Judging by the angle of her hips and the relaxed motion of her stride, Carter could tell she wasn’t wearing heels. In fact, he was betting if the hem of her dress swung out far enough he’d catch a glimpse of running shoes on her feet.
Whoever this woman was, she was ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
And it wasn’t just her choice of footwear that gave her away. Her gown might fit her well, but it was most certainly purchased off the rack, and some time ago if the slight fraying along the shoulder strap was any indication.
Then there was her hair. As she closed the distance between them, a dozen or so bobby pins pushed haphazardly into her crown gleamed in the overhead lights. It was obviously a rushed job.
Carter was just squaring his shoulders, getting ready to demand that she reveal what she was doing there, but the woman beat him to the punch.
“I will give you fifty dollars to have a drink with me,” she said, tucking herself into the small space between him and the wall.
Carter blinked. Out of everything in the world, that was the last thing that he expected to come out of her mouth.
“Excuse me?” he said, cocking his head to the side.
“Fifty bucks,” she repeated. She glanced nervously over her shoulder and into the crowd. “Just to stand by me for the next couple of minutes and sip on some champagne.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
“So do we have a deal?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.
Carter found himself staring down into a pair of desperate blue eyes. Desperate, and frightened. He’d looked into the eyes of a lot of killers in his life, enough to be pretty damned sure that he wasn’t staring down at the face of a car bomber right now.
Not that that changed anything. This woman might not be a threat, but she still wasn’t supposed to be here.
But Carter didn’t think he was going to find out what was going on by tossing her back out on the street. She was definitely scared of something, and right now he figured the best way of finding out what, was by playing along.
“As much as I’d love to take you up on that offer, the drinks are complimentary,” he said, playing dumb.
“Yeah, I know.” She flashed him a tight smile before tilting her chin down, hiding her face from the rest of the crowd. “It’s the company I’m interested in.”
Carter propped his shoulder against the wall. The move had the dual purpose of granting her more cover as well as keeping her within arm’s reach.
“And why’s that?” he asked.
She didn’t lift her head, only her eyes moved to meet his gaze. “Because I’ve got two of the scariest-looking security guards you’ve ever seen on my tail. One is massive and the other one looks like he could freeze water just by looking at it.”
Carter fought back the smile that pulled at his lips. He recognized those descriptions well. His two men at the front door, Jake Thorne and Rhys Vaughn. Her assessment of the pair was dead on.
What was hard to believe was that she’d managed to slip past the pair. It wasn’t an easy feat.
“All right,” Carter said, nodding slowly. “There’s only one problem. We don’t have any drinks.”
As if on cue, she pivoted on her heel and snatched a couple of glasses from a passing waiter.
“Easily solved,” she said, handing him his glass.
Carter spun the stem of the champagne flute between his fingers, but didn’t take a sip. “So, I take it you aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Nope,” she said before taking a giant swig of the bubbly. Whatever it was she was planning, it appeared her courage needed a boost. Her eyes widened in surprise, as though she wasn’t used to tasting the good stuff. “I wasn’t exactly on the guest list.”
“So why come to me for help?”
“Lots of reasons,” she said, looking him up and down in open assessment. “You’re alone, but you don’t look like you’re waiting for someone. You aren’t already drinking, so chances are you would be sober and wouldn’t immediately get all handsy when I propositioned you.”
“Thank you…I think.”
“But most of all, you have a look about you.”
“A look?” Carter cocked a brow.
“You know,” she said, tracing his silhouette with a wave of her hand. “Authority. The way you’re dressed, the way you hold yourself, you obviously have a lot of power, but you don’t need to flaunt it. You don’t seem like the kind of man people mess with.”
“People like security guards?”
“Exactly,” she said, with a tip of her glass.
“But it appears I’m not totally unapproachable,” he said, leaning in a little closer. “Especially not by party crashers.”
A slight blush rose on her cheeks as she gave him a self-conscious half smile. “I promise, I won’t keep you for long. Five minutes, tops.”
“What a shame,” he said.
For a brief moment, a twinkle of amusement sparkled in her eyes. A second later she shook it off, and the look of apprehension rushed right back.
“Think of it this way,” she said. “You’ll have one hell of a story to tell in the boardroom come Monday morning.”
A smile curled the corner of Carter’s lip. So, that was how she read him—a high-powered CEO. Well, she wasn’t technically wrong. Not that he was about to fill in the details for her. Not yet, anyway.
“And you?” he asked. “Is this just another day at the office?”
For the first time, she hesitated. Her face paled, as if his words had shaken her out of the pleasant flirting they’d been engaged in and back to the real reason she was here. “I know it’s hard to believe, but this isn’t how I usually spend my Friday nights.”
“I see,” Carter said, even though he didn’t. When he’d seen her making a beeline for him across the room he’d expected a stream of lies to come pouring from her lips, maybe a sob story, anything but the bald truth. But it seemed like there were limits to how much his intriguing companion was willing to share. Maybe the time had come to test those limits. “So, do I get to know your name?”
“Probably not a good idea.” She took a small sip of her champagne.
“So, I’m guessing that I’m not going to get the story of why you’re running from the security guards?”
Her gaze flashed up at him. The look in her eyes was easy to read.
What do you think?
“Maybe just a little clue,” he teased.
“Trust me, the less you know, the better off you are,” she said cryptically. “But I swear, I have a really good reason.”
Turned out, good reasons, weren’t good enough for him.
“Are you planning on hurting someone?” Carter asked, trying to keep his voice light.
“What?” Her face shot up. Her eyes went wide. “No. Of course not.”
Carter studied her. She was shocked, appalled at the very idea that he would ask such a thing.
So if she wasn’t here because of the threats to Congressman Fuller’s life, then why was she here?
Carter could think of half a dozen ways he could make her talk, just off the top of his head. The most efficient, of course, would be handing her over to Rhys and letting him go to work on her. Five minutes alone with the best interrogator to come out of Army Special Forces, and Carter had no doubt his mysterious little bird would sing to the rafters.
Rhys might be damned effective in getting information out of hostiles, but his methods could be…harsh. And somehow, the image of the charming woman in front of him forced down in a chair, trembling in front of Carter’s stony-faced man, wasn’t sitting well in his gut. It was obvious that she was scared enough as it was. He had a feeling that heaping even more fear on top wasn’t going to help.
No, Carter could figure out what she was up to on his own, without threats or intimidation. He was pretty sure that he knew another set of tactics that would prove far more effective.
He wasn’t above using her attraction to him to his advanta
ge.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend,” he said, slowly offering her his hand. “I’m Carter.”
“It’s a pleasure,” she said, taking it. A rush of pink lit up her cheeks at the deliberate way he curled his fingers around her palm. Her touch was warm and surprisingly soft. He didn’t pull away and neither did she.
Maybe this was going to work better than he thought.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me your name?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Her eyes locked with his. Her tongue flicked out to wet her full bottom lip.
“I’m—”
Her bright blue eyes darted away from his, focusing sharply on something just behind him and shattering the moment. All the color drained from her face as she ducked her head.
“There’s another twenty in it for you if you put your arm around me right now,” she blurted out.
He swiveled around to see what had spooked her, just in time to see his man, Jake, breaking through the crowd. Rhys wasn’t far behind.
Carter couldn’t blame the woman for her reaction. There probably wasn’t a more intimidating pair on the planet. Of course, that was only half the reason he kept them on the payroll. They might be damned useful, but, after everything they’d been through together, these men were his family.
“Are those the guys that are after you?” he said, tilting his head in their direction.
“Yeah.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I thought you said they were scary.” Carter turned toward Jake and Rhys. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
Jake stopped short at Carter’s impersonal greeting and high-handed tone. His brows pulled down into a deep V above his eyes.
“Yeah, there is,” Jake said slowly. “That woman is—”
“Is not a problem,” Carter finished for him.
Rhys gave him a long look, his ice blue eyes narrowing. “You sure about that, because she—”
“Isn’t on the list? I know. The lady is with me, boys.”
“Boys?” Jake said. His jaw tightened as he took a step forward. Carter knew Jake wasn’t used to being talked down to and, by the looks of it, he didn’t like it one bit. Not by his boss. Maybe, especially, by his boss.
Rhys put his hand on Jake’s shoulder, stilling him. Jake turned his head. He caught Rhys’ pointed look and his stance relaxed a little…a very little.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding, sir,” Rhys said. “It looks like you have this situation under control.”
“I do,” Carter said.
“Yeah, our deepest apologies,” Jake said, giving Carter a belligerent smile as Rhys slowly pulled him back into the crowd. “Sir.”
Carter turned around to find his mystery woman staring at him with narrowed eyes. The left side of her mouth was quirked up at an angle that said that she didn’t quite believe what had just happened…and not in the good way.
“You chased them off?” she asked, her voice dripping with skepticism.
“I guess I did.”
“Just by telling them that I was with you?”
“Like you said, I’m not the kind of person people want to mess with.”
“Yeah,” she said, drawing out the word. She swept him up and down with a critical gaze, as if she was completely re-examining him.
So, maybe he’d laid it on a little too thick. But that was all right. He could recover. It couldn’t be too hard to regain her trust.
“Where were we?” Carter cocked his shoulder against the wall and gave her his best bedroom smile, the one that had slipped more than a couple of secrets from the lips of beautiful women around the globe. He lazily raised his hand to tuck a stray hair that had come loose behind her ear. “That’s right. You were about to tell me your name.”
She handed him her empty glass. “I really should be going.”
Okay. Maybe it was going to take a little more damage control than he first thought.
“Why would you want to do that?” he whispered.
She looked over his shoulder again. Her eyes went wide. “Because your friends are coming back.”
Carter spun around. He scanned the crowd for Jake and Rhys, but they weren’t there.
His shoulders fell as he heard the soft sound of the metal door that led to the back stairwell clicking closed behind him.
He turned around and looked at the empty space by the wall.
She was gone.
She’d bolted. Just like he’d known that she would.
Correction—she’d played him and then she’d bolted. Just like she’d done to Rhys and Jake. Not a good night for Macmillan Security.
Though somehow, Carter felt a wave of admiration toward the woman who’d given him the slip. It was a rare creature that could elude one ex-Special Forces operative, let alone three. Of course, that only made him more determined to find her and figure out exactly who she was and what she was up to.
Continue Reading Carter Now!
About The Author
Adrienne Bell has lived her entire life in Northern California. She now resides on the far edge of the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and kids. You can follow the minutia of her life on Twitter, or see the pictures she likes to share on Facebook, or check out what’s coming out next on AdrienneBell.net. Oh, and she thanks you for reading.
Jake: The Sinner Saints #3 Page 18
