by Joanne Rock
He lifted one dark eyebrow, a quirky expression Brianne remembered well. Her eighteen-year-old self had tried for at least half an hour to raise only one eyebrow like that, and she’d ended up with a massive headache.
“And you think you can just snap your fingers and make the FBI disappear?” Aidan pitched the remote from hand to hand, never taking his eyes off her.
While she admired the man’s dexterity—and didn’t that give rise to intriguing questions about what else he did well with his hands?—Brianne couldn’t afford to allow him to distract her with his sleight of hand.
She snatched the device away from him in midair. “I might not be able to make you vanish this minute since I’m working solo tonight.” Besides, he didn’t exactly pose an immediate danger the way a drunken patron could if she took her eyes off the screens. “But I do know I’m entitled to go about my business while you’re here. Either cut to the chase about what you want from me, Aidan, or let me do my job.” She pressed a button on her recaptured electronic controller and flipped through several camera feeds to monitor the action throughout the club.
Of course, she needed to then follow through on her action and swivel in her chair to view the various monitors off to her side. A position which left her staring up at several small televisions along with an oversize, frozen image of Aidan and the cigarette girl, Daisy, on the middle screen.
She had larger-than-life Aidan on camera in front of her, and all-too-real Aidan emanating pheromones behind her.
A pretty powerful combination.
Good thing Brianne had gotten over her crush on him long ago or this situation might have presented a problem.
A shiver tripped through her while she waited— hoped—he’d give up. Maybe he could go search for Daisy Stephenson’s mouth again. Surely anything would be better than just sitting there behind her.
She could feel the weight of his stare along the back of her neck. She was also pretty damn sure she felt every one of his 98.6 degrees heating the boundaries of her personal space.
And he was getting closer.
Brianne didn’t know how she knew it, but the hair on the back of her neck stood on end with awareness. To turn around would be like acknowledging her curiosity. Something she definitely did not want to admit—even to herself.
But what was he doing back there?
TWO HOME RUNS IN THREE at bats.
Aidan rallied his quickly-splintering concentration to keep his mind off Brianne and his hands to himself.
Think baseball.
The Marlins’ first baseman had been on fire last night—moving his slugging percentage up to almost seven hundred, if Aidan’s math proved semi-reliable.
Which it probably wasn’t, given that the usual appeal of bases gained divided by at bats couldn’t compare to the allure of Brianne Wolcott’s auburn hair spilling over her barely-covered back.
Pale, satiny skin begged his touch while her killer strawberry curls shimmered in the reflected light of ten different televisions.
He might have persevered and calculated stats for the next guy on the roster if only Aidan didn’t remember exactly how smooth that creamy skin felt and how intoxicating her exotic scent had been from their long-ago, accidental interlude.
The faint perfume teased him even now, urging him closer to indulge his memories of Brianne.
As he leaned forward, his hand brushed a button on the elaborate master control board. The oversize screen in front of them came to life in response, setting Daisy Stephenson in motion again.
Saved by the cigarette girl.
Aidan pressed himself back in his seat, as far away from the temptation of Brianne as possible. What had he been thinking to let himself get so close?
Brianne pivoted in her seat, a half smile on her face. “Ready for your big screen debut?”
He welcomed the cool distance in her voice. Hell, he needed an Arctic blast to stay focused on business with Brianne around. He settled for jerking a thumb toward the television, confident his limited exchange with Daisy on screen wouldn’t reveal the woman’s connection to the Bureau. Brianne’s tape didn’t include the audio feed she had for some of the others.
Daisy had been more interested in jumping him than providing information.
“Maybe you can give me a few pointers on how I did.” Aidan needed an excuse to hang out with Brianne, some time to build a rapport with her again.
“Are you sure you can handle an assessment of your technique?” She folded her arms and peered down her nose at him, the ice queen in full battle mode.
Luckily, Brianne’s cool demeanor had never scared him off.
“Since when have I had an ego problem?”
She cracked a genuine smile, a gift all the more special because it was—in Aidan’s experience—so rare.
“You’ve got me there.” She turned back toward the screen just as Daisy flung herself into Aidan’s arms on the archived footage. “Prepare to be critiqued.”
Aidan scooted his chair forward to sit side by side with her, telling himself an essential part of his job was building relationships with people who might have key information on his case. His gut told him Melvin Baxter would be in touch with the ex-stepdaughter he’d always doted on, and Aidan was going to be there when it happened.
His job—his whole badass reputation within the Bureau—demanded it.
His decision to sit two inches from Brianne had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he wanted a better whiff of her perfume.
He stole a glance at her in the dull blue glow radiating from the wall of monitors. Some of the televisions caught the action on the dance floor, around the bars and in the back alleyway. But Brianne stared up at the video of Daisy and Aidan, head tipped to one side as if trying to make sense of the film sequence.
“You bumbled this kiss from the beginning.” She pointed one pale pink fingernail toward the central screen. “It’s all awkward angles and bad timing.”
“That’s not my fault. I got cast with the wrong woman.”
Brianne snorted, her gaze glued to the image of Aidan being clawed into submission by the voluptuous informant.
Okay, maybe he hadn’t exactly fought the woman off. But she’d taken him totally by surprise.
“I’m serious,” he protested, wishing his first meeting with Brianne after ten years didn’t have to take place during a fluke lip lock with an overeager coed. “I’m a foot taller than this girl. I need a leading lady with some major long legs.”
He couldn’t help but smile as Brianne strutted her way into the video scene right on cue.
“Weak excuses. You’d never make it in film, Maddock, no matter how much you flex those ripped muscles.”
Her eyes widened, almost as if she’d said more than she’d meant to. Aidan couldn’t help the slow smile that crept across his face.
She snatched up her remote and smashed the pause button. “Now, I think we can both agree I’ve humored you tonight. It’s time you either get to the point of your visit or you’re really going to have to leave.”
Shit. Aidan needed more time to convince Brianne he wasn’t the devil’s spawn she seemed to think him. Then again, maybe all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough to convince her she could trust him.
One botched encounter with her that night before she left for New York and he ruined the great connection they’d once had.
Unfortunately, it was time to play hardball because he sure as hell couldn’t walk away from his one and only lead to Melvin Baxter.
“Actually, I’m going to have to carve out a spot for myself at Club Paradise for a little while, so we might as well try to work together.” He scratched an idle hand across his chest, affecting a casualness he definitely didn’t feel. He flexed his bicep for her benefit. “You really think the muscles are looking ripped?”
He would have been golden if he could have teased another one of those killer smiles out of her. But as he met her stormy green gaze, he was pretty sure there woul
d be no smiles forthcoming.
In fact, he was damn certain he was about to experience the brunt of Brianne’s new hell-on-wheels attitude.
A COLD, CLAMMY FEAR SETTLED in her gut, but Brianne would rather be cut off from her remote for all of eternity than let Aidan know. He wanted to settle in here? To work?
That could only mean the FBI had her under a microscope, a notion which scared her right down to the silver rings on her toes. If word got out the new club was being investigated, it would taint the place with an underworld feel she and her partners were working hard to overcome.
Thankfully, she’d learned a thing or two about acting in her time behind the camera as a documentary producer, and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to work up some annoyance at Aidan’s presumptuous, self-absorbed shtick.
“I’m not about to get into a discussion of your physique in light of your earlier comment.” She met his gaze levelly, hoping no barroom brawls would break out at the club in the moments she took her eyes off the security monitors. The scene inside her office promised to be more explosive anyhow. “What exactly do you mean you need to carve a spot out for yourself at Club Paradise?”
He leaned back in his chair as if utterly at ease with the notion, then laced his fingers over his reclining chest. “Melvin pissed off a lot of people with this latest stunt, Brianne. You know he took off because we were ready to nail him with racketeering charges?”
No, she hadn’t known. Didn’t want to know. She’d said goodbye to Melvin and all her mother’s other shady—but well-providing—boyfriends and ex-husbands ten years ago. Brianne was well into a new chapter of her life now.
Thoughts of Jimmy the guitar player niggled in the back of her mind. Had she somehow started her own parade of shady boyfriends?
“That doesn’t have anything to do with me or with Club Paradise.” She stood, eager to walk away from the implied intimacy of the darkened room and the proximity of their seating arrangement. She flipped on all the overhead lights, determined to chase away all traces of shadiness in her life. Starting now.
“Whatever business Mel was running out here, it’s not going on anymore. The women I’m partners with have so much collective fury at the Rat Pack that we could probably take down all of them if they were ever stupid enough to set foot in South Beach again. But they’re not. Mel is gone and he’s going to stay gone.”
Aidan blinked against the sudden deluge of high wattage filling the room. “And you think you can make it so by the sheer force of your will? Mel has connections all over town and a strong racketeering operation in place. He’s not going to walk away from that income forever.”
Why had her mother ever married such a loser?
Bad enough Pauline Wolcott-Baxter-Menendez-Simmons unabashedly married the men for money. Did she have to be so unconcerned with how they made it?
Brianne leaned against the master control board, strung tight and wishing she could appear half as at-ease as the agent lounging in her office chair. She set the remote control on the panel beside her. “He knows better than to contact me.”
“I disagree. And since I’m running this investigation, that means I’m going to hang out at the club, watch the surveillance cameras with you, and generally be your best friend for the next few weeks.”
Like hell. “I don’t think so, Aidan. One of our owners is an attorney, you know. If there’s a way to legally keep you out of here, Lainie will find it.”
He rose, unfolding his six-foot-four frame from his slouchy position in the chair.
To Brianne the subtle physical message couldn’t have been more obvious. He was no longer talking to her as an old friend. He was issuing FBI-guy orders in no uncertain terms.
“I don’t think Lainie is going to find an easy opponent in the justice system, Bri, but good luck. In the meantime, I’ll be here tomorrow night before you open.” He drifted closer, his shuffling walk landing him a scant foot from Brianne.
She had to look up at him to meet his gaze. One perk of her height was that she usually got to meet men eye-to-eye. She could have gained a couple of inches if she’d pried herself off the soundboard perch, but that would have put her much too close to Aidan.
“I’m not showing you my videotapes without a search warrant.” By God, she was going to lay down some rules here, too. If Aidan thought he could blithely walk through her door and charm her into doing whatever he wanted, he was dead wrong. She’d learned the hard way not to put her trust in this man.
“Why? So I can’t see the drunken three a.m. crowd pissing on the sidewalk on their way out of the club? Or so I can’t see the floor show for free? If Melvin’s not going to contact you, what do you care if I sit here and watch your tapes with you?”
That was the whole damn point. She didn’t care what he saw, she cared that he’d be sitting two feet away from her all night, every night. Besides, she needed to show him he couldn’t waltz back into her life and expect he could manipulate her like some infatuated teenager.
“Bring a warrant or you don’t see a damn thing.” She’d hold her ground on this one.
“Fine.” Nodding, he conceded her point. “But I’m going to be all the more demanding about what you have to show me if I go to the trouble of getting the paperwork.”
She scavenged up a few remnants of her New York attitude, the facade she’d needed to make it in the city’s competitive film industry. She leaned close enough to whisper, her chest hovering inches from his.
“Demand all you want, Aidan. I don’t think you’ll be able to obtain a warrant for what you really want to see.”
If there were any justice in the world, the fact that Aidan chose that moment to lick his lips would mean Brianne had the power to make his mouth go dry.
An idea that pleased her to no end.
“Good thing I don’t need the court’s permission for that particular show.” He picked up the remote control and pressed play, starting the footage of their meeting in Honeymoon Heaven. “Why don’t you sit down and watch the sparks fly between us on camera and then try to tell me we’re not going to end up seeing a whole lot more of each other before this investigation is through?”
He shoved the remote into her hands and headed toward the door.
And despite the staggering number of New York film producers she’d mouthed off to in her day, she couldn’t think of a single comeback to Aidan’s preposterous suggestion.
He turned at the door to shoot her a parting grin. “See you tomorrow, Bri.” He lifted one eyebrow in signature Aidan style. “But only as much as you are ready to show me, of course.”
Damnation.
As he disappeared into the hallway, Brianne wondered how she’d survive the next go-round.
Somehow she’d dropped a sexual gauntlet tonight and Aidan Maddock hadn’t wasted any time picking it up. If she was going to maintain her sanity over the next few weeks, she needed to get her mind off those mouthwatering muscles of his and back on her job.
Because Brianne had already revealed too much of herself to Aidan ten years ago, and she didn’t have any intention of making herself vulnerable to him again.
3
BRIANNE SLID FARTHER into the gurgling outdoor hot tub, allowing the bubbles to tickle her nose as she held her glass out to Giselle for more champagne.
To celebrate their first night in business, Club Paradise’s new owners had agreed to meet after closing for a soak under the stars in one of the many oversize tubs surrounding the main pool. Amid wafting steam and the thrum of the bubble jets, the four of them were sharing stories from trenches. Summer had lost one of the dancers’ outfits and the woman had trotted out topless, Giselle had gotten into an argument with a drunken patron who insisted she didn’t know how to make a proper Sex on the Beach, and Lainie had a run-in with the cigarette girl over leaving her station in the middle of the evening.
The last part came as no surprise to Brianne, of course.
Brianne raised her glass for a third toast, wishing s
he didn’t have to share her bad news with the happy celebrants. She smoothed a slick finger over the painted ceramic tiles on the rim of the hot tub, pausing on the image of a towering pagan god in the Atlantis-themed picture. The golden god’s knowing expression reminded her too much of a certain cocky Fed. She covered the picture with her beach towel, obliterating the pagan with Egyptian cotton, and decided she couldn’t keep her news a secret any longer.
Shoving a damp curl out of her eyes, she cleared her throat. “On a less happy note, we received a visit from the FBI tonight.”
Giselle choked on a sip of champagne while Summer nearly spurted hers across the pool.
Barely managing to swallow her beverage, Summer slammed her glass down on the ceramic tiles. “You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not. Remember the guy I told you about who’s been chasing down Mel forever?”
“Aidan Maddock.” Lainie sat up straighter, tense and wary. “He questioned me after Robert disappeared.”
“Me, too,” Giselle added, casting an apologetic look at Lainie. “And I’m used to huge, intimidating males with those brothers of mine, but I thought Maddock was totally scary. What did he want?”
“He pretty much told me he’s going to become a regular fixture at the club until he uncovers a lead to the Rat Pack. Mainly Mel.”
“Oh great.” Summer saluted the idea with a nearly empty glass. “We’ll attract lots of business with a Fed at the front door. Did you at least inform him our bouncers don’t wear three-piece suits?”
Lainie held out one manicured hand for attention, sort of Barbara Streisand style. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. I mean, pardon me for sounding like a bitter divorcée, but wouldn’t we all rejoice just a little if every one of the sleazeball Rat Packers got carted off to federal prison?”
Summer and Giselle, both of who had been dating former part owners of the business, looked ready to agree.
