Malachi believed that the slender young woman currently moving in and out of the crowd on the other side of theater bar just might be his idea of perfection.
Not just in appearance.
Because there was no doubting she was beautiful. Very much so.
Before this evening, Malachi had had no idea what his perfect woman looked like. He knew now.
Her hair was an unmanageable mass of bright red curls caught up in a green band at her crown. There was a tiny scar over her right eyebrow. She had ten more freckles on her left cheek than her right, and a dozen more dotted on the bridge of her short, straight nose. Her pink and pillowy soft lips were currently quirked up slightly to the left, causing a slight indent in her cheek—a dimple, Malachi would guess most people would call it.
Her clothes were equally as garish, an overlarge bright yellow sweater, purple low-rider jeans that clung almost obscenely to her hips, thighs and slender legs. The unconventional outfit was finished off with heavy red biker boots.
Her whole appearance cried out this is me, take me or leave me.
Malachi noted most of the rest of the snobbish theater crowd had decided upon the latter option. In fact, most of them were avoiding so much as looking at her, as if they found the garishness of her clothing an embarrassment they didn’t even want to acknowledge. Instead, they chose to ignore her as they enjoyed their drinks during the play’s interval.
Which was no doubt her intention.
It was certainly the reason she’d been able to perform the single most perfect act of thievery, without anyone being the wiser, that Malachi had ever had the pleasure of witnessing.
He might not have spotted it himself if he hadn’t already been watching her as she flitted in and out of the crush of loudly talking people, his narrowed gaze drawn to follow the myriad bright colors she wore.
He’d watched as the man in the dark gray suit and crisp white shirt, worn with a contrasting and perfectly tied blue-and-light-gray tie, who stood chatting with several other theatergoers and drinking champagne, had only glared at her when she bumped into him before she moved on without apology.
The man had been completely unaware of the way the woman’s slender fingers had slipped briefly beneath his jacket. Or felt his wallet being withdrawn from the inside pocket. Nor had he seen that same hand secreted his wallet beneath the overlarge yellow sweater as the young woman continued merrily on her way.
Malachi continued to watch her, wondering who she was going to rob next. The room was filled with the affluent and the rich. The women were eager to display the expensive jewelry at their ears, throat, and wrists, the men wearing an array of costly designer watches.
But to Malachi’s surprise, the young woman, possibly aged in her early to midtwenties, made straight for the door out of the bar without picking another pocket or attempting to remove a single item of jewelry.
Her abrupt departure was so unexpected that it caused Malachi to stop and consider what his next move should be.
He should remain here and continue his job of acting as bodyguard to Gerard Taylor—coincidentally the same man the red-haired woman had just robbed.
Or he could follow the young woman to see what she intended doing with Taylor’s wallet.
Considering he was here as Taylor’s bodyguard, the fact the young woman had chosen to only pick Taylor’s pocket before leaving had to be worth further investigation. Besides, Taylor might be paying big money to have one of the Kingston brothers, of the world-renowned Kingston Security, personally guarding his every move. But as far as Malachi was concerned, his client was perfectly safe and happy with the same crowd of cronies he had spent the previous four evenings with without mishap.
Besides, Malachi was bored.
Out.
Of.
His.
Fucking.
Mind.
Bored.
So far, Taylor seemed to have never heard of spending an evening at home. The other man was either out partying, at the theater, or enjoying a romantic dinner with the latest woman or man to catch his eye.
Malachi couldn’t decide which of those pursuits he disliked the most.
The parties were excruciating to be at, as the people drank too much and indulged in taking drugs. The result being their behavior became totally uninhibited.
It was equally as hard to witness the women or men Taylor took to dinner being charmed and then seduced into sharing his bed.
Nor did Malachi relish having to go back and watch the second half of the play, which, as far as he was concerned, was pretentious twaddle. But no one had been brave enough to say so, to each other or the author, before the play had opened a week ago in one of London’s West End theaters. The conversations Malachi had overheard this evening were also raving about the “artistic beauty of the prose.”
Much like no one had dared to tell the emperor he was stark bollock naked and not wearing a magnificent suit of new clothes the tailor claimed he was, no one had dared to tell the play’s author his work was crap.
So, Malachi’s decision was to stay here and continue being bored or follow the garishly dressed woman.
As all his brothers knew, a bored Malachi was an unhappy Malachi. And a bored and unhappy Malachi tended to get into all sorts of trouble.
There was also the fact that, after spending the past five days with Gerard Taylor, he knew he didn’t like the man he had been hired to guard. Not that liking a client was a requirement of the job, but not liking them enough to care whether or not that person’s stalker succeeded in carrying out their threat to do him physical harm probably wasn’t in Taylor’s best interests.
It took only another few seconds for Malachi to make his decision as he followed the thief out of the noisy room.
The stairs and foyer were empty as he ran lightly down to the ground floor, but the exit door to the left of the area was just swinging closed. Indicating someone had just passed through it on their way outside?
His quarry, Malachi hoped.
It could be someone leaving, as bored by the play as he was, of course.
Or it could be a smoker entering or leaving the non-smoking theater.
But the bell had already rung for the audience to return to their seats for the second act, and there was no one coming up the stairs.
Instinct told Malachi the woman with the red hair was the one who had just left.
It was a dark and crisp October evening, a light drizzle falling as Malachi stepped outside onto the damp pavement. Lights were still on in several shop windows, despite the lateness of the evening and the shops being closed.
It was lucky for Malachi they were, as it was because of the glow of light given off by them that he was able to spot the back of a billowing black neck-to-ankle coat as it disappeared down an alley. A hood was pulled up over the wearer’s hair. Unfortunately for his quarry, the length of the coat didn’t quite manage to hide the bright red biker boots.
Malachi strode forcefully across the road and into the same alley, just in time to spot the woman’s silhouette as she turned left at the end of the enclosed space.
He’d lived in London for most of his thirty-seven years. He also kept a suite of rooms at the family estate in the Surrey countryside, and he always spent the holidays there with his five brothers and cousin, their parents too if they could tear themselves away from their retirement home in Florida.
But Malachi preferred to spend the majority of his time at the apartment he owned in England’s capital. There was less chance of him becoming bored with so much going on around him.
As a consequence, he was very familiar with London’s streets. Which was the reason he knew the alley the young woman had just turned down came to an abrupt end when it reached an eight-foot-high wall.
She might not have realized it yet, but she had walked herself straight into a trap.
* * *
Lara lifted one side of her coat to cover the lower half of her face as she hurried down the wet alley. She wrinkled her nose as the barrier didn’t quite manage to keep out the unpleasant odors wafting from the five or six dumpsters either side of the narrow space, behind the shops they catered to.
As soon as she felt it was safe to stop, she intended—
“Hi.”
Lara froze at the sound of that deep and overly friendly male voice, which, for some reason, made her think of the charisma possessed by many serial killers.
Everything froze.
Her legs.
Her body.
Her eyes.
Even her heart seemed to have stopped beating in what she suddenly realized was a very quiet and completely deserted alley.
“I’m Malachi Kingston,” that same voice added conversationally. “And you are…?”
She was getting the hell out of here!
Thankfully, everything unfroze as quickly as it had stopped, her legs and arms pumping as she ran, her gaze searching frantically for a way out in which she could evade the man behind her. There was nothing. The doors on either side of the alley were all fitted with the extra security of padlocks that glinted in the moonlight.
She could hear the man calmly walking down the alley behind her. As if he were out for a stroll. Or as if he knew something she didn’t…?
Damned if that wasn’t exactly what he knew, Lara acknowledged, as the alley came to a sudden end due to the high and totally unscalable brick wall in front of her.
She was trapped in an alley that came to a dead end, with a man who she could now hear muttering to himself behind her.