The Red Eye (The Red Eye Romance Series Book 1) Read online

  “Bearable?” I arched an eyebrow.

  Malcolm had the good grace to look sheepish. “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s okay. I know exactly what you mean. And you’ve done the same. Made the flight bearable, that is. It’s been good to offload my problems.”

  “Well, if we ever find ourselves on the same flight again, feel free to come to me for more advice about your love life.”

  “Thanks, but with any luck, this won’t be a regular thing.” I slid out of my seat. “Hopefully I’ll win this contract, fly back to a nice, big promotion, and then I’ll get to send one of my staff out on the red eye.”

  “Here’s hoping.” Malcolm lifted a pretend glass. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.” He got up and fetched his bag from the overhead compartment, then passed me my luggage.

  “Thank you.” I took my bag. For a moment, something passed between us, a sense that we should be saying something, agreeing to see each other again, but then the time had gone by and we made their way off the flight, waved, and proceeded to go our separate ways.

  Once I’d made my way through the airport, I went out, expecting to see a driver waiting for me, but despite a crowd of drivers standing around holding up boards with names of their passengers, not one that I could see was there for Rebecca Bevan.

  “Looking for someone?”

  I turned to see Malcolm standing at my shoulder. “There should have been a driver booked for me, but it looks as though they’re late.”

  “I can give you a ride if you need one.”

  “Oh, no, there’s no need for that. If worse comes to worse, I can just catch a cab.”

  “Oh no, don’t be like that, come on, let me drive you. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

  I fished in my bag for the details of my hotel. “I don’t believe it.” I scrabbled around frantically, looking for the paper that told me where I should be. “I can’t find my itinerary.” My heart sank as I realized that everything I needed was in the luggage left at home.

  “Seriously?” Malcolm smiled as I tipped my bag out on the ground, frantically looking through all the receipts and scraps of paper for the information I needed. “Look, Rebecca, why don’t you just come back to my place and freshen up? You can contact your office from there and I’ll take you to your hotel.”

  “But what if you’re a mad, axe-wielding murderer?”

  “Got me again.” Malcolm put up his hands in surrender. “Seriously, though, Rebecca, this is me, not an axe-wielding murder, extending a genuine offer to you, a most gorgeous woman in need. No funny stuff. I promise. It’s just that I know you’ve been through a bit of a rough time and you look as though you could do with a friend. I know if it were me I’d need one.”

  I thought for a moment. Although I’d only just met him, there was something about Malcolm that made me feel that I could trust him. Sure, I could just check into the airport hotel and make a few calls from there, but I’d enjoyed spending time with him, and a few hours more wouldn’t do any harm.

  “Okay.” I smiled. On faith.

  #

  “So here we are. Home sweet home.” Malcolm pushed the door open to his apartment and stepped aside to let me go in first.

  “Wow.” I looked around. I was in a large apartment overlooking Central Park. The living room was spacious, comfortable looking, with an L-shaped couch and a TV the size of the wall. The kitchen and dining room was off to one side, and the wall facing the park had floor-to-ceiling windows, where I could see a team of ducks swimming around on the lake, probably without a care in the world. Opposite the entrance was a corridor leading to what I presumed was the bedroom.

  “Make yourself at home.” Malcolm gestured toward the sofa. “Want a drink? Coffee? Tea?”

  “Coffee would be great,” I said. “I need something to kick my brain into gear. How on earth Miles thought that I could be coherent for an important meeting, I don’t know.”

  “Well, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who thinks of anyone but himself, to be honest. It seems to me that he passed the task over to you so that he could take the credit for choosing you if you got it, and if you didn’t, well, not his fault that you were incompetent. Win-win for Miles; not so great for you.”

  “It’s not—” I wanted to defend him, but couldn’t. What Malcolm was saying made a whole lot of sense.

  “Look, Rebecca, don’t you think you deserve better?” Malcolm reached from behind my back to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind my ear. He looked into my eyes, and I felt my heart triple beat. If he kissed me, I didn’t know what I would do. Part of me wanted nothing more than to feel his lips press against mine, his hands run down my back before coming around to unbutton my blouse, but there was another part of me that still wanted to be faithful, give Miles one more chance to prove himself.

  “I’ll get you that coffee,” Malcolm said, going over to the dining area. “How do you take it?”

  “Plenty of cream, no sugar.” I walked to take a better look out of the window. The sun was starting to rise over the park, the deep red of its rays bathing everything in an eerie reddish glow. “Your views are amazing.”

  “Thanks.” Malcolm came up to stand next to me, passing me a large, steaming mug. “Dad bought it for me.”

  “I wish I had a dad who’d buy me an apartment.”

  “It was guilty conscience,” Malcolm told me. “He always gets generous when one of his marriages fails. This was a present after wife number three decided she was going to divorce him. Most of the time he’s a complete miser, but when he thinks he’s going to end up alone, he tries to buy my affections. That way he can feel that there’s still one person in this world who cares about him.”

  I thought about my parents, still happily married after forty years. They might not be able to afford to buy me a swanky apartment, but they’d shown me that true love was possible with the right person. One day, I hoped to find the happiness they had. I had thought it would be with Miles, but maybe I needed to broaden my horizons.

  “Look. I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Malcolm said, “but would you let me take you out to dinner tonight? I’d love to show you around New York. There’s a great little restaurant I know, and—”

  “Yes.” I didn’t need to take any time to think about it. “I’d really like that.” He had no idea just how his invitation cheered me up. It had been so long since someone had invited me out. I’d been so immersed in my work that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to flirt with someone. If I was honest, one of the reasons why I was with Miles was because it was easy. For a long time, having someone I could keep at a distance was just what I needed, but I wanted to be the one to end things. Miles wasn’t supposed to pull away from me like this. Perhaps if I spent some time with another man, Miles would wake up and realize what he was missing.

  Malcolm smiled back, and for a second I thought, again, that he would kiss me, but instead he took a sip from his coffee.

  Ugh!

  “Do you mind if I freshen up?” I asked, feeling disappointed.

  “Of course not.” Malcolm took me by the elbow and guided me to the door opposite the entrance. “Here you go. The en suite’s just through there. Help yourself to anything you need. If you want to take a shower, there are fresh towels in the bathroom. Just leave them on the floor when you’re done and the maid will take care of them.”

  “Great.” I grabbed my bag and went into Malcolm’s bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I headed over to the bathroom and started the shower. It wasn’t long before the room had steamed up and I stepped under the jet of water.

  “Oh my God.” I melted, feeling the warmth against my skin, washing away all the smut and grime that had built up during the flight. By the time I was done, I felt human again. After wrapping myself in one of Malcolm’s towels, I wiped the condensation away from the mirror and examined my reflection. I’d need a little makeup to cover the rings under my eyes. Much as I’d enjoyed chatting to Mal
colm, it had ended any chance of my catching some sleep.

  Maybe he’d let me grab an hour or two before my meeting that afternoon, although the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might make more sense for me to check into a hotel. There was something seriously distracting about Malcolm that made me more nervous than comfortable.

  Lucky for me, I had some spare clothes in the bag I did bring, and a change of underwear did wonders for my mood and to make me feel like a professional woman, clean and ready for business. I got dressed quickly and decided to take a few moments to look around Malcolm’s room. There was a lot to be learned about what someone was like by how they decorated their personal space.

  The bed was neatly made with chic black bedding. There were bed stands on either side, a clock radio sitting on one of them. By the doorway to the en suite there was a bookshelf, and I crossed over to look at the photos on one of the shelves, picking them up to get a closer look. At first, they looked like typical family photos, but as I browsed through them, something slowed my hand to a stop. I recognized the man in the picture standing next to Malcolm.

  Strong jaw, black salt-and-pepper hair, tall, and in shape for a man his age and younger… the man in the picture with Malcolm was Grayson Caesar.

  “Fuck!” I stifled my cry of frustration. Had I been played? All this time, “Malcolm” had hidden the fact that he was the competition while he pumped me for information, no doubt to use in their pitch for the contract. And here I was, the idiot that blabbed all business, from what was going on at work to the affair I was having with Miles. If that bone in my closet went public, it would be disastrous.

  My first instinct was to rush out and confront Malcolm, but I decided against it. If he knew that I’d discovered who he was, then everything would change. If I didn’t tell him that I knew his secret, then maybe I could use that to my advantage somehow.

  Regardless, I needed some time to think, and I wanted to get as far away from him as possible.

  “Rebecca? Is everything all right?” Malcolm’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  “Fine,” I replied. “I just got a text from the office. They’ve sent over the details of my hotel. I’m going to go and check in, if that’s all right with you?”

  I opened the door to see him standing there. “Of course it is.” He said, “I’ll just grab my keys.”

  “No, no, please don’t,” I told him. “I don’t want to cause you any more trouble. I’ll catch a cab.”

  “Um, I mean yeah… if you’re sure. Are we still on for dinner?”

  “Sure.” I hoped my smile didn’t look too forced.

  Malcolm wrote his number down on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Well, here’s my number. Text me later when you know you’re going to be free and we’ll arrange to meet up.”

  “Will do. And thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Malcolm replied.

  I’ll bet it was, I thought. Still, if Malcolm thought that he’d gotten one up on me, he had another thing coming. He was about to learn that I was more than just a pretty face. He was about to learn that I could be vicious as well.

  Five

  “Let me walk you down to find a cab,” Malcolm offered.

  “No, no, it’s okay, you don’t have to.”

  Malcolm waved away my objections and picked up my bags. “It’s not a problem. I insist. Besides, it can be tricky getting cabs to stop on my block. There’s a certain knack to it. I’d hate to think of you down there all alone while cabs speed past you.”

  I didn’t have much of a choice, so I followed Malcolm out to the elevator, praying that I’d get a cab quickly and wouldn’t have to spend any more time with him.

  “What time do you think you’ll be free this evening?” he asked.

  “Um… I don’t know. Why don’t I’ll text you when I’m all done?”

  “Great. I can’t wait to take you to Ivanelli’s. Their porterhouse steak is to die for.”

  “Sounds fab.”

  We arrived on the ground floor, and I rushed out to the street, looking around to see if I could spot a cab.

  There! “Taxi!” I cried. The yellow cab pulled over straightaway. “I thought you said there was a knack to hailing a cab?”

  Malcolm shrugged, grinning. “You can’t blame me for making an excuse to spend more time with you.”

  He put my bags in the trunk and then leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. “See you later,” he said in a tone that held a world of promise.

  “Where to?” asked the driver as I shut the door.

  “Just drive,” I told him. “I’ll let you know where we’re going in a minute. Just get me away from here.”

  Shrugging, the driver pulled away, and I pulled out my phone. Pulling up the text screen, I quickly tapped a note to Cindy asking her to send over the details of my hotel. Hopefully she’d be in the office soon and I wouldn’t have to wait too long to find out where I was supposed to be.

  “Is there an internet café close to here?” I asked.

  “Sure.” The driver nodded. A couple of minutes later, he’d pulled up outside an unassuming building. I gave him a generous tip, grateful that he’d rescued me from Malcolm, and headed in to get online.

  “Know thy enemy,” I muttered, pulling up a search engine and typing in Grayson Caesar. Instantly I was rewarded with images of the successful lawyer. I clicked on an image of him to get a closer look. He looked to be in his late fifties, and he was the kind of man you knew would never have any problems attracting woman. His jet-black hair was sprinkled with salt, becoming more consistently white at the ends, but rather than aging him, it simply added to his charisma.

  He was standing arm in arm with a stunning young woman who looked to be around Malcolm’s age. According to the article, this was Amelie, his fourth wife, and the pair were known for their generosity and charity work. This particular shot was taken at a fundraiser for one of Grayson’s favorite charities, the ALS Association, but for all that Grayson looked like the epitome of the benevolent donor, I knew that he was cutthroat when it came to business.

  I couldn’t see any photos of Malcolm, so I typed in “Grayson Caesar’s son.”

  “Bingo,” I whispered, when I pulled up multiple shots of a man who was unmistakably the guy I had come to know and like. “Let’s find out who you really are, Malcolm.”

  The first thing I learned was that Malcolm wasn’t his name. “Of course it isn’t,” I said to myself. “That would have to mean you were being honest.” Malcolm’s real name was Devon Caesar, and he was the heir to Grayson’s entire company and fortune. “Not too bad for young upstart, Devon. Too bad you’re such a fucking liar.”

  As I scrolled down the screen, I struggled to find two photos of Devon with the same woman. There was an endless string of attractive women, many of whom I recognized from the movies, or models in magazines, hanging off his arm like a towel, all looking as if they were the cat that caught the canary—but the thing about birds is they all have a need to take flight, most sooner than later.

  I clicked on one of the images at random to read the accompanying story.

  Devon Caesar, one of New York’s most eligible bachelors, caused a stir last night when he was seen stepping out with Ophelia Devoux, Hollywood’s latest sweetheart. Having previously been romantically linked with socialite India Dutton, Devon set tongues wagging when he and Ophelia went to the red carpet premiere of Ophelia’s latest film, Walk on the Wild Side. When asked about his relationship status, Devon was tight-lipped, but Ophelia was more than happy to say that she was very excited about their future.

  I checked the date of the story. Three months old. Clearly Devon had moved on since then, because I found similar stories posted more recently, featuring different women.

  I shook my head in disbelief. The nerve of him. Not only had he lied to me about his identity in order to pump me for information about my pitch, he’d had the audacity to invite
me out on a date. Presumably, he figured that he could win the contract and get me into bed as a nice little bonus.

  “Well if you think I’m that easy, you’ve got another thing coming, mister.” I spoke the words through my teeth. My only consolation was that I was lucky I escaped. If I hadn’t spotted that photo, I might still be at his apartment, and then who knows what would have happened and how good it would’ve been.

  I thought back to Devon. He actually was my type, tall, with jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes. He’d taken after his father as far as his looks went, and it appeared he was just as much of a player as well. Like father, like son.

  Well, this time he’d bitten off more than he could chew. I checked the watch on my wrist. I still had a few hours before my meeting with Douglas Leeson, and I was going to make the most of it if it killed me.

  I logged in to my private email and sent Miles a quick message.

  I lost one of my bags and I don’t have the right clothes for the meeting. I need to shop and I’m going to expense it, so don’t panic when you see it on the credit card.

  Figuring that Miles could always text me to not go overboard, I picked up my things and headed out to find the perfect outfit for my meeting.

  #

  If there was one thing I knew, it was how to sniff out the perfect outfit, and I’d soon found something that I thought would be ideal to impress Douglas Leeson—and at the same time show Devon what he was missing out on.

  Having finished my shopping, I decided to really pamper myself after spotting a nail shop and deciding that a manicure was just what I needed.

  As I walked into the salon, my phone beeped. Cindy had finally come through with details of my hotel. Any longer and I would have gone to the nearest Hilton. As it was, my booking was just round the corner from Leeson’s offices, making it easy for me to be at his beck and call if need be.

  Settling into a chair, I heard my phone again, the unmistakable ring tone of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” my private joke when it came to calls from Miles.