“Two pairs of socks. In each cup.”

Ouch. Straight in the feels. “Okay.”

“Relax, it’s gonna be just fine. March won’t leave you for a second.”

“I know, but we only have tonight. I have to get something out of Wille.”

“And you will. Go kill it!” With this, Phyllis hung up, and I winced at the idea of her encouraging March with those same words.

The next half an hour was a storm during which underwear, shoes, and beauty products flew all over the place. Once I was done, my room looked like it had been rented by Keith Moon. I checked myself in the wardrobe mirror and was satisfied with the results of my efforts. I had only balled one pair of socks in each cup of my bra, though, and the feather-light silk gray dress was a little too short for my taste. It hadn’t seemed that bad in the dressing room, but now that I stood perched atop black stilettos, I had no doubt my thighs were visible from space. I frowned at my short auburn locks. Nope. I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I was born disheveled and would die so.

I took a selfie, which I sent to Phyllis for validation purposes. Never in my life had I felt more like those gorgeous and insecure girls wearing napkins to go clubbing, who end up throwing up their cosmo(s) on the sidewalk, with a stranger holding their hair and offering them an Alka-Seltzer and some BDSM at his place. Wait, wasn’t that from somewhere?

Phyllis texted back her approval. I frowned at my reflection. No cosmos tonight.

A knock at the door forced my mind away from creepy visions of floggers and handcuffs. I hastily shoved my lingerie back in my suitcase and staggered across the room, struggling to get used to the pumps. Maybe I should have gone for lower heels after all.

Our recent adventures had made me cautious. I didn’t open the door immediately, waiting for my visitor to identify himself.

“Island? Are you ready?”

March. I looked around the room. That wouldn’t do. Not for him. “I . . . Uh . . . Just a moment!”

I scrambled to pick up a dozen gianduiotti wrappers from my nightstand and the clothes lying on various pieces of furniture. I spotted the towel I had thrown across the room and folded it carefully, before placing back on its shelf in the bathroom.

Another impatient knock. “Biscuit, are you all right?”

“Yes . . . Just—yes!” I unlocked the door with a flushed face, allowing him in.

Damn. I had forgotten just how good he looked in a tux. I treated myself to a couple of seconds of shameless ogling. The cut was impeccable; not a single wrinkle on his white shirt, and of course, no tie. I had never seen March wear one, and I was starting to wonder if there was a reason behind this particular fashion choice. I smiled. He smiled. And then he didn’t. I followed the direction of his gaze, taking in the slight flaring of his nostrils.

“I have
no
idea how that got there!”

I’d have run to retrieve the pair of frilly panties currently hanging from the lampshade sitting on my nightstand, but March outsped me. He walked to the bed, took the offending garment with a sigh, and moved toward my suitcase.

I lunged to stop him before he could open it. “No!”

“Biscuit, I’ll just—”

“Trust me. You
don’t
want to open this suitcase,” I said, taking the panties from him.

I guess March remembered the state of my apartment: realization dawned on his face. He paled. “I give you five seconds.” With this, he averted his gaze.

It was all I needed to shove the panties in my suitcase and slam it back shut. For good.

When I turned to him, he seemed to have relaxed, but a threatening glint lingered in his eyes. “We’ll talk about that suitcase again . . .”

I acknowledged his warning with a wince, and my attention returned to his tux, remembering the way he had dressed the same for our date in Tokyo. “Not bad, Mr. November.”

He ducked his head, a genuine grin chasing the sanctimonious scowl. “You don’t look too bad yourself, Miss Chaptal.”

My body warmed up a little at the way his heavy-lidded gaze ostentatiously checked the silk dress, lingering on the hem that almost revealed the top of my thighs, before traveling back up. He blinked and opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Holy. Fucking. Raptor. Jesus.

The shaming session wasn’t over, after all. My hands fumbled up to cover my chest. I think you could have fried an egg on my cheeks at that point. “It’s . . . Phyllis said I should put socks, for the seduction job!”

I could see he was battling his own facial muscles not to laugh. A chortle escaped him, though. “Biscuit, I’m not sure that those . . .”

My nose bunched; he hastily completed his assessment. “I meant that they’re . . . fine. I think they’re remarkably fine without the socks.”

“Thank you.” I relaxed. “But I’m keeping the socks. Dries once told me that there’s business and there’s pleasure. The socks are for business.”

“Is that to say”—March moved closer, wrapping his arms loosely around my waist—“that I’ll be allowed to remove them later, for my own pleasure?”

Oh, that deep, velvety voice almost made me want to take them out right this instant. I inched closer, resting my cheek against his chest, and breathed in the hint of citrus and spice floating around him. Soap and aftershave, no cologne. Typical March.

“Maybe . . .”

His voice dropped to a suggestive whisper. “I look forward to it.”

So do I . . .
I looked away to smooth nonexistent wrinkles in my dress. “Business first, though!”

“Business first,” he confirmed, before glancing at the laptop on my bed. “Is everything ready for tonight?”

“Yes, Phyllis briefed me and Colin, and helped us set up a consistent online identity in case they look me up.”

“Excellent. Once you’re with the target, the most important thing is not to try too hard. Just let him talk, nudge him in the right direction when you can, but avoid any direct questions.”

I gave a firm nod.

A chime interrupted us. I took out my phone from my bag and checked the caller ID: Premfield. March observed me while I took the call.

“Hey! How you doing, little bird?”

“Fine. Do you have any news?”

“Oh yeah! Had my little anoraks check recent activity on our servers. Wanted to make sure again, you know.”

Around the phone, my fingers tightened. “So?”

“I think Thom actually managed to connect to Ricardo the night he died, around three. That sneaky bastard accessed Ricardo’s server with the test credentials he had seen me use during his visit. Used a proxy too; never realized there was something wrong with that log entry until we checked the time.”

“That’s when he transferred the money with Ruby! What did he do on Ricardo?”

March stepped closer to listen to Premfield’s answer.

“He copied one file. Encrypted. We’re working on cracking it.”

If the code Thom had copied on Ricardo had been meant to rectify what he had done, then I could now easily guess what would constitute the last piece of his password system. “Professor, try this:
But let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter
,” I suggested.

March and I waited as on the other end of the line, some furious typing took place, until Premfield spoke again. “Was that totally random?” he asked, amazement clear in his voice.

“Not really,” I conceded. “Can you tell me what’s on the file?”

“Some code. A class, actually, named, uhm,
RR
.”

I performed a silent fist pump and felt March’s hand squeeze my shoulder. I looked up to see his smile. He was proud of me, and it was all it took for me to fly to cloud nine.

I took a shaky breath to try to contain my excitement. “Professor, can you give me access to Ricardo? I think we’re gonna need that code.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Delicatessen

“The blood he had just drank from her beautiful neck rushed directly to his crotch, stirring his sinister salami to life.”

—Muffin Thorpe,
Slave to the Rich and Sexy Vampire

As I walked down the hallway leading to the hotel’s restaurant, my heels clicking on the floor, a thrill of excitement raced down my spine. This might, after all, be the closest thing to the spy life I’d ever experience.

Oh yeah, I’m talking about the small pearl pendant that Alex had secured around my neck, under March’s wary gaze, which concealed a fricking itsy bitsy tiny microphone. And I had a spy earplug too! I don’t think they call it that, by the way. March noted with a scornful shrug that it wasn’t that amazing, and anyone could buy that stuff on eBay nowadays. Some derogatory comments regarding the CIA’s budgets followed—likely a form of catharsis for the earlier incident, one that would not involve pummeling Alex into a bloody pulp again.

When the restaurant’s red carpet and golden chandeliers came into view, I took a calming breath and imagined that I was on a catwalk. Miss J’s teachings on
America’s Next Top Model
had to come in handy some day. An uptight maître d’hôtel welcomed us, informing me that my guest had already arrived. He gestured to an isolated table around which two baroque armchairs covered in red damask had been set. In one of them sat a blond guy in his midforties, lean, almost wiry, and wearing a super-elegant tux. I waved a timid hand at him, and he got up immediately, a radiant smile lighting his sharp features.

He greeted me with a soft voice that I found hard to reconcile with his harsh German accent. “Mademoiselle Rochebresse, je présume?”

I batted my two coats of mascara at him. “Yes, and you’re Mr. Wille? I’m delighted to meet you. Your French is excellent!”

I extended my hand for him to shake, but to my surprise, he bowed and took it for an old-fashioned
baisemain
. Behind me, I felt March and Alex stiffen at the sight of his lips grazing the back of my hand. I wanted to snatch it back; I didn’t. This was too important for me to chicken out because of one mildly disgusting physical contact.

Wille seemed to at last acknowledge my two bodyguards and examined them, perhaps waiting for some sort of introductions to be made. I responded with a giggle and slapped both men’s arms playfully. “I’m so sorry about that. A young woman needs her gorillas to keep her safe these days. But I think I couldn’t be safer than with you, Mr. Wille. I’ll send them away, right, boys?”

You could have cut the tension between the three of us with a (Swiss) cheese wire, and I’m pretty sure March and Alex both glared at me when Wille turned to speak to our waiter. Still, they walked away to sit at a nearby table, their eyes never leaving me as I sat down with my guest.

Soon afterward, the waiter came back with two plates of a yummy-looking grilled foie gras and a bottle of Château d’Yquem Wille had chosen to complement it.

Once his glass had been filled, Wille picked it up and swirled the golden liquid inside with a flick of his wrist. “So, I understand you’re looking for some investment advice, Miss Rochebresse?”

I imitated him, but some drops landed on my plate, which I tried to wipe with my napkin. “Please call me Maeva. Yes, I received a . . . certain amount of money from my late father—such a good man, God bless his soul—but for now, it’s just sleeping in several bank accounts, and I read in
Forbes
that some hedge funds returned more than twenty percent last year. So I told myself, ‘You have to do something with all that money, or else it’s gonna, like, melt, because of the inflation,’ you know?”

His blue eyes lingered on my socks insistently. “Yes, yes, the inflation, of course.”

“And my advisor at Valorbank said Mr. Van Kreft was this total genius, and he offered to arrange a meeting with you, and here we are!” I concluded, spreading my foie gras on a slice of bread.

“He is, indeed, a genius, you can trust me, Maeva.” He raised his glass
with a relaxed smile. “Allow me to call a toast to our chance encounter.”

“To our chance encounter! What about you, Mr. Wille, can you tell me more about yourself?”

“You can call me Hannes. Well, I’m but a humble financial advisor and, I believe, a man of my time, who seeks beauty wherever he can,” he said, tilting his head with a smile oozing fake modesty.

I encouraged him to elaborate, and there followed nearly half an hour of brain-melting crap about golf, yachting, ornithology, and his opinion regarding the situation in the Middle East. Then came an in-depth study of the intellectual chasm that led proletarians to rebel against a system that nourished them, and without which they wouldn’t be able to survive because their unfathomable stupidity would drive them to devour each other—literally speaking. The guy quoted Plautus’s proverb,
“Homo homini lupus est,”
and offered cannibalism as an example of what poor people do when you don’t watch them closely.

I didn’t talk much, just nodded and spurred him toward any subject that might lead the conversation back to Van Kreft. Fortunately—or not—Wille didn’t expect his dates to say anything.

Dates . . .

God, this had actually turned into some sort of
date
, right?

This particular point was clarified when he started fondling my hand, while the waiter brought us two . . . octopus risottos. I thought of Krakky, alone in Hadrian Ellingham’s office, crying perhaps. I couldn’t touch mine. Which didn’t bother Wille either. He was now telling me about the joys of skiing in the Alps, and I just wanted his bony fingers around mine gone. Funny how it had been so different during my date with March in Tokyo. He had done the same—the hand touching, I mean, not the asinine rants—but his caresses had made me melt like butter on a pancake, pleasant jolts of electricity dancing on my skin and up my arm with every contact.

“Island, focus!”

“Maeva?
Maeva
?
”

I jumped a little on my chair. In my ear, Alex’s voice had covered Wille’s, reminding me that it wasn’t okay to zone out during a seduction mission, even if your date was super boring and somewhat creepy.

Dammit, I needed to get something out of that guy, because we were reaching dessert already, and so far I had no lead.

“So, you were saying you love skiing? Where do you ski?”

“Well, the Alps have no shortage of exceptional stations, but I must confess to being a bit of a wild man.” Yeah, he was. Like, crazy wild.

I made a show of touching my hair to send him a signal that I found him irresistible. “So where do wild men ski?”

“Backcountry. You can enjoy some exceptional trails on the other side of the border, in Austria. I’m also a hiking enthusiast. The Gafleispitz, for example, is a lovely area.”

My ears perked up. Gafleispitz? As in Gaflei, the place where they had taken Thom? “That sounds incredible! So you, um, go there often?”

“Well, Mr. Van Kreft possesses a residence in Gaflei. We have easy access to the mountain from there,” he explained as the waiter brought us strawberry-ginger gratins and some sorbet.

My eyes darted to Alex and March’s table. Their intense gaze told me everything I needed to know: we had an opening. I counted on all that ginger on Wille’s plate to help me, and I shunned every single drop of modesty I possessed. Swallowing back a wince, I trailed a tentative caress on his hand the same way he had done to me. A slow smile stirred his lips.

I looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes and bit my lower lip for good measure. “I’d love for you to take me—”

Wille leaned toward me, resting his chin on his left hand.

“. . . hiking there. Is Mr. Van Kreft’s manor nice?” I inquired innocently.

On the table, his hand left mine so he could take a bite of his strawberry gratin. He tilted his head, his eyes gleaming with something familiar. I took in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the lazy, lopsided smile. Knots formed in my stomach when I realized that Alex had sometimes looked at me like that. Like he understood things I didn’t . . . like I was dessert.

I pursed my lips as Wille answered. “Well, the manor is what you’d call a
gentilhommière
, dating back to the seventeenth century. Legend has it that it was built around 1680 by an Austrian nobleman as a hideaway for his wife, who had been accused of witchcraft during a widespread hunt.”

“Oh my God, I love these stories! I
have
to see this place!”

He gave me an apologetic smile. “Mr. Van Kreft doesn’t usually receive visitors.”

Too bad, because I
really
wanted Mr. Van Kreft to receive me. I slipped off one of my pumps under the table. In my ear, I heard March’s angry hiss. “Is this absolutely necessary?”

Pretending to rearrange my hair, I turned the spy earplug thing off. I didn’t need his input. Not on what I was about to do. In the twitch of Wille’s brow, I could read the exact instant my bare foot touched his calf. I was fascinated, in a clinical sort of way, by the way his features froze, the knowing smile morphing into an intense, lustful stare. He then resumed eating his strawberry gratin, looking every bit like this was an ordinary business dinner.

“You like experienced men?” he asked casually, his voice low.

I felt my cheeks redden, and I could tell what little foundation I had put on wouldn’t conceal it. The worst part was that, on a rational level, I was mentally cheering at how well the seduction job was going. Not in the way I had imagined, but I had his attention all right.

“Yes,” I breathed out, at the same time that under the table my leg moved up and down with excruciating care, feeling unpleasant chills run down my spine with every awkward caress. I tried to focus on the strategy I had in mind. Never had I been so glad to have read
Slave to the Rich and Sexy Vampire
. Twice. “Hannes, I’ve never . . . done it in a castle. I kind of like, you know, the whole dungeon atmosphere, and the idea of doing . . .
different
kinds of things,” I whispered.

He took my hand again, but this time his fingers curled around mine with quiet urgency. “It might be difficult to arrange. Mr. Van Kreft works a lot.”

Not good enough an answer. I clenched my teeth and kept exploring upward, until, through his pants, my big toe met something that wasn’t his thigh—that wasn’t even his leg, and felt like . . . like raw turkey sausage. Not really soft, not rock-hard like in my Aloha’s Cave books. Just . . .
icky
. Wille’s eyes screwed shut in apparent delight. I jerked my leg back, gripping the edge of the table. His breath was a little short, his smile more carnal than ever, and, help me, Raptor Jesus, he was staring at my socks again.

He took his glass and finished the wine there in one gulp. “Well, Maeva, I will talk to Mr. Van Kreft, and I’m sure we can arrange to see each other at the manor on Friday. I’ll be . . . delighted to see you there.”

As the tension receded, I schooled my features into a childish pout. “Only Friday?”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it feverishly. His palm was sweaty; I fought a gag. “I’m so sorry, but Mr. Van Kreft is hosting a professional event tomorrow, an auction of sorts. You’d find it extremely boring.”

An auction?
“Wow, Mr. Van Kreft also sells art? He’s such an unpredictable man!”

“No, not art. I’m sorry, my dear, these are matters requiring a high level of confidentiality,” Wille said.

“No, I’m the one who should apologize. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Hannes. I’ll see you at the manor on Friday, then.” I squirmed on my chair and bit my lip a little. “Will you text me tomorrow?”

“Of course! And I’ll arrange for my chauffeur to pick you up on Friday morning.”

The contented sigh that escaped me as he sipped his coffee was almost genuine, even though I could feel March and Alex’s blistering gazes on us. I worried about Wille spontaneously combusting when he walked past their table, after having said his good-byes with a long, ambiguous
baisemain
on my knuckles.

I waited for the man to be gone, and got up as well. My knees were shaking a little—and the five-inch heels didn’t help. I passed their table without sparing them a glance, not to attract anyone’s suspicion. I didn’t want to risk anyone who might have accompanied Wille seeing us debrief the dinner.

I sensed their presence behind me, getting up to follow me toward the hallway.

The second we were safely shielded from prying eyes, all hell broke loose. “What was that?” March seethed, struggling to control his strength as he wrapped a possessive arm around my shoulders.

Alex seemed just as pissed. “Island. Never, and I do mean
never
break contact when you’re in the field!”

“I needed to focus without you two complaining in my ear.” I wiggled my right foot, which had touched Wille. “All I want right now is some soap!”

March’s brow shot up. “
Soap?
Island, what happened?
What
did you do under that table?”