Page 74 of Nothing More

Greg chuckled. “I see she has expensive taste like her sister.”

“I’m swelling with pride,” she said, dryly. “We might as well clear out the entire ornament aisle in the store, I suppose.”

“Those’ll hold a lot, that’s for sure. Hey. Let me buy that hot chocolate I promised. You like marshmallows?”

“I’m not sure.”

He put on a mock stricken face. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had marshmallows in your hot chocolate.”

She smiled. “Alright, I won’t tell you.”

“Yikes. We need to rectify that. Stat.” He hooked his thumb toward the lot’s trailer, and headed that way. “Maybe some whipped cream, too.”

She waved him on, smile not as forced as it had been earlier.

He grinned, turned, and jogged the last steps toward the little stand set up beneath the trailer’s awning, where a sour-faced woman was trading cash for steaming foam cups. Raven studied him from behind, given the chance, and asked herself if she was being foolish thirsting after the likes of a moody Russian biker. (She knew she was.) Asked herself if, given enough time, and a little altering of expectations, she could learn to be content with a man like Greg. (She probably could.)

He was a little easier and therefore easier to like than the men she’d dated previously; she put that down to him being American, and less uptight than his British counterparts. And, if the story of his family Christmases was anything to go by, there was a real person under the businessman veneer, maybe even one she’d enjoy spending time with.

The moment the thought passed through her mind, her gaze shifted across the lot…

And collided with a pair of now-familiar brown eyes, peering at her over the lip of a cup, from beneath the shadow of a black hood.

She was so startled to see him, that it took her a full five seconds of gawping before she snapped her mouth shut.

Toly. Toly was here.

And he looked quietly furious, standing beside a cluster of women fussing over a bin of wreaths, sipping hot chocolate with his free hand in his pocket, slouching harder than ever.

His gaze slid slowly away from her, alighted on Greg’s back, and then, sending her heart halfway up her throat, it returned to her, and he started her way.

~*~

Upon leaving Prince’s office earlier, Toly’s frustration had mounted with every step. He’d tried his old trick from back in Moscow: a warm café with fog-smeared windows, a sandwich, a cappuccino. He walked aimlessly, afterward, through fitful snow flurries, waging an internal war with his anger.

Being told to hang back, to let other, less capable men handle the situation, was not only an unusual turn of events, but one bordering on intolerable. There was a buzzing itch under his skin; anger built and built until it was a hard knot of bile at the base of his throat, a savage cursing-out only a hairsbreadth from being delivered to the first person who pissed him off.

Briefly, he contemplated trying to catch a nap at Pongo’s place, but knew he was too unsettled to rest, no matter how little sleep he’d had lately. He’d been told to wait…but he had to dosomething…which was how he wound up skulking a block away from the building that housed Intemporelle, nosing into corners and trash cans, searching for suspicious activity. If Raven was being watched, then that meant her watcher was perched somewhere nearby, with clear sight lines of her office windows, or the front of her building, the entrance to the parking garage – or all three.

An abandoned jumpsuit and a cleaning trolley got him into the offices that peered into hers…just in time for him to see her drawing on her coat and leaving, Cass and Shep in tow…along with a tall, fair man in a crisp suit.

Greg Ingles.

Hewasn’tjealous.

But Shep was inept, and it wasn’t as if he could stand by and let her wander into a dangerous situation. Having her car brought around was a lengthy ordeal, one that gave him time to ditch the costume, get out onto the street, and onto his bike in time to watch the Rover go by. He’d followed them – purely in the interests of serving his club, of course – and that’s how he’d wound up drinking too-sweet hot chocolate in the middle of a crowded Christmas tree lot.

So far, he hadn’t had the chance to stop and marvel over the circumstances.

Through the shifting throngs, he watched Raven’s lips move as she said something to her escort, that overgroomed, smiling idiot whose intentions toward her radiated strong enough to be seen from the top floor of a high-rise. That sort of sickening, obsequious oh-you’re-so-smart, you’re-so-pretty suckup shit that could turn mean quick, and turn to indifference even quicker. Men like Ingles craved power more than anything, he knew, and a woman like Raven was nothing more than a feather in their caps. Once they got what they wanted, put a ring on her finger and locked her down, they returned to their mistresses, their late nights, their boys’ afternoons at their clubs, and only trotted out their wives at business dinners to impress their rivals and their betters.

He'd thought Raven too smart to fall for that routine, but as he watched, the taste of powdered chocolate thick on his tongue, she smiled, soft and a little contemplative, and then laughed at whatever he said in return. Her gaze lifted to touch the side of Greg’s face, as they strolled, as he looked where they were going, and she looked as though she was considering something.

Toly’s stomach turned, and he swallowed hard. Shifted with the crowd so he could keep pace with them from a distance.

A passing woman with a toddler on her hip shot him a suspicious look, and hustled her children away.

A gaggle of teenagers decided to congregate in his path, and he had to divert around them, skirting between trees set so close together he could feel the scratch of the needles on his hands, and smell the crispness of the sap. He hastened his steps, trying to find them again, searching – ah. There.