Dark Market

Chapter Eleven

TUESDAY

Chapter Eleven

Echo loved her early morning routine at Maclays, she puffed the froth off a latte at the coffee stand out front and skimmed the free tabloid, full of suspect news stories and barely concealed publicity stunts. She'd head upstairs when she hit the sports pages, then before anyone else came in she would rule the office floor, for a few minutes at least.

When the job in the relationship department came up she'd done everything she could to get on it, to move up the ladder, to go where the action was. Instead she found herself at yet another desk crunching numbers, surrounded by unskilled testosterone and innuendo.

But she was used to that. As a teen the snide comments had been about how fat, how ugly she was. She'd developed a tough hide to counter it. Then, at the age of twenty, she blossomed, a very late developer, and the magnetic repulsion that surrounded her turned to attraction.

By then she was too cynical too care, she enjoyed her looks, of course, who wouldn't? But it was basic dog psychology – men either tried to bully, sweet talk or befriend her to get her attention. She didn't like the fearful kind. Pretenders the lot of them.

She sucked a searing slug of hot liquid through the foam and caught sight of Savage striding across the road towards the revolving front door of the Maclays tower.

He looked in a rush. In fact he looked like shit. Still nimble and knotted tight sinew though.

She waited for him to enter the building. And realised something about what she really wanted in life.

'Hey,' she said to the barista. 'One Americano to go.'

                                                                  *

Echo plonked a paper cup of coffee down on the desk next to Savage's screen. The only one alive in the empty office.

'Thanks,' he said.

'Been sleeping in bushes?'

'Yeah,' he rubbed his eyes, gave her a sleepy smile. 'My body clock's a bit off. Got to bed late, then woke up before the birds.'

'So, what're we helping you with today?'

He glared at her.

'Hey, sorry I asked,' she said.

'Sorry,' he hadn't meant to glare at all. 'I just wasn't expecting anyone in this early, especially—' he stopped himself.

'What,' she said. He shrugged and looked embarrassed. 'Especially not me, right?'

'Am I that transparent?'

'Yeah, I feel like a peeping tom when I look through you and see what's inside.'

'That right? Why are you in this early?'

'If I leave any later than six-thirty I'm either in traffic for an hour or sniffing armpits on the tube.' She pronounced it like toob with a little kink of her lip. She saw his look.

'You might want to pull the blinds down Savage. It's way too early in the morning to start fantasising about me.'

For the first time in a long time he blushed like a school boy. Not out of anger, or frustration at dropping a mag during drills.

'You're cool. I like that,' he said. 'Thick skinned too.'

'Ah, butter me up, I love it. What do you want?'