by Beth Ciotta
“I’m your godfather.”
“I’m in between roommates,” Rudy said.
“You need someone to share the rent,” Afia said, still circling. “I can’t do that. I don’t have any money. Or credit.” She swept aside her blunt-cut bangs to massage a dull throb at the center of her forehead. “What about my charities?”
Harmon spread his hands wide. “If you’re that concerned—”
“Of course, I’m concerned!”
“You could donate your time instead of money,” Rudy suggested.
“She already donates her time,” Harmon said, clearly annoyed.
Intoxicated as she was, Afia knew what Rudy meant. Serving on a committee was all well and good but there were other ways to help. Still, the thought of not being able to make her usual monetary contributions made her nauseous. Thanks to Henry Glick she was not only unable to provide for others but she was also unable to provide for herself. “How am I going to pay off my shopping debts?” The furniture, the paintings, the clothes.
Rudy shrugged. “You could get a job.”
Harmon snorted. “That’s just crazy.”
Afia frowned, rebellion rumbling in her belly. Or maybe it was the champagne. She threw back her shoulders and on second try successfully crossed her arms over her insignificant chest. “Why is that crazy?” She freed one hand and smacked Rudy’s impressive pecs. “That’s an excellent idea. I’ll get a job.” Definitely the champagne.
Harmon gawked. “You haven’t worked a day in your life. What would you do?”
Afia nudged Rudy, and together they collected her designer shopping bags. “I have skills,” she informed her godfather. “Now come inside and help me figure out what they are. You too, Rudy.”
“This could take all night,” the older man mumbled, reaching out to steady her as she staggered toward the mansion’s front door.
She shrugged off Harmon’s help along with the hurt of his lack of faith. Something had snapped inside of her on the tense ride home. She’d spent her entire life being sheltered and maneuvered. Being told that others knew what was best for her. She’d believed them, too. Right up until today. When a man she’d trusted implicitly because her mother had told her to, stole her every cent.
Her life was out of control because she had no control in her life. At least that’s what Rudy had said midway down the Garden State Parkway. “I’m going to track down Henry Glick and get my money back,” she declared as she struggled to punch the security code into the keypad. “Starting tomorrow I’m taking responsibility for my life.”
The door swung open. Miscalculating the foyer steps, she tripped and tumbled flat out on the polished Italian marble. Heart pounding with determination, Afia pushed herself up on her elbows, blew her bangs off of her forehead, and hiccupped. “Tomorrow I’m getting a job.”
Chapter Two
“Jake Leeds to see Harmon Reece.”
The prim-suited secretary scanned her appointment book and then Jake. Her hazel gaze hovered below his silver belt buckle a full five seconds before drifting up and over his shoulders, settling at last on his face. She smiled. “Mr. Reece will be right with you. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
Me? Jake read her playful grin and flashed a one-dimpled smile. “No, thank you, Miss …”
“Givens. Marla Givens.”
“Miss Givens.”
“Marla.”
Marla had one of those throaty voices, the kind that caused a man to sit up and take notice. The fact that she dressed like a librarian only heightened the allure. “No thank you, Marla.”
Too anxious to play a witty game of innuendos, he excused himself with a wink and then turned and feigned interest in the seascape photographs lining the law firm’s walls. Normally, he would’ve taken advantage of Marla’s interest, charmed her, and asked her out on a date. She was a looker, regardless of her buttoned-to-the-neck blouse and mid-shin-length skirt, and he could use a contact here in the office. But there was nothing normal about this moment.
Harmon usually doled out assignments over lunch and scotch. Being summoned to the offices of Reece, Mitchell and Cooper tweaked his suspicions. He sensed a juicy case with a fat fee.
Perfect timing.
“Mr. Reece will see you now.”
Jake thanked the dreamy-eyed woman with a practiced smile then strode to the ornate mahogany door displaying Harmon’s engraved nameplate. Sliding into corporate-private-eye-mode, he tugged at the cuffs of his single-breasted dove-gray jacket and straightened his gray and burgundy striped tie. He would have preferred a mock tee and leather blazer to this monkey suit, but when in Rome … He knocked.
“Come in.”
He entered, arm extended. “Harmon.”
“Jake.” The esteemed lawyer rose, shook the proffered hand, and then motioned him into a rustic brown leather chair. “How’s Joni?”
He froze midway to relaxing against the high-backed seat. Harmon’s interest in his sister surprised him. “Happily married and seven months pregnant.”
“That’s nice.” Harmon reclaimed his seat behind his massive antique desk. For all the space, only necessities occupied the polished desktop. Laptop. Phone. Lamp. A blotter, free of scribbles and doodles. Nice and neat. Just like Harmon. “Last time we spoke you still hadn’t replaced her.”
Still wondering at the man’s angle, Jake stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankle. “I’ve been through four temps, each one worse than the one before. I’m beginning to think Joni was one of a kind.” His kid sister had been his secretary and undercover sidekick rolled into one. His partner at Leeds Investigations for the last three years. Until an abnormal ultra-sound had forced her to bed rest. Although the crisis had passed, she was still under orders to take it easy.
His expression intense, Harmon rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers.
Here it comes. Jake used to care more about the case than the cash, but not these days.
“I know another one-of-a-kind,” the lawyer said. “Afia St. John.”
“Your goddaughter?”
Harmon nodded. “She’s looking for a job, and I want you to hire her.”
“Why? She’s rich.” Compliments of her daddy and two husbands, one a legal eagle, the other the president of a pharmaceutical company.
“Not any more. Between you and me, and I mean it Jake, I don’t want to read about it in the papers tomorrow, she was screwed over by her business manager.”
“How much?”
“All of it.”
“That’s—”
“A small fortune.”
Jake whistled. “Sonuvabitch skip the country?”
“Looks that way.”
“Contacted the cops?”
“No.”
Intrigued, he unfolded his legs and leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs. “No cops. No press.”
Harmon nodded.
“Any leads?”
“A couple.”
Jake waited for details. Waited for Harmon to put him on the case.
“I’m worried about her,” the older man said. He spread his hands flat on the ivory blotter. “She won’t take any money from me, and she won’t let me contact her mother. Thanks to the damned creditors Afia’s living with a friend.”
Jake shifted in his seat. He knew all about creditors.
“She’s displaying an independent streak that has me baffled and, quite frankly, worried. I think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“Just because she wants to get a job? Seems the reasonable thing to do when you have no money.”
“She has money,” he said, toying with a sterling silver pen. “It’s just in another man’s hands. Something I’m in the process of rectifying.”
Why the hell was Harmon beating around the bush? “That’s why you sent for me,” Jake said, helping him out. “You want me to track the guy.”
Harmon shook his balding head. “I hired someone else to do that.”
&nb
sp; Jake waited.
“Kilmore.”
Ah. Oscar Kilmore. Philadelphia’s finest. Big-time agency. State-of-the-art equipment. A secretary and a field associate. A pain in Jake’s ass. “So why am I here?”
“I told you. I want you to hire Afia. You need an assistant. She needs—wants—a job.”
“So she asked her influential godfather to arrange one.” Typical.
“I wish that were the case. As I told you, she won’t accept my help. Not on any level. She’s been acting on her own, hired and fired from two jobs in three weeks.”
Jake drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair jonesing for a cigarette. “And you want me to take her on.”
“I would deem it a personal favor. I have to leave town for a few days on business. I need to know she’s safe.”
Still smarting over Kilmore, Jake pushed out of the leather high-back. “Get someone else. I’m doing just fine with an answering machine.” He didn’t need this.
“I’ll pay you.”
Or maybe he did. Temples pulsing, he studied the toes of his Doc Martins and took a deep breath. What had possessed him to take out that mortgage? Why did his kid sister have to marry a free-lance musician? No health benefits. Unreliable income. Christ. His gaze flicked to Harmon. “How exactly would that work?”
“I’ll double your corporate fee and pay her salary.”
Jake loosened his tie. “Damn.”
Harmon shrugged. “She’s important to me. Her father and I were like brothers. I promised I’d take care of her if anything ever happened to him. I screwed up when I didn’t take a firmer hand after her second husband died. I allowed her mother to bully her into hiring Henry Glick as her business manager. Financial wizard, my ass. That’s what I get for trusting Giselle’s instincts.” He sighed. “What’s done is now left for me to undo. All I ask is that you keep Afia busy. Keep her out of trouble until her mother returns from her honeymoon.”
“Which will be …”
“Two weeks. Meanwhile I have Kilmore on the case.”
“So you said.” Jake’s pride stung. All the same, he couldn’t dismiss that kind of money. Couldn’t get his mind off of Joni and her escalating medical bills. “I’m a private investigator, Harmon, not a babysitter.”
“And as a P.I.,” the man reasoned, “you sometimes protect as well as detect. Yes?”
“Your point?”
“I’m hiring you to protect Afia.”
“From who?”
“Herself. She’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Waiting to happen?” Newspaper articles whizzed through his mind like reels of microfiche. “She’s the one who accompanied Judge St. John on that fateful safari.”
“As if she had any control over a rabid rhino.”
“Gave her first husband a heart attack.”
Harmon poked his tongue in his cheek. “But what a way to go.”
“And that second guy—”
“Dumb luck.”
“And now this. Ripped off by her business manager.” Jake shook his head. “The woman’s jinxed.”
“Listen, just because she was born on Friday the thirteenth—”
“You’re joking.”
“—that doesn’t mean she’s jinxed. I don’t care what Giselle says.”
“Her mother’s superstitious?”
“Worse. Paraskevidekatriaphobic.”
“Fear of …”
“Friday the thirteenth.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Actually, if one puts stock in folklore that would be Afia.” Harmon raised one wiry, silver brow. “So will you do it?”
Eyes narrowed, Jake braced his hands on the desk and leaned in. “Why me?”
“I trust you.”
“Uh-huh.” This assignment had fiasco written all over it. Shoving off the desk, he made a last-ditch suggestion. “If you really think she needs protection, get Colin Murphy. He specializes in bodyguard services.”
“I don’t want Murphy. I want you.” Harmon blew out an impatient breath. “Are you in the middle of one of your special cases?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Other than having the insane urge to invest in a boatload of rabbits’ feet and four-leaf clovers, he couldn’t say exactly.
The older man opened his top drawer and withdrew his checkbook. “Obviously, Afia is to know nothing of our arrangement. As far as she’s concerned, we don’t know each other.”
“How will she know about the job?”
“Leave that to me.” He signed his name at the bottom, folded the check, and passed it to Jake. “A substantial retainer.”
Swallowing his pride, Jake pocketed the money. “Tell her to be at my office Monday morning, ten a.m. sharp.” What the hell? he thought. How inept could Afia St. John be?
Chapter Three
“Are you computer literate?”
“I know the basics.”
“Can you type?”
“If I look at the keys.”
“File?”
Afia fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with her prospective employer’s clipped tone. “I’m sure if you explained your system …”
“You can answer the phone, right?”
“Of course.”
“Jot down messages?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Mr. Leeds—”
“Call me Jake.” He opened his top right drawer. Closed it. “What about coffee?”
“No, thank you, Jake. I’m already over my limit this morning.”
His keen emerald gaze shifted from the drawer to her bouncing legs.
She willed them steady and offered a weak smile. “Caffeine gives me the jitters.” And so do you. She was accustomed to men falling all over her. She’d been blessed with good looks, exquisite taste, and old money. Qualities that appealed to 99% of the male population. Apparently, Jake Leeds was in the one-percent minority. He showed no signs of adoration. In fact, he’d seemed vaguely annoyed with her from the moment she’d walked into his unaesthetic reception area, though she couldn’t imagine why. She’d been on time. She’d dressed appropriately. A carnation pink Prada shift with coordinating sling backs. Professional, yet cheery. Still, he kept studying her with that disturbing, disapproving gaze.
I haven’t done anything wrong.
He’d probably read about her in the papers. Although she’d bet her Gucci sunglasses he skipped the gossip columns, he no doubt skimmed Region and Lifestyles. Maybe he’d read her name in one of her two wedding announcements. Or in one of the three obituaries. Or maybe he’d caught the article on Frank’s golfing accident. Sports section, front page. An eleven-month-old headline, but bizarre tales lingered in one’s memory. No doubt Jake Leeds was wondering why on earth he should hire Atlantic County’s own Urban Legend.
Afia’s stomach twisted. She not only needed this job, she wanted this job. She couldn’t afford to hire a private investigator to track down Henry Glick. But if she worked for one … She resisted the urge to stroke her charm bracelet. Rudy had suggested creative visualization over a sentimental talisman. Since she was striving to better control her fate, she visualized herself sitting behind that hideous beige metal receptionist desk, utilizing the skills she’d learned from a cranky P.I. to locate a shifty thief.
“I meant can you make it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Coffee.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Oh.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he cracked a hint of a smile. Or was it a smirk? Either way, at least it made the stony-faced Mr. Leeds more human. His boxer-build and dangerous aura superseded his boyishly handsome face. He was, in a word, intimidating. “I make excellent cappuccino.”
“What about plain old coffee?”
“Percolated?”
“Automatic. Ten-year old Mr. Coffee.”
“I can do that.”
“Great. You’re hired.”
“I am?” His war-zone desktop suggested that he was
desperate. Scattered files, phone books, and roadmaps. A mound of receipts. Stacks of CDs and abandoned coffee cups. How could he function effectively in such chaos?
He scooped up a small stack of manila folders. “You can start with these. Staple the data sheets into the folders and then file them alphabetically by last name.” That pesky smile or smirk or whatever made another brief appearance. “That’s my system.”
“You want me to start today? Right now?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No!” She cleared her throat. “I mean, no.” I just can’t believe it. “I just need a minute. I left my …” she fluttered a hand toward the outer door. “The car, it’s …”
“Go ahead,” he said, still holding onto the folders.
She reached out to relieve him of the files, and their fingers brushed. An innocent touch that made her blush and set her heart fluttering. Unsettled, she jerked back, tipping over her brown vinyl chair. The folders slid out of her grasp. Papers scattered to the four corners.
Jake stood and rounded his desk.
She cringed at his mumbled curse, relatively certain she hadn’t heard “fudge.” Two seconds into her new job and she was already ticking off her employer. A new record. At this rate, he’d fire her before day’s end.
No. She wouldn’t let that happen. She’d endured repeated humiliation these past three weeks thanks to heartless creditors and impatient employers. She may not have a talent for juggling numbers or a burgeoning food tray, but filing and making coffee? This she could handle.
This screamed of disaster. Jake eyed Afia St. John wondering who should get his head examined first. Him or Harmon? Jinxed? Unlucky? Inept? Talk about an understatement.
He bent over.
She bent over.
Their heads knocked.
Jake straightened with a curse.
“I’m sorry. I …”
He grimaced at the tears shining in her wide brown eyes. Don’t you dare cry, lady. If she cried he’d have to comfort her. Which might entail holding her in his arms. Which would definitely entail risking what was left of his control. He was a private investigator, a master at concealing his emotions, an expert on practiced behavior, but he was also a man. She was a goddess. An accident-prone goddess, but nonetheless, a living, breathing angel on earth. He’d known she was pretty. He’d seen pictures. Last year alone she’d made the region section and the sports page. But, damn, in person she was captivating. A five-foot-two, doe-eyed, glossy-haired waif with impeccable taste in clothing. A twice-widowed beauty with questionable job skills and piss-poor business sense.
