by Pamela Clare
“Okay, fine, you don’t want to go to the cops. Hire a P.I.”
“I already have. Several times, in fact. And no joy.” She paused to take a sip of her whiskey. “Either the caliber of the private investigators in this town is sub-par, which I doubt, or my friend is very smart. What I’ve concluded is that if I want to keep a security company on permanent payroll to sit in front of my house, my office and the court house, I can guarantee I’ll never get another floral arrangement. Of course, I’ll never know who he is, because he’s too careful to show himself.”
He glared at her. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you make the stupidest folly sound so damned reasonable?”
She smiled, one of those Mona Lisa smiles that made him think she knew something he didn’t. “I’m a lawyer.”
“Well, hell. What am I going to do now?”
“You’re going to finish checking the windows and doors and take your leave,” she said. “Then I’m going to lock up behind you, have a late dinner, read some case law I brought home, and go to bed.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He held up his hand when she would have interrupted. “And don’t even bother to remind me of our agreement. That was before your FTD guy reached out and touched you again. The deal’s off. You’re not staying here alone until after the alarm goes in.”
Her blue eyes cooled. “Let me guess. If I don’t invite you to stay, you’ll call your buddies and get them to sit on my house all night.”
“Or you could pack an overnight case and go to a motel for the night,” he suggested in his most reasonable tone. “Or stay with a family member.”
“I most certainly am not going to check into a motel in my own town. Can you imagine the gossip? Nor am I going to upset my mother with this.”
“Fine. Call your boyfriend, then, and tell him you’re coming for a sleepover.”
He’d thought her eyes cool before, but only because he hadn’t seen how glacial they could get. He was seeing it now.
“I don’t currently have what you so quaintly refer to as a boyfriend. But then, you knew that already, didn’t you, Detective? You’ve been poking around in my life how long?”
He grinned, which had the effect of producing a dangerous glint in her eyes. “It’s always good to have your conclusions confirmed.”
“Good? What’s good about it, I’d like to know?” She picked her glass up and drained the last bit of whiskey. “For instance, if I had a boyfriend in the picture, you wouldn’t be here right now. Or if you were, I’d get him to show you the door.” She thumped the glass down on the counter. “If I had a boyfriend front-and-center all the time, I probably wouldn’t be getting these stupid flowers in the first place.”
She grabbed the whiskey bottle, spun away and stashed it back in the cupboard.
“Of course! That’s brilliant. That’s just what you need. A high profile boyfriend.”
She opened the dishwasher and stashed her used glass inside. “Yeah, sure. Brilliant.” She closed the dishwasher with more force than was strictly necessary and turned to face him. “Let me just jump on the Internet and take care of that right now. Non-smoker preferred. Must have brawn. Brains an asset, but not strictly required. Duties include scaring off creepy stalker types.”
“Suzie, honey, your search is over.” He grinned at her expression. “You found your perfect candidate.”
“You?”
His smile broadened. “Me.”
Chapter Four
Suzannah sighed and pushed away from her desk. For the last half hour, she’d been trying to concentrate on the corporate reorganization plan her client needed. Unfortunately, contemplating by-law amendments and share splits seemed to be beyond her right now. Okay, it wasn’t riveting stuff at the best of times, but after the events of the last twenty-four hours, she doubted anything could have kept her attention from wandering.
Lord, had she really agreed to a mock affair with John Quigley?
Just thinking about it sent a thrill through her. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. She’d had a very similar feeling one time, navigating her way out of Montreal during rush hour. And there was that time she’d been talked into riding a roller coaster at a carnival midway. It was a perfectly natural, perfectly intelligent response to the threat of impending chaos.
When her phone buzzed, a single ringburst signaling an internal communication, she jumped for it. Anything for a distraction. She checked the display. Her secretary.
“I know what you’re looking for, Mary Ann,” she said into the receiver, “but it’s not ready yet. I’m having trouble concentrating.”
“This probably won’t help matters, then. There’s a Detective Quigley here to see you.”
Suzannah sat bolt upright. “Is he, now? Well, you just tell Detective Quigley I’ll be ten minutes.”
“Whoops, too late. He’s already on his way back there.”
Damn! She hung up the phone just as he materialized in her door frame. She pushed up out of her chair. “John, what are you doing here?”
“I missed you.”
Before she could digest that astonishing assertion, he crossed the room, took her face in his hands and kissed her. Thoroughly. Shock held her frozen. By the time her brain caught up to what was happening, she’d already opened her mouth to his invasion. Heat licked through her limbs, her heart thundered, the room spun. Then he stepped back, a pleased smile on his face. Over his shoulder, she saw her secretary standing wide-eyed outside her door.
“I had to come up this way to interview an insurance adjuster,” he said, his hands still warm on her upper arms. “Now that I’m here, what do you say we go get a bit of lunch?”
Suzannah craned her neck to see what Mary Ann was making of this, but her secretary had evaporated. She strode to the door. The corridor was empty. Closing her door, she rounded on him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He shrugged, looking completely normal, as though he were unaffected by the kiss that had just rocked her. “I figured we shouldn’t waste any time getting the word out.”
“Did I not say I’d take care of dropping the word here?”
“You did,” he agreed, “but I couldn’t picture private-and-proper Suzannah Phelps just blurting something like that out to her co-workers.”
Private and proper? She bristled at the description, ignoring the fact that it was completely accurate. He might as well have called her boring and staid. “So you decided to help me out?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that should do the trick,” she snapped, brushing non-existent wrinkles out of her suit. Belatedly, she realized it was her composure she was trying to smooth, not the obedient fabric of her favorite St. John Knit. The realization just made her angrier. “And don’t expect me to reciprocate. I am not going to traipse into the Station and lay a lip-lock on you.”
“Pity,” he murmured. “It would do my reputation a world of good.”
“It’s not your reputation I’m concerned about.”
“It was a joke, Suzannah.” His voice hardened. “You already have my assurance that I won’t do or say anything to sully your reputation with the troops.”
“The mere fact of our association is going to change their perception of me.”
Now his jaw hardened to match the tone of his voice. “Relax, sweetheart. I’ll make sure they know you’re at the wheel of this relationship. And just think how your legend will grow when this is all over and you can dump me.”
“John –”
“Can we go eat now? Because I spent what should have been breakfast walking my dog who’d been cooped up alone all night, and I’m hungry enough to eat my way through the Chinese buffet down the road.”
Lunch turned out to be not nearly the nightmare she’d imagined. True to his word, John did eat his way through the buffet. She settled for the salad bar, knowing a heavy carb meal would put her to sleep when she went back to t
he office to tackle that corporate file again.
Not that she should be sleepy. She’d slept surprisingly well last night despite John Quigley’s presence on her couch downstairs. Sure she’d never get to sleep after that crazy proposition he’d put to her—a crazy proposition that she’d accepted, God help her—she’d fallen into the deepest sleep she’d managed in weeks. As angry as he frequently made her, as overbearing as he tended to be, she felt completely safe when he was there.
Okay, dammit, she’d slept surprisingly well because of John Quigley’s presence on her couch.
Which unnerved her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t need a man around to feel fulfilled. She didn’t need a man around to take care of her or shield her from the realities of life. Look where her mother had ended up, widowed at fifty-seven years of age and unable to balance her own checkbook. And all because she’d relied on a man. A good man, for sure. But not a good thing. She’d been ill-equipped to fend for herself…
“Something wrong?”
Lost in her thoughts, Suzannah jumped when John laid a hand on hers atop the table.
“Whoa,” he said. “Take it easy.”
“I’m not used to being touched.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“I mean, without an invitation.”
He grinned. “Better get used to it. Nobody is going to believe this relationship if I don’t lay hands on you as often as I can. At least, nobody who knows me.”
As if she needed a reminder of his physicality. As if she weren’t perfectly aware of the male vitality thrumming under that seemingly still, watchful exterior. As if she hadn’t felt that pure sexual energy brush her skin.
“Anyone who knows me knows how much I abhor public demonstrations.” Oh, God, was that her voice? So stiff and stilted. So disapproving. So repressed.
His grin broadened, spreading across his face like the sun dawning. “Honey, that’s exactly why they’re gonna believe this.” He lifted her hand and planted a kiss in her palm.
Her breath caught in her lungs at the brush of his lips. Then she felt his tongue stroke a path of fire across her sensitive palm. Just as quickly, he released her hand. She pulled it back as though it had been scorched, burying it in her lap.
“Just so you know, I’m gonna kiss you before I let you get in that obscenely expensive little car and drive away.”
Her pulse took another leap, but she forced herself to pick up her water goblet and take an unhurried sip. He was enjoying this altogether too much, the bastard. No doubt because he saw how much it discomfited her.
She could soon fix that, though.
Quickly, she lowered her gaze to her partially-eaten salad so he couldn’t read her eyes. “You know what they say, forewarned is forearmed.”
The rest of the meal passed uneventfully enough, but Suzannah had a hard time bringing her pulse rate back down into the normal range. She was too busy thinking about the kiss to come in the parking lot. John didn’t seem unduly stirred up about it, but of course he had no way of knowing what he was in for. She allowed herself a smile as she sipped her coffee.
*
Quigg was conscious of the eyes watching them as he paid the bill for their lunch. Good. That’s what it was all about. The more people who noticed, and the sooner they noticed, the better.
Not that this gig was all bad. Baiting Suzannah almost made up for the aggravation of having to babysit her.
Tucking his wallet back in his pocket, he put a proprietary hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the exit. Together, they strolled out into the parking lot.
After the air-conditioned interior of the restaurant, the heat hit them like a slap, rising in waves from the asphalt. Suzannah’s shiny little Beemer was a cream-colored shimmer at the far end of the parking lot. As they neared it, he felt the tension in her mount.
Good enough for her. If she wasn’t such a stubborn little miss, he wouldn’t have to be here. If she’d just agree to an official investigation, there’d be no need of this pretend affair. If she had an ounce of sense, she wouldn’t be getting all bent out of shape right now over having to endure a public kiss in a parking lot. A kiss from a lowly cop.
Yeah, this gig wasn’t all bad.
They came to a stop beside her car. He half expected her to fumble for her keys or maybe offer her hand for a formal handshake, but she didn’t do either of those things. She just turned to face him, her face carefully impassive.
“This won’t hurt a bit.” He rested a palm on the side of her slim, graceful neck, using a callused thumb to tip her chin up. Lord, her skin was fine, softer even than he’d imagined. He could feel her pulse, surprisingly strong beneath his palm. “Just close your eyes and think of England.”
She did close her eyes, but as they drifted shut, he caught an expression in them that startled the hell out of him. A sensual hungry expression that might lead a man to conclude that she was thinking about something other than the mother country. Poleaxed, he froze in mid-move, his face angled, distance narrowed, lips hovering just millimeters from hers. What the hell was going on here?
Then she slid an arm around his neck and pulled his mouth down to meet hers, erasing any doubt about what he’d seen in her eyes. Her lips were damp, warm, and they tasted tantalizingly of coffee and womanly welcome. Then her tongue, hot and impossibly exciting, probed his lips. He opened for her instantly, felt the electric brush of her tongue against his even as her hand found the tensed muscles of his chest.
Wait, wait, wait, his mind screamed. Be smart. Pull back. Think about this.
His body said screw that noise. Suzannah Phelps had her tongue in his mouth.
It was a short contest.
He swept his arm around her, meeting her hungry mouth with a hard demand of his own. When she groaned her approval, he gathered her closer. Oh, Jesus, God, she felt like heaven. She splayed her legs subtly, allowing him to press her more intimately against him.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this was too much, too public, too out-of-control. Then she drew back, pushing against his chest. He released her immediately.
“So, how was that, Detective? Convincing enough?”
Her words held their usual edge, but he heard the husky quaver underlying them. She’d wanted to turn the tables on him but she wasn’t as coolly unaffected as she wanted him to think.
Clutching at the threads of his own equilibrium, he forced a laugh. “Hey, you convinced me, sweetheart.”
She compressed her lips, which only drew attention to how kiss-swollen they were.
“You know us lawyers. We’re all actors at heart.”
“Of course.”
Her lips thinning even further, she deactivated the car’s alarm. It chirped cheerfully. When he heard the electronic door locks release, he stepped forward to open the door for her. She brushed by him and slid into the driver’s seat.
“You’ll go home at five when everybody quits the building?”
She looked like she wanted to tell him to get his hands off her car. And she really, really looked like she wanted to tell him it was none of his business what she did. Instead, she nodded. “I already agreed to that, remember?”
“Just making sure.”
She inserted the key in the ignition switch, then glanced up at him. “Do you think I could have my door back?”
“In a minute. I want to talk about what we’re going to watch on TV tonight.” What he really wanted to see is if she could make that upper lip disappear altogether if she got any more uptight. Apparently she couldn’t because it was still in evidence when she replied.
“You don’t need to come over, John. The alarm will be installed by then. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will. But the objective is to either make this guy cease and desist, or alternatively, to flush him out. And the only way to do that is to convince him you’ve got a bona fide lover.”
She closed her eyes, as though praying for strength. Or maybe counting to ten.
Those baby blues were cool as ice chips when she opened them again. “WTN.”
“Huh?”
“The Women’s Television Network. That’s what we’re watching tonight.”
“Okay,” he conceded in his most magnanimous voice. “Between innings of the Jays game, we’ll switch over.”
Her answer was to start the BMW’s engine.
He took his cue and closed her door just in time to prevent her driving off with it ajar.
He glanced around the parking lot. Several heads averted too quickly. Spectators to that clinch, no doubt. Well, that was the whole point of the exercise, wasn’t it?
Pasting the kind of smug smile on his face that he figured a guy who’d just swapped saliva with Suzannah Phelps should be wearing, he sauntered to his own car. It wasn’t until he merged into the lunch hour traffic that he let the smile slip.
Dammit, what had he gotten himself into?
*
Dating Suzannah Phelps was pure hell.
As he waited for the printer to spit out the job he’d sent to it, Quigg leaned back in his chair and reflected on the past week. He’d attended three dinner parties. Three, for crying out loud. That was exactly three too many.
Okay, the retirement bash for that crusty old broad from the land registry office had been kind of fun, but for the most part, it had been crashingly dull. Plus he’d spent half his spare time running back and forth to the dry cleaners with his limited wardrobe. The other half he spent listening to fat-cat stockbrokers prognosticating about the post 9-11 economy and artist types bemoaning the dismal level of government support for cultural endeavors.
Did Suzannah enjoy that stuff as much as she pretended, or was she torturing him? He suspected it was the latter. Well, one thing was certain—the nature of their outings was about to change. She’d had it her way for a week. Now it was his turn.
