Focusing on her companion, she introduced herself.
“I’m Denise, by the way. Denise Rose.”
“Anatole Konstantinou.” He lowered his voice to keep their conversation intimate, but Dorian would bet money Simon overheard.
She just hoped Anatole’s name wasn’t as fake as hers. Then again, how many men gave out their real names to hookers?
“How long are you in town for, Anatole?” she whispered back, watching the numbers rise on the digital display as they went up to the penthouse level.
Simon had hit the button for one floor below the penthouse, no doubt to follow her more unobtrusively by way of the stairs. Assuming he didn’t intervene before then with some he-man grandstanding. But he remained silent.
“As long as it takes to find the right travel companion.” Anatole rubbed a finger over his upper lip as the elevator slowed for Simon’s floor. Was the gesture a tell because he was lying?
Or would this guy truly try to coerce a hooker to travel abroad with him?
Simon exited the elevator and took a quick right. As soon as the doors closed behind him, Anatole hit another button three floors down.
“What are you doing?” Surprise shocked the breathy giggle right out of her voice.
“The man in here just now was a cop.” He spat out the word as if it had an unpleasant taste. “I can spot them twenty yards away.”
The possibility gave her shivers as he turned her in his arms to face him. Had he seen through her cover, as well?
“What do you care if he’s a cop?” She smiled wickedly and splayed her hand against his shoulder to prevent him from leaning closer and closer to her. “Have you been very bad?”
The elevator sank and Dorian tried not to panic. Sure she needed to get off the elevator before Anatole decided to get his money’s worth right here in the privacy of a mirrored lift, but it wouldn’t help anything if she started to sweat now.
“I hate cops,” he confided, slipping her jacket off one shoulder to expose bare skin and cleavage.
Never had an elevator taken so long to reach its destination.
“Sorry, Anatole.” She shrugged the jacket back over her shoulders. “I think we need to work out a few business details before we start getting naked.”
The elevator chimed for the floor he’d pressed, but before the doors could open, Anatole hit the emergency button. Alarm blaring, the doors remained sealed shut.
Four floors away from where Simon expected her to be.
“I don’t do quickies in the elevator.” She itched to have her gun in hand, but if she drew a weapon now, her cover would be blown before she had accomplished anything on the case.
What had it been like for the women who were forced into servitude overseas? How would it feel to be trapped like this when there wasn’t the mental reassurance of a concealed weapon in your purse?
“Doesn’t it help in your line of work to have a sense of adventure?” He settled his hands on her waist and stepped closer, his groin brushing her hip and nudging his arousal sickeningly close to the juncture of her legs.
It didn’t help that she’d worn a skirt that barely covered her. Dorian decided that was all she needed to call off the agreement in a believable way. No self-respecting working girl would let a man get away with so much.
“In my business, too much adventure can get you killed.” She stepped backward out of his grip. “I think you’ve taken enough free feels, Mr. Konstantinou. I’d like to return to the casino floor.”
Her cell phone started ringing then and she answered it in spite of her companion’s lethal glare.
“Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I’ll be back on the Abundance Thoroughfare in two minutes.” She reached around Anatole to depress the emergency switch, leaving her cell phone connected so that Simon could overhear every word.
“Get the hell out of there, Dorian. Now.” The gritty tension in Simon’s voice surprised her.
The doors opened and she walked out of the elevator to hit the call button for a different lift, shooting the man behind her an apologetic glance to soothe his ego in case he was their man. It wouldn’t be wise to burn bridges.
“Sorry, Anatole. Maybe another time?”
“You’re making a mistake, Ms. Rose.” Anatole’s voice echoed in the hallway behind her, and she turned toward him. His eyes lingered on her, his still stance belying the anger that flashed across his handsome face. “There may come a day when you wish you had powerful allies in a dangerous business such as yours.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DOORS CLOSED between Dorian and the man who called himself Anatole, taking him back to his penthouse suite, while another elevator arrived behind her. She turned to enter it and ran right into Simon.
“Where is he?” Simon closed his phone and put it in his pocket as he assessed the surroundings. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. But he guessed you were a cop.” She tucked her phone back in her purse, right next to the service weapon she hadn’t wanted to draw earlier. “My gut says that’s our guy.”
“How do you know?” He slid his hand over her hair in a gesture that was totally inappropriate for their working relationship and totally right at the same time.
She hadn’t realized how tightly wound she’d been.
“He fits the profile of the ringleader we’ve heard about, and he said that one day I’d wish I had powerful friends. His tone suggested to me he knew I’d be in trouble soon.” Something about his demeanor seriously creeped her out and she’d never been a woman easily creeped. Anatole had meant to threaten her.
“Could have just been a little ego stroke to himself since you rejected him. Some guys think having money in the bank is a big power trip that makes them irresistible to women.” Simon shuttled her into the elevator and hit the button for his suite.
“No.” She knew what Simon was talking about but that didn’t account for her gut impression. “I saw his face when he said it. He wanted to threaten me.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Simon tipped her chin up to look at him and only then, when her face was locked in the steadiness of his warm palm, did she realize she’d been shaking all over.
“I’m fine.” She willed the trembling to stop. “I’ve handled murder scenes, Ramsey. You know I’m fine.”
“None where you’ve had to tangle with potential murderers in a miniskirt with no backup in sight.”
“You think the miniskirt makes any difference?” She wrenched away from him, unaccountably pissed off that she cared what this man thought about her in this outfit. “I could have taken that pig out wearing a thong if I needed to. Clothes don’t define me.”
She stomped off the elevator, her heels grinding into the carpet with each forceful step as she walked away from him.
CLEARLY, HE’D MADE A judgment error with the reference to her attire. Not the first today, now that he thought about it.
Simon stalked down the hall behind her, knowing something was seriously wrong for her to flip out over a miniskirt reference. Something was up with Dorian on this case and he intended to find out what.
As he rounded the last corner to his suite in the oval-shaped building, he spotted her leaning against the wall beside his door.
“You would have been a sight to behold in a thong.” Simon slid the card in the lock, hoping she’d see the humor in the situation now that she’d had a minute to calm down.
To stop shaking.
“You’d make quite a sight yourself in a thong.” Her voice sounded steadier now as she followed him into his room and closed the door behind her.
“Now that’s a painful picture.” He shuddered as he unfolded his computer screen and connected to a secure Web site.
She was quiet while he entered the information about Konstantinou along with a request from the hotel for a list of all the guests registered in a penthouse suite. There couldn’t be many.
When he finished, his gaze tracked back to Dorian. She had kicked off her high hee
ls and stood in the middle of the living area in her stocking feet. The curtains behind her were open, the neon signs from a casino across the street backlighting her in gaudy stripes of color.
“I’m a little touchy about this assignment,” she said without prelude, her voice steady and strong.
“You never got around to telling me why this one had gotten under your skin.” As soon as he’d finished trying to convince her that everyone gets too close to an investigation now and then, she’d bolted out the door to flush out new suspects.
“My mother turned tricks for a few years of my childhood. Five, actually.”
She seemed to wait for that to sink into his head, but somehow, it didn’t. It wouldn’t. The pieces didn’t fit.
“Are you trying to tell me—” He couldn’t reconcile this new revelation about Dorian with the woman he knew. Dorian was driven, focused, ambitious. And yeah, a little uptight. She defined professionalism. He’d figured she just put her guard up to keep her distance from all the guys she worked with.
But her need to keep her distance was probably rooted in something a hell of a lot darker than he’d ever guessed.
Damn.
“My mother was a prostitute.” She confirmed what he hadn’t been able to say. “She did it to keep a roof over our heads, but I never really forgave her for it because she died when I was still a stupid teenager. I hate that she left this world thinking I looked down on her for what she did, that I didn’t appreciate her sacrifices.”
The brittle hurt in her voice told him exactly how hard it was to admit what she perceived as a shortcoming in herself. He’d bet money she’d shared this information with almost no one. Something about the way she told him made him think this revelation was a first. Still…hadn’t she at least shared it with her chief?
“Your commander must have known this would be a rough-as-hell assignment for you.” Why had she been sent out on a job that would churn up a harrowing past? Those years her mother had been in the business had to have been hell.
“He doesn’t know about it. My mother was harassed by cops a few times, but never arrested. After the first year or two, she took only the most upscale work through a legalized escort service. It kept her a little safer.”
“I’m sure if you asked Captain Pearson to give the assignment to someone else—”
“And risk having to reveal a secret I’ve kept for this long? No thanks. Besides, as much as the job sucks, I like the idea of nailing the kind of creeps that harass women like my mom.”
The fierce light in her eyes told him she wouldn’t back down. And damned if he didn’t admire that about her. He wanted to touch her. To offer her comfort of some kind. But she could be so prickly about stuff like that, and he’d never been much of a finesse guy.
“But this gig is already getting too personal.” The extra risk she took today made more sense now. “I don’t have to tell you that the cops who get too involved in a case are the first ones to make mistakes on the job.”
Although who was he to talk? He’d gone a little insane when he realized she hadn’t gotten off the elevator on the penthouse level earlier, his objectivity out the window where she was concerned. He’d already phoned hotel security to see if they could pick her up on any of the property’s security cameras.
“I can’t worry about that.” She shook her head, silky dark hair grazing her cheek. “Ten years ago one of my mom’s roommates disappeared, and we all assumed she’d been murdered by some overzealous client or a crazy on the street. But nobody ever turned up and the police never made any arrests.”
“It’s an at-risk population.” He told her what she already knew, but he was at a loss how to make her situation any better. “That’s why they’re preyed on by groups like the one that’s exporting sex slaves.”
“About a year later, one of my mom’s long-term clients came to her after a business trip to Korea and swore he’d seen the roommate in a bordello over there. He said she appeared strung out and high, but definitely the same woman. He tried to talk to her, but the owner booted him out of the place when he said he knew her.”
“You think the same thing happened to her that is happening now to local women?” The idea of turning prisoners into junkies to keep them complacent certainly wasn’t born in the twenty-first century.
“I do.” She flipped idly through the pages of a room service menu while she spoke. “And something Konstantinou, or whatever his name is, said to me in the elevator made me realize that potential victims probably go willingly with their captors at first.”
“What?” He tapped the menu. “And pick out what you want to eat. We can grab a bite while we research the guy more tonight.”
“He offered to fly me to one of his international business destinations as a perk of our future relationship.” She pointed out the sampler tray of grilled club sandwiches and then flipped to the directory of spa treatments at the back of the hotel guide. He had the feeling she wanted to break the intensity of a conversation that had to be tough for her.
“I’ll bet that kind of invitation sounds mighty good to someone who hasn’t had the chance to travel before.”
“Even just having that much security for a couple of weeks sounds good to a woman who usually has a revolving door to her bedroom.”
He picked up the phone to order in a couple of trays for a late dinner. Covering the mouthpiece with his hand, he said to Dorian, “You want me to order up a massage for you while I’m at it?”
Startled, she slammed the directory shut and straightened from the high island countertop.
“No. I’m not a fan of strangers touching me.” She couldn’t hide a shudder at the thought.
How much tougher had that made it for her to stomach the octopus hands of Tex and Konstantinou?
“I’m not a stranger.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to point that out when she’d clearly had a rough day.
Hell, maybe it had been exactly because she’d had a rough day.
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She folded her arms in a stance that normally meant a return to business, but with the low-cut corset on underneath her jacket, she merely put on a mouthwatering show.
“Do you really mean to blow me off all the times you say stuff like that, or is that just your autopilot response to any guy who flirts with you?” He’d chased her for months to no avail, never getting anywhere with her until that one night when she had seemed strangely ready to cut loose.
“You’re asking me about my motives?” Shaking her head, she smiled that rare Dorian grin, the one that appeared only when she was finding humor in something no one else appreciated.
“Yeah. I am. What gives with the knee-jerk responses every time I’ve ever asked you to do anything with me?”
“Except for once.”
“As I recall, you’re the one who ultimately did the asking that night.”
“And look how that turned out.”
“Why did you ask me to go home with you that night?” He hadn’t really thought about their one time together from that angle before since he’d been so caught up in his own guilt for walking away without even waking her up. “I was so bowled over by you after all the times you told me no that I didn’t think to question my sudden turn of good fortune.”
“But you’re questioning it now?” She drummed her short fingernails on the marble island, her gaze focused on the heavy golden ring she wore on her right forefinger.
“Yes.” Better he wised up now than later. “What made you walk across that bar to me a year ago?”
ROOM SERVICE DEMONSTRATED impeccable timing by choosing that moment to arrive with food for their late-night dinner. Dorian was grateful for the lightning-fast service for the high-roller suite, even though she’d lost her appetite the moment Simon had decided to revisit the past.
While Simon tipped the guy and removed the silver domes from the serving trays, Dorian tried to tell herself everything would be fine.
But she’d been fortunat
e Simon had never questioned her about her motives before now. She’d had a whole year to come to terms with what had happened in the days that led up to that one night together. How would he get a handle on finding out in one day?
Right in the middle of an investigation they were working together?
“Are you ready to eat or did you want to wait?” Simon’s question made her realize the guy from room service was gone.
Bet Me Page 18
