Clare Connelly - The Debt / Cross My Hart

I was better. And I saw no need to pretend.

The bar was off the main ballroom and was just as gilded and ornate, with quite a few people gathered at the tables and sitting in the gold-velvet-covered booth seats that ran down one wall. Light glittered and dripped from the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, sparkling on jewelled necklaces and glinting off cufflinks. The low hum of voices filled the room along with the heavy beat from the ballroom.

People stared at me as I made my way to the bar and I let them look, enjoying the attention. Me, with my knife-fight scars, in my jeans and T-shirt amongst all the jewels and tuxes.

I didn’t need to imagine what they were thinking. I knew, since it was written all over their faces. They were thinking I didn’t belong. That I was scum from the streets, their reminder that, though they might be insulated from the hard cold realities of life by their wealth, hard cold reality was now also here amongst them.

It amused me. I also didn’t give a shit. They could think what they liked. I’d earned my place here and too bad if they didn’t like it.

Strolling up to the bar, enjoying the way the crowd rippled to give me space, I took another scan around before ordering a drink.

A pretty blonde in a red dress with diamonds sparkling around her neck sidled up to me smiling, her intent very clear.

She was just my type: rich, sophisticated and beautiful. Definitely the kind of woman who’d never let a guy like me, rough and blunt and scarred all to hell, touch her if I didn’t have a billion dollars in my bank account.

Definitely a potential cure for the burn of thwarted attraction and annoyance my little chauffeur had ignited inside me.

I bought her a drink and she put her hand on my chest, leaning in to whisper something filthy in my ear. And that was when I finally spotted him.

He was standing right down the other end, one elbow propped casually on the bar, his head bent to talk to a brunette in a tiny black dress.

A deep satisfaction pulsed through me.

Sebastian Fucking Dumont.

My half-brother and once my closest friend. We’d ruled the exclusive school my mother had forced my father to shell out for—the only money he’d ever given her for me—and we’d had plans. So many fucking plans.

Until he’d stolen those plans for himself.

They say you’re supposed to forgive and forget, but I wasn’t a forgiving kind of man. I never forgot a betrayal, either—and I hadn’t forgotten his.

His blue eyes—so like mine—widened as they saw me and I gave him a savage smile.

Yeah, you rich fuck. Here I am, despite what you did to me. Here, in your territory.

Shock gave way to anger, and he frowned. As I expected. He’d be wondering what I was doing here and why the club had let riff-raff like me into its elite halls. And then, no doubt, he’d be calling someone to have me thrown out for daring to gatecrash.

The bastard was in for a couple of big surprises. Especially when he eventually found out the islands he’d been angling for were already sold. To me.

I smiled wider and gave him a jaunty one-finger salute. I’m a member of your precious club, motherfucker, and what are you going to do about it?

He stiffened, turning away to say something to the brunette before pushing his way through the crowd towards me.

But I was done.

I’d showed my face. I’d proved my point.

Time to find Delaney and buy those fucking islands.

Ellie

I CHECKED THE rear-view mirror again to make sure the entrance to the fancy hotel Mr Evans had disappeared into was still clear and, again, it was.

I didn’t expect him to come back out so soon—not that I’d been given details of the event I’d dropped him off at—but I wanted to be ready when he did. Anything to make up for my little mistake earlier, when I’d attempted to defuse his mood by cheering him up.

I’d thought he looked apprehensive when he’d stared at the crowd outside the doors, so I’d given him a pat and a rousing ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’ talk the way I did with Jason, my oldest brother, when he was racing and feeling nervous.

Not a great plan in hindsight, because Mr Evans was not my brother, nor had he been feeling nervous, apparently, given his grumpy response.

Which meant that now I needed to be on my best behaviour, especially if I was going to be broaching the topic of Australis with him.

I’d hoped I would have made a good enough impression by this point that I could ask him about it tonight, but maybe that was too soon, especially given his temper.

Now that I’d been given a taste of his fearsome reputation, it seemed as if he’d come by it honestly, and the curious part of me wanted to know why. Was he genuinely a grumpy bastard all the time or did he just not like people? Did it have something to do with his scars? Or was there something else going on?

My research hadn’t given me any clues since he never talked about his private life. There were all kinds of rumours about how he’d made his initial start-up money, but the general consensus was that he’d earned it in illegal street fights, which naturally the media ate up with a big spoon.

They had quite a fascination with him and now I’d met him, I could see why.

He was quite…magnetic.

I frowned out of the front windscreen, reflecting again on when and how I needed to approach the question of his Australis investment.

It was important I get this right, since there wouldn’t be another opportunity to get close to him and if I didn’t succeed, the company was more than likely going to tank.

If only Mark hadn’t been drunk at the Christmas party and thought I was fair game. And if only I hadn’t got angry when he’d grabbed me and kneed him in the balls.

But I had. I’d committed the cardinal sin of turning something minor into a big deal, and Mark had complained to Dad about ‘assault’ and talked about lawsuits. Dad had had no choice but to pay him off, thus losing the best designer we’d ever had, not to mention a large portion of the investment capital we’d been given by Evans Investment.

I’d then compounded my error by showing Dad a potential answer to our financial worries—the design for an electric supercar that I’d been working on for the past five years or so.

But he wasn’t interested. He’d already been disapproving of how I’d handled Mark and he liked my electric car suggestion even less. He was an internal combustion engine man all the way and ‘fancy, newfangled’ ideas had no place at Australis.

There’d been no point making a fuss so I’d quietly shelved the supercar project, turning to other ideas to fix our money problems instead.

Some days I wondered if he would have liked me more if I hadn’t been born the spitting image of my pretty, womanly, passionate mother. If I’d been born a boy instead.

Mum had died of cancer when I was seven and Dad had been destroyed by her loss. He hadn’t even been able to look at me in the days following her funeral, so I’d put away my pretty dresses and swallowed my grief, and tried to act like my brothers instead.

But I couldn’t change the basic shape of my face. And of course, I had her eyes…

Dad had never treated me the same way since.

An old grief caught in my throat, but I forced the emotion down, distracting myself by glancing at the hotel entrance again.

This time I saw the doorman move to pull open the door and finally Mr Evans came striding out, his arm wrapped around a pretty blonde woman in a skintight red dress.

I only just suppressed a groan.

Bloody hell. There went any opportunity for a quiet word about Australis. If he was going to be entertaining women, I’d probably have to wait until tomorrow.