Sex & the Single Girl

by Joanne Rock

  Pulling into her mother’s driveway, he took quick note of the three-story brick colonial home with fat white columns lining the front facade, then peered across the front seat. “You don’t have a thing to be sorry for, Bri. It was me who messed up the investigation. You were just…” Distracting the hell out of him to thwart his case against her stepfather? No. He didn’t believe that anymore. “…something of a firecracker. And I’d be lying if I said the come-ons didn’t flatter me.”

  She blinked back at him behind her glasses. Surprised.

  And that was enough confession time for him today, thank you very much. Time to get down to business before he got caught up in Brianne all over again.

  “I’ll follow your lead with Pauline. You ready to go?” He was out of the car before she could answer, eager to put the conversation back on firmer footing. Comfortable footing.

  Work, he could deal with. He’d kick ass on this investigation like he had every other one since that fateful first time out.

  No way in hell would he get tripped up by a woman again. First Brianne. Then his ex-wife. He’d learned a few lessons since then, damn it, and he knew he couldn’t concentrate on work and a woman at the same time.

  And work was far easier to figure out.

  He opened Brianne’s door and watched her exit the blue Ford with the regal grace of a movie star hitting the red carpet. Any trace of insecurity he’d glimpsed on their way over was now hidden by her studious-looking glasses and plastered behind a cool veneer.

  Interesting.

  “She’s fragile,” Brianne informed him as she pressed the doorbell. “And there’s no telling how she’ll respond to questions about Mel. I told her not to panic, but I don’t know how she’ll—”

  The door swung wide to reveal a gently rounded woman in her early fifties, her brown hair knotted behind her head, her legs encased in black tights and her body outfitted in a red satin dress printed with orange and green flowers. She looked a bit like a Chinese lantern, a bright spot of color framed in the stucco doorway of her Palm Beach home.

  “Welcome, Brianne darling. Won’t you and your friend come in?” She smiled and gestured them in with the practiced moves of a lifetime hostess. Aidan had her pegged for a garden club president or maybe a Junior Leaguer.

  He itched to get past the introductions and start with the questions, but he was letting Brianne take the lead. As he followed her and her mother into a powder-blue parlor complete with elaborate silver tea service—the pot already steaming—he had the feeling he’d be itching for quite a while.

  BRIANNE COULD ALMOST HEAR Aidan’s inward groan when they stepped into her mother’s fussy parlor with the profusion of fresh flowers and the scented candles lit along the sideboard. Any minute Pauline would be rolling out the lemon drops and asking what they thought of the upcoming local elections.

  Not that she truly enjoyed politics.

  But it was on Pauline’s list of polite “company” talk that she’d been trotting out for guests Brianne’s whole life. Welcome to Uptight Women’s Anonymous.

  “Mom, we won’t take up your whole afternoon. We just wanted to ask you a few questions about Mel. This is—”

  “Honestly, Brianne, you just walked in the door. Tell me all about your new job. And you must introduce me to your gentleman friend. Have a seat.” She helpfully pointed to a spot on the overstuffed loveseat.

  Brianne would frankly rather tangle with a whole club full of drunken and out-of-control patrons than subject herself to the perils of her mother’s parlor small-talk, but ingrained habits were difficult to break. Especially when it came to mother-daughter relationships.

  She sat.

  Aidan lowered himself on to the cushion beside her even though the useless piece of furniture wasn’t large enough for a cat much less two adults who didn’t need to be plastered leg-to-leg. His presence was too close, too male, and oddly comforting at the same time.

  “So Brianne, don’t keep me in suspense any longer. Tell me who is this handsome young man with you?” Pauline’s eyes roamed over Aidan with genuine interest. “He reminds me of my own Stewart, so tall and dark.”

  Brianne mustered a smile for the reference to her long-deceased father, the man Pauline had always compared all others against. Aidan was scoring high praise in her mother’s book.

  Apparently Mom hadn’t made the connection that Aidan was only sitting on her loveseat in order to pry loose some more information about her ex-husband.

  “Mom, this is Aidan Maddock. Maybe you remember him as the investigating agent the last time Melvin was in trouble?”

  Pauline extended her hand. “I can’t say that I do. Of course that was a long time ago. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aidan.”

  He nodded, shook her hand. Smiled in a way that charmed cigarette girls and society matrons alike. “Likewise. I appreciate you talking to us today.”

  Pauline practically beamed. “I always enjoy visits from my daughter. She’s lived far away from me for so many years that it’s a pleasure to see her more often.” She reached for the silver tea service, her hostess manners coming to the fore. “Let me pour you a cup of tea while we talk and you can tell me all about how you and Brianne met.”

  Aidan snagged a white-and-gold teacup off the cart and held it out to be filled. A definite protocol glitch, but one that just might speed them through this visit a little faster. “That’s one of my favorite stories. But I think Brianne tells it better than I do.” He arched an expectant brow in her direction. “Don’t you, honey?”

  Ignoring him and the quick burst of heat his sexy smile ignited over her skin, she took the teapot from her mother’s hands and filled three cups in efficient succession. She didn’t have the time or the inclination to play tea party today. Not when she had the weight of Aidan’s gaze on her and the memory of her recent string of phone hang-ups preying upon her mind. She couldn’t bear to think about who those calls might be from. “Aidan is an FBI agent, not a personal friend, Mom. He needs to know if you’ve heard from Melvin lately.”

  Pauline frowned. “You truly inherited your father’s manners, Brianne. You’re always in such a hurry.”

  Could she help it if she didn’t like to waste time? The possible explanations for her phone hang-ups made her want to run home and implement a few new protective measures. She wasn’t about to spend the afternoon pretending Aidan was her beau just to amuse Pauline.

  “Sorry Mom. Aidan and I both need to get to work soon.” She felt just a little twinge of guilt at the lie. But she devoted enough time to her mother since she’d returned to Florida between balancing Pauline’s checkbook—a Herculean task in itself—and tackling her grocery shopping on a weekly basis so she’d at least have something mildly nutritious in the house besides Earl Grey and champagne. “Have you talked to Mel lately?”

  Settling back on the settee with a sniff, Pauline maintained her perfect posture. “You know he hasn’t called me since I married Ray. I think he took my fourth marriage rather badly, the poor man.”

  After Brianne’s father died, Pauline had married a white-collar crook, a control-freak business executive and a wealthy playboy in quick succession, but she’d never managed to recapture the love that she’d found with Brianne’s father.

  While Pauline’s lack of judgment in men annoyed Brianne, it also unnerved her a little to think she might have inherited the quality.

  Aidan gulped back his tea and replaced the cup on the cart with a clang. “Do you remember if Melvin Baxter ever asked you to open a bank account for him, Pauline?”

  Brianne wondered how her mother would react to such a blunt question, but she was much more tolerant of candor from men.

  She flashed a conspiratorial smile at Brianne. “My husbands haven’t typically let me anywhere near their banking affairs, Mr. Maddock. Ask my daughter what a failure I am at money matters.”

  Aidan leaned forward, his weight shifting the seat cushion next to Brianne as his thigh grazed hers ever so slightl
y. She had a momentary vision of their limbs entwined and the hard heat of his thighs pressed against hers that night on top of her desk.

  She edged closer to the other side of the loveseat to increase the distance between them, but the liquid heat remained in her legs.

  “It’s an important question, ma’am. Do you have any bank records dating from the years you were married to Baxter that you can consult? I have reason to believe that a financial connection remains between the two of you.”

  Brianne sensed the tension in Aidan from the taut set of his muscles beside her. Though his voice held a note of pleasant charm and gentle coaxing, she didn’t miss the telltale urgency threading through his tone.

  She desperately wanted her mother to deny any lingering association between herself and Melvin, but at the same time, her gut told her Pauline had to be ignorant of an account with over a million dollars languishing in her name for so many years.

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “My daughter made me turn over all my banking records to her last month when she insisted she balance my checkbook. Brianne, you are welcome to show this nice gentleman anything he wants to see in regard to my account information.”

  Either her mom knew nothing about the account and her affiliation with a well-known criminal, or she was lying through her teeth.

  Great. Just great.

  While Pauline, hostess extraordinaire, deftly turned the conversation from her crook ex-husband to quiz Aidan about his favorite restaurants in town—a longtime staple question in her guest itinerary—Brianne brooded over the fact that her mother might be in a lot of trouble.

  Of course, trouble was nothing new to Pauline who’d wiggled in and out of tight scrapes with her string of loser husbands for years. What upset Brianne more was realizing that not only was her mother in over her head with Mel, but that she herself wasn’t much better off if her recent rash of phone hang-ups were originating with her ex-boyfriend.

  Strange to think she had far more in common with her mother than she’d ever suspected. No matter how well organized Brianne kept her checkbook or how coolly sterile she made her own gadget-happy household, she would still share one undeniable trait with her mother.

  A bad habit of choosing men who were all wrong for them—and also potentially dangerous.

  Snitching a macaroon off the tiered cake stand full of candies on the teacart, Brianne gave a momentary ear to the conversation at hand and discovered Pauline knee-deep in discussing politics with Aidan. That could keep them going for another fifteen minutes, and it might save Brianne from having to tell her mother all about the club’s first week in business. She munched the macaroon and wondered idly how she and her mom could have gotten so mixed up with their choices in men.

  Even if she discounted the creepy boyfriend in college who’d bummed money off her at every turn and finally made off with her ATM card for an unauthorized shopping spree, she still couldn’t deny her involvement with Jimmy had been scary in the end.

  She’d met him while he was playing in a blues café one night and had thought him incredibly sensitive and romantic. Too soon he’d turned oversensitive and prone to depression when he’d been certain she’d been out with other men any time she left her apartment.

  When she’d tried to break off their relationship, he’d taken to following her—never hurting her, but the threat had been there. He’d creeped her out, turned her into a homebody when she’d always been outgoing. She’d jumped all over the chance to return to Florida and invest in Club Paradise.

  What continued to haunt her about the whole Jimmy experience was that all the signs of possessiveness and dark moodiness had been there from the beginning, but Brianne had chosen to ignore them.

  Brushing the crumbs from her macaroon off her mouth and on to a linen napkin, she had to ask herself why she still didn’t know better than to involve herself with dangerous men.

  Now she’d been in Florida for all of a month and already she’d caved to Aidan Maddock’s charm. Sure, he was a far cry from a stalker, but he wore his penchant for danger on his sleeve between his FBI job, his tendency to skate around the rules and his open admiration for loose-lipped cigarette girls like Daisy.

  How could she let herself get mixed up with a guy like that? Time to put some serious distance between her and Aidan, starting today.

  She didn’t need a man in her life right now, but if she ever decided to venture into a relationship, she would definitely find some nice, upstanding guy who wouldn’t drag her into his FBI cases.

  Of course, there could be a downside to that scenario. A nice, upstanding guy might not be as apt to play strip search games guaranteed to drive her wild.

  But that was a risk she was going to have to take.

  9

  AIDAN TAPPED OUT A TUNE on the steering wheel as he drove Brianne home through the tree-lined streets of ritzy Palm Beach. Restless energy consumed him, the simmering excitement that always came when he made solid progress on a case.

  Pauline Wolcott-Baxter-Menendez-Simmons had been every bit as flighty and superficial as he’d remembered from his dealings with her the first time around—nothing like his own mother who possessed a tireless work ethic and never relied on anyone. He’d seen a new side of Brianne as she’d quietly collected Pauline’s bills from a small desk on her way out of the house. How long had she been taking care of her mother? Moreover, he wondered if anyone had ever truly taken care of Brianne.

  As he slowed for a jogger running with a tiny white poodle, Aidan turned his thoughts back to his new information. Pauline didn’t know about the account in her name. He guessed Melvin had set it up without her knowledge to help funnel his money and hide his criminal maneuverings. Brianne had told him flat-out that her mother had no record of the account in question.

  Although, come to think of it, that was the last thing she had told him.

  And she’d said it way back when they were walking out of her mother’s house.

  “You okay?” he asked as he pulled into the driveway of her low-slung contemporary home on a more modest street. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  “I’m fine.” She removed the fake glasses that she seemed to have worn solely for her mother’s benefit and tucked a pair of sunglasses on her nose. “Thanks for the lift.”

  She was already shoving open the car door.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” He clicked off the ignition and scrambled his way out of the car to head her off before she got to the house and slammed the door in his face. “What gives? Did I screw up the tea drinking or something?”

  She slowed her determined steps but her spine remained ramrod-straight. Unyielding. “I have no quibbles with your tea drinking. But I do have other business to attend this afternoon, Aidan. I guess I considered our work together done for the day.”

  “Damn it, Brianne, do you have to act so freaking frosty with me all the time?” It was no secret that when they got within five feet of one another they generated enough heat to melt polar ice caps.

  Tilting her sunglasses downward, she peered at him over the rims. Her green eyes narrowed with cool assessment, but her cheeks flushed with just a little agitation.

  Which was pretty damn gratifying to see for a change.

  “I think some frost is in order between you and me, Aidan, if we don’t want to end up crossing any more personal boundaries. Excuse me if I choose to spend my free time somewhere else besides glued to your side.” She jammed the sunglasses back into place, but she didn’t walk away.

  Of course, she couldn’t escape into her house since he blocked the front walkway.

  He searched for a retort but got diverted in the image of her glued to his side.

  Her disgruntled sigh saved him from the erotic torture of that particular picture. “Do you mind? I have a lot of things to do today.”

  “So do I, damn it.” How could she rob him of the satisfaction he felt from making progress on his case so fast? “If you’d quit distracting me, I’d be able to ask you a few
more questions and we could both move on.”

  “I’m distracting you?” She crossed her arms, tilted her hip to one side. It was the pose of a skeptic, but the hip action in particular drew his eye.

  “Hell yes, you’re distracting me.” His hands itched to realign her, to guide her hip back into place where he wouldn’t be so apt to stare at it, but he knew damn well once he touched her there’d be no stopping.

  Unless, of course, she slugged him for such a brazen act. An outcome that was entirely possible.

  He closed his eyes and willed his thoughts to focus.

  “Aidan—”

  Luckily, without the visual of Brianne to preoccupy him, he remembered what he wanted. He opened his eyes, stared her down through the barrier of her dark glasses. “Would you mind if I took your mother’s banking records and copied them? I can bring everything back to you in an hour.”

  “You realize this is above and beyond on my part?”

  “I’ll be out of your way the rest of the day. You don’t even have to let me in the front door.” In fact, far better that she didn’t let him in the front door because if he got within ten feet of her design book full of sexy paintings and erotic statues, he’d never be able to keep his hands off her.

  Her nod was clipped, forced. But it was a nod nevertheless.

  Aidan counted that as a victory and stepped aside to allow her a clear path. Heaven knew after an encounter with her mother, she deserved a break today. Socialite Pauline Simmons seemed like a nice enough lady, but she probably had even less in common with her technically inclined daughter than he did.

  And that was saying something.

  He prepared to follow Brianne into the house—or rather, to the front steps—when he noticed she wasn’t moving. She remained frozen on the sidewalk as she stared up at the front door.

  And a huge arrangement of flowers lying on the welcome mat.

  Who the hell had the nerve to send Brianne flowers when he’d been with her—intimately—just two nights ago?