Fatal Secrets by Allison Brennan Read Free Book Online

damage.
    “You have no need to worry about your shipment,” he said.
    “We’re not going to talk about this here.”
    “I have protection.” No way was the FBI wiretapping his phone. He had state-of-the-art security to prevent it.
    “We’ll meet. Tonight.”
    Xavier didn’t like Noel Marchand, but he was one of his best customers, on both ends—importing and exporting. In this business, one didn’t have to like one’s business associates. As long as they paid and did their job with discretion, Xavier was happy to do business with them. Besides, he wasn’t in it to make friends. He’d buy whatever friends he needed through his philanthropic donations.
    “Here?” Xavier asked, loath to bring the man into his sanctuary, but it was a gesture of goodwill, and right now Xavier needed to keep Marchand happy.
    “Of course not. Midnight. Your restaurant.”
    Xavier had purchased a riverfront restaurant last year and was renovating it. The place was convenient and private, off the west River Road. It was Xavier’s turf, so Marchand wasn’t overly upset.
    “I’ll be there.”
    He hung up and stood on the balcony of his bedroom. Marchand was a minor annoyance compared to what had just happened with the FBI. They had gone through his
things
. Pawed everything with greasy fingers. Pictures were crooked, drawers misaligned, dirty footprints on his polished wood floor.
    He dialed his secretary on her cell phone. She worked out of his consulting office, but handled both personal and professional appointments. And while he had no desire to screw her, Denise provided him with a weekly blow job that was satisfying. He refused to stick his dick into any man or woman; what other men had been there before him? Disgusting.
    “Call in the cleaning service,” he demanded. “I need them to come early—I want the house cleaned top to bottom, before noon.”
    He next called Craig Gleason, the attorney and head lobbyist who ran the day-to-day management at XCJ Consulting. “I’ll be coming by late this morning for a briefing. Have you had any strange calls or visitors?”
    “Define strange.”
    “This isn’t a joke, Craig. There’s been some excitement here at the house. I want to make sure that reporters and other vultures aren’t circling.”
    “It’s a Wednesday during the middle of a budget crisis in the California capitol—business as usual.”
    “Good. Just put everything I need to know together and the status of the key bills we’re pushing. I’ll give you one hour; use it wisely.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    More often than not, for the last twenty-some years he had called himself Noel Marchand. He stood on the balcony of his penthouse suite at the Hyatt Hotel across from the California State Capitol. He rarely came to America, and when he did he took a great many precautions. Of course, he was registered under a false identity: Pierre Devereaux, a French Canadian from Montreal. It amused him to remember that he had, in fact, been born in Montreal and was part French Canadian. But his life as Franz Corbert had ended when he was nine, when his father killed his mother and fled to South America with Franz and his younger brother Tobias. He’d never returned to Canada even after his father died; he had no attachment to the country.
    Nor did he care for the United States. He could not be king here, no matter what he did or who he controlled. He preferred places where he could wield power so great that when he killed, no one questioned his action. Where, when his car drove past, people cowered. Where, when he walked into a room, the women did what he said, and if he had to punish them, no one asked why.
    Americans had money, and rich Americans liked their toys. He provided the toys; Xavier Jones provided the buyers.
    His business certainly wasn’t limited to the States, but Americans usually overpaid for everything, and considering the risks of importing under the federal radar,Noel felt justified in charging his North