by Lisa Childs
“Yes,” she agreed. “So you might as well tell me that.”
“He’s fine for now,” Sam replied. “Unless there’s another attempt on his life. I need to find out who tried to kill him. Now.”
“Sounds like you have a suspect already.” The bride.
“Dominic Rowe,” he said.
She gasped. “His twin? You suspect him?”
“I suspect that he is a client of yours,” Sam continued.
“No,” she said. “He’s never paid for any services from FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT.”
“Once again, I want to believe you, but I just can’t...”
“You seem to struggle with trust, Detective,” Michelle observed. He must have been hurt before – let down by someone he should have been able to trust. A wife? A lover? She wanted to learn more about him. But it was clear he had no desire to talk about himself.
“I need to go, Madam,” he said. “I have a murder investigation to work.”
“Good luck, Detective,” she said.
“I think I’m going to need it,” he admitted. “And if FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT is, as I suspect, involved, you’re going to need it too.”
She disconnected their call, and she felt even more out of control than she had before. Had her damn business card gotten someone killed again?
***
“You can’t do this,” Dominic protested as Taylor got dressed. He didn’t want her getting dressed; it was a shame to cover up all that silky skin and her tautly toned curves. But more importantly, she couldn’t put herself at risk. “It’s too dangerous.”
She snorted. “I can handle it.”
“You and Courtney already got into a fight,” he reminded her. “If you accuse her of trying to kill her fiancé, she’s certain to start swinging again.”
“I handled her before,” Taylor said. “I can handle her again.”
“Agreed,” he said. Taylor was clearly tough. “But you won’t be able to get a confession out of her. She doesn’t like or trust you.”
Taylor paused midway of buttoning up the cardigan sweater she wore over a lace bra. “True...”
Good. She’d stopped with the buttons. Leaving his shirt hanging open, Dominic stepped closer to her and slid his hands around her small waist. He wanted to get her back in bed.
But she pressed her palm against his chest and eased him back. “We need to prove your innocence. Or the next time the detective comes to your door, he’ll be putting handcuffs on you.”
“He didn’t look like the kinky type,” Dominic teased.
She smiled. “I’m sure he’s not. He seems too uptight – too uptight for Michelle...”
“Michelle?” He sucked in a breath. “What does Michelle have to do with the detective?”
“I think she has a thing for him,” Taylor said with a sigh.
“That’s crazy,” Dominic said. “He’ll wind up arresting her.”
Taylor shrugged. “He’d have to catch her first. You’re the one he’s going to wind up arresting...” Her teeth nipped her bottom lip with obvious concern.
“I’m innocent,” Dominic said. “He has no reason to arrest me.”
“Except motive,” she said. “So we need to give him the person really responsible. Because if anyone puts handcuffs on you...” Her lips curved into a naughty smile. “...it’s going to be me.”
Now her hand stroked over his chest. And pretty soon they were undressing again, kissing again, touching again...
She knelt on the mattress and he joined her on the bed, sliding inside her wet heat. She felt so incredible – always. He cupped her breasts, teasing the already taut nipples. She arched her neck over her shoulder and kissed him. Their mouths mated like their bodies. He thrust and thrust inside her as she arched back to meet him, to take him deeper.
Then he slid his hand down her stomach to her clit. He stroked his thumb over it until she cried out his name. Her body convulsed around his cock, squeezing it tightly and warmth rushed over him. He thrust a few more times – deeply – before he cried out as well. As always, the power of the orgasm awed him. He’d never felt as incredible as he did with her.
He couldn’t lose her. But he had a horrible feeling he would and not just once the weekend was over but perhaps sooner and more permanently. While he cleaned up, she finished dressing.
“We need to stop distracting each other,” she murmured as she stared at his chest again. “We need to solve this case for the detective before he tries pinning the poisoning on you.”
Dominic wasn’t comfortable with either of them playing amateur detective. “You’re not Nancy Drew, and I’m no Hardy Boy,” he told her. “We need to be careful.”
She shook her head. “We’ll be fine.”
“That’s probably what the stripper thought when she was hired to work Roderick’s bachelor party,” Dominic mused. “And she wound up dead...”
“I’m not worried about anyone killing you,” Taylor said. “I’m worried about someone arresting you, though.”
“You could get arrested, too,” he warned her. “If Detective Butler figures out who and what you are...”
He couldn’t arrest her for being a reporter, or his jail would be full right now. But Taylor refrained from arguing that point with Dominic. She didn’t want him to learn the truth – about anything but who had tried to kill his brother. She hoped it was Courtney. But she’d been with her when the dancer had died...
“He’s not going to find out,” Taylor assured him and herself.
“But you said Courtney suspects,” he said then uttered a groan of frustration despite the mind-blowing sex they’d just had. “I’m no Hardy Boy,” he reiterated. “But I should talk to her – if only to get her to keep her mouth shut about FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT.”
Taylor released a slight sigh. “That’s true...” But she didn’t want him anywhere near his ex-girlfriend. She grimaced at the sourness of her jealousy. She’d never tasted it before, and she didn’t like it.
He finished doing up the buttons on his shirt. “Then it’s settled,” he said. “I’ll talk to Courtney.”
“Sure,” she reluctantly agreed. But she didn’t intend to stay in the room and wait anxiously for his return. She would go crazy while she waited, wondering what was happening, what was being said...
So the minute he left to find Courtney, she left, too. She needed to find those dancers from the night before. They didn’t work for FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT, but they’d worked for someone. While Dominic was the best man, he wasn’t Roderick’s – his manager was. A few minutes of flirting with the bald headed agent over a late brunch in the restaurant and Taylor knew he’d hired dancers from a club on the outskirts of the village of St. Bartholomew.
Moments later she dodged the paparazzi as she made her way to her vehicle in St. Bart’s Inn parking lot and then to the club. Like everything in St. Bart’s, it was pretty classy. No neon – no overt signs of any kind – just a dark brick building with shuttered windows. The door was locked. It was probably too early for it to be open. But she went around the back to where a woman stood smoking outside the employees’ only entrance.
She had bright red hair, which was obviously not a natural red like Shawna’s. Her body wasn’t natural either as her fake breasts spilled over her tank top. Taylor recognized her as one of the party girls she’d seen in the groom’s suite the night before.
“What do you want?” she asked as Taylor approached. Her eyes were red and swollen but still she narrowed them with suspicion. “You a reporter?”
Yes, she wanted to say. But she knew it wouldn’t get her any further than it would have with Dominic. She shook her head. “No. I’m here for an audition. I need a job.”
The woman snorted. “Well, I guess there will be an opening now. Come on in, and I’ll introduce you to the boss.”
Taylor moved toward that open door but hesitated for just a moment before stepping inside the club. Was this safe? Sure, she’d been able to handle Courtney. But this
woman looked a hell of a lot tougher than the bitchy bride-to-be.
Was Taylor going to get answers? Or was she going to get in trouble?
***
Dominic was in trouble. He’d known it the minute Courtney had opened the door and smiled widely when she’d seen him – like she was about to swallow him whole.
He’d told Taylor it was too dangerous for her to approach the bride-to-be. He hadn’t considered how dangerous it might prove for him – until Courtney started throwing herself at him.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. But she peered into the hall before closing the door. “You’re alone...” Her breath caught as if she hadn’t dared believe it. “I hope you sent that damn escort packing...”
“Escort?”
“Taylor or whatever her name is,” Courtney replied. “I can’t believe you went through all that trouble of hiring her just to make me jealous.”
“Wh – what?” he sputtered, trying to keep up with all her leaps to preposterous conclusions.
“You didn’t need to do that,” she said. “All you needed to do was say you want me back.” She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. “I want you too.”
He unwound her arms and pushed her back, just like he had at the hospital. “What about Roderick?” Her groom had nearly died and she was throwing herself at him?
Was Taylor right? Had Courtney tried to kill her groom-to-be? Was he alone with a killer?
“What about Roderick?” she asked with a derisive snort. “We both know he will never be faithful.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I can’t believe the night before we’re supposed to be getting married he was with a hooker.”
The woman had died. “Courtney!” he admonished her.
Her face flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. But I never thought you’d be like Roderick – that you’d hire someone...”
“I did not hire anyone,” Dominic said, his voice sharp as his patience wore thin. He was getting damn sick of having to say that.
“No matter what she claims,” Courtney said with another disparaging sniff, “I know I found the card for that escort service in your wallet.”
He shook his head. “If you did, I don’t know how it wound up there...” Except that he hadn’t wanted to leave it lying around the hotel room where a maid might find it. “And I don’t know why the hell you were going through my wallet...”
Her face flushed a deeper shade of red. “I – I had to know if you were really serious about her,” she said. “I had to know if you had a picture of her in your wallet. And you don’t. You just had that card...”
He sighed. “I don’t have a picture of Taylor because she doesn’t like having them taken.” He hoped that wasn’t true because she was so beautiful the camera would love her. His clay would love her. He really needed to sculpt her.
Courtney’s lips pursed in a pout. “Are you trying to tell me that you really have a relationship with her?”
He nodded and wished he was telling the truth now. But he and Taylor only had this weekend.
“I don’t believe the story about how you met,” she said. “It’s too much like our story. You said that to get to me.”
Actually Taylor had said it and he’d just gone along with it. “She really did see one of my pieces,” he said.
“And tracked you down?” she asked skeptically. “That’s not easy to do.”
No. After all the years of dealing with the paparazzi, he closely guarded his privacy.
He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck. He was the one supposed to be interrogating her. Not the other way around...
Good thing he was not the detective because he would never solve this case.
“Here’s the truth,” he began and he did intend to tell it – most of it.
She leaned closer and smiled. “Good...”
“And once I tell you the truth, I expect you to tell me the truth,” he said.
Her smile widened, and her eyes lit up with anticipation. She clearly had no idea what he intended to ask her. “I’m so glad you’re going to be honest with me about that woman...”
“That woman,” he said, his defenses immediately going up, “is a good friend of my sister Michelle’s.”
Courtney laughed. “That figures your step sister would be behind this. She hates Roderick.”
That was true. But he shook his head. “Michelle is how Taylor and I met. Our relationship is real.”
Courtney sucked in a breath, but her pinched face looked like she’d sucked on a lemon instead. “What – you’re telling me that you’re really involved with her?”
“Yes.” More than he’d ever thought he could be – more than he wanted to be – because he knew it wasn’t going to end well. It was just going to end – as every relationship he’d ever seen ended.
She shook her head. “That’s not...”
Not what she’d expected him to say.
“Now you have to be honest with me,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked, her mouth pulled into a sulky pout. “You want to rub it in how your relationship has made me jealous – has made me realize what an ass your brother is?”
She was angry with Roderick – so angry that she was at the hotel while he was at the hospital. But then Dominic was at the hotel, too, when he should be checking to see how his twin was this morning.
“No,” he said. “I want to know if you poisoned him?”
She slapped him – so hard that his face turned and his cheek stung. And he understood how hard Taylor had had to fight the night before as Courtney launched herself at him.
If she was trying to prove that she wasn’t a killer, maybe she shouldn’t be trying to kill him...
Chapter Eleven
May 17
Mid Morning
I just got the strangest call on the FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT phone line. A gentleman’s club manager called for a reference for Taylor. Apparently she’s applying to be a dancer. Of course I gave her a glowing reference because I figured she must have a good reason for applying for the job. The thing is that Taylor can’t dance. Not at all. She has no rhythm. In fact I think she’s tone deaf. How will she hear a beat let alone feel one? But when a woman is as beautiful as Taylor is, maybe it won’t matter that she can’t dance. Maybe it will only matter how she looks...
Was Sam like that? Had a pretty face betrayed him? Was that why it’s hard for him to trust? Not that I expect him to trust me. I haven’t told him the truth about what matters most – about the fact that I’m only a make-believe madam. If I told him everything, would he believe me?
Michelle’s cell rang, and she recognized the number as Sam’s. But he wasn’t calling the FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT number. He was calling her personal one. Had he already figured it out?
Her heart pounding madly, she kept her voice light and airy as she answered, “Hello?”
“Michelle?” It was Dominic, and he sounded confused. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” she replied. But just in case she was on speaker, she kept her voice disguised.
“I need you to come down to St. Bart’s police department.”
Oh no. Had he spilled the beans about her? Had her brother outed her as the madam of FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT? But if that was the case, she would have expected Detective Butler to show up at her door, lights flashing on his vehicle, as he slapped the cuffs on her.
“Why?” she asked him.
“I need you to bail me out.”
***
“You’re a horrible dancer,” the stripper from the alley told Taylor as she set a drink on the bar in front of her. She’d made herself quite at home behind the bar, so much so that she was slurring her words. And here Taylor had thought her eyes were red from crying. Apparently they were an entirely different kind of bloodshot. “Wh –why would you apply for a job here?”
“Desperation,” Taylor told her. And she was desperate to find out who’d killed the stripper from the bachelor
party. “I just lost my job...”
“At FAN-FANASY ENTERTAINMENT?” the woman asked.
At least that was what Taylor suspected she asked. She couldn’t be certain with how much she was slurring. But Taylor nodded.
The woman shook her head, tangling her dyed hair around her flushed face. “I di - didn’t even know St. Bart’s had an escort service.”
“It’s very discreet,” she said. “I wasn’t, though – that’s why I got fired.”
“She – she talked you up to ole Barney,” the woman said. “It – It’s the only reason he let you try out for Valerie’s spot. You shoulda been ready.”