by Nina Croft
“Earth to Summer.” Darcy pulled her out of her thoughts.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
A knock sounded on the door. It was time to go. And suddenly, she didn’t want to. She looked at the beige walls, the dark green covers on the beds. It was so familiar and safe and… “I’m scared,” she said.
A whole new life. What if she failed?
“Don’t be.” Darcy smiled, then studied her, head cocked to one side. “You know what your problem is?”
“Which one? I’m sure I’ve more than one.”
“Hah. The one where you’re a total introvert with an attitude problem. So you let everything bottle up inside until you burst. And then bad things happen.”
Never again.
While she’d done her first job out of a fierce desire to make a better life for her mother, she should have stopped then. Instead, she’d kept going, driven by an almost explosive need for revenge against the sort of big corporations that had torn their lives apart. But the last two years had given her time to see the situation more clearly, and she truly believed she’d managed to dispel the anger. “I’ve changed,” she said.
“I know you have, sweetie. But I’m guessing you still have problems sharing—so if anything bothers you, you come and talk to us. And just remember—you’re beautiful. Inside and out.”
“And you’re a good person,” Regan added.
She dashed a hand over her eyes. She could do this. “And from now on, I’m honest.” She wasn’t giving up—she still hated injustice—but from now on, she’d find legal ways to fight those battles. She had a few ideas.
“Yeah. We all are. I’ll see you in a few days.”
She nodded. “I’ll be at the gates to meet you.”
“And I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Regan said. “God, it’s going to seem like forever without you guys.”
The door opened, and the guard stood there. “Time to go, Summer.”
She swallowed, then grabbed her plastic bag of things and followed him out. The door clanged shut behind her, but this time she was on the outside.
That new life beckoned.
I can be anything I want to be.
It took nearly three hours to process her through the system. Summer spent most of that time sitting on a hard plastic chair at the edge of a dull gray corridor, gnawing on her lower lip, gripping her plastic bag in her hands. She could hardly believe the day had come at last.
Finally, the guard came and told her everything was ready. She followed him down a corridor, through several locked gates, finally halting by the gate to the outside world. A shiver ran through her. The gate seemed to move ever so slowly as it opened.
Then she was stepping through into the sunshine as the sound of traffic filled her ears. This was it.
She swallowed, closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she looked straight at Danny, who stood on the other side of the road, a big grin on his face. She felt an answering smile tug at the corners of her lips. As she took a step toward him, a big black car pulled up at the side of the road in front of her.
She paused, waiting for it to drive on, but it just sat there. The windows were dark so she couldn’t see inside. She was just about to step around it when the rear window slid down.
“Ms. Sarah Daniels, I presume. Or perhaps not.”
At the sound of that name, that voice, her world stopped.
Chapter Two
She looked like she’d seen, or heard, a ghost.
Her hand came out to rest on the roof of the car, and the blood drained from her face, leaving her even paler than before.
And she’d been pretty pale already, like she’d spent the last two years in…prison? She’d always been delicate, almost ethereal. Now she looked fragile, as though he could snap her in two with a hard touch. He’d been doing some reading on the effects of prison. He didn’t think Sarah, or rather Summer, was the type to take it well.
Nik slid across, opened the door, and climbed out to stand beside her. He hadn’t remembered her being so small. Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, sneakers on her feet, she appeared younger than her twenty-six years. She was staring at the pavement as though she might find answers there, but as the seconds passed, she finally lifted her head. Her long silver-blond hair was loose around her shoulders, and she raised a shaking hand and looped it behind her ears, revealing the smooth line of her cheek. Her eyes darted left and right before settling on him, and even then, he couldn’t read her expression. It was somehow shuttered, as though she’d managed to hide the shock away and lock it down tight.
“I’m not Sarah Daniels,” she spoke softly. “I think you must be mistaken.”
As she made to move away, he reached out and rested a hand on her arm. A frisson prickled across his skin. The blankness in her face vanished to be replaced by a brief flare of…anger? More than anger—pure unadulterated rage. What the hell had she to be angry about? He was the one in the right here—she’d stolen from him.
She spoke through gritted teeth. “Get your hand off me or I’ll call the police.”
“Really?”
She glared at him.
“Go ahead, Summer.”
At the use of her name, the fight drained from her. She sagged, and he felt…guilty? He forced the emotion away. He was doing this for her own good. Well, ultimately for both of them. He fully intended that somewhere down the line, they would finish what they started that night. But maybe he’d give her a little time to get used to him first.
Then she stood up straight, and he could almost see the core of iron running through her. He had to keep reminding himself that she was no pathetic victim. This was someone capable of going into a workplace, lying to everyone she came across, pretending to be someone else…and stealing.
Had he been the first? Somehow, he found it unlikely. Harry had done an investigation into Summer Delaney, and while he’d found no evidence of wrongdoing, there were a couple of big holes in her life from the age of twenty-one until she’d been arrested. Presumably she’d started doing her little jobs around that age. She had no formal education or qualifications, so she was clearly self-taught.
Sarah Daniels, on the other hand, had plenty of qualifications, and they’d been convincing enough to fool his HR department.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“My money back.” That wasn’t entirely the truth. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted. Closure maybe.
“I don’t have your money.” She gave him a quick smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “So, can I go now?”
At her words, something tightened inside him. Maybe deep down—okay, not that deep—he’d hoped she’d be…repentant. That she’d say she was sorry, beg for forgiveness, tell him she needed the money for a…life-saving operation? He’d put a lot of time and energy into thinking up scenarios where he could forgive her because she was genuinely remorseful.
It looked like that wasn’t about to happen.
He studied her from head to toe, finally settling on the flutter of her pulse beneath the skin of her throat. That long-ago night, he’d pressed his lips to that pulse, tasted her skin. He knew she wasn’t as cool as she made out. “You really think it will be that easy?”
She glanced away, then back at him, licked her lips, and heat washed through him. He wished she wouldn’t do that; it did queer things to his insides.
“Look,” she said, her voice softening, taking on an earnest quality he was sure would take in most people. “I’m sorry for what I did. But I really don’t have your money. And if it makes you feel better, I’ve changed. Totally. I’ll never do it again.” She blinked up at him so solemnly, he almost believed her.
“Get in the car, Summer.”
She frowned. “I don’t want to get in the car.”
He patted her arm. “This is just a little bit of advice from me to you—free of charge. Get yourself ready for a whole lot of things you don’t want to do.”
Her eyes
narrowed. “What the hell do you mean by that?” She looked him up and down. “Are you some sort of pervert who gets your kicks from forcing innocent women?”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. She thought he was going to blackmail her into sleeping with him. But even though he had every intention of sleeping with her at some point, the idea of blackmail hadn’t even occurred to him. He didn’t do coercion, and anyway, he had no doubt she would come to him willingly in time. She just needed a little convincing. Maybe a little reminder of how good they had felt together.
“For one—I don’t need to blackmail women into my bed. And two—something tells me you’re far from innocent.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. For a minute, she stared at something across the street. He followed her gaze, saw a tall man with scruffy dark hair, jeans, and a leather jacket, watching them. Nik turned back to Summer in time to see her give a little shake of her head. Was this someone she knew? But when he looked back, the man was gone.
He sighed, pressed a finger between his eyes. “Get in the car, Summer. Please.”
“Where are we going?”
“Get in the car and I’ll tell you.”
“You’re not handing me over to the police?”
He didn’t say anything, just gestured to the car.
“Because if you are…” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“Just give me one night. I won’t run, honest. But I can’t go back, not without just one night outside. On my own. I’ll go crazy.”
And suddenly he felt like a complete bastard. How did she do that to him?
“Please,” she muttered.
“I’m not taking you to the police.”
She gritted her teeth. “And you couldn’t tell me that before I went into the begging routine?”
“Maybe I just find it useful to know how desperate you are.”
She glared but then whirled around and slid into the backseat of the car, scooting as far as she could to the other side and staring fixedly out of the window, her plastic bag gripped tight on her knees, her knuckles showing white.
He got in beside her, and a second later, the car pulled into traffic. Nik pressed a button, closing the screen between them and the driver, then rested his head back against the seat. It would take them thirty minutes to get to the office at this time of day. He could give her a few minutes to reconcile herself to what was happening.
Slowly the tension went out from her and she slumped a little. Her fingers loosened on the bag and she shifted on the seat. He had an almost overriding urge to hug her and tell her everything was going to be all right. What was it about this woman that raised every protective instinct he’d never even known he had?
And it wasn’t sexual. Ha, and if he believed that, he was deluding himself. His body had been aware of her from the moment she’d stepped through that prison gate. And this close, her warm scent filled his nostrils, just pure, clean woman. It tightened the muscles low down in his body. She was worrying at her lower lip, and that dragged his mind straight back to their kiss. The taste of her, so sweet. He wanted to taste the rest of her.
Shit, he had to stop thinking like this. Right now, she clearly hated him, which was, again, odd. Wasn’t he supposed to hate her? She’d led him on and then stolen from him.
He sat up, pressed another button, and a door slid open on a drinks cabinet. He poured her a glass of white wine—her favorite, if he remembered rightly from their evening conversations, and held it out to her. She stared at it as though it might bite, then looked around the car, her upper lip curling. “The trappings of wealth,” she muttered. Still, she took the glass.
“I would think you were pretty fond of the trappings of wealth yourself, considering the money you’ve stolen and, according to you, already spent.” He still wasn’t sure if that was true, though Harry hadn’t been able to dig up any accounts.
He poured himself a scotch and turned slightly in his seat so he could watch her. She took a small sip. Then a bigger one. Finally, she swallowed the contents of the glass in one gulp, then held the empty glass out to him.
Getting her drunk hadn’t been part of his plans, but perhaps it would loosen her up and he might learn something. He poured her another and handed it to her. She was staring out the window, her eyes glued to the scene outside.
After a few minutes, she turned to him, heaving a huge sigh. “What do you want? And don’t just tell me your money back, because I know, for people like you, that amount of money means nothing.”
“People like me?” Why didn’t he like that? He was unique. There were no people like him.
“Rich people. People born to money, who’ve never known anything else.” She twisted on her seat, bending one leg under her, and looking at him over the rim of her glass. “I bet you don’t even know how much money you’ve got. This car, the driver, probably costs enough to keep a family in comfort for a year and you just take it for granted.”
She was right. But he’d come to terms with his wealth a long time ago. He enjoyed it. But at the same time, he gave money to charities and he paid his employees decent wages, always making sure they came first in any business decisions he made.
“Are you a communist, Summer?” She clearly had issues.
“No.” Then she shrugged. “So, what happens next? What do you think you know?”
He pulled the file from the seat across from him and handed it to her. Shock darkened her eyes as she flicked it open to the mug shot of her. “Ugh.”
She turned it over and read the report
“Why did you get caught?” he asked.
She glanced up. “I got careless. Thinking about other stuff. Lost my focus, and they got suspicious.”
“I suppose it’s hard work pretending to be someone—something—you’re not.”
“Hah. You would know, Mr. Maintenance Man.”
It was the first reference she’d made to his little deception. Though unlike her, he hadn’t lied. He’d just not put her straight when she’d presumed he was part of the maintenance team. It was an understandable mistake, given his appearance. But the truth was, he’d liked the fact that she had no clue who he was, that he paid her wages.
Pathetic.
“I didn’t pretend. You assumed.”
She studied him for a moment, her blue eyes wandering over him, making him hot and hard with just a look, and he had to fight the urge to shift in his seat. He didn’t want to reveal how much she affected him. Not yet.
“Well, you looked more like a maintenance man. You still do. What’s with the disguise?”
“It’s no disguise. Just the way I choose to look. I’m comfortable like this. If other people don’t like it, they can go do business someplace else.”
“Nice to be able to do what you want. You are aware your company has a dress code?”
Actually, he’d never really thought about it. Presumably that had been set in place by his HR department.
“So,” she continued, “it’s okay for you to dress the way you like, but not the poor people who work for you. That’s a double standard, you know.”
Of course it was. But if you couldn’t dress how you wanted when you were the boss, what was the point? There had to be some perks. All the same, he could see what she was getting at, and he didn’t have a valid argument. Except the I’m-the-boss one, and he didn’t think that would go down too well with this woman.
Why the hell was he trying to justify himself to her? She was a goddamn thief.
She flicked through the rest of the file. Her hands were delicate, like the rest of her, the nails short and unpainted. She wore no jewelry, but then, she had just been released from prison. She was hardly likely to wear diamonds inside. But all that money had to have gone somewhere.
Maybe if he could just get her to admit that. Then show her there was a different way, that she didn’t have to steal. She clearly had a brilliant mind. She’d just used it for the wrong pursuits. She woul
d be his good deed for the year. He’d set her on the straight and narrow. Then, at some point, he’d remind her of how much she had wanted him that night and they’d follow it through to its obvious conclusion. And then it would be over. Because the last thing he needed in his life was another mercenary woman.
She slapped the file closed. “Did you set a private investigator on me?”
“I didn’t need to. My company has its own security section. I think you met the head.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Your friend Harry?”
“That’s right.” So, she remembered Harry, did she?
“What do you plan to do with this?” She patted the file.
“It depends on you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. If you’re not going to the police and you don’t plan to force me to sleep with you—which I wouldn’t do anyway—what do you want?”
He studied her for a long moment and wondered whether she was indeed immune to the desire sizzling beneath the surface. It was time to find out. He let his gaze wander over her, the slim hips, the curve of her surprisingly full breasts on such a slender frame. “I remember our kiss,” he murmured. “Do you remember, Summer?”
She gave a shrug of her shoulders. “Nope. Gone completely.”
“I don’t believe you. I’m thinking, if I chose to kiss you again, there would be zero force required. You would have been mine that night if Harry hadn’t interrupted us.”
She curled her upper lip. “In your dreams. And you still haven’t answered me—what do you plan to do with this?”
Okay, maybe she was right to change the subject, because he was already aroused and that wasn’t part of the plan for today. Back to business. “You will work for me until—”
“Work for you as what?”
“I have a position in mind. And since you clearly have a quick brain, I’m sure it will be within your capabilities.”
