Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [43]
‘Kidnapping is an offence, Inspector,’ she said, smiling. He could see that she was not in the least scared. She was not frightened of anything. ‘But it is heart-warming that you had to go to such lengths to be alone with me. You could have just made an appointment like everyone else.’ She stepped closer towards him. ‘I like a man who takes what he wants and doesn’t ask.’
Victoria smiled, her eyes a dark, sinister green pool of unsettling menace. She put her hands on her hips. The sleeveless dress showed her strong shoulders, the perfect line of her collarbones, her cinched-in waist. Nothing was left to chance. The look was calculated. The body was a tool for her, like everything else. It had to work for its affection. Mann thought how she would punish it into shape. She would hate to lose at tennis or anything else. She would demand results. Mann could understand part of that. He needed the gym to free his head. He needed his body to stay strong, agile, to be able to perform and to save his life. He didn’t need it to look perfect. But she did. She was staring at him, a smug expression on her flawless face. She knew he was looking her over. She knew because it was what she had planned. Mann thought how different she was when her leash was taken off. This flirtatious display took him by surprise.
‘Attempting to bribe a police officer is also an offence. Have the car removed or I’ll have it scrapped.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. You might think you are being clever, Victoria, but you fail to understand the thing that makes us so different and that will always separate us.’
‘There is no difference that cannot be compromised. No deal that cannot be struck.’
‘But I don’t want anything. You cannot sell me something I don’t want. If you have taken over the role of your husband then you will be my enemy, just as he was.’
‘Do not tar me with the same brush as him. I hated my husband. He never added up to one good thing in all of his life.’ A different light came into her eyes. It was a look that took her somewhere else for a few seconds, somewhere unpleasant. At least Mann knew she was honest in her hatred of her husband, honest about one thing at least.
‘And you? What do you want to add up to? Don’t think for one minute that I am taken in by your Little Miss Victim act. You have played your way into the top seat at the Wo Shing Shing. If I was your father, I’d watch my back.’
‘My father has made mistakes. He has had his time. Together, you and I can turn the face of the Triads around. It can go back to serving the people, the way it once did. Together we can make a difference.’
‘I don’t need you in my life. Why would I?’ She was inching towards him.
‘I can create a need in you.’ She breathed her perfumed breath into Mann’s face and her eyes melted on his as she reached out and ran her hand up his shirt. ‘A need so strong that you cannot ignore it. I know you are searching, I see it in you. You have needs. I recognize the same ones in myself. We are special, you and I; we will not find happiness easy to come by. We do not feel it the same way as others do. I can be everything you’re looking for.’
The nearness of the lift was getting to him; Mann felt her creep forwards as she dug her heels into the floor, her hips brushed his, her head tilted to one side as she smiled provocatively. But her eyes betrayed her, they were focused inside herself not on anything else. Her body was a thing she gave easily. Her soul belonged to no man.
Mann wasn’t playing; he looked down at her hand and lifted his eyes to look at her, dispassionate and cold. She withdrew her hand immediately and stepped back. The smile disappeared. The eyes narrowed.
‘Or…’ she held up her manicured index finger and made small circles in the air, ‘…I can pick up your world and the people in it and spin it around my finger till everything you care about