by Joanne Rock
Walking her fingers across a shelf, Marnie blew a kiss to a model of the Egyptian sphinx on one side of the case and winked at a tiny replica of Michelangelo’s David. She had to freshen her flirting skills sometime, didn’t she? One day, she’d get back out in the dating world again.
Retrieving her champagne glass, she knocked over an iron Statue of Liberty nearby. As she moved to straighten it, she noticed a smear on the back of the case—a dark spot that didn’t belong. Unwilling to suffer a smudge in an otherwise perfect display, she reached past the travel guides and mementos meant to entice her clients.
But the spot felt smooth as glass—different than the rest of the wooden cabinet.
“That’s odd.” Shoving aside a few more famous buildings for a better look, Marnie peered into a small circle of smoky glass.
Her champagne flute fell from her fingers and shattered on the floor. The electric thrill pulsing through her over her good payday fizzled to nothing, even though the bass from an old club tune still pumped through the speakers.
Because at the center of that smoky glass rested a tiny camera lens. Someone had been watching her.
And given the way the gadgetry had been so perfectly incorporated into her custom-built cabinet, she only had one guess as to who that might be. After what she’d gone through with her ex-boyfriend, the next guy who crossed her would be wise to run for cover.
And right now, it looked like that man was none other than her sexy contractor.
Jake Brennan.
MUSIC PULSED FROM INSIDE the Lose Yourself storefront facade until it sounded more like a raucous bar than a ritzy travel agency specializing in exotic adventures. If Jake Brennan hadn’t known Marnie so well, he might have turned around and come back another day, thinking she had company.
But weeks’ worth of video surveillance on her fledgling business had not only taken her off his primary suspect list in a major white-collar crime. It had also taught Jake that Marnie liked to dance. And damn, but her shimmy-shake routine while stripping off her jacket and blouse hadn’t disappointed.
He would have closed his eyes if she’d ditched more than that. Honestly, he would have. But he’d wanted to be sure she was alone before he went to the door. Could he help it if she had a habit of peeling off work clothes in favor of a silk lounging robe the second she shut her door for the day?
Rapping on the door through the hole in the middle of a fat green holiday wreath, he grinned at the memory of old surveillance footage and the brief, two-minute snippet he’d allowed himself back in the car—just enough to see her whip off the clothes and grab the champagne. He’d made sure to only point the cameras toward her work space for legal reasons, even though she’d had plans to live in the back offices. That had eased his conscience somewhat since he hated the idea of spying on anyone who was innocent—especially in their most private moments. But at the time he’d installed the camera he now sought to remove, Jake had very good reason to think she was anything but innocent.
Inside Lose Yourself, the volume of the music decreased. The quiet of the business district on a Friday night surrounded him and he couldn’t help a rush of anticipation at seeing Marnie now that he’d all but cleared her.
“Who is it?” came her voice, sweetly familiar to him after scanning hours of video for evidence in his case.
Yes, he’d gotten to know Marnie Wainwright so damn well that just hearing her voice had him salivating like Pavlov’s dog. And that happened even though he’d forced himself to shut off the video feed on those few occasions where she’d started to strip off a little more than a stranger had the right to see.
“It’s Jake Brennan,” he called through the door. “I did some work on your office a couple of months ago and I think I might have left one of my tools behind.”
He knew she’d remember him from his brief stint working there. He’d given her a steal on his labor, mostly because his work was entirely self-serving.
Plus, she’d eyeballed him enough that day to make him think she hadn’t been oblivious to his presence in her office. If it hadn’t been for his suspicions of her back then, he would have asked her out.
Now that he was going to retrieve the surveillance equipment and declare this part of his case finished, Jake looked forward to seeing her again without his work as a barrier.
Inside, he could hear her slide a dead bolt and flip one other lock open. He could picture it perfectly since he knew the inside of that office like the back of his hand from watching Marnie run her business day in and day out. Other than the brief view he’d allowed himself in the car, however, he hadn’t reviewed any tapes in a while. Not since his case had led him in another direction.
Slowly, the door creaked open.
A whisper of black silk fluttered through the crack. She’d left the final latch on the door—a long hook like the kind used on hotel rooms—so she could see into the street without leaving herself vulnerable.
Recognizing the black silk as the calf-length, sexy number she liked to wear around the place before bed, he swallowed hard, knowing damn well she wasn’t wearing much else.
“Sorry to bother you so late—”
The expression on her face froze him in his shoes. Pursed lips, a clamped-tight jaw and gray eyes staring daggers at him all suggested he’d interrupted something. Had she been arguing with someone on the phone? Protective instincts flared to life.
“Is everything okay in there?” He stepped closer, trying to look past her into the familiar office interior that he’d seen often enough on his surveillance tapes. Framed prints of the Egyptian pyramids hung next to a map of London highlighting historic pubs.
“Everything is fine.” She spoke the words oddly, like a marionette where the mouth’s movement didn’t quite match up with the sounds. “Especially now that you’re here.”
“I don’t get it.” He didn’t like the brittle set of her shoulders or the flushed color in her cheeks. Was she not feeling well?
Before he could ask, she raised a silver-tipped dart that he remembered well from an earlier meeting.
“You’re just in time for target practice while we wait for the cops to arrive.”
“What?”
His confusion only lasted until she arced back her arm and let the missile fly, aiming for his eye.
Oh, shit.
Belatedly, he realized her assortment of symptoms pointed to stone-cold fury. All directed at him.
Luckily she was so angry, that her release point was late and the dart clattered harmlessly to the concrete pavement at his feet.
“How could you?” she yelled through the narrow opening. Disappearing for a moment, she returned with a whole handful of darts. “You pervert!”
The darts started flying in earnest now and he took cover against the door.
Ace detective work told him she’d found his hidden camera.
“Marnie?” He tried leaning into her line of sight between rounds of incoming fire. “Did you really call the cops?”
That was going to be a nightmare. He had as many enemies on the force as he had friends. With his luck, one of the former would answer the call and gladly lock his ass up for the night until he could straighten away the paperwork.
“Of course.” Another dart.
He ducked.
“You can wait with me while the local police bring you a pair of handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit.” A painted pink stone that he happened to know was her paperweight came hurtling through the opening now, joining the darts on the pavement.
He heard the stomp of furious footsteps away from the door. Leaning into the vacated space, he used the time to make his case.
“Marnie, wait.” He pulled out his wallet and tossed it inside her storefront where it skidded across the gray commercial carpet and thudded against her ankle. “There’s my ID. I’m a licensed private investigator.”
She slowed her battle with the buttons on the desk phone. Apparently, she’d been making more calls. To a friend or neighbor?
Backup to be sure he stuck around long enough for his own arrest?
“If that’s true, that sounds only marginally less smarmy than being a complete and total perv.” She cradled the phone against her shoulder and started punching buttons again, this time with slow deliberation.
“Premiere Properties didn’t terminate you because they couldn’t fund your department. They terminated you because of a major embezzlement scam that originated in your sector of the company. You were a prime suspect.”
She shook her head. Confused. Shocked. He’d seen that expression on people’s faces when he’d worked in homicide and he’d had to face grieving family members to question them. Hell, he still saw that expression as a P.I. when a wife learned her husband had been cheating. He didn’t take jobs like that often, but sometimes he could be persuaded. Having been on the clueless end of an unfaithful relationship made him empathize.
Marnie’s face mirrored that kind of disillusionment now.
“Who are you?” She seemed to see him for the first time that night, her brows furrowed in concentration as if she could guess his motives if she stared hard enough.
Relieved, he pointed to her feet.
“My ID is right there. Just hang up the phone long enough to let me talk to you.”
With a jerky nod, she replaced the receiver and retrieved his wallet. Seeing his Florida private investigator’s license inside, she met his gaze again.
“I didn’t really call the cops yet. I only just found that camera a minute before you arrived.”
Thank God. He didn’t want to deal with that drama tonight.
“I’m going to collect the darts out here,” he told her, scooping up the littered sidewalk. “If you want to meet me somewhere you’ll feel safe, we can talk.”
By the time he straightened, she was already back at the partially opened door. The stiff set to her shoulders had vanished.
Her caramel-colored hair slid loose from a messy twist on one side, the freed strands grazing her shoulder where her satin robe drooped enough to show she wore a black cotton tank top underneath it. Her gray eyes locked on his, searching his face for answers.
“I don’t want to go anywhere. Not when my thoughts are so scattered and my head is spinning like this.” Over her shoulder, he could see the mess in her office, it looked as if she’d cleared everything off the display case he’d built, probably searching for other cameras. “I’m suddenly very, very tired.”
Without warning, she closed the door in his face and he thought she’d ended the conversation. Then, he heard the safety latch unhook and she reopened the door, silently inviting him inside.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” He didn’t like the idea of setting foot in there if she thought for a second he could still be some random lecher taking video for fun.
She nodded. “A real perv would have put the camera in the bedroom or over the shower, not pointing at where I do business. Besides, a colleague from Premiere called tonight and mentioned something about rumors of a financial loss. I know you’re not making it up about possible embezzlement. Are you the guy Vince hired to ask discreet questions around the office?”
He nodded.
“Then you might as well come in.” Her words lacked the red-hot fury of the flying darts, but there was a new level of iciness that didn’t feel like a big improvement.
Accepting the grudging invitation, he stepped inside the storefront and closed the door behind him.
“I’ll just set these down.” He piled the darts on her desk, an elegant antique piece out of place with the rest of the utilitarian furniture. Kind of like her. Her silk bathrobe probably cost as much as the old beater she drove to work lately.
Marnie Wainwright had fallen on some hard times, but he admired her grit in not letting them get the best of her.
“I refuse to apologize for the darts.” She produced an open bottle of champagne along with two glasses, then dropped onto the love seat in her office’s waiting area. “Even if you were conducting an investigation, a hidden camera is still a disturbing way to go about obtaining information.”
But legal for an investigation of this magnitude, as long as the device wasn’t inside her private residence. He took the chair at a right angle to her, observing the way she recovered herself. Her fingers shook with the leftover churning of emotions as she handed him a glass of bubbly. He hated that his investigation had freaked her out. Hated that she’d found the damn camera in the first place. He’d been banking on hitting on her, not having her glare at him as if he were evil incarnate.
“Granted. But it was also the fastest way of proving your innocence. If my client had gone to the cops, you could have been stuck trying to clear your name from inside a cell, since the evidence they had on you was pretty damning.” He set the glass she’d given him on the coffee table.
She seemed to think that one over as she poured her own glass and held the cool drink against her forehead like a compress.
“Why didn’t they go the police?” she asked softly, her hands shaking just a little as she lowered the flute and took a sip.
He tried not to envy the glass for its chance to press against her lips. She was dealing with a crisis, after all. But he’d been battling an attraction to this woman ever since the week he’d built the custom-made cabinet to house his spy equipment. He couldn’t help subtly ogle a bit now that he was finally free to act on that attraction. Her dark robe slipped away from her calf enough to reveal the delineation of the long, lean muscle in her leg. A gold toe ring winked from her bare foot, a small row of pearls catching the light as she shifted.
Jake had a sudden vision of that long, bare leg in his hands, his body planted between her thighs. And wouldn’t that fantasy be helpful in explaining why he’d been spying on her? Cursing the wayward thoughts, he forced himself to talk about the case.
“The CEO of Premiere doesn’t trust the local police ever since they misplaced key evidence that would have convicted some crooks involved in his last company.”
The case still pissed off Jake, too, even though it had been two years ago.
“Brennan. You were the investigator on that crime.” She snapped her fingers in recognition. “I thought your name sounded familiar when we met. I did a little research on it because I worked for Premiere when they hired Vincent Galway to take over as CEO.”
Great. Jake didn’t want to be associated with an investigation that screamed police corruption. He’d left the force because a couple of the cops appeared to be flunkies for some bigwigs who didn’t want that particular corporate fraud case prosecuted. To keep his eyes off Marnie’s legs, he diverted his attention to a nearby painting of the Anasazi cliff dwellings, decorated for the holidays with a few balsam sprigs on the top of the frame.
“I quit when the system screwed over Vince. He talked to the cops and the Feds to try to throw some light on dirty dealings in his last company, and he was the one with mud on his face after the evidence was misplaced.” Jake swiped the champagne glass off the table. “But I know Vince from way back. He served in Vietnam with my dad. Because Vince trusts me, he hired my services to help him wade through the embezzlement scandal that could have hurt his company if news about it leaked.”
Marnie swirled her glass and watched the bubbles chase each other.
“So you got onto the work crew when I had the office overhauled and you installed a camera.” Her bathrobe slipped off her knee, unveiling bare skin for as far as the wandering eye could see up her leg.
A slice of creamy thigh proved too much competition for the picture of the damn cliff dwellings. His gaze tracked up her skin as he calculated how quickly he could have her naked…
“Yes.” His throat went dry. “It was a fast way to either clear you or confirm your guilt, and it’s a tool the cops rarely use because—”
“—because it’s highly unethical and borderline illegal?”
“Because it takes a lot of reviews to obtain permission for it.” He’d be damn
ed if he’d let her call his honor into question. “Technology is saving a lot of manpower hours at your local cop shop, so I can guarantee you it’s not illegal when there is just cause—for me, or for them.”
“But I’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing, thanks to having my life put under a microscope?”
“You’re no longer a prime suspect.” He watched her retuck the bathrobe around her legs, possibly feeling the heat of his stare despite his best effort to rein himself in. “In fact, I was hoping to remove the equipment tonight.”
Right before he hit on her. He planned to get very close to Marnie Wainwright in the near future. Now? Who knew how long it would take for him to rebuild some trust?
“You thought you’d just saunter in here tonight after I hadn’t seen you in two months?” The precariously lopsided twist in her hair finally gave up the ghost, spilling caramel-colored strands and spitting out a pencil that had been holding it all together.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to have that equipment running any longer than necessary,” he told her reasonably as he retrieved the fallen pencil and placed it on the coffee table.
“Of course not, but since I didn’t know I’d been under surveillance for the past two months, might I inquire why you thought I’d even let you in?”
Animal attraction.
But he knew better than to say as much.
“I figured I’d look into a fantasy escape.” Heavy on the fantasy. God knew, she’d been occupying enough of his lately.
The woman had compromised his investigation every time she sashayed past that surveillance camera, her confident feminine strut one hell of a distraction.
“At this hour?” Her gaze narrowed. Suspicion mounted.
And with damn good reason.
He hadn’t even come close to laying his cards on the table with her yet.
“I work late.” He shrugged, not sure what else to offer in his defense. “Do you want me to take the equipment now?”
“No.” She leaned forward on the love seat, invading his personal space in a way that would have been damn pleasant if she hadn’t fixed him with a stony glare. “I know how to take a sledgehammer to the cabinet, but thanks anyway. Right now, I’m more interested in two things.”
