His previously amused expression had crossed into decidedly un-amused territory, making him more intimidating than before. Apparently he had no intention of letting her go so easily, and her heart sank as her attempt at escape was nixed.
“In that case,” he said, “I’ll tag along.”
THREE
Hunter sat in the back row of the old theater, empty save Carly, sitting beside him, the crew, and the three naked men on stage, dancing and singing Shakespeare to an electric guitar. “Hamlet, The Musical!” was unique enough, and he supposed nudity added that extra edge needed in a town as jaded as Miami. But if there was a god, and s/he was benevolent, this would end soon and he could get back to his regularly scheduled confrontation.
He shifted in his seat uncomfortably and whispered, “When are you supposed to interview Hamlet?”
Carly whispered back, “As soon as the dress rehearsal is over.”
He stared at the three actors, bereft of clothing. “They still call it that?”
“They have to do a run-through in costume. Or, in this case, in the nude.”
Hunter flinched as one of the male actors twirled across the stage, his male parts a victim to centrifugal forces. “This goes beyond nudity,” he muttered.
Her voice held more than a hint of humor. “Wednesday I’m interviewing a participant in the Pink Flamingo’s annual drag queen pageant, if you want to accompany me there as well.”
He shot her a skeptical look. “What kind of reporter are you, anyway?”
“A lifestyle journalist. I do arts and entertainment pieces.”
On stage, the actors formed a brief chorus line, and the image of the three naked gentlemen doing a cancan almost caused Hunter to throw in the towel and leave. “You’re a little liberal with your definition of entertainment,” he said dryly.
Carly leaned closer, her fresh scent teasing him, her amused voice almost...hopeful. “Are you feeling uncomfortable with the play?”
He stared down at her, not knowing which was worse: the intentionally flirty vibe emanating from her beautiful face or the monstrous scene on stage. One sight scorched his vision, and the other could leave him scarred for life.
She was a manipulator who used her charms at will, yet a part of him was impressed with her courage. A person had to be either stupid or brave to enter that alley in such a dangerous section of town. Initially he’d thought she was the first, but it was evident now that it was the second. And that hint of seduction beneath her pretense of assessing his clothes—all to get a look at his gun—had both tickled him and turned him on when it should have ticked him off. He was dismayed to realize he’d crossed the line. He liked her.
An unfortunate complication.
“No. I’m not uncomfortable with the play,” he lied, convinced she was hoping the outlandish musical would get him to bolt. But he had no intention of leaving without finishing their discussion. Like her or not, he would protect his interests. He turned his focus to the stage, hoping he had the fortitude to stick it out. “I will, however, admit I’m more comfortable in the back alley of a crime-infested neighborhood.”
“Two artistic gangsters are preferable to three actors?”
“They are when they wear clothes.”
“I suppose it makes it easier to hide their weapons if they’re hostile,” she said, obviously amused he’d misinterpreted the men’s intent.
“At least I have a concealed weapons permit. I doubt those two did. And I’m ninety-nine percent positive they were carrying,” he said. Then he nodded in the direction of the stage. “That’s a pretty hostile sight right there.”
“Just promise me you won’t shoot the actors.”
“My Glock is back in the glove compartment.” He risked a glance at the stage, wincing at an eyeful of a bouncing Hamlet dancing a Scottish jig. “Though I am tempted to retrieve it.”
“I never knew network security consulting was so dangerous it required a weapon,” she said.
Though her words were laced with her usual dry sarcasm, genuine curiosity radiated from her face, giving her amber eyes a warm glow, and the thrum of attraction settled deeper in his gut. Up until he’d pulled her against him in the alley she’d been just another beautiful woman he could ignore. After experiencing the dip at her waist and the soft curves firsthand, he was less confident. Since Mandy, and with the demands at Firewell, Inc., his relationships had been few and far between. Brief, superficial and uncomplicated worked best.
And it didn’t get any more complicated than Carly Wolfe.
Awareness burned through him, reaffirming that his vow not to touch her again was vital.
He pushed it all aside, and said, “My day is typically weapon-free. The Glock is only in my car because I visited the firing range before work.”
She shot him a look that went beyond mere curiosity. “Keeping up those skills, huh?”
Hunter’s stomach lurched and he turned to stare at the stage, grateful the increase in volume of the music gave him a reprieve from responding. His weekly trips to the firing range were unnecessary, but he couldn’t seem to let go of the last routine he’d maintained since he’d been forced to leave the FBI, leaving a massive hole in his life.
The sharp ache resurfaced and his jaw clenched. He enjoyed what he did now, but lately he’d been chafing at the monotony...
Carly must have decided he refused to respond to her indirect question. “Why did you leave the FBI?” she asked.
He turned to study her face. Though she was clearly digging for information, the genuine warmth he’d seen on the TV monitor that first day was back. What would she say if he told her part of the truth? There were bad parts he could share, and there were worse parts he could never divulge. In an effort to protect sensitive information the FBI had kept their investigation of him private. Outside of Mandy’s newspaper article about the case he’d been working on, no other information had been made available to the public.
“Off the record?” he said.
She hesitated longer than he would have liked. “Off the record.”
“I was stripped of my security clearance and put on administrative leave without pay.”
A shocked silence followed, filled with awful music, until she said, “Why?”
“I was working on a case that involved a group of hackers that specialized in acquiring credit card numbers. A branch of Russian organized crime was laundering their money.” He took a moment to steel himself for the words that followed. “I was accused of leaking information to the mob.”
The pause was painful as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “And did you?”
The words punched hard, his stomach drawing tight with anger. He’d seen the doubt in his colleagues’ expressions. The questions in their eyes. Outside of his parents and Pete Booker, no one had believed the truth—not a hundred percent, anyway. Not even after he’d been cleared. So why should she? But somehow her doubt took a larger chunk from his already ragged pride, and left him dangerously close to the edge. He leaned closer, and a flicker of desire swept through her eyes. For some reason the thought of a payback appealed. And there was no greater payback than refusing to answer a nosy woman’s question.
“What do you think?” he said.
Carly hardly knew him, and had no reason to believe in his honor. But for one terrible moment he realized he was holding his breath, hoping she would.
“I don’t know,” she said softly, the tone doing little to ease the doubt in her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”
* * *
The seconds that ticked by felt like minutes to Carly, and she held her breath as she waited for Hunter’s response. The news about his past had dumped a truckload of fuel on an already burning fire of curiosity, but the impassive look on Hunter’s face—so close to hers it was difficult to concentrate—reve
aled nothing.
And then his eyes flickered with an emotion that came and went too quickly to identify. Finally Hunter leaned back in his seat, but there was a coiled energy simmering beneath the falsely relaxed air. “I think I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”
Carly stared at Hunter, quietly sucking in a breath. Damn, the man was determined to drive her down crazy lane. “What eventually happened?”
“The matter was investigated and dropped for lack of evidence,” he said evenly. “After that I left the force voluntarily.”
From the tone in his voice it was obvious he was done with the discussion. But his response didn’t make it clear if the charges against him were accurate, but couldn’t be proved, or if they were false. The truth lay buried beneath the impossible-to-ruffle gaze, and her mind kept drifting back to the hard, lethally cool look on his face in the alley.
She cleared her throat, trying to ease the tension. “Being ex-FBI must have helped your business.”
He shot her a pointed look. “As much as having William Wolfe for a father has helped your career.”
The statement was like an elbow-jab to the gut, and Carly’s stomach folded protectively into a knot. Her dad was her least favorite subject, and she wished the Shakespeare-singing and dancing men in the buff had driven Hunter away. Clearly he didn’t scare easily. The next few minutes were going to be rough.
Remember the mantra, Carly. Cool. Easy-breezy.
“It didn’t help as much as you’d think,” she said lightly. “My dad always insisted I make it on my own.” Which she had confidently set out to do, back when she’d believed hard work alone was enough. “When I landed my first job at one of his California papers no one learned who my father was until a year later.”
He studied her face, as if surprised. “That must have caused a few ripples.”
“My boss was certainly nicer after he found out.”
Or he had been nice up until she’d made an iffy decision and scandal had rocked her world—both personally and professionally. And, true to his word, her father had never intervened on her behalf...not even when she’d needed his help the most.
The pain sliced like a freshly whetted knife, and Carly clutched her armrest and stared at the stage, grateful the music was loud as Hamlet belted out his monologue, bare-assed and lifting Yorick’s skull further skyward with every high note. Her father’s approval had always felt unattainable. But if she earned her current boss’s confidence, and a little leeway to choose her stories again, she’d regain a bit of the dignity she’d lost after her mistake.
“California is a long way away,” Hunter said when the music died down. “Your dad must have been happy you were hired on at the Miami Insider and moved back to town.”
Carly bit back a bark of humorless laughter, staring at the stage. “You would think so,” she said. “But you’d be wrong. My father thinks a weekly online paper will fail. He’s convinced I made a disastrous career move.”
Or, more accurately, a second disastrous career move. As always, his lack of confidence in her rankled. But after his prediction she wouldn’t leave even if the Miami Insider did take a nosedive at perilous speeds. She was hell-bent on proving her dad wrong.
“As a matter of fact—” Carly sent Hunter a wry smile “—he’s probably eagerly waiting for the paper to fold just so he can be proved right.”
Hunter narrowed his eyes skeptically. “You’re saying your father had nothing to do with you winding up on Brian O’Connor’s show?”
This time there was no holding back the harsh laugh. The suggestion was so absurd it hurt. “My father would never show me that kind of favoritism.”
“Seems a big coincidence we ended up at the very station your father owns.”
“He had nothing to do with it. I contacted the producer of the show—”
“Who wouldn’t have given you the time of day if not for the family name.”
She wasn’t so foolish as to deny it. “Okay, so that part is true.” Having the last name Wolfe had to be good for something, because the parental aspect wasn’t so hot. “But Brian O’Connor is a fan of my column and was on board with the idea from the start.”
“On board for what?” he asked dryly. “Ganging up on me?”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “You handled us as easily as you handled Thad and Marcus. And you know,” she said, fed up with the entire conversation as she twisted in her seat to face him, “I asked to come on Brian’s show simply to state my beef with your app. You weren’t even supposed to be there.”
His brow creased with suppressed amusement even as his eyes remained unyielding. “Too bad for you I showed up.”
Carly’s lips pressed flat as she remembered how he’d goaded her into losing her temper. Was that his intention now?
His intense gaze was relentless as he went on. “I want you to end this public dispute.”
“Well, I want you to admit The Ditchinator sucks.”
“Fine. I admit it.”
She shook her head. “Not good enough. Which is why I’m so pleased you agreed to a second show.” She sent him her best winning smile—the one that flirted at the possibility for more. “You can go on air to admit it sucks and share the inspiration behind your app.”
He leaned close again, a spark of awareness in his gaze that sabotaged her smooth-talking abilities. “I won’t do either,” he murmured silkily.
Desire constricted her throat, making breathing difficult. She knew he was attracted to her, and God knew he thrilled her like no one had before. She could never mix business with pleasure again, but a part of her longed to know if she could ever get him to act on his attraction. “Well, then, you’d best be on your guard, Mr. Philips.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “Hunter.”
Awareness pricking her skin and scrambling her brain, she repeated obediently, “Hunter.”
“With you around, I’m always on my guard.” His lips curled at one end. “On guard against your sharp sarcasm. The cutting words. The arsenal of charm. And...” his gaze dropped to her legs this time, kicking up her body’s response, and then lifted to meet her eyes “...the intentional flash of a little more thigh.”
“Come this second show I’m going to pull out all the stops to use that charm and get the history behind your app.”
The hard light in his gaze set her body on fire, and his secretive smile sent a shiver up her spine as he said, “There isn’t a dress short enough to pull that off.”
She bit back the genuine smile that threatened. “Is that a challenge?”
“There is no challenge.” The light in his eyes grew brighter. “I will, however, take the opportunity to beat you again at your own game.”
Despite herself, she let out a quiet laugh. The man might be tightly controlled, but she sensed a playful side in him. One he kept carefully in check, only allowing it to surface occasionally to tease and provoke her. “I’ll accept that as the dare that it is. So how about this?” she said. “If I manage to get the answer out of you, I win. And if you can resist me...” She sent him her most charming smile—the one that had always worked up until she’d met him. “You win.”
“What’s the prize?” he said softly.
Danger and desire intertwined again, leaving her body with a now familiar unsettling attraction that was uniquely his. She was traversing a very narrow line—one so thin it could double as the edge of a knife. And it was hard to focus over her heart’s incessant thumping. “I haven’t decided on the prize yet.”
“Okay, but I expect you to keep the contest fair.”
“What does that entail?”
“Leveling the playing field,” he said. “No more capitalizing on your father’s name as a resource. Which means outside our second show any and all Wolfe Broadcasting media outlets are off-limits
in your effort to publically harass me into cooperation.” The man gazed at her, his eyes no less intense in the dim light, the hint of humor dwarfed by the thread of steel in his tone. “And no more below-the-belt punches.”
Intrigued, she hiked her eyebrow a little higher. “What are you going to do if I break the rules? Fit me with a pair of concrete shoes?” She leaned closer, trying to be heard over the music and desperately ignoring the sensual lips mere inches from hers. “Send me an ankle bracelet attached to an anchor and take me for a boat ride out on the Atlantic?”
His gaze was dangerously daring, lit with humor, and infused with an undeniable heat. The combination provided an edgy thrill and a sense of the unknown that shouldn’t have had her so captivated.
Jeez, Carly. You really are your own worst enemy.
His smile morphed from mysterious to killer. “I’ll think of something.”
* * *
“Carly, you know you’re heading straight for disaster, right?” Abby—doubting Thomasina friend that she was—shot Carly a worried frown as she clomped across the parking lot towards the Pink Flamingo bar. The heels of Abby’s hip-length leather boots were more clunk than spike, and her black leather dress with its flipped-up collar screamed undead. “After your blog today, Hunter Philips is gonna be seriously annoyed.”
“Why?” Irritation welled for the umpteenth time that day, and Carly frowned. “The Ditchinator just hit the top ten list for app sales.”
“Yeah, and you just used your blog and your sarcastic wit to share your opinion about that.” Abby shot her a sideways look. “Creating quite a furor, I should add.”
Carly battled the bothersome regret trying to worm its way in. “It was a couple of rogue comments that started the trouble.”
Abby let out a snort. “I’ve met Hunter, remember?” She began to weave through the noisy crowd toward the front door. “And I doubt he’s gonna care who started the trouble. He’s only gonna remember where it happened.”
True. Because Abby’s attire might conjure images of vampires, but who wound up resembling the real bloodsucker today? Carly Wolfe, daughter of the notorious William Wolfe, the ruthless man who put results before all else.
Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle Page 24