“But I haven’t even done any work yet.”
“You helped to save Gemma’s life. I’d say that counts.” Alaric got up and headed for the door, but before he reached it, he turned and looked right at me, his gaze intense. “Take some time to think about this. I live in the shadows, Beth. I’m no Prince Charming. And I’m not the kind of man you throw away your entire future for. It’s only a job.”
No, it wasn’t only a job.
Alaric had said he wouldn’t lie, but he just did. If I was going to give up everything, then he was exactly the kind of man I’d do it for.
CHAPTER 49 - ALARIC
ALARIC HEADED UPSTAIRS, his heart heavy. One week. One week, and he’d gotten in so deep with Beth that it would hurt like hell to see her go.
He hated that her old man had given her an ultimatum. For one crazy moment, he considered trying to talk to the asshole, but he quickly saw sense. Bertram Stafford-Lyons had the same character as Alaric’s own father. There was no reasoning with either of them.
And Alaric knew how difficult it was to walk away from everything. There’d been times in that first year—like the weeks he spent in a Mozambique hospital, shitting his guts out from malaria—that he’d wished he could turn back the clock and go begging to the people he’d left behind. Life alone had been hard. Beth wouldn’t be on her own, not completely, but when she lost her inheritance, would she grow to resent him for splitting up her family?
It wasn’t a decision she should make lightly.
And then there was his lifestyle. He’d always danced on the edge, and he didn’t know how to live any other way. Didn’t want to live any other way. Tonight, Emmy had diced with death, but next week, it could easily be his turn. Of course, all the risks he took were calculated, but they were still just that: risks. Plus he didn’t need any emotional entanglements, not right now, and Beth was the very definition of temptation.
Damn, he wanted her.
That slip of the tongue downstairs, the way she’d looked at him… He’d had to leave because otherwise he’d have dragged her into his arms and made the decision for her. His dick still disagreed with his choice. Sex had always been his favourite way to relieve stress. But sometimes it caused more problems than it solved. Like that last night with Emmy at Riverley, for example. If he hadn’t been so busy fucking her, perhaps he’d have done a final check of the pay-off, and then they’d know for certain whether the switch had occurred before he left for the handover. No, he couldn’t afford to get distracted by a woman again, not now. Not when the trail to Red After Dark was still so fresh.
Beth would have to make her decision, and he’d have to live with it.
Since he’d offered her his bed tonight—without him in it—and Judd was due back in the early hours, that left him two choices: wait until Beth went to sleep and then take the couch, or share with Ravi.
It wasn’t hard to make up his mind.
Ravi was sprawled across the bed, face down and buck naked, but when Alaric slipped into the room, he mumbled into the pillow.
“Thought you’d be with Beth.”
“We talked. She knows.”
“Knows everything?”
“About Emerald. And a little of my past.”
Ravi rolled onto his side and propped his head up on one hand. “How’d she take it?”
“Better than I thought, but it’s complicated. How are you holding up? It’s not every day you see a man reduced to his component parts.”
“Wired. Fuckin’ wired. I drank a couple beers, but I still can’t sleep. I might go out for a while. Unless…” His gaze settled on the bulge in Alaric’s pants. “Unless you want to take my mind off things?”
Alaric’s history with Ravi was complicated. They’d first hooked up in Phuket seven years ago. A double-booking at a hostel led to them sharing a room and later a bed. It was meant to be a fling, nothing more—a week of sex and snorkelling and the kind of companionship Alaric had missed since he left the US. A week turned into a month, then fate intervened. Naz and Judd showed up one evening, and all hell let loose.
Now, Alaric and Ravi were colleagues above all else. They’d never gotten into deep-and-meaningful territory, but occasionally when they needed to blow off steam, their relationship slipped into friends-with-benefits. It looked as if tonight would be one of those nights.
But as Ravi got to his knees and reached for Alaric’s belt buckle, it didn’t feel the same as it had in the past. No rush of heat, no release of tension. Why? There was nothing between Alaric and Beth. There couldn’t be, not with circumstances as they were. Alaric forced himself into the moment. Ravi had done this dozens of times before, and they’d both enjoyed it. Nothing had changed, had it? Had it? So this time, why did Alaric feel as if he was cheating?
EPILOGUE
THE WOMAN WHO called herself Hevrin Moradi shifted her baby in her arms as she walked across her flat. A fly buzzed past her face, and she waved it away. No matter how many she caught on the sticky spiral of flypaper hanging in the kitchen, there were always more. Probably because there was something dead in Bellsfield House North. Every so often, she caught a whiff of it, and it reminded her of home. Of Rojava.
The smell had grown worse over the last week, and she’d finally plucked up the courage to contact the council and let them know. Probably just a rat, the lady told her. She’d agreed to send out a pest control man, but so far, there’d been no sign of him. Eunice had promised to call if he didn’t show up. Last time there was a rat, she said, it had turned into fifty rats, and besides, she had a problem with her plumbing so she had to phone anyway. The water in her bath wasn’t draining properly, and this morning, her toilet had nearly overflowed when she flushed it.
The knock at the door came again.
“Who’s there?” Hevrin called.
Living on the Bellsfield Estate left her uneasy. Even before Ryland Willis’s death, she’d hated the place, but where else could she go? As an asylum seeker, she wasn’t allowed to work, and even if she could earn money, childcare cost a fortune. She volunteered at a homeless shelter once a week, serving food with Indy on her back, but back in Syria, she’d had a very different job. War had forced her into the tightest of corners.
She missed the old days at home. She missed sitting in the sun with her grandma, eating dates and listening to music on their tinny stereo. She missed growing her own vegetables. She missed the warmth, not just of the sun but of the people in her neighbourhood. Her old house was gone now, reduced to rubble along with her hopes and dreams for the future.
But now… Now, a neighbour was dead. Everyone felt sorry for the man who’d jumped from the roof. For a tortured soul who’d been in such despair that he saw no other way out. The police only took a day to rule it death by suicide, but Hevrin wasn’t so sure it had been an accident. Why? Because first, a man claiming to be from the council had shown up, asking questions. Eunice said he was a debt collector, but Hevrin wasn’t so sure about that either. Debt collectors didn’t buy people groceries.
And then while everyone else was staring at the body, she’d seen him helping the brown-haired girl into a car. The brown-haired girl with blood running down her neck and bruises covering her face.