His Mistress By Blackmail

Xandro intended Benjamin Woods to pay for his crime and he’d use whatever means necessary. Family was as effective a tool as they came. ‘A family that breeds a thief is sure to be a damaged one. So point me in the direction of Benjamin Woods’s family. I’ll take it from there.’

Archie retreated after more solemn assurances, and Xandro strolled to the window of the office, housed in the most successful hotel and casino chain in the world. He flexed his fingers as his gaze tracked the many neon lights and excess-seeking humanity spread at his feet.

He hadn’t come this far, clawed himself out of danger and poverty and distanced himself from his family’s disgrace, only to lose the one thing that had helped fuel his ambition and success.

He knew it didn’t take much for a family to fracture and break. He intended to exploit his thief’s every weakness until he had the necklace back where it belonged.

CHAPTER TWO (#u48d0685e-921d-54c4-ba6f-b4e71b472d04)

THE RHYTHMIC SLAP of feet on the floor was in perfect time with the music. Well...almost perfect. Few people would’ve caught the lag, but Xandro heard it after a handful of seconds.

He’d had pathetically little as a boy—a legacy of disgrace and debt, and a life spent clawing his way out of that hellhole had seen to that—but he’d always had music.

When his grandmother had succumbed to her weak heart in their sorry excuse for a hovel in the Bronx, his mother had taken up the tradition. His day had started with his mother’s renditions of her favourite singer, Maria Callas, and ended with haunting operettas of long-dead composers. Xandro knew every great tenor and soprano, dead or alive.

He’d grown up watching endless black and white opera films borrowed from the library, and the amateur ballet footage of his own mother that his grandparents had managed to pack in their suitcase before they’d boarded the boat to New York with their pregnant eighteen-year-old daughter: the daughter with the beautiful voice and dreams of ballet that had been ruthlessly crushed by those who’d wielded more power and ambition than she had.

That bittersweet memory was the reason Xandro knew the performer was a millisecond behind the beat of the music.

But music or dance wasn’t the reason he was here in Washington, DC.

The room was in semi-darkness, the only beam of illumination centred on the dancer on the stage. The auditorium was large, but only a handful of people occupied the chairs. He tracked them one by one, his mood plummeting when each one failed to reveal his quarry.

He’d flown thousands of miles to find Sage Woods, sister of the thief who’d stolen his most prized possession. Archie hadn’t had time to furnish him with an up-to-date picture of her. The only one in Xandro’s possession had been taken over ten years ago when the girl was a mere fourteen years old.

But even then her flawless face and vibrant red hair had been arresting enough to make her stand out in any crowd. So, unless she’d changed drastically, she should be easy to spot.

He ignored the few searching looks as he stepped to one side, waiting for the room to empty of both dancer and patrons before reaching into his jacket for his phone.

Archie had redeemed himself by locating Sage Woods in Washington, DC, in record time. But Xandro wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood.

More than what the necklace represented to him, he was reminded of what it’d also meant to his mother, and the joy on her face whenever she’d worn it—on his graduation; on the night he’d taken her to dinner when he’d signed the papers on his first hotel.

Bright moments in an otherwise dismal past that weren’t unwelcome, but nevertheless deepened his sense of loss.

On top of the memories he was grappling with, the current deal he was working on had stalled suddenly. Had he been superstitious, he would’ve attributed it to the theft of the necklace...

It didn’t help that Archie had confessed that Woods had gained the code to Xandro’s safe by hacking the security chief’s computer.

Xandro had bypassed Woods’s parents in Virginia in favour of flying straight to DC from Las Vegas. Besides his instincts telling him he would get more traction with the sister than with the parents, the work colleagues Archie had interviewed had reported he frequently mentioned his sister, the dancer.

About to press the phone to his ear to double check Sage Woods’s whereabouts from Archie, he paused as a figure clad in a black leotard and matching tights emerged from the wings and walked onto the stage.

Her flame-red hair gave her away immediately, despite it being piled on top of her head in a messy knot. But the slim figure in the picture on his phone had undergone a girl-to-woman transformation destined to stop most red-blooded males in their tracks.

Xandro froze in place, his breath trapped in his lungs as he got a first real-life view of Sage Woods.

Her long, elegant neck tapered to shoulders that were slim but perfectly sculpted. Sleek, well-toned arms swung gracefully as she walked with light, measured steps.

Her posture was exquisite, her spine straight as she moved to the centre of the stage. The moment she turned to fully face the empty seats, Xandro felt a powerful, primitive tug to his groin. He was too busy taking in her remaining features to shove the unwanted sensation aside. His phone forgotten, he continued to stare at the statuesque beauty, absently wondering when he’d last stopped long enough to appreciate such an exquisite creature.

The world he lived in provided him with an endless array of both natural and artificial beauty. But most of it came primped, polished and packaged for maximum attention-seeking effect. The woman standing before him, believing herself to be alone, wore not a single scrap of make-up, jewellery or even shoes. And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He let his gaze drop to her trim waist, the feline, feminine flare of her hips, the strong, toned thighs and the long, shapely legs and delicate ankles.

As he watched, she pulled a tiny MP4 player out of her waistband. Head lowered, her forehead was caught in a tiny frown as she unwound the string of the earbuds and placed one in each ear.

Xandro slowly folded his arms as she secured the gadget to her arm. He frowned with displeasure and wondered whether it was because her means of supplying the music was impractical or because he felt robbed of the ability to hear it.

Neither was enough to distract him from observing her though. Witnessing the moment she went from completely still to an explosion of movement so captivating, his arms dropped and his breath stalled in his lungs.

Xandro stood, entranced by the power and control of her motions that could only be achieved by years of dedicated training.

He wasn’t aware of how much time passed as he watched her, wasn’t aware of the sensation flooding his mouth until he was forced to swallow before doing something unseemly, like drool.

When his lungs screamed with the need for oxygen he finally took a heavy breath. Shook his head to clear the haze threatening to take it over.

He hadn’t reached the level of astronomic success he’d never even dared to dream of without paying attention to the minutiae. With his focus on finding her and extracting the whereabouts of her brother, he’d only cursorily paid attention to the form of dance Benjamin Woods’s sister specialised in. Now it came to him in a flash. She was a contemporary dancer with a ballet background.

Some of her movements reminded him of his mother’s dancing. The rare times Xandro had managed to convince her to give in to the music she loved, she’d exhibited a talent that had taken his breath away.

Of course, those moments had been very few and far between, the reality of their harsh existence a dark, oppressive presence. It was why he’d treasured those moments.

The unique combination of both forms of art manifested in incredible movement as Sage danced to the music only she could hear. Music he himself yearned to hear. If only to judge for himself that it matched her rhythm.

Nothing else.

Because he couldn’t possibly wonder what sort of music was making her move so beautifully, so sensuously. Whether his mother would’ve liked it—

‘Excuse me? Can I help you?’

He stiffened, more than a little irritated that he’d been so absorbed in his thoughts that he’d hadn’t realised she’d stopped. That he had moved from the shadows of the doorway to the dimly lit front row and even now stood staring up at her.

Irritation grew to annoyance. He was here for one reason only, and it wasn’t to be spellbound by a stranger’s performance.

‘Are you Sage Woods?’ He heard the snap in his voice and felt zero remorse for it.

He was close enough to see her tense, to catch her eyes flick over him as she pulled the earbuds from her ears, draping them around her neck as she made up her mind whether he was friend or foe.

‘That depends,’ she answered eventually in a firm, husky voice.

‘On what?’

‘On who’s asking. And on you telling me what you’re doing here,’ she replied.

He pushed away the stirring effect of her voice on his irritated senses. ‘This is a dance company, not a secret government facility. I don’t require special permission to be here.’

Full lips pursed. ‘This is a private session, booked and paid for by me. There’s a sign above the door that says “No audience allowed”.’

He shrugged. ‘Your security must be lax then, since here I am.’