The Debt. Jackie AshendenЧитать онлайн книгу.

       CHAPTER THREE

       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.

      Annoyed and trying to ignore it, I got out of the car and hurried around the side to open the door, pasting on my usual smile.

      The woman was tall and lovely, her dress beautiful, her make-up perfect. Just the kind of woman men liked. At least, she was definitely a woman my brothers would have liked.

      She didn’t look at me as she got in and I was expecting Mr Evans to ignore me the way she had, but he didn’t. As I stood there holding the door, he glanced at me and those electric-blue eyes pinned me to the spot.

      An intense, hot satisfaction glowed there and it was so at odds with the cold lightning that had been in them before that I could only stare, my breath catching.

      But it was only a moment. The next second, he’d got into the car leaving me standing there staring into space, my heart beating unreasonably fast.

      God, what was wrong with me? He was just a man. A rich man, yes, and powerful, but a man all the same. And I knew all about men. They were either stoic like my dad and my middle brother, Dev. Or they were cheeky and fun like my two older brothers, Jase and Justin. Or quiet like George, my youngest brother.

      Or pretending to be nice and ending up a sleaze like Mark.

      But Mr Evans didn’t fit into any of those categories. There was something burning inside him that none of the men I knew had, something that sparked and crackled like an arc welder melting metal.

      I had no idea why that fascinated me or why I’d ended up standing there staring into space because he’d glanced at me...

       It’s not static, remember?

      But the thought was an uncomfortable one, so I pushed it away before it could settle, shutting the door and going around to the driver’s side, getting back behind the wheel.

      I reached up to adjust the rear-view mirror, catching a glimpse of the pair of them as I did so.

      Mr Evans’s dark head was bent and he was whispering in the woman’s ear. She was sitting very close, half turned towards him, her hand spread on the broad expanse of his chest, and she gave a soft giggle.

      Ugh. Were they going to carry on like that the whole way? Not that it was any of my business what they did and not that I was at all bothered by it. I’d seen worse over the years I’d been driving.

      Ignoring my strangely hot cheeks, I jerked my gaze away from the mirror and stared out of the front windscreen instead.

      ‘Back to your hotel, Mr Evans?’ I tried to sound cheerful and professional and completely relaxed about what was happening behind me.

      ‘Yes,’ Mr Evans said.

      His voice had gone even deeper and grittier, a thread of heat curling through it, and, despite myself, I glanced into the mirror again, drawn inexplicably by the sound.

      He was watching me, a hot blue flame glowing in the depths of his eyes.

      My mouth dried and my heart kicked in my chest, which was totally ridiculous, because him looking at me shouldn’t affect me like that. Not after Mark and the way he used to stare at me from behind his