He pops one of the smoked salmon shells between his lips and suddenly I find myself hungrily watching his incredibly sexy mouth. I drag my gaze away quickly and cast it around the opulent room.
If his intention is to dazzle me then yes, I’m dazzled—the suit, the car, the impossible to miss deference of the waiting staff toward him, the splendor of the restaurant, the five star excellence of the food—but it doesn’t mean a damn thing.
That strange look we shared in his empty restaurant is worth more to me than one thousand nights in the lap of unrivaled luxury. I know that moment is gone forever. The man in front of me is wearing a mask and he has no intention of ever letting me see underneath the mask again.
He is either with me now because he wants to take me to bed or he is trying to get some information out of me. Most likely a bit of both. I won’t give him any information, but I also know I can’t be the one to hurt him either. Not after what I saw this afternoon.
Tomorrow, I will tell Rob that I want to be taken off this case. He’ll ask why, and I’ll tell him that I don’t feel comfortable around Mr. Dominic Eden. That is tomorrow. Tonight belongs to me and the man in the mask.
I
take a sip of the delicious champagne cocktail and meet his gaze. ‘I notice you don’t have a Facebook page?’
FIVE
He stares at me. ‘Is that a crime?’
‘No,’ I concede. ‘But it is rather unusual.’
‘Why?’ he demands.
I shrug. ‘Everybody uses some form of social media. Twitter, FB, MySpace, Picasa, Tsu, Instagram, Plaxo, Xing, Ning … You can’t be found on any platform.’
He bares his teeth suddenly in a pirate grin. And ooh … devilishly attractive. My heart flutters a bit.
‘Can it be,’ he mocks softly, ‘that HMRC’s latest and most formidable weapon, the eighty million pound super-computer Connect, needs me to supply it with data so it can effectively spot signs of potential non-compliance from me?’
‘Hardly,’ I reply. ‘Connect holds over a billion pieces of data collected from hundreds of sources. As it happens, a lack of participation on social media is also “data”. It indicates a desire to conceal suspicious activity.’
He raises one straight, raven-black eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ I say with emphasis.
At that precise moment, the sommelier appears with a bottle and tries to display the label to Dom, but Dom doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not willing to be outdone, I stare back. When the bottle is uncorked, he makes a slight motion with his hand to indicate that he wants to dispense with the business of tasting the wine. The sommelier comes around to my side and fills my glass. When he goes around to Dom’s glass, Dom gives a slight shake of his head. Quietly, the man slips the bottle back into the ice bucket and disappears.
I take a sip of wine. It is so smooth and ripe with different and distinct flavors that it makes every type of wine I have ever consumed seem like bootlegged versions of squashed grapes and vinegar.
‘Just out of interest,’ Dom says, ‘what information does Connect hold about me?’
‘And there I was thinking I was here to learn more about your business and not the other way around.’
‘Touché.’ He chuckles good-naturedly.
I smile faintly.
‘So, what would you like to know about me?’ he offers with a reckless smile.
I slip a steamed mussel into my mouth. It is so tender it melts on my tongue. I let it slide down my throat and wipe my lips on the napkin before I answer. ‘I’d like to know why you aren’t on social media.’
The broad shoulders lift, an almost Italian gesture. ‘We’re gypsies,’ he says, as if that answers everything.
‘And?’ I prompt.
‘By nature we distrust any form of surveillance, and as you’ve just confirmed, all forms of social media are Greeks bearing gifts.’ A teasing quality slips into his voice. ‘See, gypsies wouldn’t have towed the Trojan horse into their city.’
‘I don’t want to be stereotypical or anything, but I honestly thought gypsies have always been rather brilliant horse thieves.’
His crystalline blue eyes twinkle with mischief. ‘Ah yes. Perhaps it would have been a different matter if the horse had been real, or made of scrap metal. But being wooden …’