Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 1(53)

“He was rude to you?” Malcolm asked.

“God, yes. Swearing and everything. And he called me a gold-digger.” That last part came out without my consent. Wine. Seriously. I'll never drink wine again, I vowed. I was absolute shit at keeping things under wraps when drunk. In the hopes of delaying any further embarrassment or confessions, I set about attacking my mussels, which is hard to do when expensive wine has given you the fine motor skills of a penguin on crack.

“Ah, yes, he's under a lot of pressure,” Malcolm said. He seemed to relax and leaned forward again, deftly plucking another mussel from its shell before extending it across the table and feeding it to me. I accepted it gratefully. Honestly, who in their right mind serves mussels to a lady wearing designer clothes?

The answer was, Someone who knows his mussels are so goddamn good you'd sacrifice a finger to have another one. The morsel melted in my mouth, sharp and sweet and salty, a perfectly cooked piece of shellfish. I couldn't help but moan with pleasure. For a moment, Don was forgotten as Malcolm helped me eat my portion of the appetizer, and it was only when I was done and leaning back, feeling more content that I had any right to be that I brought the subject back up again. “Anyway. Don was really rude. You should fire him.”

“Oh, I can't fire him,” Malcolm said. “He's just feeling a bit stressed out at the moment.” He appeared to think about this as he chewed and swallowed the last mussel. “I don't blame him, really. I defied his expectations by leaving the country with you.”

I blinked. “You did? I mean, I asked him why he didn't know where you were, and he said—”

“Did you tell him?”

“What, where we were? No.”

Malcolm relaxed further. “Good. Go on.”

Dominic came and removed our plates before returning with another course, this time shellfish bisque. I waited until he had retreated before continuing. “Well, he said that you hadn't told him, but that it was really important that you come back to New York.”

Malcolm spooned soup into his mouth. “Did he say why?”

I looked down at my soup, embarrassed. “Yeah. I asked him, and he said you were wanted for questioning by the FBI, and that you needed to come back to New York before you got arrested.”#p#分页标题#e#

To my surprise, Malcolm nodded. “Yes, that does put a bit of a kink in his plans.”

I lifted my gaze and studied him in astonishment. “Wait a second,” I said. “You actually are wanted by the FBI for questioning?”

He nodded. “No doubt my sudden flight forced their hand. I bet it will be all over the news soon.”

That Don hadn't been lying to me was almost as astonishing as the fact that Malcolm seemed completely unperturbed by his status as motherfucking wanted by the FBI.

I mean, let's be real here. That is some serious shit.

“What did you do?” I demanded. My brain began to replay scenes from Silence of the Lambs and suddenly I realized that Malcolm was just so Hannibal Lecter, why hadn't I seen it, I was going to end up served with fava beans, oh god—

“Oh, I haven't done anything,” Malcolm said, cutting off my paranoid fantasies. “Don is framing me for massive embezzlement of my company.”

I stared at him some more. “What?” I said.

Malcolm smiled. “He doesn't know I know, nor that I have proof that it is he who is doing the embezzlement. The FBI's been watching me for some time, and he's been their mole.”

“What?” I said again.

“Isn't it delicious?” he asked. “It's the most interesting thing to happen to me in years.” Then his eyes focused on me, and he smiled again. “Except for you.”

I have to admit, I was not assimilating this information very well. “So wait,” I said. “You're being watched by the FBI, because they suspect you of embezzlement and fraud, and your secretary is ratting you out to them, except he's actually the one embezzling and defrauding the company, and you know this and have proof?”

He nodded. He took another serene sip of soup.

I put my hands to my forehead. “Are you... do you act crazy in public just to screw with the FBI? To place doubt in people's minds about your sanity?”

“Oh no,” Malcolm said. “Not at all. Don was simply one of the closest people to me in my life. He was like a brother to me. After I found out he was betraying me, I just... didn't care any more. It didn't seem to matter much what I did. And I wasn't having any fun being the staid and stately CEO, so I decided to... not be.” He shrugged. “I've had far more fun these past few months than I ever had in my entire life, Sadie. It's definitely been worth it to go crazy. Crazy suits me.”