He just wanted to corrupt it. It was his final frontier.
When he had Avery in his bed, he would twist that pretty soul until hers was just as dark as his own. It would be fun. He would do it with pleasure and a good deal of pain—both emotional and physical. Her tears would feed his soul.
Molina pulled the file on “Lachlan Bates” and got back to work. He whistled a little while he did it. After all, work was fun.
Liam was ready to kill Adam. He was the one who had convinced Avery to walk around with her boobs on display. He looked across the table and would swear he could practically see a nipple. He’d followed her up and down medieval prison rooms and past the crown jewels, and all he could think about was the fact that every man walking around the Tower was staring at her breasts.
And her bum. Yesterday she’d worn perfectly respectable jeans that hadn’t hugged her every curve. Those jeans yesterday hadn’t sported little diamonds on her cheeks that just begged a man to find out how much treasure was buried beneath.
“So where did you say you were from, Avery?” Ian asked in an absolutely flawless London accent. There was just the faintest hint of working class in the way he rounded his vowels.
Avery smiled at him, leaning on the table. She’d barely had half a glass of wine, but her face was already flushed and she’d relaxed, her hips brushing his in the booth.
“I’m from New York originally, but now I kind of live out of my suitcase,” she explained. She’d seemed a little wary of Ian at first, but it hadn’t taken her long to warm up. She’d teased both him and Ian about how difficult it had been for them to fit into the Tower’s narrow staircases and small rooms. The Tower hadn’t been built for bulky men.
This was what Ian had been waiting for. There was no question in Liam’s mind. He’d been waiting for a break so he could get her to talk about her job. A knot of guilt twisted in Liam’s gut, and he rather wanted to go back to the hours when they’d just been tourists enjoying their time together. He’d been to London many times, toured the Tower, but seeing it through Avery’s enthusiastic eyes had been a novel experience. She’d wanted to see everything. She’d stood on the yard where Anne Boleyn had walked, and he could see her mind wandering, likely imagining what it had been like to have her hours numbered, trapped inside.
“So what exactly do you do?” Ian asked.
“I’m kind of a Girl Friday. I assist my boss with the running of the charity.”
“United One Fund,” Liam offered. “The way she explained it yesterday, it’s a relief fund.”
“We go into war-torn or disaster hit countries and offer food, water, all the necessities. We also offer microlending. We’ll give out small loans of as little as fifty to a hundred dollars, and it helps women in Third World countries start businesses and begin to support themselves and their children. We work with a couple of medical charities, too.”
She was a believer. It was right there on her face. Avery Charles believed she was saving the world in some small way. Liam had thought that once, back in his SAS days. Back before he’d found himself in a dingy, blood-soaked hellhole.
Avery might believe, but Liam had his doubts. If her boss was so very angelic, what was he doing meeting with Eli Nelson? And what did Nelson want with a humanitarian organization?
“So the organization is based in the States?” Ian asked. To an outsider, it would seem to be a very polite question. Just a friend asking all the trivial things of a new girlfriend. But Ian Taggart already knew the answers to his questions. Most of them, anyway. He wanted to trap Avery in a lie.
Seemingly of their own accord, Liam’s fingers brushed against hers. Ian wouldn’t catch her in a lie. She didn’t know how to lie.
“I wouldn’t say based exactly. There are small offices all over the place. The London office is one of the biggest, but Thomas is planning on spending most of the rest of the year in Dubai. From there we’ll tour a lot of Africa.”
“That’s interesting.” And potentially very dangerous. Thomas Molina would be a target of kidnappers and any number of troubles. “Does your boss do this every year?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. This is brand new. Up until a couple of years ago, Thomas ran everything from his place in upstate New York. He was very isolated. He had a childhood accident that caused his legs to be very weak.”