His Inspiration by Ava Lore Page A

accidentally drop your phone in the toilet if he wasn't nicer to
me.”
    “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 a 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.”
    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