Under His Influence Read online

  Under His Influence

  By Justine Elyot

  Anna Rice is avoiding a coworker’s advances when she encounters enigmatic John Stone at a trendy London bar. With his impeccable suits, salt-and-pepper hair and suave demeanor, John is unlike any of the boys Anna has dated in the past: he’s definitely all man. It’s not long before Anna is head over heels in love, and experiencing out-of-this world erotic dreams.

  Reporter Mimi Leblanc is wary of her best friend’s latest romance. There’s just something about John… But nothing Mimi digs up about him can deter Anna. Determined to protect Anna, Mimi continues her investigations—and what she uncovers about John is the last thing she ever imagined. But perhaps even more shocking is her own growing attraction to him…

  68,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  In 2012, we’re committed to bringing you an even wider variety of stories. With our January releases, we celebrate the diversity of the genres Carina Press has to offer. We’re publishing books across a variety of romance and non-romance genres, including mystery, cyberpunk, fantasy, male/male romance, paranormal romance, contemporary romance, science fiction, historical romance and more.

  I hope you’ll try a book in a different genre and spread the word to your friends and family that Carina Press is a destination publisher for quality books across genres.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

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  Dedication

  To Carina and all who sail in her.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  She needed a drink—that scratchy thirst that proceeds from a desire for oblivion rather than rehydration—from wanting to be not-Anna for an hour, or maybe the shiny, funny Anna rather than the gauche, hopeless version. The gauche, hopeless version was intolerable now, at six o’clock, outside the office, between the office and the pub, looking down at the hot, gummy pavements, at her sweaty toes peeking from the slingbacks, at the coral varnish.

  She relived, with creeping dread, that horrible lunch hour faux pas, almost choking on the chicken when she realised that it was Rob and not Liam who sent the e-mail about the date, having to splutter and blurt something about having a prior engagement, having to go back to the office and face Liam after all the flirty innuendoes and doe eyes of the morning. He must think she was mad. Her face was hot again just thinking of it; a little death repeating itself in her soul.

  But a cocktail in the cool plate-glass bar, smart and urban, so she could be a sophisticate again, would cure all that. Mimi couldn’t come, but this was 2011 and a woman could drink alone at a bar now, surely. If she kept an eye on her drink. If she didn’t catch a man’s eye. If she folded herself away into the shape of a bar stool or a chalkboard. Yeah, a woman could drink alone in a bar.

  No, a woman could not drink alone in a bar. Not when she pushed the plate-glass door and walked two steps in and saw Rob holding a war conference in a corner with the harpies from Ad Planning, and he had seen her and he knew that she’d lied to him. And she would never be able to go back to work, not ever, unless she wore a T-shirt with Pariah emblazoned across the front because everyone loved Rob. Even though none of them would ever shag him.

  There could be a way out though. There could be a way to elude this social suicide… At the bar, alone on a stool, in a sharp suit…

  “I hope you don’t think I’m awful, but could you pretend to know me? Please? Could you say hello, as if you’ve been expecting me or something?”

  He tilted his head, smiled in a way that could be welcoming, and was certainly curious, leant forward and, in the pretence of an air kiss, whispered, “Take a seat.”

  Relief, conspiratorial excitement and embarrassment, all fought for ascendancy in Anna’s fluttering chest, but thirst was the eventual winner.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Oh God, I would kill for one. What a day. Oh, anything. What you’re having will be fine. Thank you so much for this. You’re saving my life.”

  He nodded at the bartender, and Anna had never seen this move work before, so she was fascinated when her glass of white wine appeared on the bar top before any words were exchanged. She looked properly at the man, feeling that he had somehow proven himself worthy of closer inspection, but she couldn’t draw any firm conclusions from his appearance, save that he was wearing a very good suit, so he must have a very good job.

  “It’s all in a day’s work.” He smiled. He had the kind of smile that made the years fall away, and Anna saw what he looked like as a boy.

  “Really? You’re a superhero then?”

  “No. I’m a hedge fund manager.” Anna tried to look impressed, or fascinated, or at least knowledgeable. “You don’t know what that is, do you?”

  “No. Something in the City?”

  “Yeah. That’s about it. And what about you? What is this dire emergency that’s so awful you have to call on me?”

  “Don’t look at him, but there’s a man in the corner who asked me out for a drink after work. And I said yes, before I knew it was him, and then I had to suddenly remember a prior engagement, and it was all pretty awkward. So I needed a drink after work, just to calm down a bit. But it turns out he’s here, so I have to be meeting someone, you know, for my prior engagement. So you’re my, I don’t know, my brother, or my date or something.”

  “Oh, your date, I think.”

  “Date or whatever, yeah. Just for this one drink, and then I’ll leave you alone. If you don’t mind leaving with me, so it looks like we’re…”

  “Going on somewhere?”

  Anna nodded.

  “Got you. So what’s wrong with your friend in the corner?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just… There’s nothing right with him either. I mean, he’s quite nice. He’s not a bad person. But there’s no…”

  “Spark?”

  “Spark.”

  The man was older than her, Anna calculated, but she couldn’t decide how much older. Ten years? Maybe fifteen? He had to be in his thirties, anyway. He might be good-looking. Or he might not be. She couldn’t make up her mind. She couldn’t take that step back. He seemed so close, too close for him to be anything more than a jumble of impressions: close-cropped hair, hawkish eyes, a high forehead, a smile that took up his whole face. Interesting-looking, maybe, if not handsome.

  “The spark is the thing, isn’t it?” he pronounced, as if this was some great truth. “We never know where we’ll find it. But when we do…” He paused to sip from his glass. Anna waited for him to finish the sentence. He didn’t.

  Instead he asked where she worked, and in the space of half an hour, she poured out the abridged story of her life, to his amused approbation, stopping to consider his punctuating questions, growing ever more vivid and garrulous and confident and not-Anna with each swallow of wine. Until it was gone.

  “And the editor is such a monster! We don’t dare leave before the dot of six, or take
an extra millisecond for lunch. You’re so lucky, being able to manage your own time. Our editor would throw us from the top of the building if we suggested that we knew how to organise ourselves. Anyway. Look. Um, I’ve finished, so we can either leave together or I can just leave…“

  “Anna. I would love to take you out to dinner.”

  She blinked, giggled.

  “What, seriously?”

  “Very.” His lip curled and his eyes were cool and intent. “But not tonight. Tonight I have to take somebody else out to dinner.”

  “Oh God, your wife? Are you married?”

  He shook his head, as if disappointed at the question. “No, Anna, I’m not married. This is a business meeting. But I want your number. All your numbers.”

  He flipped out a BlackBerry. The BlackBerry of Expectation, thought Anna, staring at it before she reeled off a succession of digits, without stopping to think whether this was a good thing to do.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said, then he took her arm and left the bar with her, neither of them stopping to look back at Rob and his coterie, whose eyes were popping with gossip-mongering excitement.

  Out on the pavement, it was hot again, and noisy, and confusing.

  “So who are you meeting for dinner?” Anna asked, gaze half on the traffic already, wondering whether to pop into Tesco Metro on the way to the Tube, wondering what to buy, maybe wine, maybe pasta, maybe…

  A hand reached out, wrapping fingers around the back of her neck, pulling it towards another face, other lips, bumping, latching on, oh, a kiss, a real one. Anna, with her eyes shut but her senses wide open, thought this was the first Man Kiss she had had. It wasn’t like the Boy Kisses. It was well-done. The hand was inescapable, the mouth firm but sensual, all the clashing and dribbling did not happen at all. It was so good she wanted to go on, and on, and on, and it was only when he let her go that she realised she was outside, on a public thoroughfare, across the road from the newspaper office.

  “Your editor,” he said, and her last view of him was of white Cheshire cat teeth and a waving hand, crossing the road without regard to the traffic, looking back at her, shouting, “I won’t snitch!” before slowing to a more stately pace at the revolving glass door of her office.

  “What’s your name?” she whispered, before all the Tesco Metro stuff came back into mental focus. “I don’t know your name.”

  And that was how it started.

  Chapter Two

  On the Tube, all the way back to Tufnell Park, Anna kept touching her neck where he had touched it. It felt as if the impression of his hand was burned there, as if he had not quite let go. Her lips also fizzed, feeling a little too big for her face, swollen to assume proportions of great importance beside her insignificant nose and irrelevant eyes. She didn’t dare touch them, because she had this strange idea that if she did she might rub off something precious and lose it forever. She shook her head, almost loosening the earbuds from her iPod, which was treacherously playing love songs. This was silly. It was just a kiss. An opportunistic kiss from a rascally man. Oh, a man. A real man. Boys didn’t have that colour hair, did they? What was it called—salt-and-pepper? All the boys at work were fresh out of university, like her, on graduate schemes, and they had either flowing locks, or straight-up spikes of gel, or no hair at all, but none of it was salt-and-pepper. And yet this was suddenly, straight out of left field, her very favourite colour of hair on a man. That word—man. Oh, it was overwhelming, it was intoxicating. A man, a man, a man, she repeated to the rhythm of the treacherous love song.

  As soon as she was out on the pavement, hurrying past the Tapas Bar on the corner and down Brecknock Road, she speed-dialled Mimi. Wherever she was, she needed to be consulted. The matter was urgent. The man might call at any time.

  “Didn’t I tell you I had family stuff?” was Mimi’s disgruntled opener. “I’ve got five minutes before Mum and I sit down to dinner, okay?”

  “Mimi, something happened.”

  “I told you Liam wasn’t the type to hide behind an anonymous e-mail. You wouldn’t listen. Liam is confident—he is cocksure. He is as sure as a whole bag of cocks. Why wouldn’t he just ask you outright? I had a nasty feeling about it all along.”

  “Oh, that, no, it’s not that. I mean, that’s pretty horrendous, but I’ll just have to deal with it. I suppose there’s no harm done. If Liam doesn’t fancy me, I’ll have to get over it.”

  There was a silence.

  “This is you, isn’t it? Anna?”

  “Of course!”

  “It’s just that the last time we spoke it was all undying love for Liam and taking him to see the Great Wall of China with your babies strapped to your back. What’s changed? What’s happened?”

  “A man.” Anna closed her eyes and savoured the words, almost tripping over a rogue paving slab. “A man happened.”

  “Gosh! Really? Between leaving work and now? I mean, it’s only seven-thirty. Who is this man? Speedy Gonzales?”

  “He’s a hedge fund manager.”

  “Oh, a rich man. Well, I’m all ears. Tell me more.”

  “He was in the Dolly. And so was Rob. So I asked him if he’d mind pretending to be my date. And he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all.”

  “Hang on. You went to the Dolly after work? On your own?”

  “Yeah. Really needed a drink, after the horror of Robgate. Except he was in there.”

  “He’s always in the Dolly. Anna, you dolt.”

  “Wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Oh, Anna, love, that’s turning into the story of your life. You need think-straighteners. Like hair-straighteners for your brain. So this hedge fund man—he was keen to take part in your little charade, was he?”

  “I think so. He took my number. He’s going to get in touch.”

  “He took your number? He didn’t give you his?”

  “Well…I didn’t ask…”

  “Oh, Anna. What’s his name?”

  “Umm. The Man.”

  “Sweetheart, a man in a bar will take your number. It doesn’t mean he’ll call. Especially if he doesn’t even tell you his name. But I’m pleased for you. You had a nice flirt, a little morale booster, all lovely. And now the Bolognese is on the table and I must dash. See you tomorrow, sweetie.”

  “But…” Anna heard the click and found herself speaking to a phantom. “But I know he will call,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

  You and your romantic old flannel, she mimicked Mimi’s tone of fond exasperation. That was what she would say. Anna and her romantic old flannel, always expecting to be swept off her feet. But if you expect it, it isn’t sweeping, is it? It’s leaping into the chap’s arms. The chap wants to do the sweeping. Let him.

  Anna was at her door now, at the top of the steps, turning the key in the lock of the imposing three-storey Victorian terrace whose attic room she rented. Kicking away the takeaway flyers and red bills, she headed straight up the dingy staircase. Bet Mr. Hedge Fund doesn’t live like this. Bet he lives in a huge, airy apartment, all floor-to-ceiling glass and minimalistic furnishings.

  Bet he doesn’t cook pasta on two gas rings, she speculated, stirring the jarred sauce in the kitchen corner of her room. Bet he’s with the editor now, somewhere swanky like St. John or Smiths of Smithfield, eating the finest cuisine and drinking vintage wine. Bet he doesn’t lie on his unmade bed watching EastEnders on a dodgy portable telly. Bet he’s out in the hottest bars, flirting with the hottest women, all golden-skinned and Bond Street-clad, and looking for a Mr. Hedge Fund of their own.

  “Yeah, but hands off, he’s mine,” she said aloud, dropping the last Skittle into her mouth and squinting at the cobweb on the light fitting. The early summer sun was sinking now and perhaps it was time to switch on the bare bulb. Or just go to bed. She could not even remember what he looked like—how was his face put together? There were flashes of one feature or another, but she couldn’t quite fit the jigsaw pieces in the right configuration, and it was
irritating. The smell of him—something divine, something expensive. Was the chemist still open? Could she go down and just sniff at a few aftershave samples, to see if she could get a hit of him?

  “You’re bonkers, Rice,” she announced, and then her phone bleeped. “It’ll be Mimi,” she told herself. “Or Gran. Or someone from home.”

  All the same, her fingers were clumsy on the buttons, and she gasped and whooped at the message, simple as it was.

  “Your editor less fierce than I was led to expect—good night, Miss Rice xxx.”

  A length of muscular twine, thick as a snake, wrapped itself round her, over and over, while Anna struggled to elude it. But her limbs were heavy and she was weighted to the bed, glued to its sweaty summer-night sheets, unable to do anything but watch the twine, with its dull sheen of gunmetal, wind around her waist, her thighs, her wrists, its progress insidious, its scales cold against her skin. As it crept, it awoke sensation, ticklish at first, then blooming into arousal, as if it were some form of aphrodisiac vine. The bedroom was dark, too indistinct to make out anything but grey, yet these bonds were visible, and they hissed, loud, like escaping gas, and now they were tightening, impressing her skin, leaving marks, and she wanted to scream because she thought they would carry on constricting her until she was dead, but no sound would come. She felt herself rise, just a few inches off the bed, and then she heard the hisses form into words, but only two words: “You’re mine.”

  Wake up! she commanded herself. Wake up! It’s a dream! She tried to say the words, but her tongue was thick and jammed to the roof of her mouth. The twine evaporated, but she was still immobile, and she was no longer in the air, but she knew she had to open her eyes, even though they were pretending to be open already.

  Anna was no stranger to sleep paralysis, so when she came round, she was not unduly anxious or frightened. This had been going on, periodically, since she was sixteen. It had been terrifying at first, but she had read a few websites and was satisfied that it was a common enough phenomenon, if still not exactly enjoyable. The first time, she had been convinced that it was nothing less than satanic possession, and she had tried to avoid sleeping for days afterward. Even now, there were words—which was rare in sleep paralysis, from what she had gleaned—and a definite force of presence that prevented her dismissing the demonic theory out of hand. It always seemed so real.