by Lisa Childs
Miguel stood there, obviously waiting for an explanation. Usually Trev wouldn’t have hesitated to bring in the receptionist on what was going on, but this whole mole problem had made him even less trusting than he normally was. Not that he suspected Miguel of any wrongdoing. He’d known the kid since he had been a wrongdoer. Then Trev and the others had helped him turn his life around; he wouldn’t have turned on them.
Still, Trev hesitated.
Miguel wouldn’t betray them, but he was a man, so Trev suspected a pretty face might be able to manipulate information out of him. And Trev hadn’t seen another face as pretty as Allison’s...
And her body...
It was perfect. She was perfect.
That made her dangerous as hell—not just to Trev but to any other breathing male.
“I don’t have anything to say,” Trev said. And he meant about yesterday’s meeting.
Miguel understood because hurt flashed in his dark eyes. Then he nodded. “I’ll tell Simon that...”
“Tell him I have no new information,” he directed the receptionist.
Miguel nodded. If he suspected Trev was lying, he didn’t call him on his bullshit like Allison McCann had the night before. He just turned and walked out of the office.
Trev had some new information. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t provide him with any clues as to why Allison had changed her name or her reason for hating lawyers so much that she would have betrayed their practice like she had.
Why was she the mole? What had she hoped to gain by ruining their reputation?
More work?
Job security?
What the hell was she after?
He wished it was him, but she’d had no problem throwing him out last night. She’d warned him that there would be no emotions involved. She hadn’t lied about that.
Why had she lied about who she was?
* * *
Allison studied her assistant as he flitted nervously around her office. Edward darted forward to place a cup of coffee on the corner of her desk. Usually she needed it after a sleepless night. But last night she had slept—eventually—only to awaken abruptly when she’d dreamed of Trevor Sinclair, of being in his arms.
She’d awakened to find him gone. Herself alone. She’d wanted to believe that what had happened between them had just been a dream. But she’d been able to smell him on her sheets, on her pillow.
She’d wanted to stay in that bed, with her face buried in that pillow. Somehow, she’d forced herself to get up and shower. She’d had to come into work because she had to do something that was long overdue.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she asked Edward.
He jumped and sloshed coffee over the rim of the cup he still held. It pooled on the corner of her desk. He hastily wiped it up. “Didn’t you want coffee?”
“I’m not talking about coffee,” she said. “I’m talking about your telling Trevor Sinclair where I live.”
“I never told him,” Edward said.
Trevor had claimed the same thing, but Allison had been certain he was lying.
“Then how the hell did he find my address?” she asked. Just as Trevor hadn’t easily fooled her, neither would Edward. “If you hadn’t talked to him?”
“He was here,” her assistant acknowledged. “He was snooping around, asking all kinds of questions about you. Of course I refused to answer anything, but before I could throw him out...”
She would have loved to see him try. She doubted Trevor would have hurt him, but there was no way Edward would have even budged the much larger man.
Edward continued, “A reporter came in trying to get a statement about another client. Sinclair said he had to use the bathroom. But when the reporter left, I found him in here, going through your things. He must have found your address on something in here.”
She glanced around and noticed a stack of household bills on the corner of her desk. They were all addressed to the service address: her penthouse. Heat rushed to her face with embarrassment over the conclusion to which she’d jumped.
“I’m sorry, Edward. I shouldn’t have assumed you told him.” She felt a flash of disappointment that he hadn’t. It would have given her the perfect excuse to fire him, which was what she’d dragged herself out of bed to do.
Edward waved off her apology. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “That man is sneaky. I’m sure he made it sound like I’d told him.”
But that was the thing: he hadn’t.
Now she wondered again who was telling the truth. Then she remembered what else Edward had claimed. “You said he was asking other things about me.”
Edward nodded. His blond hair was thinning. While he was younger than she was, he was no doubt going to be bald soon. “Yes, personal things.”
“Like what?” Who she was seeing?
“If you’ve ever been married,” Edward said. “If you’ve changed your name, if you date lawyers...” He sniffed as if the thought smelled. “As if you’d ever date him.”
Date him. No. She knew better than that.
But fuck him...
That had been incredible—so incredible that she really wanted to do it again. Soon.
Her body already ached for his. “Call him,” she told Edward. “Summon him here.”
She wished it was for sex. But this meeting wasn’t about pleasure. It was going to be all business.
CHAPTER SIX
EXCITEMENT COURSED THROUGH Trev that he was about to see Allison again. He was so anxious that he nearly pushed aside her skinny assistant instead of following the guy down the hall to her office. Less than a day had passed since he’d been in her apartment, since he’d been inside her...
But he’d missed her.
“It’s better for you to come to the office,” her assistant said, “rather than trying to see her at home.”
Edward. That was his name, wasn’t it?
The young man continued, “She probably didn’t even let you in last night, did she?” He glanced back at Trev as if waiting for a reply.
As he had with his own receptionist, Trev stonewalled this one, too. It was none of this guy’s damn business if she’d let him inside her place or not. Inside her or not.
Trev had never been the kind of guy who bragged about his conquests. Not that he’d conquered Allison McCann. In fact, it might have been the other way around since he was no closer to getting evidence that she was the mole.
Maybe he needed to pump old Edward for more information. But they’d stopped outside her door. So he couldn’t do it now, where she might overhear them talking.
“Would she have called me here if she had?” Trev asked, turning the question around on Edward. Obviously, Allison hadn’t bragged, either, about her conquest. Edward had no idea they’d been together the night before.
And when Trev walked through the door Edward opened for him, he had no idea, either—when he looked at the cool expression on Allison’s beautiful face. Her pale blue eyes stared right through him.
He stared back, hungry for the sight of her. Hungry for her.
While he couldn’t see through her at all, he could see through her glass desk. She didn’t wear a dress today. She wore gray slacks and a jacket over a pink blouse that was buttoned to her chin as if she didn’t want to expose an inch of her body.
But he’d seen it already. And all he had to do was close his eyes to see it again. As he did, his body hardened with desire.
Damn, he wanted her. But it didn’t appear that the desire was reciprocated today.
Why had she called him here?
He had a bad feeling that she was going to renege on the agreement she’d made last night and that she didn’t want to have sex with him again.
Hadn’t it been as amazing for her as it had been for him?
Maybe he should ha
ve taken more time, made certain she had so many orgasms that she wouldn’t be able to freeze up again, like she was now. Her stare was even colder when she turned it on her assistant.
“Please close the door on your way out, Edward,” she informed him.
He hesitated, though, and glanced at Trevor. “I didn’t ask Mr. Sinclair if he would like coffee or water—”
“I’m fine,” Trev assured him. Edward couldn’t bring him what he wanted. Only Allison could give him that, like she had the night before.
A powerful release...
He needed it again—needed her again—as the tension wound tightly inside him. It had begun to build from the minute he’d left her the night before. And when he’d been called to her office, he’d hoped that she’d felt the same way—and that she needed him again.
Edward hesitated yet inside the open door, tempting Trev to shove him out and slam the door shut. “Would you like anything?” he asked his boss.
“No,” she said. But she was looking at Trev now. “I don’t want anything.”
“Ouch,” Trev muttered.
Edward glanced at him before finally stepping through the door and pulling it closed. Allison stared at the door, her eyes narrowed as if she was trying to see through it. Probably to see if her assistant was listening outside it.
Trev wouldn’t put it past the skinny little guy. He seemed abnormally preoccupied with his boss. But then given how beautiful she was, it was no wonder the guy might have become obsessed with her.
Finally, she turned her attention to Trev and arched a red brow over one of those icy-blue eyes. “Are you hurt?” she asked. She must have been referring to his muttered ouch.
“I’m not going to lie,” he said with a grin. “I am a little sore.”
She sighed. “That’s too bad. I guess we will have to give you a chance to recover.”
“I’m fully recovered,” he assured her as his erection pushed against his fly. He stepped away from the door, moving toward her desk. “Is that why you called me here?”
She shook her head. “No. This is business only.”
He stopped within a few feet of her desk, not trusting himself to get any closer. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to control his desire for her.
Hell, it was already out of control. Last night he’d totally forgotten his purpose for wanting to work more closely with Allison McCann. He needed to get proof that she was the mole.
“Business only?” he queried. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with playing politics.”
“I was thinking about what you said last night.”
She hadn’t allowed him to say much, not wanting an argument. Instead, she’d challenged him to action. Heat flashed through him as he thought of all the actions they’d done.
“What in particular?” he asked. “How hot you are?”
Even though her face flushed, she narrowed her eyes. “Business, Mr. Sinclair.”
He feigned a shiver. “Oh, Ms. McCann, it’s so very cold in here.”
It actually was. With its white walls and furniture, the office was very sterile—very cold. Trev wasn’t really cold, not when he was anywhere near her because then all he felt was the heat of desire.
The office was the exact opposite of her bedroom decor—all dark and soft and warm. Just as she was the exact opposite of what she’d been last night.
Was she mad at him? Or was this how she would always act outside her apartment, outside her bedroom?
“I thought it was your public persona you wanted reworked,” she said, “not mine.”
That was all the ice queen image was: her public persona. After last night he knew she was very different in private. In private, she was the fire queen.
“You reconsidered?” he asked with surprise. She’d been so adamant that she’d wanted nothing to do with politics. “You’re going to help me?”
“Just with your image,” she said. “Not your campaign.”
“Why not?” he asked. “What do you have against lawyers and politicians?”
She leaned back now in her white leather chair, and she studied him through narrowed eyes. The frigidness was back. “Why are you so curious about me?” she asked, and she glanced at the door.
Edward had given him up. The little weasel. But then Trev wasn’t surprised she’d broken the man. With the way she was staring at him, he was starting to sweat, a trickle of perspiration running down between his shoulder blades.
“You’re an intriguing woman,” he said with a grin. “Of course I’m curious about you.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “Why’d you ask about my name? If I changed it?”
Damn Edward...
“Did you?” he asked.
She glared at him. “Apparently, you already know that. How do you?”
“Don’t you Google everyone you meet?” he asked. “Of course, it wasn’t possible to find out anything about you before you started McCann Public Relations.”
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “That’s because there’s nothing to know.”
“I doubt that,” he said. There was a lot more to Allison McCann than he had ever realized. And he’d always been intrigued by her beauty, by her cool professionalism.
Of course, he’d seen that slip a couple of times. She held tightly to it now, using it like a shield against him.
“Why did you change your name?” he asked. “You on the run from the law or something?”
She smiled.
“A jealous lover?” That, he could believe. Just the thought of her previous lovers had jealousy coursing through him. And he hated that. He wasn’t the jealous type. Competitive—hell, yes. He always had to win. But that was the only thing he wanted. The win. Not the woman.
Never the woman.
Until now. He wanted Allison McCann or whoever the hell she was. But that was just because he hadn’t had enough of her yet. Once he was with her again...
Eventually, he would grow bored with her as he had every other lover before her. But a little voice inside his head whispered that no other lover had ever been as exciting as Allison was.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said. “I’m not going to run for office with you. It doesn’t matter who or what I am.”
“What are you?” he asked.
The mole?
She had to be. Nobody else had had the access she’d had to their case files. It had to be her.
But why?
“I’m a publicist,” she said. “A damn good one. I can help you revamp your image.”
“Maybe I like my image the way it is.”
She shrugged. “Then you don’t need me,” she said, and she crossed her arms over her chest as if she needed to protect herself from him. And maybe she did. He was after her—in more ways than she knew. Or had she grown suspicious? He heard some suspicion in her voice when she asked, “Why did you try to hire me, then?”
He nearly shivered for real at her coldness. She was catching on, and he couldn’t have that. He dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk and sighed. “Okay, I do need you.”
More than she knew.
His body ached for hers, tension gripping him.
“Then you need to be straight with me,” she said.
His stomach flipped. How the hell had she gained the upper hand again? She was a more formidable opponent than he’d ever faced in court. And since he’d gone up against billion-dollar corporations, he’d faced some really high-priced attorneys. After his victories over them, he was now higher priced. He’d beaten them. He could beat her.
“You first,” he said. “Why’d you change your name?”
She chuckled. “I’m not running for anything.”
But she was running from something if she was the mole, if she had any idea he was onto her. And he was damn well o
nto her.
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” she said. “But I need to know who you are.”
He snorted. “You know me.” After last night she knew him better than most people did. He wriggled his brows suggestively. “You know me very well.”
Her lips curved into a slight smile before she pulled them back down as if fighting it. As if she was fighting him.
Why had she agreed to help him?
She shook her head. “I think you have a lot of surprises in you yet.”
He wriggled his brows again. “Let’s go back to your place and see how much I can surprise you.” He lowered his voice to a gruff whisper. “And please you.”
Color rushed to her face, and she released a shaky breath. He was getting to her. Pride suffused him that he could melt the ice queen.
But she sucked in a breath and regained her composure. “Voters don’t like surprises,” she said. “I need to know everything about you.”
He narrowed his eyes now. What was she up to? Edward had obviously admitted that Trev had pumped him for information. Was she returning the favor? Getting payback?
He had no idea what she was up to. But then he’d never known or she wouldn’t have gotten away with being the mole for as long as she had.
He shrugged, but that trickle of sweat streaked down his back again. He felt like he was on the witness stand, getting interrogated. “I think you know everything there is to know about me.”
She was the one who’d decided to use his and his partners’ pasts as teen runaways living on the streets in order to promote Street Legal. Not just as a rags-to-riches story but to show how resourceful and resilient they were.
“I know you’re a runaway,” she said. “But I don’t know why. What were you escaping? Druggie parents?”
That had been Stone.
“Con-artist father?”
That was Simon.
“Fighting parents?”
That was Ronan.
“You know all our stories,” he said. And he was chilled now. She knew them too well.
But she shook her head. “I don’t know yours.”
