with Alistair’s father in a lust-driven whirlwind affair that had blown his parents’ once-stable marriage to smithereens. Clem remembered all too well the feeling of being shunted aside. The feeling of being in the way. The oversized baggage no one wanted. She hadn’t made it easy on anyone because of it. She had been a seething, snipping, snarling, surly heap of horrible hormones.
Double cringe.
‘So why isn’t your father out looking for her instead of you?’
A muscle near the corner of his mouth tapped like a hammer. Tippity-tap. Tippity-tap. ‘My father left her with me because he has better things to do. Apparently.’
Clem shifted her lips from side to side as the silence echoed with his bitterness. Freakishly weird to find she was in exactly the same position with her brother. ‘Well, I hate to be a dead end, but I know nothing about your stepsister’s whereabouts.’ Or my brother’s.
His dark brows were so close they formed a bridge over his piercing eyes. ‘Are you seriously telling me you knew nothing about their involvement? Nothing at all?’
Clem slowly shook her head. ‘Nothing. Zilch. Nada.’
His eyes travelled back and forth between each of hers like a searchlight looks for something hiding in the dark. The searing heat of his gaze made her body tingle all over, as if every one of her nerves was standing to attention and quaking in its boots. No one ever looked at her like that. Really looked at her. Not for so long and so intensely, as if they wanted to peel back the carefully constructed layers of her take-no-prisoners façade to the insecure wallflower beneath. But then he let out a whistling breath of scorn. ‘I don’t buy that for a picosecond.’
She pulled her shoulders back, eyeballing him like a boxer did an opponent. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’
One side of his mouth curled up. Nowhere near a smile, more like a the-gloves-are-up-and-waiting smirk. ‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it came up behind you and said boo.’
Clem was not a violent person in spite of the role models she’d had. But right then she wanted nothing more than to raise her hand and give that lean and stubble-coated jaw a good wallop. Punch. Sock. Kapow. And not just with one hand. Two. Bunched into fists. With knuckle-dusters as big as baubles. And then she would kick him in the shins. Whilst wearing steel-toed boots. And spurs, those big, spiky-starfish ones. She would scrape her nails down his cheeks. She would grow them especially, until they were like talons. She would make his nose bleed. Copiously. Gouge his eyes out. Stomp on them until they were a pulpy mess on the floor.
How dared he question her integrity? Telling the truth was her biggest failing. She was brutally honest. It had got her into more trouble than she cared to think about. She narrowed her eyes to hairpin-thin slits. ‘If you don’t leave within the next five seconds, I’m going to call the police.’
His eyes went three shades darker as if the notion of going head to head with her privately turned him on. ‘Go right ahead. It will save me the effort of calling them about my stolen car. The car your brother is currently driving somewhere in Europe.’
Clem’s heart banged against her breastbone like someone had shoved it from behind. With a wrecking ball. Could it be true? How could Jamie do this to her? How could he run off with Alistair Hawthorne’s stepsister, of all people? Surely Jamie knew what would happen? Alistair wouldn’t let this go. A terrier with a bone had nothing on him. He would hold on to the whole rotting carcass and shake and rattle it until the DNA fell out. There would be consequences. Huge consequences. He was rich. Powerful. Ruthless. He would not stop until he had achieved his mission.
Revenge was his mission.
Retribution.
Jamie would end up in court. Clem couldn’t afford to get him a decent lawyer. Her brother would end up in prison in amongst horrible men like his father. Or worse...like her father.
She allowed herself one quick sweep of her tongue over tombstone-dry lips. ‘How do you know Jamie...erm...took your car?’
Alistair’s gaze bored down into hers. ‘He didn’t take my car. He stole it.’
‘Your stepsister might’ve given him permission. She might’ve given him the keys. She might’ve told him you’d given the okay. She might’ve encouraged him to—’
He made a scoffing noise. ‘Listen to yourself. You’re trying to put lipstick on a pig. Your brother is a thief. He stole my car and a large sum of money.’
Clem swallowed a golf ball of panic. Make that a beach ball. With barnacles. ‘How large?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
You’re right. I don’t. ‘Anyway, what sort of crazy fool would leave large sums of money lying around? Isn’t that what banks are for?’ Clem said in an attempt to gain some much-needed ground. Her head was spinning. Her thoughts were running like hamsters on crack. She had to find Jamie before Alistair did. Hadtohadtohadto.
Alistair’s nostrils flared. ‘I want that money back. Every last penny of it. And if my car’s damaged then that will have to be paid for as well.’
‘I find it interesting, but not surprising, that you’re far more concerned about your money and your property than your stepsister’s welfare,’ Clem said.
A glint appeared in his gaze as it imprisoned hers. ‘Ah, but that’s where you come in.’
Something dropped in Clem’s belly like a book falling off a shelf. Three books. ‘H-how so?’
‘You’re coming with me to help track her down.’
Clem’s heart climbed up her throat with fishhooks. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
A line of implacability rimmed his mouth like steel. He took out his phone, holding it pointedly. ‘One phone call to the police and your brother will be behind bars quicker than you can blink.’
Clem swallowed. This was bad. Capital B Bad. Capital B and italics Bad. ‘You’re blackmailing me?’ She injected every bit of disgust she could into the word.
That annoying lip-curl appeared again. So too the mocking I’ve–got-you-where-I-want-you gleam in his eyes. ‘I prefer to call it enticing you into my company.’
‘I’d rather spend a week chained to a tiger shark.’
‘How long will it take you to close up shop?’
Clem put her hands on her hips. ‘Did you hear me? I said, I’m not coming with you.’
His gaze leisurely took in the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the rows and rows of books with their ancient spines and the boxes on the floor beside her from the latest shipment from a deceased’s estate. ‘How long have you been working here?’ he asked.
‘Two years.’
‘Where did you work before that?’
‘In a municipal library. In Kent.’
His eyes did a slow appraisal of her face before moving south. Clem knew she wasn’t classically beautiful. She wasn’t anything beautiful. She was plain. Her mother was the one with the looks.
