Feeling flustered and awkward, I drop my gaze to the file in front of me. I’m a tough cookie. I’m here to do a job. I’m here on behalf of the Queen and country.
Resisting the impulse to turn around and look for him and so betray my intense discomfort, I take a deep breath and meet Dominic Eden full on, at close quarters.
And Oh! My! God!
The sexiest man in the entire fucking world is staring straight at me with hunger in his eyes. My mouth falls open. His eyes zero in on my lips. The air around us becomes electrified.
Whoa! What the …!
I want this man to fuck me raw right here on this table in the middle of this darkened restaurant. The sensation vibrates down my spine and ends in a dull ache between my legs. The intensity of my desire for him shocks me. Doing this job, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to hide, and even deny my sexuality, but it has always been there, lying in wait. Waiting for the right man to awaken it.
Knowing that doesn’t make my reaction or my unprofessional behavior any less embarrassing. I have to pull myself together. Dominic Eden cannot know how affected I am by him. Taking a deep breath I raise my eyes and look into his. It’s like a zebra trying to outstare a lion.
From the shadows comes the sound of a door opening. Someone is approaching us. I swallow hard unable to pull my eyes away from his, but before whoever it is can come up to our table, Dominic Eden breaks our stare, lifts his hand and holds his thumb and forefinger in the way that you would do if you wanted to show someone the measurement of an inch. I have been investigating restaurants long enough to know that the gesture means espresso, short.
The waitress goes away silently.
I c
ough. ‘Er ... When do you expect Mr. Broadstreet to join us?’
‘Fifteen minutes or thereabouts,’ he murmurs and nonchalantly leans forward. I can’t help it I flinch back as if avoiding a bullet, my hands grasping the edge of the table, and my heart galloping madly.
At that moment the waitress comes back. I look up at her, grateful for the distraction. On her tray is not a small espresso but a small liquor glass of some colorless liquid. Neat alcohol for breakfast? Wow!
She puts the glass on the table and immediately slinks back into the dim of the unlit restaurant. He leans back, completely relaxed, his forearms resting on the table. His eyes never leaving me, he reaches for the glass and downs the liquid in one swallow. He places the glass back on the table and smiles, the smile of a shark.
Not a shark smiling at a human, but a shark smiling at another shark.
It’s a ‘come out and play’ smile from one predator to another.
Freaked out by my unexpectedly strange and intense reaction to him, I clear my throat. ‘Shall we … um … start?’ I stammer. I desperately need to regain some control over this situation. In a strange reversal of roles we are reading from the wrong scripts. It is he who should be fearful and respectful, and it is I who should be playing the part with all the power and authority. I am the tax inspector. He is the tax cheat.
‘By all means,’ he says, his eyes plenty hostile.
‘Look, Mr. Eden, we need to collaborate, work together on a cooperative, non-adversarial basis in order to resolve this situation.’
‘Non-adversarial? Is there a way to diplomatically throw someone under a bus?’
‘I’m not here to throw you under a bus.’
‘No? Aren’t you here to screw as much money as possible out of this company?’ A cold menace is in his voice.
‘No,’ I say firmly.
‘You’ll be telling me next I can eat a shit sandwich and not have brown teeth,’ he says rudely.
But I refuse to rise to the bait. I am too professional for that. ‘We are here to establish whether this restaurant is paying the correct amount of tax that is due.’
He hits the flats of his palms on the table and makes a hissing sound of disbelief. ‘Do you even believe that bullshit?’
I jump, and for a millisecond I experience a sense of searing shame. He’s absolutely right: I am here to squeeze every last drop of money possible. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if we had not already assessed that a substantial sum can be gleaned from this establishment. And the moment we find a flaw we’ll be piling on interest charges and fines on top of any amount deemed to be owed to cover the cost of our involvement.
Then I remember my honest, hardworking parents. How proud they were that they paid their fair share even though all around them people were gaming the system. And yet now that they’ve both stopped working because my father is ill and my mother is his primary caregiver, their combined pensions are barely enough to get them through the month. And the reason there isn’t enough is because of people like him. People who refuse to pay their fair share. Corrupt, devious people who get away with it just because they have expensive lawyers and accountants who arrange all kinds of sweet schemes for them.
Well, I took this job with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) because I believe in the good we do and I’m here to make the world a fairer place.
I meet his eyes head on. ‘If it transpires that you’ve paid the correct amount of tax, we will not harass you in any way.’