Clare Connelly: The Debt / Cross My Hart

‘What do you want?’ His voice was as rough and gritty as sandpaper, and his stare skewered me like a pin through a butterfly. ‘I told the hotel I wasn’t to be disturbed.’

Obviously I was getting a taste of Mr Evans’s famous rudeness. So far, so billionaire. And to be honest, nothing I hadn’t come across before either driving or in the Australis workshop.

‘I’m not from the hotel,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I’m your chauffeur.’

‘Chauffeur?’ He ignored the hand I was still holding out. ‘I usually have Bill.’

‘He wasn’t able to make it to Paris. One of your assistants okayed a replacement.’ I lowered my hand since it didn’t look as if he were going to shake it. ‘Don’t worry, sir. I’ve been given a full rundown of your—’

‘Don’t call me sir. I’m Mr Evans to you.’ He shoved his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘And my assistant never mentioned this.’

With some dudes if you gave them an inch, they took a mile, and clearly Evans was in this camp. I’d found the best way to deal with it was to be as laid-back as possible, all the while making it clear that you were not there to be walked over.

‘I’m sorry you weren’t contacted, Mr Evans,’ I said easily, giving him a wide smile. ‘But that’s not really my problem. I’m just here to do my job.’ And to fix Dad’s little investment issue. But I couldn’t ask him about that now; I needed to build up a little rapport with him first.

There was a silence.

Clearly he did not like my answer, because his gaze became arctic, the electricity in his eyes taking on a bright, cold glint. A sense of threat gathered around him and I could suddenly see why people might be scared of him because that, combined with his height and scarred face, made him pretty damn intimidating.

I wasn’t intimidated, though. I’d dealt with plenty of difficult men in my time and not making things into a drama was the way to handle it.

So I simply stared back and kept my smile easy-going. Letting him know that I wasn’t a threat so he didn’t need to bristle at me the way he was doing now.

His eyes narrowed and I had the oddest feeling that his focus had shifted, zeroing in on me like a laser sight on a high-powered rifle.

It was unnerving since I didn’t much like being stared at, but I didn’t let my unease show. Keep it fuss-free, that was the Little way.

‘Do you speak to all your employers like that?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ I said, with absolute truth. ‘And they’ve all appreciated my laid-back attitude.’ I grinned wider. ‘That’s a direct quote by the way.’

A deep blue spark glinted in his eyes for a second and for some reason I felt an unfamiliar heat rise into my cheeks.

Weird. Why was I blushing? I kept my smile pasted firmly on and hoped the blush would go away.

‘Fair enough.’ He gave me a brief up and down glance then reached out to pick up the black T-shirt that had been draped over the back of a luxurious white couch. ‘Though if you speak to me like that again, you won’t last the night.’

I wasn’t listening. I was too busy being oddly mesmerised by the flex and release of the chiseled muscles of his chest and abs.

Which wasn’t like me at all . It was only that he was just so very…powerful. Like one of the Pythons, Dad’s latest model supercar. Super charged and sleek, with a big V8 engine. The most perfect design. Dangerous in the wrong hands, yet an adrenaline junkie’s dream in the right ones…

‘Do you understand?’

I nearly jumped as the edge in his voice caught me, making me realise I’d been standing there gawping at him with my mouth open.

Dude. Zoning out staring at his body? What is wrong with you?

Purely from a design perspective he was an impressive specimen. Built for strength and power, with not an ounce of fat on him. He could probably deliver the maximum amount of force with maximum efficiency too—

You’re not in the workshop now, idiot, and he’s not a bloody car.

Oh, hell. Of course he wasn’t. And now he’d caught me staring.

I struggled to find my normal chill, trying to think of a jokey way to defuse the situation.

‘Uh, yes,’ was all I could come up with.

His gaze narrowed further. ‘You’d better,’ he said, his upper-class British accent completely at odds with the roughness of his voice, his scarred face and worn jeans. ‘I’m not accustomed to repeating myself.’

Concentrate, fool! It’s like you’ve never seen a man before.

Well, to be fair, I hadn’t seen a man like him before.

‘Sorry, Mr Evans.’ I grinned like an idiot, pretending I wasn’t still blushing furiously. ‘I was thinking about something else.’

He stared at me with the same intense focus as when he’d opened the suite door earlier. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Ellie. Ellie Little.’

Would my surname mean anything to him? Probably not. Evans Investment, his venture capital firm, invested money in a lot of different projects so there was no reason he’d know about our company in particular.

Sure enough, there was no recognition in his eyes as he unexpectedly put out his hand. ‘Good to meet you, Miss Little.’

Now , he wanted to shake? A small, rebellious part of me was very tempted to refuse, which would have been stupid given the massive favour I had to ask of him at some point.

So I ignored the urge, reaching out to take his hand politely instead. Yet as his big palm and long fingers wrapped around mine, the weirdest thing happened.

A jolt of electricity shot straight up my arm, making me jerk my hand out of his before I could stop myself.

Good one, fool.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘Damn static.’

An odd expression I couldn’t quite decipher crossed his face, making the unsettled feeling inside me deepen.

My heart was beating fast and my skin was tingling where he’d touched me. It felt sensitive, as if I’d been scorched by his fingers.

It wasn’t static, you idiot.

But I didn’t want to think about what else it might have been so I shoved that thought away and put my hands behind my back instead. ‘Ready when you are, Mr Evans,’ I said, as if nothing had happened.

He gave me another of those intense searching looks, though what he was searching for I had no idea.

‘Go down and wait in the car,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

With one last dismissive glance, he turned away, the colours of the tattoo on his back flashing, leaving me with no other option but to do as I was told.

Ash

I LOOKED OUT of the window of the limo, watching a string of couture-clad people file through the entrance into the elegant historic brick building, and allowed myself a certain sense of satisfaction.

Finally. Fucking finally .

Here I was, outside the door to the most exclusive private members’ club in the world: The Billionaires Club.

Joining was by invitation only—an invitation that only came once your bank balance reached a certain level. A cool billion, obviously.

Mine had come a week ago in the form of a hand-delivered black envelope with a simple gold seal on the back and my name, Mr Ash Evans, written in cursive on the front.

Inside was a heavy slice of black platinum the size of a credit card, embossed with the club insignia: an M with two bars over the top of it, the Roman numeral for billion.

An exclusive club for the rich and famous.

And here was I, the scum of the streets, with a key.

Dad would be turning in his fucking grave. He’d have hated the thought of his bastard son finally having access to everything he’d denied him over the years.