by Tessa Bailey
Falling for a con man is the most dangerous game of all…
Con artist Austin Shaw’s been in disguise so long he’s not sure where his fake identities end and he begins. Now that he’s been strong-armed into working for a specialized undercover unit working with the Chicago police—criminals with unique “skills”—the last thing he needs is to risk his iron control. Especially when it comes to a certain stunningly sexy hacker who tempts him with every look of disdain.
Polly Banks will never, ever trust a con man. On the trail of a ruthless crook who destroyed the only family she’s ever known, Polly is unnerved by the shadow who follows her every move. The one who makes her pulse pound and breath short with lust. Austin. He’s infuriating, enigmatic, and pure sex appeal, and she’s determined to resist him.
But an untrustworthy man of disguise can become anyone he wants…including a man that Polly must trust if she’s to escape their dangerous game alive.
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover the Crossing the Line series… His Risk to Take
Riskier Business
Risking It All
Up in Smoke
Protecting What’s His
Protecting What’s Theirs
Officer Off Limits
Asking for Trouble
Staking His Claim
Unfixable
Baiting the Maid of Honor
Owned by Fate
Exposed by Fate
Driven by Fate
Crashed Out
Discover more Entangled Select Suspense titles… Broken Honor
Cuba Undercover
Lost in Tennessee
True Deceptions
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Tessa Bailey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Select Suspense is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Heather Howland
Cover design by Heather Howland
Cover art from DepositPhotos
ISBN 978-1-63375-234-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition January 2016
Chapter One
Austin Shaw hardened his jaw and slid onto one of the plush leather chairs lining the bar. With his left hand—the one sporting a Rolex he’d just nipped from a trusting pawn store owner—he reached under the opposite arm, removed the copy of Crain’s Chicago, and tossed it onto the bar, nodding at the nearest group of businessmen as he did so. As expected, they nodded back, sitting a touch straighter in their seats, thus reminding Austin he was having a brilliant fucking hair day. What else was new?
In Austin’s peripheral vision, he saw the red-vested bartender jolt from his post watching the Chicago Bulls game on an expensive flat-screen and stride toward him. Good man.
“Something to drink, sir?”
Austin cast a discriminating eye over Red Vest’s shoulder toward the top shelf, rolling his tongue in his mouth, anticipating his employment of the New England accent he’d been practicing. “Johnnie Walker Blue.” He laid his arm across the neighboring chair and watched the bartender’s eyes light on the Rolex. “And a round for those hardworking gentlemen across the bar, too. Their boss is an asshole.”
Red Vest quirked a blond eyebrow. “How’d you know?”
“You’re looking at him.” Austin tilted his head. “But let’s keep that between us, eh? My office is on the top floor for a reason.”
The bartender laughed and went to fulfill the order. Austin leaned back in his chair, his confidence solidifying now that he’d accomplished the two most important objectives when walking into an establishment. Thanks to the combination of his Rolex, the financial journal, and the easy lie he’d told, the bartender had now assigned him a worth. And that worth was high. If Austin needed information—and he did—valuable words would roll right off Red Vest’s lips now, smooth as smoke.
Secondly, he’d made friends with everyone in the room without breaking a sweat. Pleasing others meant they’d do the same for him. Do it with a smile and the arrogance he’d been born with? He’d have those stiffs jumping through flaming hoops before they finished their drinks.
Right. Now that he was in charge of the landscape, the business at hand bled in, like an uncapped ink pen against white cotton.
Polly Banks. Hacker extraordinaire. Ex-convict. And the first woman who’d made his acquaintance without noticing or commenting on the silver flecks in his eyes. A ghastly oversight, really.
With a discreet check of his watch, Austin began a mental countdown until the untouchable Ms. Banks strolled through the establishment’s doors. Tonight wasn’t the first night he’d followed her to the upscale bar in Chicago’s financial district. It was merely the first night he’d chosen to insert himself into the frame, rather than hang back and observe Polly’s amateur operation from the darkened back corner booth. At least, he’d assumed the operation was amateurish. He hadn’t quite figured out what angle she was working, which gave him a beastly case of nerves. On top of a festering volcano of irritation, wrought by her increasingly diminished attire.
Low-cut silk tops and flashes of garter belts that likely accounted for the unusually populated bar. Austin kept his expression mild even as his features ached to threaten each and every arsehole in the vicinity with a look. One that said, “Ah, gents. Put your wedding rings back on. The sleek beauty you’ve been ogling five nights straight is mine. She just hasn’t come ’round to the idea yet.”
Bit of an under-exaggeration, unfortunately. When Polly looked at him, Austin could feel her disdain like a blast from a fire hose. It was jarring, really. He’d encountered many reactions from the fairer sex. Astonishment, attraction, nervousness. What he wouldn’t give to inspire nerves from Polly. He’d know just what to do with them, and his process involved a distinct lack of clothing. Possibly a piece of leather for her to bite down on when overcome by pleasure.
Austin took a sip of Johnnie Walker to stifle the groan building in his throat. He and Ms. Banks were nowhere near nudity and leather—yet—unfortunately. Instead, he was in disguise, watching her play a game in which he could easily assist her. If she didn’t liken him to pond scum.
Really, he’d had no chance to make an alternate impression on the sassy bit of goods with a mind that rivaled even his own. Both of them had been brought to Chicago upon being issued ultimatums. Prison time…or working undercover to put criminals—such as themselves, but with significantly fewer accolades—behind bars.
He and Polly, along with four other victims, had been sent to purgatory. “Atoning for their sins,” their leader, Captain Derek Tyler, had put it.
Austin disguised his snort with a cough. Sins were only sins if someone was watching. And he was usually long gone before his marks caught on.
Do unto others…then disappear. A motto that had served him quite well.
Until recently, when the law had put a target on his back, making the world that was once his endless playground a damn sight smaller.
Sometimes he even let the cops think he hadn’t orchestrated his own arrival in Chicago. That he hadn’t been drawn here by news of a loose end, left undone during his last con. A living, breathing loose end named Gemma.
Austin showed zero reaction when the door at his back opened, allowing the bite of fall to swirl into the bar, cooling his neck. When Polly clicked past in high heels, however, reacting was a necessity. Any man who didn’t show a reaction to a modern, sexualized version of Snow White…well, that man would make the chess pieces in place around him suspicious. Suspicion was the enemy to cons everywhere. And being a formidable con of great reputation, Austin let the glass pause halfway to his mouth as he considered Polly’s ass on her way to the opposite end of the bar. Even threw in a conspiratorial salute to the group of businessmen drinking the liquor he’d paid for as they did the same.
Goddammit, he’d never felt an ounce of possessiveness over another human being in his thirty-one years. But just then, he wanted more than anything to walk up behind Polly, wrap an arm around her hips, and drag her back against his lap. Look those tossers right in the eye as he licked up the side of her smooth neck. Mine, you pathetic drunks. You wouldn’t last a minute up against the brilliance of how she thinks. How she reasons and makes decisions. Piss. Right. Off.
When the tumbler shook in Austin’s hand, he quickly set it down and looked busy going through his cell phone. He put the device to his ear and turned sideways, away from Polly, but at an angle that allowed him to watch her through the bar’s back mirror. He’d taken great pains applying the phony beard and gray wig so she wouldn’t recognize him, but he wouldn’t take any chances. If she made him, there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of him discerning her game.
Anxious. The hacker who had once breached the White House’s technological firewalls was actually anxious. Which made him…jumpy. Fucking hell, he didn’t do jumpy. Rule number one, however, was knowing the lay of the land before running an operation, and he had no clue what Polly’s game was.
A gut feeling told Austin he’d find out tonight.
…
Here, kitty kitty.
Polly Banks ordered a dry white wine and crossed her legs in what probably looked like slow motion to the handful of douche bags behind her. The bartender had already started to pour her drink of choice prior to her placing the order, however, which was troubling. It told her she’d been here one too many nights, and tomorrow called for a venue change. Not good. She was running out of nighttime haunts to locate her mark. After this, she knew of a single nightclub where Charles Reitman was known to frequent when in Chicago. After that, it would be back to the drawing board. Or keyboard, as it were.
Her time in Chicago hadn’t been designated simply to play house with the undercover squad. No, no. Each and every move Polly made was planned down to the tiniest degree and orchestrated with precise, thoughtful keystrokes. There was a debt that needed settling, and she’d come to Chicago to do just that. If her daylight hours were dedicated to aiding the same law enforcement machine that had ruined her fun and sent her to prison? Well. She’d be free of their confines soon enough. Free to navigate cyberspace at will, locating information and selling it the highest bidder.
Just as soon as she located Charles Reitman and got close enough to take back every penny he’d stolen from her fathers.
Yes, her vendetta against the man who’d swindled her fathers out of their life savings was pretty hypocritical. After all, her bread and butter happened to be blackmail. But Polly had a code that dictated whom she stole from and why. It was simple, really. If the fuckers deserved it, they were open season. Her fathers hadn’t deserved it. They’d barely made it into the black with their clothing line before the financial security had been swept out from under them like a rug. By Charles Reitman. The man who’d posed as an investment banker and vamoosed with six hard-earned figures, sending Polly’s family spiraling into bankruptcy.
Life had been hard after that. They’d lived in motel rooms, rationed food, and been turned down for assistance from people they’d considered friends. She’d watched the parents who loved her suffer, battle to keep her fed and clothed. Keeping her warm and safe when no one else would do the same for them.
And then it had gotten much, much worse.
Polly had grown up and learned how to get even. Now if only the topper to her revenge cake would come into the bar and proposition her for sex, she could move on with her plans of world domination, secure in the knowledge that justice had been served.
Polly accepted the glass of wine from the bartender with a half smile, curling a hand around the back of her neck in a flirtatious gesture. He coughed into his fist, mumbling that the group of gentlemen had bought her a drink. Polly turned and sent them a fluttery-fingered wave. Just one drink? How generous among the eight of you.
Although dressing the part had been necessary, Polly didn’t like being ogled. She placated herself with the fact that she could hack into the bar’s point-of-sale system and have each man’s credit card information by morning.
Polly turned back to the bar and sipped her wine, feeling a kick of adrenaline when the door opened and a slim figure breezed in. His looks were entirely unremarkable, but there was a caginess to him. Slim’s gaze swept the establishment’s interior in a casual glance that felt…practiced. Without looking at the bartender, he reached out and shook the younger man’s hand, calling him by name. The bartender floundered a moment, as if surprised the newcomer knew his name, but recovered by offering to buy him his first drink.
“Beefeater, rocks. Thanks, man,” Slim said, his attention landing on her. Staying there. “And whatever the lady is having.”
That was when Polly recognized him. It wasn’t whom she’d been expecting. Not Charles Reitman, but his face…she explored the recesses of her mind trying to place it. For years, her free time had gone into researching Reitman, following his movements. Not an easy task when you’re tracking a slippery con. A snake in the grass, just like all con men. There. Her photographic memory delivered the DMV record her memory bank had been seeking. This man—Slim—was an associate of Reitman’s. Did that mean she’d been correct and Reitman was in Chicago? Yes. Polly’s heart pumped double time. Finally.
She leaned back in her chair, allowing the white silk of her blouse to gape as she smiled at Slim. His name still eluded her, but he wouldn’t. If she played the situation just right, this guy could lead her to Reitman.
When Slim correctly interpreted the invitation and sauntered forward to join Polly, she was distracted by a man in the corner of the bar. He stiffened in an almost imperceptible manner. Just a subtle tweak of his shoulders. Had he been there the last four nights? No, she didn’t think so, but his face was obscured by the fall of gray hair, the collar of his jacket. Knowing all too well how cons often worked in teams, she decided to keep an eye on him while feeling out Slim.
Funny, Slim was busy feeling her out. Typical con. “I assumed you were waiting for someone,” he said, sliding onto the chair beside her.
“Oh?” she purred, tucking her short black hair behind her ear. “Why is that?”
“You’re the only woman in the room.” He dipped his head and Polly could see he’d been good-looking once, probably before alcohol consumption had become his favorite pastime, an educated guess she made based on the tremor in his drinking hand. The raw red skin of his nose. “If you’re not waiting for someone, you must like being the exception to the rule.”
“T
he rule being what? Only men are allowed in this big bad boy’s bar?”
He smiled into a long swig of gin. “I don’t make the rules.”
“Good.” She gave a dainty shrug, going for a mischievous air. “I won’t have to apologize when I break them.”
He swirled the alcohol in his glass. “What are you looking for tonight?”
“Tonight?” She tugged the material of her skirt down, knowing it would only spring back up her thighs when she let it go. Which it did. Again, the figure huddled at the end of the bar demanded her attention, but she strove to focus on Slim, who’d finally let his gaze drop to her legs, an action she’d expected upon approach. This guy wasn’t bush league, and she needed to remember that. Dividing her attention between him and the gray-haired mystery man would be a misstep she couldn’t afford. “I’m just trying to stay warm,” Polly continued. “It’s a cold night out there, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed,” Slim murmured, scrutinizing her. “If you don’t mind heading once more into the fray, I was planning on eating dinner down the street. Join me.”
Polly perched her grinning lips on the rim of her wineglass, even as her insides recoiled at the command. She didn’t like being told what to do. Not by anyone, but a con issuing demands took the ever-loving cake. And speaking of cake…“Do I get dessert, too?”
“I’ve never been known to skip the best part.” Slim tossed back the last of his drink, set the glass down on the bar and held out his hand. “I guess you were waiting for someone after all, huh?”
Maybe I’ll kill him, too, for good measure. “You seem to be good at reading people,” she said, allowing him to assist her off the chair.
His hand smoothed into the small of her back. “You have no idea.”
Prick. Polly picked up her purse, comforted by the weight of her recently procured nine-millimeter. “Lead the way.”
…
The best cons included more than just a mechanic, also known as the man performing the con. Austin himself had worked with a partner since he’d turned sixteen and watched his father get taken for five quid in a game of three-card monte during a family trip to Brighton. He’d seen it all take place, like a play unfolding on a stage. At the time, he hadn’t known what the term “shill” meant. He’d only seen the silent communication pass between the mechanic—the card dealer—and the man who’d taken a turn before his father. They’d been in on it together. I won! The shill had said it loud enough to stop passersby in their tracks. This guy must be blind…I’ve already won supper money for the week.
