The Seduction of Arabella Quinn

by Caryn Carter

  On the drive to her office, she kept a grip on the steering wheel as if her hands were one with it. The sexual tension inside her had her teeth on edge, her skin sensitive and tingly.

  Inside the intimate confines of the boat, where every nook and cranny reminded her of Nick, her erotic fantasy seemed so right, so normal, but in the bright light of morning that same fantasy frightened her. She had never thought of herself as erotic or sensual or even highly sexed. She had certainly never considered herself so with Kevin.

  Had she changed so much in seven years? Or had she always been this way, filled with a wicked passion she had kept buried until a man like Nick Fuller came along?

  She didn't know the answers, she only knew the questions. And as long as those questions existed, Nick was the only man who could answer them.

  * * * *

  Nick was late getting to the office Wednesday morning. He'd slept only a fitful few hours and had bypassed making his own coffee in favor of buying a cup when he stopped to fill his car with gas.

  Big mistake. The coffee was strong and bitter and he had to force it down his throat with the reminder that it wasn't the taste that was important this morning, but the kick-in-the-ass jolt of caffeine he needed to help clear his head.

  As he pulled away from the quick-serve station, he reluctantly accepted the very real possibility that the nasty taste in his mouth might have less to do with the bitter brew than it did with the way his stomach still churned whenever he thought of the proof of Bella's deception he'd found last night.

  Knowing it would drive him crazy to sit around and wait for Inez to bring him the information on the cruise Bella had booked, he decided to make the call himself to the other travel agency that offered the same tour package as Bella's. After he secured that information, there were some other ideas rolling around in his head that he wanted to check out.

  The smell of fresh coffee greeted Nick when he opened the door to the reception area of his office. He gave Inez his usual morning wink, indicating she looked liked a million dollars, and headed for the coffee machine in the corner.

  True to form, Inez gave him a tired but genuine smile and batted her hand at him, her way of saying, 'you know it's impossible to look like a million dollars when you're fifty pounds overweight and pushing sixty, but thanks anyway'.

  Nick smiled at her as he usually did, only this morning the smile was as forced as Inez's were most mornings after she'd been up for hours caring for the paraplegic husband that was more child than man. Nick reminded himself to bring her some fresh flowers when he returned to the office after he'd finished the outside work he had to do.

  He'd also see that she had a raise, even though he'd just given her one less than six months ago. She deserved it. She worked hard. On top of that, she was a good, decent person.

  Not like Arabella Quinn, who only pretended to live a decent life while she was really just biding her time until she could walk in shit again with that unholy piece of humanity she was undoubtedly still in love with. That thought nearly caused him to choke on the first swallow of coffee, and once he'd gotten it down, threatened to bring it back up again. He slammed shut the door to his private office and waited for Inez to open it, stick her round face inside and ask if there was anything she could do for him. When the door didn't open as he expected, he was grateful for her lapse. Right then, the only thing he wanted was to be alone so he could begin the research into Bella's affairs that he'd mapped out on his way to the office.

  With the cup of coffee at his elbow, Nick thumbed through the Travel Agency section of the yellow pages, found the cruise line on which Bella had booked her cruise and checked the ports of call. It was just as he suspected--Bella was headed to Mexico, with one of her stops in Grand Cayman, known for its sound financial institutions immune to the long arm of the IRS.

  It didn't make him feel any better that his suspicions had been confirmed. It made him feel worse. One more nail in Arabella Quinn's coffin.

  Inez's usual smooth tasting coffee turned as sour in his stomach as the acrid cup he'd ditched earlier. He propped his elbows on his desk and rotated his fingertips against his temples. He'd slept a scant two hours. He was headed for a giant headache from lack of sleep on top of the tension generated by the pressure of working this case under a strict timeline.

  And it was just another case that he was working. He had to remember that or else he could easily fall into the trap of confusing the lust he felt for Bella with feelings of a more romantic nature.

  Nick flipped on the desktop radio to one of the morning radio talk shows for a traffic update. Even though it was now past the usual rush hour, in New Orleans one could always count on an accident or two blocking the Interstates or some other main artery. He waited for the report while he absentmindedly looked through yesterday's mail. Following that, he did a quick check of the day's work projects for all three of his crews.

  Vince was attending an all day seminar in one of the downtown hotels and wasn't due in the office until late afternoon, which meant that Nick would be on call to handle any problems that arose.

  He didn't anticipate anything out of the ordinary. Bella's job, unlike what he'd led her to believe, was a shoo-in. The other jobs were both large, one at a new office building in New Orleans' Downtown Business District and one in a mansion on St. Charles Avenue that was undergoing extensive remodeling. The report from Billy Dobson, who ran their six-month old branch in Alexandria in the northern part of the state, looked good too.

  Nick switched off the radio, grabbed his briefcase and headed to the outer office where he found Inez with her teeth locked into a doughnut half the size of a basketball. He shook his head and tsked at her a couple of times on his way out the door, pointing to the cell phone hooked on his belt. She nodded in understanding, her bright red lips still curved around the doughnut. He smiled to himself in spite of his dour mood as he closed the door behind him.

  The air was heavy with humidity, and from living in New Orleans all his life, Nick knew the quickly rising temperature had already evaporated the thin sheen of dew that had formed on the grass overnight. He looked up at a blindingly bright sky directly overhead, but to the west, storm clouds, likely to reach the City by afternoon, threatened.

  Much as he hated the thought of a storm rolling in, he knew the rain would be welcomed, especially by the home owners whose lawns were parched, and slowly, but surely, edging from vibrant green to a muted shade of raw umber.

  All he asked from the Rain Gods was a reprieve for the several hours it might take him to make the trip to City Hall, find the records he needed, and get back to the office to schedule the mountain of appointments sure to be waiting on his desk.

  Business was booming on both fronts--in home security sales, fueled by the city's escalating crime rate, and in personal surveillance, the bulk of which comprised locating missing and straying spouses. Those two brick and mortar components of the business, coupled with the usual skip traces and half dozen other reasons people had for locating the lost and the losers, were the reasons he and Vince had enjoyed five very prosperous years which, so far, showed no signs of declining.

  To his surprise, he found a parking spot in the back of City Hall without having to circle the block ten times. Hoping his luck in the parking lot was an indication of the way the rest of his morning would go, he braved the quickly rising temperature and entered the ground floor of the building just as an elevator was emptying.

  Having spent enough hours searching records in the Clerk of Courts office to qualify him for a job, Nick punched in the correct floor number without any thought.

  Thanks to his own familiarity with the records office and the help from one of the newer, nubile clerks that he suspected had a king-sized crush on him, Nick found what he was looking for in less than thirty minutes. For the first time since he'd gone through the massive record books, he wished it had taken him longer. What he'd found only tightened the noose around Bella's pretty neck.

 
She'd bought her home only months after Kevin had gone to prison, and six months later she'd bought the travel agency. According to everything Vince had dug up in his background check, there was no way Bella should have been able to come up with the down payment.

  On the off chance that she had bought the house on an assumption, or by some other less conventional means, Nick dialed the number of one of his sources who was able to get information not readily available even to the best P.I. His contact promised to get back to Nick within an hour, two at the most.

  With all the information he'd come for, and feeling more agitated than even the oppressive heat warranted, Nick slid inside his car, cranked the engine and sat with warm air from the vent blowing full in his face. He really should call Bella. He should have called her when he first got up this morning. He reached for the phone at his waist, but made no attempt to unhook it from its clip while he searched for an easy way out. There was none. He had to call her.

  The instant he heard Bella's voice, he was overcome by such a rush of desire he had to force himself to concentrate on something other than wanting to tell her how hot he was for her. How, if she was willing, he'd meet her right now at the boat and screw her until neither of them could walk. Instead, he managed, in a very level voice, to ask how she was and how she'd spent the night.

  "I slept better than I expected," she answered, then haltingly asked him if maybe he'd called on the ship's telephone when she was in the shower that morning or after she'd already left for work. There'd been no missed calls displayed on her cell phone, so she knew he hadn't tried to reach her that way.

  "No, this is the first time I've tried to call. Why? Did you need me for something?"

  "No," she answered quickly, hastening to assure him everything was fine, she'd just wondered if he might have needed to reach her. "Is the work at the house going okay?"

  He assured her everything was going according to schedule.

  "Is there any chance the job might get finished ahead of schedule? Like today? So I could go back home tonight?"

  "I wish there was, but I'm not holding out any hope. You shouldn't either." Christ, he had fallen back into his old ways of lying through his teeth easier than he expected. He could almost make himself believe he was back on the street, twisting the truth in order to get one of his contacts to trust him.

  He switched topics and asked about her mother. After she filled him in on what she'd found out during her visit to the hospital that morning, he asked if she'd be going back after work. He knew she would be; he just asked so the conversation would keep going and he could keep listening to her voice.

  "Nick?" The pitch to her voice had changed, it was lower, deeper, soft but throaty. His insides rattled.

  "I'm here," he stupidly assured her. Where else would he be?

  "I..."

  "Yeah?"

  Her sigh settled over him as if she were in his arms instead of miles away. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you tonight. Maybe we can pick something up and eat on the boat?"

  "We'll see," he said noncommittally. He'd have to be plumb crazy to risk seeing her for any length of time tonight. If he did, he'd never have enough time for all the work still left ahead of him.

  After a very long pause she told him she'd call him when she was ready to leave the hospital, unless he'd prefer they skip dinner altogether and she went on by herself to the boat since she had the key.

  "Call me when you're ready to leave." He wasn't about to let her go there alone. He'd see that she was settled and then get the hell out of there, quick.

  Nick ended the conversation, and immediately thought about calling Bella back with some explanation of why he seemed so disinterested in seeing her tonight. Instead, he quickly shifted the car into gear. Fuck it all. He'd make a quick trip back to the office, handle a few details, then take a ride over to Bella's office. He'd pick up a sandwich for her on the way, spend a few minutes with her and then maybe she wouldn't feel like he'd cast her aside.

  Just the thought of seeing Bella again so soon reversed Nick's mood immediately. He started to whistle as he swung into traffic, a last minute decision to swing by his barber for a haircut despite everything still facing him at the office, lifting his spirits even higher.

  When Nick reached his office an hour later, he was still whistling and, without missing a step, he took the slip of paper Inez handed him as he passed by her desk.

  The message was from Phil. Nick hurried to his office and dialed Phil's cell phone number.

  "Yo, Boss, just wanted to tell you what I forgot to mention when you called last night to check on things." His voice faded, but came back clear again. "How well do you know the lady that lives here?"

  A sense of foreboding engulfed Nick. "Why?"

  "Late yesterday evening she got one of those recorded calls that lets you know where it's coming from and who's calling so you can accept the charges or not. Just thought if you knew her well enough, you might want to mention some dude named Kevin from the state pen is trying to reach her."

  Chapter Ten

  Nick had always found breaking a promise one of the hardest things he ever had to do. Breaking his promise to Bella had been the hardest yet. For the past two hours, while he'd tried to catch up on his work, he'd replayed over and over the telephone call he'd made to her before she left for the hospital. He'd fed her a drummed up story about a last minute job that required his assistance into the night. She bought the story, hook, line and sinker. Which only made him feel worse. Until he gave himself a short, but to-the-point lecture that what appeared to be her trust in him was nothing more than her refined ability to manipulate a situation until it worked in her favor.

  Hadn't she set out to dupe him where Kevin was concerned? Hadn't she tried hard to convince him that she'd had nothing more to do with Kevin Pitre since the day they put him away for manslaughter? Hadn't she practically sworn to him she'd made it clear to Kevin that she didn't welcome any contact from him? But if she had, then why had Kevin called not once, but twice, in the past two weeks? Did she really expect him to believe those calls from Kevin, made practically on the eve of his release, were really coincidental?

  While Nick planned the following week's appointment schedule, he considered how he'd spend the next few hours until he was certain Bella was asleep and he could continue with his search of her house. Even though his instincts told him he could bet next month's payment on the Cindy Marie that he wasn't going to find anything incriminating there, he still had to finish the job.

  Whether by chance, or deliberate design, Bella had outsmarted him. Either that or ... he didn't want to consider the 'or', but he had to. Or else she was telling the truth. She was innocent--and no matter how well-baited a trap he planted, there would be nothing to catch.

  Suppose she was nothing more than a pawn in this whole mess? But hadn't he been in the trenches too long to be snookered like that? Snookered or not, he still wanted her. Still wanted her bad. And the longer he waited, the more he wanted her. If he waited too much longer, he would be climbing the walls.

  He snatched up the phone.

  She answered on the second ring.

  It took him two seconds to get his throat unlocked. "Where are you?"

  "I just pulled into the hospital parking lot."

  She sounded breathless, surprised, happy even to hear from him and his insides did a crazy, hopeful dance, in spite of himself.

  "Dinner is once more a possibility if you're still interested."

  "I'm still interested."

  "Call me when you're ready to leave."

  He probably read more into her breathy, "I'll be counting the minutes," than he should have, but he needed any illusion he could find to convince himself that when he finally had sex with her it would be because she desperately wanted him, and not the other way around.

  A few minutes later, Nick locked up the office and headed for his car, debating how to spend the next couple of hours. A cold shower was definitely one co
nsideration. It would invigorate him, renew his energy, but most of all cool down his cock so that he might be able to catch twenty winks before Bella called. It was the only course of action open to him. He headed home.

  He was at the tail end of thirty minutes of much needed sleep when the phone rang and jarred him awake. He quickly suppressed a yawn and shook his head to clear it before he scooped the cell phone off the bedside table and answered, his mind already attuned to Bella's voice.

  "I'm leaving." Two words. She'd said just two words and already he was getting hard.

  Oh shit. Her pause meant she was waiting for him to tell her where to meet him. Thinking as fast as his half-asleep brain and his wide-awake cock allowed, he said the first thing that came to mind and realized it was exactly what he meant.

  "I don't want to waste time in public tonight. I'm anxious to see you. How about fast food hamburgers?"

  This time he knew her pause was deliberate.

  "I had a late lunch today. I can skip dinner altogether, if you can." Another pause, a longer one this time, before she added, "We could spend the time doing something other than eating ... hamburgers." There was no mistaking the suggestive innuendo, and the images it formed in his brain took barely one second to charge through his body and jolt his cock to full attention.

  His throat locked up again and he had to do a fast swallow to get it back in working order. "That sounded like an invitation to something much more fun than eating hamburgers."

  "It was."

  Jesus. He looked down at himself, sticking out like a divining rod, and rolled over on his stomach, hoping the pressure from the mattress would ease the throbbing in his cock.

  He pressed his lips to the mouthpiece. "Are you sure?"

  "Are you sure?" she echoed.

  "I'll meet you at the boat. What time?"