“You’re human, Chantel,” Wayne said, lifting that gaze up to pierce her again. “Young and healthy. It stands to reason that at some point...”
“Hold it right there.” Her voice hard as rocks, it was her turn to stare down. “Before you say something we’ll both regret...”
But why shouldn’t he express his concerns? She wanted to be one of the guys, and guys talked about sex all the time.
If she weren’t the cop in question, if they were talking about someone else, she might even share his concerns.
“Look.” She softened her tone. Remembered that she was talking to her friend. And recognized that he had a point. She’d proved it for him with her less-than-stellar behavior. “I admit that the idea of having someone to go out with is...not unpleasant. I’ll even go so far as to admit that Colin Fairbanks is extremely...easy...to be with. I like him. But you have nothing to worry about.”
“Forgive me, but those statements give rise to concern rather than alleviate it. And you know as well as I do that telling me not to worry raises more concern because I have to wonder if you’re in denial.”
Calm now, Chantel nodded. “I know. But I’m not. Listen, Wayne, like you said, I’m thirty-two years old. And yes, I’m healthy, of course I have sexual feelings, and maybe it would be easier if I could visit a male strip club now and then, but I’m just not into that.” She grinned, and then, serious again, said, “I’m thirty-two, not twenty-two. I’ve had relationships. And painful breakups, too. Life experiences teach us things, and I’ve learned some things along the way. Two of them...”
She stopped. Feeling a little stupid, sitting there ready to share her innermost thoughts with another cop.
“You’re going to tell me what they are, right? We’re just waiting for you to get there?”
Guy talk, Harris, she reminded herself. And was struck with the thought that she was hiding behind it. Which was ludicrous.
It bothered her—that she’d think such a thing. She loved her job. And really liked having male friends...
“I’m assuming one of the broken relationships, and lessons learned, had to do with Max?”
“What? No! Why would you think that?”
“Don’t insult me or cheapen our friendship, Chantel. Either be honest or tell me to go to hell. But don’t sit there and lie to me.”
“I learned something from Max, yes, but not one of the two things I was talking about. And there was no breakup. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”
She couldn’t lose Wayne’s respect. It was one of her most valued assets. Clasping her hands together, she faced him fully. “You’re half-right. I did think I was in love with him. But it started long before Meri’s disappearance last year. I fell in love with him when Jill did. And when I saw her putting the job before him, risking her life unnecessarily while he was at home trusting her to keep herself safe...it was the one time I really had a problem with her. I’m not saying that what she did...saving that rookie’s life... It was the right thing to do. I’d have done the same. So would you have and any officer worth his salt. But there were times... I don’t know, it was just like Jill thought she was invincible or something...”
Picturing her friend, in uniform, with a grin on her face and a gun in her hand—just after shooting practice when Jill had hit three bull’s-eyes—Chantel’s gut clenched with a longing that nearly killed her. Like when Jill had first died.
Would she and Max have ended up together if Chantel hadn’t been too lost in her grief to pursue him?
“Anyway, so, yeah...when I came up here to help him last year, the old feelings...they were still there. But seeing him with Meri, or rather, not with her, seeing how much he believed she was in serious trouble, when all of us were certain that she’d left him of her own free will, seeing how hard she fought to stay alive, to get out of that house when she should have been passed out on the floor—I’d never felt anything like that. But I knew, then and there, that I wanted it and that I couldn’t accept anything less. I’m not going to date a man until I feel something more for him than a desire to not be alone.”
She looked at him, expecting derision, and instead met the serious expression on his face.
“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?”
“No, honestly, I feel sad for you.”
“Because I’ve never been in love?”
“Because you didn’t even recognize what love is.”
“You’re telling me that you believe in being in love?”
“Of course I do. Why do you think I was ready to jump off a roof when I thought I’d lost Maria all those years ago? And why do you think she took me back?”
“Because I was pretty damned persuasive?”
“Probably.” He grinned. “But also because she’s in love with me as much as I’m in love with her.”
Damn. So it happened more than once in a blue moon. Who’d have guessed?
“Jill wasn’t in love with Max like that.” Jill had been turned on by Max. She’d loved him. But she hadn’t been in love. Chantel, as her most trusted confidante, was certain on that score.
So, well, she had hope, then. Maybe someday...
“You were going to tell me about the two things you’d learned.”
Right. Thanks for the reminder, Stanton. She didn’t have a hell of a lot of hope. Maybe someday... Not. Maybe when hell froze over.
“First, I’m attracted to alpha men. You know, the strong, protective types. The ones who rule the world.”
“Aren’t all women?”
She didn’t think so. Since there were men who weren’t so filled with testosterone that they’d fight first and ask questions later. Not all men were aggressive go-getters. And yet, there were women who loved and needed them.
She just wasn’t ever going to be one of them. More the shame.
“I guess I wouldn’t know,” she told Wayne. “Jill was. I am. Meri is. That’s pretty much the sum total of my experience. And it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Because the second thing I’ve learned is that aggressive men don’t like aggressive women, unless it’s in their beds, and then only when they want it that way. Protective men like to protect. They don’t want a woman who says, ‘Stay down. I’ve got this,’ while facing the bogeyman alone with a gun in her hand. Near as I can tell, it emasculates them. Or, at the very least, makes them feel incompetent.”
Wayne’s silence wasn’t a surprise. Because he was one of those protective guys.
He knew she was right. The upside was, he left her alone after that so she could pursue the work she’d stopped in to do.
To no avail.
No matter how she searched, either as victim or perpetrator, Julie Fairbanks was not in the system.
Keeping an eye over her shoulder, lest someone see what she was doing and wonder why she was looking at the commissioner’s wife, she tried to find what she could about Patricia Reynolds. It took her two seconds to discover that the woman didn’t have a police record. No real surprise there.
The society pages were filled with her. The queen of philanthropy, she’d been an advocate for the downtrodden since high school, using the influence of being the daughter of a senator—before she’d married Paul Reynolds—to draw attention to matters that bothered her.
She and the commissioner had no children—due, one article said, to her own infertility. She sat on the boards of three different infertility clinics as fundraising chairperson.
And there Chantel had it. Too bad “it” wasn’t anything she could use.
CHAPTER NINE
COLIN WAS TOO practical to believe in love at first sight. He wasn’t even sure he truly believed in falling in love at all. You loved your parents and siblings, the people you were born to and who were born to you. If you were lucky, you’d feel a strong fondness for a friend
or two along the way.
And when you married, if you were a smart man, you chose a woman you liked spending time with. A woman you trusted. Someone you cared for deeply. One who’d be a good mother to any children you might have. One who enjoyed at least some of the same things you did. And, of course, one who turned you on.
He’d yet to find that woman. He’d thought he had, once. Until she’d left him because he was leaving his inheritance to his sister. He’d thought maybe he was close another time or two. But with his parents dying so young, one after the other—necessitating him taking over the business long before he’d expected—with Julie’s attack and resultant internal battles, time had passed, taking his twenties with it.
And now here he was, just two nights after the evening he’d gone to a dreaded art auction, sitting across from Chantel Johnson and feeling as though he’d known her since before he was born.
Or something equally as foolish.
They’d had gourmet food for lunch. He’d decided on fondue for dinner because the restaurant he had in mind had quiet, rounded, high-back dimly lit booths that secluded each party and provided excellent views of the ocean in the distance. And because cooking each course at your table made for a long dinner.
He ordered a bottle of wine, poured them each a glass and discussed the various menu choices with her. They had to make meat selections, choose vegetables, and items for their dessert tray. It didn’t even surprise him that they went for the same things.
“To you.” He raised his glass of wine and tipped it to hers.
“To you,” she said, and when she added, “To my good luck,” it was like the words slid right inside of him.
“Your good luck?” he asked, but he knew what she’d meant. He wanted to prolong the conversation.
“I go to my first public function in a state that is completely new to me, knowing not a single soul, and the first person I meet is you.”
The sincerity shining from her gaze hit him harder than the wine.
“So I’m not alone in this...strange feeling...that’s been accompanying me the past couple of days?” He heard the sex in his voice but couldn’t have changed it if he’d wanted to.
He wanted her.
And not just for sex.
He was drawn to her. Suddenly more alive because she existed.
Her smile was sweet. Loaded with invitation—though maybe not intentionally. “You care to define that feeling? I like to know what I’m agreeing to before I commit myself.”
His first thought was to ask her to commit herself to his bed. That night. And for the foreseeable future. Thank God he was mature enough to stop himself from actually acting on the thought.
“You’re different,” he said, watching her over their glasses of wine lit by candlelight. He drew out the words. His voice purposely “bedroom,” liking the foreplay. “Compelling. In a way I’ve never known before.”
Eyes glistening, she didn’t shy away from his boldness. “I can commit to that,” she said.
In a stunningly simple black short shift that was sexier for what it covered, not for what it left uncovered, she could have stepped out of a fashion magazine. Again. He wondered who did her hair. The color was so natural looking he couldn’t stop watching it. Wondering how it would feel to run his fingers through it. To have it falling around his body, tickling his chest...
And those lips—so artfully painted—they glistened with promise.
“But...”
When her eyes shadowed, he brought himself back to dinner. To what was, in reality, a first date.
“But?” he asked.
“You did hear me say that when I’m done with my book I have decided to return to New York, after all? My family misses me more than I thought. I’ve promised that I will resume my former position within the company.”
He’d heard. But he knew that so much could happen in just two days, let alone the months and months it must take to write an entire book. After that, who knew? If parents could die in the prime of their lives, then equally good miracles could happen, too, right?
Like maybe a move to New York?
Or, at the very least, frequent flights...
“I heard.”
“And you’re okay with that?” The worry in her gaze hit him harder than the kiss waiting on her lips. She cared, too.
“Yes,” he told her. She’d been honest. If, in the future, they needed to work out something, then they’d work it out.
He spent his days borrowing trouble—looking to the future for any potential pitfalls so that he could protect his clients ahead of time. He’d spent his life doing the same—looking to be used before he looked to be liked.
But not this time.
Two nights ago his life had changed. He’d changed.
And it didn’t seem like there was a lot he could do about that.
Except to see where it was all going to lead.
* * *
THE CHEESE FONDUE appetizer was phenomenal. Chantel, a woman whose appetite was voracious enough to go along with the adrenaline it took to be a beat cop on the streets of California, had to hold herself back to stay in character. But boy, it was good.
Not half as good as the company, though. If all undercover jobs were like this, she’d sign on for life.
Still on her first glass of wine—she couldn’t forget that she was on the job—she sat back while he dipped the last cube of bread into the cheese. Watched a drop of cheese hit his lower lip. And followed his tongue as he cleaned it off.
Attention to detail was her job.
She had no idea how a guy could look so damned sexy cleaning gooey cheese off his lip. She gave herself a little shake, remembering why she was there, and said, “Is Julie feeling better?”
Replacing cheese with a sip of wine, he returned his glass to the table. “I haven’t seen her.”
“She was already gone when you got home?” It was a natural assumption with it being Saturday night and her being twenty-seven.
“No.” He looked toward the ocean. As though some answer was out there, waiting for him to find it.
His sister had been home when he’d stopped there to change, but he hadn’t seen her? Hadn’t he gone to find her, knowing that when he’d dropped her off she’d been upset? They lived in a large house, a mansion by the looks of things. It would be easy for two people to live there and never see each other. But...
Chantel wasn’t a detective yet—mostly because she’d turned down the promotion the first time it had been offered—but she knew a lot about getting information out of subjects. Sometimes you played rough. And sometimes you didn’t say anything at all.
He watched the horizon. She watched him. Wondered at the battle that seemed to be going on within him. He’d been jovial until she’d mentioned Julie.
But he didn’t seem angry. More contemplative.
A whole minute had passed. She took another small sip of wine. Just in case he’d forgotten she was there.
“My sister... I don’t talk about her. Ever.”
“I understand,” she said. When, of course, she didn’t. How could she? She had no idea why a brother wouldn’t talk about his sister. Unless she’d really pissed him off. That clearly wasn’t the case here.
His gaze pierced her. Off balance, she told herself, No more wine. “I want to tell you about her,” he said.
Chantel wanted more wine.
“Okay.”
“I’m not really at liberty to do so. And at the moment, I’m a bit unnerved that I even want to.”
She was beginning to see his problem. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” But the problem lay there between them. He wanted to. And she wanted him to.
She also might need him to, depending on what it was he had to say.
�
��Julie likes you.”
“She told you that?” She’d been in the car when they’d dropped the other woman off. And he’d just told her he hadn’t seen her since. Didn’t mean they couldn’t have talked, but he’d said he didn’t know how Julie was doing. If he’d talked to her, he’d have had an idea and...
Chantel never quit looking for the lie in everything. She had to be prepared for danger around every corner. It was how she protected lives. Including her own.
“She didn’t have to tell me. In ten years’ time, she’s never...ever...opened up in front of anyone like she did in the car today. You have no idea.”
No...but she was bursting with wanting to. She had to remember she was playing a part. The slightly bored, well-to-do woman on a date. Would she be bored with talk of his sister?
Deciding that if she would be, she was going to change right then and there, Chantel Harris gave him a small smile. “I liked her, too. A lot.”
He nodded and knocked his knuckles on the table. “She’s the one who opened the door,” he said, his gaze meeting hers in the candlelight. Intimately. “Julie is a bit of a recluse...”
Was he trying to tell her Julie was agoraphobic? She tried to imagine that...
His struggle—what to say, what not to say, talking about his sister at all—touched her. She couldn’t help it. So she jumped in to help. “She seemed fine today...until the end there.” Maybe Julie was only mildly agoraphobic. Maybe with help...
“She is fine, more than fine, pretty much all the time. My sister’s a strong, independent woman who not only knows her own mind, but has little problem expressing it. She’s also generous almost to a fault and loves helping people.”
Relief flooded her. And she didn’t really even know these people. Nor was she going to be a real or significant part of their lives.
He topped off her wine. Drawing an imaginary line on the glass, marking how much he added, she knew she had to leave that much. One glass and that was it.
Not because the captain, or the job, said so. Undercovers did all kinds of things—joined in where they had to in order to not blow their cover. It had just been her own rule, laid down strictly to herself earlier that evening while she’d been donning the attire for the job.
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