by Toni Blake
“I’ll be by to pick you up at ten tomorrow morning,” he told her. “And after that, we’ll be as good as married.”
Chapter Three
It was strange to be driving to Kimberly’s apartment after all this time. Strange that he made each turn on the route almost without thinking—like it was still a natural place for him to go. Just the same, he still couldn’t get over the fact that the woman Frank had partnered him with was her.
Max tried to quit seeing all the emotions that had flashed through her eyes last night, but she’d always been lousy at hiding that kind of thing. His stomach clenched slightly recalling her hurt look when he’d refused to let her give her version of the Carpenter case.
But there was a reason for that: It didn’t matter. No matter what she said, her actions remained a breach of ethics. No matter what she said, it would never be enough to make up for costing him his position at the company where he’d spent his entire adult life building a career.
Knowing that no answer would ever satisfy him had made it easier to go to Vegas. And besides, she’d walked away. She’d gotten up and walked out of Kessler’s office without looking back. It had appeared that things were finished. That they had to be.
He hadn’t liked or wanted any of it—not professionally, not personally. But it had seemed that the smart thing to do was to move on with his life and salvage what had been left of his career. And the smart thing to do now was not to think about the past, as he’d told her last night. Looking back wouldn’t do either of them any good.
After parking outside her building, he stepped out into one of the first truly hot days of summer. Sun beat down from a cloudless sky, the only reprieve a gentle breeze that whispered through the trees lining the mid-city sidewalk. He liked days like this—hot and bright—better than the softer days of a California spring or fall. He liked extremes, always had. That’s how he’d ended up being a P.I.
Well, the next few days should definitely be extreme enough. And admittedly, he’d feel better if he were working with anyone else besides Kimberly Brandt, but he couldn’t keep dwelling on that—he had to get on with the business of catching Carlo Coletti.
When he knocked, she came to the door in faded jeans and a fitted Mickey Mouse T-shirt. He knew it was ludicrous, but for some reason he’d been expecting to see her in that blue dress again. Her hair, which had been elegantly styled last night, today fell around her face in tousled waves, and her blue jeans looked soft and comfortable above bare feet.
He missed the obvious attributes of the dress immediately—she looked much plainer than last night—yet a rivulet of warmth trickled through him when he least anticipated it. Maybe like this, she reminded him of lazy afternoons spent driving nowhere with the top down, or of rainy days spent on the couch watching old movies and eating pizza between kisses.
Geez, shake it off, Tate. He’d gotten lost there for a minute, but he was back now.
He forced himself to meet her eyes—although just as quickly, she lowered her gaze to her own shirt. “What the hell are you staring at?”
Damn—he’d been looking her up and down like a woman who wore lingerie instead of a T-shirt and jeans. He gave his head a light shake. “Nothing.”
“Look,” she said belligerently, “if I was supposed to be dressed in character already, you should have mentioned it.”
He pushed past her into the apartment, not inclined to explain himself. “What you’re wearing is fine for now. Where’s your stuff?” He glanced around the room, at the familiar clutter and the antique furniture she liked, and spotted it himself—a garment bag tossed across the couch and a rolling suitcase on the floor.
“It’s right there—”
But he had already picked them both up and was headed for the door. “Come on—let’s get moving.”
“If we’re in a race, Tate, I should probably at least put on some shoes, don’t you think?”
He stopped and looked back at her from the hallway outside the door, unamused. “Hurry up,” he told her.
The way he saw it, he didn’t have time to wait on her, and he didn’t have time to think about past days spent with her, either. There was a job to be done and the sooner it was over the better—then he could get on with his life.
As Max’s Porsche hugged the curves of the road that led from Kimberly’s apartment toward Beverly Hills, she watched him driving from the corner of her eye. His strong hands gripped the wheel tightly, but he let his long, sturdy body lean back in the seat like a man completely comfortable with himself. That was Max, she thought. He’d never lacked confidence.
“Nice day, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Short and clipped.
Yep, he had plenty of confidence, but manners had never been his strong suit.
She tried again a few minutes later, asking how his parents were doing. “Fine,” he replied, eyes glued on the road.
All right, she got the hint. He wasn’t disposed to making small talk.
And it was probably just as well. After all, they weren’t buddies. They weren’t pals. They were two people doing a job together. That was all.
“You should put on your seatbelt,” she told him anyway. She’d always been big on seatbelts and noticed when people weren’t wearing them.
But he simply cast her an annoyed look in reply.
“It’s the law,” she pointed out. “And besides, the way you drive, you may need it. Put it on.”
After an anoyed sigh, he reached over his shoulder for the belt, muttering something below his breath.
“What?” she snapped. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I was just saying,” he answered, louder and clearly irritated, “that I forgot what a seatbelt fanatic you are.”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, then turned to peer out the window.
“We should probably talk about our covers,” he said then, surprising her with even that bit of conversation—and spoken in an almost cordial tone, too.
She nodded. “All right.”
He gave her a short glance, then looked back to the road. “We’ll keep our first names and my last one, making you Kimberly Tate.”
She nodded again, wishing she didn’t like the sound of that so much. This wasn’t helpful for her freshly reactivated plan of not thinking about him that way.
“I’m a stockbroker—I work for Finch and Company downtown, and I bring home two and a half mil a year. I’ve been with the company for ten years and was made partner after five. I’m a Los Angeles native and so are you. We met in college at UCLA. As for our families, should it come up, we’ll keep them as they are—same names, same backgrounds, same everything—it’ll be less to remember.”
“What about me?” she asked.
“What about you?”
“What do I do?”
“You sit at home all day and be rich. You bask in luxury.”
Oh. Hmm. What a drag that sounded like. Until an idea hit her. “Maybe I’m bored with you.”
He turned to glare at her.
“Tate, the road!”
As he turned his eyes back to driving, she said, “See what I mean about the seatbelt?”
When he ignored her, she went on. “Anyway, I was thinking about why I would be interested in sleeping with this guy. So maybe it’s because I’m bored. Bored with my life of leisure. Bored with you.”
“Not possible.”
Like last night when he’d told her how hot she was, his voice came without inflection. And she thought of arguing that it certainly was possible in the given scenario.
But then she remembered the way Max made love.
Polite he wasn’t, but generous in bed—yes. He put his whole self, his whole soul, into the act.
And she didn’t know if he was thinking about the same thing, too—about the way they used to do it for hours until they were both exhausted and drenched in sweat and completely sated—but all things considered, she decided it would be simpler not to argue. “Okay t
hen, if that’s not the problem, why would I consider sleeping with this guy?”
“Maybe you’re getting back at me.”
“What did you do?”
“Cheated on you.”
“You wouldn’t,” she gasped, fearful it sounded more like a jealous plea than a statement. Asinine thoughts of the mysterious Julie came to mind.
“Why not?”
She took a deep breath as something slightly wicked, and slightly seductive, came oozing up from inside her. “Wait until you see me in the dress I’m wearing to dinner tonight, Tate,” she told him. “Trust me. You wouldn’t.”
“Oh my God.”
Max’s car had just emerged from a grove of billowing storybook trees on the winding drive that led to their borrowed mansion. The home before them boasted two incredibly tall columns that stretched from the expansive front porch to an arch at the top of the third story. Part brick, part white stucco, and nestled deep in the wooded hills, it made Kimberly think of a fairytale paradise.
“Get used to it,” he told her as she continued to gape. The car came to a halt in the circular drive that fronted the mansion and she stumbled out, still taking in the splendor of it all. “You live here, you know. You can’t seem too amazed by anything.”
“I’ve got all day to work on that,” she told him. “But for now, I can’t help it—I’m pretty amazed.”
“There’s a pool. Did you bring a suit?”
She glanced over her shoulder and gave a short nod, then returned her gaze to the house. She’d figured no decent mansion would be caught dead without a pool. Now that she saw the place, she was surprised it didn’t have two or three.
“What’s it like?”
She finally turned to give him her full attention. “What’s what like?”
“Your swimsuit.”
Despite the suggestion, she knew why he was asking. It had nothing to do with him. It had to do with their job. “Yes, it’s a bikini. Our houseguest should love it.”
He nodded in reply, then started getting her stuff from the car—but not before she thought she detected an unexpected glimmer of interest twinkling in his eyes. So maybe it wasn’t just a business question. Her pulse raced with the idea that he might still be attracted to her.
But damn it, why did she even care? She stomped her foot on the brick driveway to punctuate her annoyance with herself. She was here to arouse the bad guy, not Max.
Still, could she help it if Max got aroused, too? After all, she was only doing her job.
Not that arousal meant romance—often the two weren’t even connected, but…she couldn’t stop her mind from meandering in that direction.
“Something wrong?”
She peered up with innocent eyes as Max rounded the car with her bags. “No. Why?”
“I thought you were stepping on a bug or something.” He looked toward the flip-flop adorned foot she’d just stomped.
But Max wasn’t the only one who could avoid unwanted conversations. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I want to look around.” Then she rushed ahead toward the door.
Beyond the foyer, lined with Mexican tile, the immense house stretched in all directions. A bright, spacious living room with a vaulted ceiling and huge picture windows that looked out on the pool area and view beyond caught Kimberly’s eye straight ahead and stretching to the right. To the left rested a crisp white kitchen with a large cooking island and a breakfast nook with another picture window.
Awed, she roamed the length of the nearest hallway, discovering an elegant dining room filled with massive furniture, Renaissance art gracing the walls. She next happened upon an office connected to a library, a billiards room, and an extravagant bathroom big enough to house a small family. After which she strolled through a door into a five-car garage, a couple of the spots empty—however, a gray Mercedes, a late model Corvette in red, and a vintage green Jaguar convertible from the 1940s rested neatly in the other spaces.
Returning on the route she’d traveled, she found Max waiting for her at the bottom of a curved staircase she’d glimpsed off the foyer, looking annoyed. “Do you mind?” he muttered.
“Do I mind what?” she asked cheerfully, still quite taken with the house.
“Not wandering off when I’m standing here waiting for you. This thing weighs a ton.” He motioned to the suitcase clutched in his right fist.
Feeling surprisingly merry now, she took the garment bag from his other hand. “Shoes,” she explained of the suitcase. “Lots of them. And it has wheels, you know, so you don’t have to stand there holding it and acting like such an irritated he-man about it.” Then she passed him on the stairs, in awe of the spectacular home she would call her own for the next couple of days.
Once upstairs, she dragged her garment bag on another quick exploratory excursion—this time finding bedroom after bedroom, each designed with its own extravagant style. None of the lavish rooms appeared lived in, so she suspected they were all guestrooms.
When she glanced over her shoulder to see Max, he still looked annoyed at her amazement. But she didn’t care. This place was too fabulous, and if he was smart, he’d let her get the wonderment out of her system before their guest arrived later.
In the meantime, she was ready to unload the garment bag. “Um, where is our—”
“That way.” He pointed to the end of the hall she hadn’t yet approached, and she headed in that direction, instantly glad he hadn’t let her finish the sentence. She was overwhelmed enough at the moment without being forced to start thinking about their sleeping arrangements.
She burst through the double doors to the master suite and released a heartfelt gasp, completely thunderstruck. Four thick, polished wood posts emerged from the enormous bed with beams connecting them at the top to create a canopy effect, from which a wide swath of filmy white fabric cascaded like a chiffon waterfall. Underneath, the bed was adorned with more throw pillows than she’d ever seen in one place. The cathedral ceiling featured skylights, and a small stone fireplace graced one corner of the room where two stylish easy chairs set on either side of a low marble table.
She flung her garment bag on the bed and spun to face Max, who lingered in the doorway. “Have you seen this? It’s gorgeous!”
But it would seem that Max never smiled anymore. “That it is,” he agreed dryly, stepping into the room and lowering her suitcase to the floor. “You’ll also find a huge master bath with a tub set in marble and matching rainfall shower, and a walk-in closet big enough to be a bedroom. But Brandt, you own all this stuff. So it’s no big deal, remember? Get used to it.”
Sheesh—did he have to take all the fun out of everything? “Relax,” she snipped at him. “I will get used to it. And I’ll know every inch of it by heart before tonight. But for now, is it so horrible for you to let me enjoy it for a minute?”
“I’m not paying you to enjoy anything. I’m paying you to do what you’re supposed to do. Think you can handle that?”
She turned to face him, speechless, the wind knocked out of her buoyant sails. But she didn’t need to say anything anyway—they both knew what he was talking about. “Then I guess we’d better get to work,” she finally replied in her most mocking tone.
But when would she learn? A little mocking never daunted Max. “Yes. We’d better.”
He then broke the tension—even if she was the only one feeling it—by moving straight into showing her the dresser drawers that had been cleared for her, as well as closet space for her clothes. It felt a little strange to be using someone else’s closet, with all their stuff still inside, but she took it in stride. And she tried to hide her astonishment at the size of the massive dream closet, too, lest Max think she was having too good a time on the job.
“Most importantly,” he told her as they exited the so-called closet back into the bedroom, “is this.” He lifted a painting from the wall and revealed a safe. “The combination is simple. Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two.” Even simpler to remember, Kimberly though
t, since she’d just turned thirty-one, right in the middle
She watched as Max spun the knob on the lock three times, then opened the safe door and pulled out a round black velvet box that measured at least a foot in diameter. After he pushed it into her hands, she reached down to lift the lid.
“What’s in—oh!” It was mostly diamonds, with a few emeralds and sapphires mixed in. She gaped at the jewels, then raked her hand through them to scoop up necklaces and bracelets that dripped like streams of shimmering water through her fingers.
“Fake, of course,” Max pointed out.
She’d figured that. But they were still beautiful. “What if our guy’s a jewelry expert?”
“Good question,” he said. And the way things were going, she was surprised he’d concede something even as small as that. “But they’re not cheap fake. They’re as good as fake gets, supplied by my client. Unless Carlo has a jeweler’s loop in his pocket, he won’t be able to tell. Besides, his thefts are sudden and quick—he doesn’t have time to analyze the goods. So we should be fine on that count.”
She closed the box and handed it back to Max, who returned it to the safe and locked the door. “Practice opening the safe later,” he told her, “and familiarize yourself with the jewelry so you’ll know how all the clasps work and that sort of thing.”
She nodded, then turned toward the garment bags that lay on the bed.
On the bed that they would supposedly…share?
She guessed it was time to bite the bullet, act professional, and ask him just what his plans were for that. “Where will…um, everyone sleep?” She posed the question casually, with her back to him.
“Everyone?”
“Well, you and me. And Carlo,” she added, turning to face him. “And while we’re on the subject, just why does he think you’ve invited him here?”
“Stocks,” Max answered confidently. “Carlo claims he wants to learn about the stock market and I’m just the guy to teach him.”
