by Suzanne Rock
While the cops investigated the theft, I decided to crash at Henri’s condo where we could both lament over my sudden misfortune over our favorite Pinot Noir. Imagine my surprise when I walked into his living room and heard moaning down the hall. Following the noise, I walked to the bathroom where I found him fucking a willowy blonde in the shower. A twenty-minute shouting match ensued where I learned that my boyfriend liked to collect women just as much as he liked to collect contemporary art. Tall, short, fat, thin . . . To him, we weren’t human beings, but objects to be displayed alongside his Andy Warhols and Damien Hirsts. The willowy blonde and I decided that we no longer wanted to be a part of his collection.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. We were less than a week before the start of the most prestigious modern art show in the western hemisphere. In an effort to forget Henri, I had thrown myself into the preparations, boxing up paintings and making the long flight down from New York to Miami where the show was to be held. I had been so busy making arrangements that I had completely forgotten about finding a date for the show’s opening night cocktail party.
And I needed a date. Anyone who was anyone in the art world would be at Mystique’s opening night. Rumors were already flying around about how I had broken up with my biggest client. The future of my gallery depended on how I presented myself over the next several days. I needed to show the world that my gallery didn’t need Henri D’Lay to survive. In fact, the middle-aged collector was yesterday’s news. I had moved on to bigger and better things.
That meant I needed a date who symbolized the future of my company. Someone young, fresh and full of energy. Someone who’d not only make Henri jealous but would make me outshine my competition and secure a lucrative deal that would plug up the gaping financial hole left with Henri’s departure.
“This is hopeless,” I muttered. “I wish we had more time.”
“We have plenty of time. You just need to be less picky.” Violet put down her phone and pulled a chair up next to mine. “This is a high-end escort service. It’s not like you’re slumming it in a seedy bar. Surely there’s someone here who will meet our needs. Here.” She turned the laptop away from me. “I’m your assistant. Let me assist.”
I snorted and watched Violet scroll through the profiles. After five years on the payroll, she was more than an assistant, she was one of my closest friends. She knew more than my appointments. She knew my secrets and my dreams. Always ready with a glass of wine or a good joke, Violet always seemed to know just what I needed to make it through the day. Her steady presence meant the world to me. I had no idea what I’d do without her.
“Make sure he’s smart,” I said.
She flashed me a frown. “We’re looking for a beefcake, not a soul mate.”
“I know. I just need a guy who has his act together if I’m going to impress people.” This show was the only one of its kind in North America. Over the next week partnerships would be formed and careers would be either broken or made. I should know. Five years ago, this cocktail party launched my gallery, Splash of Scarlett, and made the art world stand up and take notice. It was also where I had met Henri. He’d most likely be at the party tonight. Just the thought of him showing up with one of his bimbos made my blood boil.
“You’re doing that thing with your brows again,” Violet said.
“What thing?”
She ran her finger in between her eyebrows. “Making those lines. That’s how wrinkles are formed, you know.” She motioned to the bottle of Malbec on the bureau. “Have a drink. It will help you loosen up.”
Sighing, I walked over and poured myself a glass. As I swirled the sweet liquid in my hands, I tried not to think about how Henri’s lies had made me feel special, or how I was going to manage running my gallery without his financial support.
Suddenly Violet sat back and grinned at me in triumph. “I’ve found him.”
“Found who?”
“Who? Your date, silly.” She turned the laptop around so I could see. “Here, have a look.”
I took several steps forward and studied the screen. Holy shit. It couldn’t be. And yet, there was no mistaking those dark, turbulent eyes, or those chiseled Latino features.
“He’s nice, eh?” Violet winked at me and scanned his profile. “Damn, he cooks, too. I swear Scarlett, if you don’t pick this guy, I might go out with him myself.”
I blinked at my friend. “I know him.”
Violet moved the mouse over his features. “And look at those eyes—Wait a minute.” She glanced over at me. “You know him?”
I nodded. “We went to high school together, although we ran in different crowds. He was two years ahead of me.” I scanned the bio on the screen. “Gabriel Sargent. Two tours in Afghanistan, a handful more teaching young recruits. Left the service when his college debt was paid off.” I took a large gulp of wine. “Back in high school, he was known as Gabriel Ferreira.”
Violet shrugged. “Are you sure it’s the same guy? I thought you went to high school up in Boston.”
“Oh, it’s him. I’m not sure what he’s doing in Miami, but . . . it’s him.” I’d know those gorgeous eyes anywhere.
“And you let him get away?”
I averted my gaze and stared at the glass in my hands. “We were young.” and in love. Back then, I had felt as if our relationship would last forever. He didn’t feel the same. I guess some things were never meant to be.
I cleared my throat and pushed aside my memories. We were both much older now, and I was quite sure he had forgotten about the wild girl he had dated when he was eighteen.
“Are you okay?” Violet asked.
I cleared my throat. “Sure, why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just . . . It seemed as if your mind was somewhere else for a moment.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Uh-huh.” She turned back to the screen and studied his profile. “With a guy as hot as this at your school, it’s a wonder you ever graduated.”
I took a large sip of wine to cover up the sudden stab of regret sliced through me. I had no reason to feel this way. Our relationship had run its course and we had both moved on. I hadn’t seen him in years.
“I didn’t know he spent time in the military,” I said. “Back in high school, he had talked about becoming a cop like his brothers.”
“Well, this is a far cry from writing parking tickets,” Violet said as she returned her attention to the screen. “There is only one explanation for it—fate.”
I paused mid-sip. “It’s not fate.”
“Of course, it is.” She stood and placed her hands on my shoulders. “How many years has it been since you’ve seen each other?”
Too many. “Ten.”
“And how many miles away from Boston are you?” She dipped her head and caught my gaze. “And you just had that messy breakup with what’s-his-face.”
“Henri.”
She waved her hand in dismissal and sat back down at the laptop. “There is just too much coincidence to be anything but fate. Face it, Scarlett, you were meant to be together.”
“I don’t think—”
“And he’s free tonight.” She tapped the screen. “Think about it. How many people get second chances with their high school crushes? This is a unique opportunity.”
I shot her a disgusted look. “I never said that I had a crush on him.”
“You didn’t need to. It’s written all over your face.” She stood and went to retrieve the wine bottle.
“I’m not sure this escort thing is a good idea,” I said as she brought the bottle over and refilled my glass.
“Come on, don’t back out on me now. You used to be much more adventurous than this.”
“Being adventurous is overrated,” I said.
Violet filled her own glass and returned the bottle. “Admit it, he’d be just the thing to make Henri jealous.” She turned back to the screen. “Hell, this guy would make all the men at the event tonight question their manline
ss and every woman green with envy.”
I nibbled my lower lip as I stared at Gabe’s picture. Violet was right. The years had been kind to Gabe. If anything, he looked even more handsome now than he did in high school. “I don’t know.”
“If you won’t go out with him, I will.”
I jerked my gaze away from the computer. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
I straightened and sipped my wine as Violet grinned. She had caught me, damn her.
“I knew it,” she said. “Even after all of these years, you’re still burning a torch for him.”
“That doesn’t mean we should date.” I returned my attention to the screen.
“This isn’t a relationship we’re going after. It’s just one night.” She crossed her arms and gave me that ‘I-Know-You-Better-Than-You-Know-Yourself’ look. “You’ve been working day and night on getting everything ready for this show. You deserve a little fun. And if it makes Henri and all of those other collectors jealous?” She shrugged. “So much the better.”
“He’d be bored.”
“He’d be doing his job, just like you’d be doing yours.”
“But—”
“Stop it. You’re going with him and that’s final. A little tickle with his pickle and you’ll be—”
“Ugh.” I held up my hand, stopping her words. “Enough with the euphemisms. You’re sound like a bad romance novel. Besides, I don’t think sex is part of the deal with this particular escort service.”
“Not officially, but you never know.” Violet shrugged and took a long sip of her wine. “If the moment feels right, you should just go for it. For old time’s sake.”
“I told you, we never—”
Violet held up her hand. “Then do it for yourself.” She put down her glass. “Henri messed with your head, Scarlett. I can tell. Your confidence is shot to hell.” She nodded at the computer screen. “I’m willing to bet that a night with this guy will give you your mojo back. He’ll put things right again.”
Turning back to the computer, I looked at Gabe’s strong jaw and tanned, flawless skin. Perhaps Violet was right. This might be just the thing to help me get both myself and my gallery back on track.
I finished the last of my wine and moistened my lips. It would be pretty cool to show up at this cocktail party with Gabe on my arm. With him, no one would talk about my messy breakup with Henri, or wonder if I was mentally stable enough to conduct business. I’d be making a statement to the artistic community—I was ready to move on.
“It has been a long time since I last saw him,” I said as I rolled the stem of the empty wine glass between my fingers. “It would be nice to catch up.”
“That’s the spirit.” Violet grinned and turned the computer screen to face her. “Do you want him to meet you at the party?”
“God no, that would be too awkward.” I placed the glass on the table and walked over to the hotel room closet. “Have him meet me here. We need to develop a backstory before we get to the estate.”
“What time do you want him?” Violet asked.
Throwing open the doors to the closet, I stared at the large variety of dresses and ran my fingers over the fine fabrics. “Seven. That will give us two hours to get our story straight.” Smiling, I picked out a jade-colored bandage dress that I knew accentuated my curvy figure and left nothing to the imagination. Tonight wasn’t a night to remain in the shadows. It was a night to be fearless and dominating.
It was a night to give Henri and those other snobs in the art world a run for their money.
Chapter Two
Gabe
I sat in the parking garage of the Setai Hotel and stared at the fax from Cox Escort Services. The fax itself wasn’t unusual. For the past three months, I had been working undercover at the escort agency and was used to getting my assignments by fax. No, the odd thing about this was the person I was to take out on a date tonight.
Scarlett Bishop. It had been almost a decade, but the name still made me hard as a rock. Back when I knew her, Scarlett was an adventurous teen who was into art and Aerosmith. She wore almost all black and had the most intriguing eyebrow piercing and nose ring. I fancied her because she was so different from the crowd of jocks and cheerleaders I hung around with. When everyone else did and said things they thought I’d like, she was honest and real. Her no-holds-barred opinions drew me to her time and again. It wasn’t long before we started dating. My time with Scarlett formed some of my fondest memories of high school. As graduation approached, so did the real world, and I realized that our relationship would never survive the difficult path my life had to take. I couldn’t ask her to make such a sacrifice, so I did what I thought was best. Now, sitting here, staring at this sheet of paper in my lap, I wondered how different my life had been, if I had chosen a different path after high school.
During my senior year, my father, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, had wanted me to stop messing around and focus on a career that could help support my two younger brothers after he was gone. More than anything he wanted me to carry on the family tradition and become a third-generation cop. He wanted me to work in the same precinct of my ancestors and bring home a steady paycheck for my family.
Let me be clear: no one went against my father’s wishes. He was a hard man, but one that I had always respected. Despite a messy personal life that resulted in three children by two different mothers, he did his best with what he had and I knew I owed him big-time. As hard as it was to break things off with Scarlett, I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. My father had scooped me out of my mother’s drug-addicted arms and had cared for me when it would have been easier to just walk away. Now he was asking for something in return, and I couldn’t refuse him when I owed him my life.
Scarlett was too wild to ever settle down and be a cop’s wife, and the undercover work my father wanted me to go into wasn’t exactly the best backdrop for building a relationship. With him gone, I was the one my younger brothers were going to look up to. I had to stop living life in the fast lane with Scarlet and become a person worthy of their respect.
Surely the name on the fax was just a coincidence. My date tonight couldn’t possibly be with the same Scarlett I knew in high school, could it? No, the Scarlett I knew would never have to resort to an escort service. She was far too beautiful and outgoing to have to pay someone to take her out on the town.
Rubbing my eyes, I tried to push aside the memories and got out of the car. The parking lot was relatively empty and had a vague aroma of antiseptic. I started walking toward the building and got the vague sense of being watched. There was nothing definite, just a feeling. Call it cop’s intuition. I had been getting a lot of these sensations over the past week, enough to make me wonder if my cover at the escort company had been compromised. I mentioned it to Sal, my contact back at the precinct, but there was no proof of anything amiss, so it was business as usual.
Frowning, I glanced around to make sure I wasn’t being followed and hurried inside.
The hotel décor had a distinctly Asian flavor, and the stone bricks on the floor and walls gave it a vintage feel. A quick scan of the reception area revealed that no one was paying attention to me. I also knew that I was the only employee of Cox Escort Services at the hotel. As my fancy rental shoes clicked over the floor, pictures of the murdered escorts flipped through my mind. Four deaths, two at fancy private parties and two in crowded public places much like this one. All of the victims had been on the job. None of their dates appeared to have any motive for their deaths.
Other than all of them being escorts, I had yet to link the murders together. That meant that the killer could be anywhere, watching anyone. I wondered if the killer was in this hotel lobby now, calculating his next move.
Stop it Ferreira. You’re becoming paranoid. It was difficult to wait, but I had little choice. The killer’s trail had gone cold. I had to lie low and for him to make a mistake before I could make my move.
That
meant I had to focus on my escort cover, not my real job. I had to look authentic if I wanted to make myself a target. Taking a deep breath, I gave my name to the receptionist and took one of the seats in the foyer to wait for my “date.” Within minutes, the elevators opened, and a sexy, high-class woman stepped out. Straightening, I stood up and adjusted the bow tie in my tuxedo, something Edgar Cox gave me on the first day of the job, and put my trembling hands behind my back to hide my nerves.
She had changed. Scarlett’s hair was no longer ebony, but bright, Kool-Aid red. It was cut in one of those modern reverse-bob styles, which accented her heart-shaped face. The piercings were gone, replaced by smoky eye shadow that sparkled in the overhead lighting. The skin-tight dress accented her breasts and hips, reminding me that she was no longer a shy sixteen-year-old girl, but a woman with desires and needs. Seeing her made me uncomfortably hard, and I adjusted my stance to hide my swelling cock behind the folds of my jacket.
She stopped several steps away and stared at me with those large, violet eyes. I was struck by how the intensity of her stare had changed. Back in high school, her eyes were full of mischief, and her features were soft and open. Now she seem cold and businesslike. Her stiff jaw and rigid limbs suggested she might even be a little defensive, although I had no idea why. I realized she was already mentally throwing up walls against my presence. Interesting. She had picked me out of a virtual lineup, and yet she was acting aloof. Did she even recognize me?
Probably not. This Scarlett was so different from the girl I used to know. I wondered what had happened to make her so hard, and thought how much fun it could be melting her defenses.
I had always liked a challenge.
I fought the overwhelming impulse to touch her and instead calmly waited for her to make the first move. Edgar had strict rules about how his escorts should behave. As far as Scarlett knew, I was just an escort. I could possibly use that to my advantage. People talked to escorts more than they talked to cops, and I didn’t want Scarlett to close off herself any more than she was already doing.
