by Joanne Rock
Damn.
Before Duke could light into a much-needed argument with Josh, a uniformed officer emerged from a coffee shop, distracting them for a moment.
While Josh high-fived the beat cop, Duke took deep breaths in a last-ditch effort to get his head on straight.
When Josh turned his attention back to Duke, he picked up right where they’d left off.
“Just trying to figure out why you could barely peel yourself off her that day at the precinct and ever since you took her out you’ve been hangdogging it big-time. What gives?”
“Nothing. There is nothing going on between me and Amanda Matthews.” And it was going to stay that way.
She’d obviously had her fun, and next time she went looking for adventure, she’d probably find another cop to show her a good time.
The image socked him in the gut. What was he thinking?
On second thought, he’d definitely be willing to sacrifice himself to her curiosity again if she was ever interested. He wouldn’t want anyone else seeing what he’d seen the other night.
Josh sighed. “Fine. Nothing is going on. But I hope you didn’t piss her off so much she won’t testify for you. You know that upgrade of yours is contingent on convictions not arrests, right? Any poor clod can arrest people. Only the cops with the best investigative skills—and cooperative witnesses—can make convictions.”
Duke swiped his hand across his forehead, not that he was starting to sweat this, but it sure was hot for May.
They’d just arrived at the Matthews’s showroom and he had to admit Josh had a good point. He needed Amanda’s help and it wouldn’t pay to ruffle her feathers.
Normally, he found it easy to play the good cop to Josh’s bad cop. Charming had always come easily to him. But he had the feeling he’d be hard-pressed to make the grade today when all he could think about was how it had felt to sleep with Amanda plastered to him all night long.
He needed Gallagher’s conviction.
Badly.
What if Amanda was upset he hadn’t called her? Would she refuse to testify just to spite him? She’d probably been going against her father’s wishes to testify in the first place. Maybe she’d be more than happy to follow his orders now that she had no reason to do Duke any favors.
He scraped a hand through his hair in a vain hope to stimulate his brain. He’d been thinking with his pants, and—of all stupid things—his heart. But now he needed to get serious. He had a job to do and he would make sure Amanda showed up for her court appointment, even if it took major groveling.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He just hadn’t known what to say to her once he knew she’d only been out for fun.
Why had he hoped she might have wanted more?
Duke nodded to his partner, conveying the go-ahead to proceed. “We’re going in. I’m doing the talking, so you just do what you do best.”
Josh grinned. “Keep my mouth shut and look scary?”
“Don’t get too high on yourself there, Columbo.” Duke pulled the door open and stepped into the Clyde Matthews showroom.
He could handle this.
Too bad he felt less like the Terminator and more like one of the Hardy Boys when he spotted her kneeling in the front of the store and leaning into the display window.
Her bottom wriggled invitingly, making his mouth go dry, his blood run hot and his heart beat a tango rhythm against his chest. Memories of her video assailed him, the way she sauntered around her private runway in fuchsia silk, her siren’s walk all the more devastating because she was half-naked….
His condition downgraded to one of the Hardy Boys watching his first skin flick and was rapidly deteriorating.
Amanda heard the bell ring on the showroom door, but she couldn’t get one of the mannequin’s shoes on her plastic foot. Why did they make these display mannequins’ extremities so small? No real woman could walk around without falling on such little feet.
Amanda knew the clerk at the counter could help the customer who’d just walked in. In the meantime, she was determined to make the size five shoe work, even if she had to staple the leather to the synthetic model.
At least she was determined until she heard the masculine throat clearing close behind her.
An innocuous enough sound, right?
Could be anyone in the world standing behind her clearing their throat, but the sudden stinging awareness jolting through her suggested the newcomer wasn’t just anyone. No. The hot stirring in her veins suggested the newcomer was a very particular someone.
“Hello, Amanda.” Duke Rawlins’s seductive voice seemed to suggest long, languorous lovemaking and scintillating morning quickies even if he was talking about the weather.
Maybe that’s why steam seemed to hiss from her whenever he got close.
But she had to remember he wasn’t interested in her on a long-term basis any more than she was interested in him. In fact, he’d somehow seen through her hard-won glamorous shell to the person inside and had taken off at a dead run. So she determined she would be an ice princess today at all costs, no matter how charming the flashy detective played it.
Reluctantly, she backed out of the window and stood. “Hello, Detective.” She noticed a tall, intimidating-looking man behind Duke. The scar on his face, the forbidding expression, made her wonder if Duke had toted his latest arrest into the showroom.
“This is my partner, Detective Josh Winger.” He jerked his thumb toward the man who bore more resemblance to one of her father’s associates than a New York cop.
“Pleased to meet you.” Amanda extended her hand, drawing on her boarding school manners to get her through an awkward situation.
“Same here.” Detective Winger shook her hand, then pointed toward the back of the shop. “Mind if I have a look around while you two…talk?”
“Not at all.” Although now she’d be all the more alone with Duke, and given the peculiar way her heart currently raced, she really wished the criminal-looking detective would come back.
She watched Duke’s tall partner duck under mannequins’ arms and poke at sequined dresses until Duke’s hand grazed her arm and brought all her focus crashing into that small patch of skin where he’d touched her.
His eyes skated over her, thawing her ice princess veneer way too quickly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you earlier this week.”
She stiffened, recalling exactly why she needed to be frosty. “Thank you for the flowers. I’m sure that was sufficient.” They had been daisies and some other wildflowers she didn’t recognize, which seemed marginally more thoughtful than roses. But when Duke’s call never came, she began to view the flowers as a gesture to assuage his guilt rather than a token of any affection.
Wincing, he scrubbed a restless hand over his tie, which was decorated with comets, planets, a green Martian and—surprise, surprise—lots of stars. “I’d like to be more than sufficient for you, Amanda.”
Was it her imagination or did he look as shocked by his own words as she was?
“You did an admirable job of hiding that fact.” She glanced over at Duke’s partner, who seemed to be absorbed in figuring out how to pose one of the mannequins on the floor. He carefully positioned the plastic model’s head to the right, then to the left.
Turning her attention back to Duke, she couldn’t resist speaking her mind. “And excuse me if I find it hard to believe that you genuinely came here to talk to me about what happened between us when you arrive with your Rottweiler partner, ready to nose around my father’s business.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “Have at it, Duke. You hardly need my permission to search the place.”
Duke levered her extended arm back to her side. “That’s not my intent.”
He watched her gaze narrow and braced himself for her next accusation. He had walked in here expecting a cool reception, but he hadn’t been expecting to see hurt in her eyes.
Had he been wrong about her motives the other night?
&nb
sp; Amanda crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive gesture on anyone else, a provocative as hell move on her, considering the lush breasts she cinched her arms around. The crisp linen of her jacket molded to her curves, outlining a view that sent his blood rushing south.
“What exactly is your intent, Duke?”
She did not want to know the answer to that one. Not at this moment.
Her impatient sigh distracted him from his way-too-lustful thoughts.
“I did stop by to ask you a question about the investigation, Amanda.” He owed it to her to be honest, but the stiffening of her shoulders didn’t make it easy.
Before she could tell him off, he brushed his fingers down her arm, unable to keep his hands to himself around her. “I screwed up last weekend and I know that. Things happened so fast between us that I wasn’t really prepared for how to deal with it. That night with you rocked the damn earth for me, Amanda. I guess I just needed to back up for a few days to get my head on straight again.”
She seemed to be weighing his explanation, deciding whether or not he was feeding her a line.
The kicker of it all was that the words falling out of his mouth now made more sense than any of the crap he’d been telling himself all week.
“I mean, you have to admit, the other night was phenomenal.”
She lifted a skeptical brow.
“Not that I’m trying to take all the credit for it.” He peered around the store to make sure no one else lurked within earshot of their conversation. “You were pretty amazing yourself.”
The blush on her cheeks suggested she remembered that night as thoroughly as he did.
“Apparently it didn’t matter to you how amazing it might have been,” she finally returned, each word annunciated with crisp precision. “You still decided to put me on ice in the morning and then walk out the door without looking back.”
Duke scrambled for the words to make things right between them, the approach that would melt her just a little. “I made you breakfast at least.”
He thought he saw one corner of her mouth quirk.
“Wheat pancakes are a poor excuse for a morning-after breakfast.”
“You’re not a health nut I take it?”
“The wheat flour is something Lexi must have bought.”
“Next time I’ll go out for strawberries and chocolate.” He should have realized a woman who could appreciate the decadence of a triple dip ice-cream cone probably wouldn’t be overly enthused about wheat pancakes for breakfast.
“There obviously won’t ever be a next time for us, but perhaps your next conquest would appreciate the gesture.” She stepped away from him, back toward the window she’d been designing when he’d arrived. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get back to work.”
He was striking out swinging here, and the sick feeling in his gut didn’t have anything to do with his case or Amanda’s testimony. He wanted another chance with her, another night to understand her for who she really was instead of viewing her through the bad experience he’d had with uptown types in the past. “Can I see you this weekend?”
She was going to shoot him down, he could tell by her expression.
But he was saved from the blow by the showroom door crashing open. While the store welcome bell rang over and over again, a tall man dressed in a black T-shirt and perfectly creased pants stood framed in the entrance.
“Bonjour!” he shouted, flinging his arms wide as if he expected the world to come running to him.
Surprisingly, it did.
Amanda hurried over to greet the man and so did the store clerk. Amanda kissed his cheek while the clerk kissed the air alongside his other cheek.
A third woman wearing tiny silver-rimmed glasses scurried in behind the newcomer, a leather ledger under one arm. She ignored the kissing group and carefully placed her ledger under the front desk and then started shuffling papers on the countertop.
“Good morning, Daddy,” Amanda murmured, brushing a stray piece of lint from the older man’s shoulder.
This was her father?
Duke had seen photos of Clyde Matthews somewhere, but the pictures of the distinguished-looking, gray-haired gentleman hadn’t prepared him for someone so boisterous. The guy strutted around the showroom like a rooster in a henhouse, or maybe a successful artist in his garret. His voice booming as he recounted an anecdote from his morning, Matthews’s cup of coffee flailed through the air while he talked with his hands. Each swipe of his arm brought the beverage perilously close to the edge of the foam cup.
The woman who’d entered behind Clyde Matthews tore off several paper towels from a roll on the front counter, as if she’d seen him in action before.
“We have guests, I see.” He smiled broadly at both Duke and Josh as he finished his tale. “Welcome, friends.”
Duke hoped the guy didn’t expect him to come running, too. He acknowledged the man with a nod.
“Can I help you gentlemen find anything?” Clyde Matthews’s eyes traveled over Duke’s clothes, pausing on the necktie. “I’ve got everything a well-dressed man would appreciate.”
Duke wondered if Amanda’s father suggested he didn’t have a damn thing for guys like him and his partner, but he kept his response to a minimum. “No thanks. We just stopped to ask a couple of questions.”
Matthews looked vaguely annoyed. But instead of turning his frown to his “guests,” Matthews scowled in his daughter’s direction. “Amanda?”
Duke felt his hackles rise. Even more so when Amanda half-jumped into action.
“They are New York police detectives, Daddy,” she supplied smoothly, her voice quiet and soothing next to Matthews’s booming, expressive one. “I believe they are following up on Victor Gallagher’s arrest.”
“A pity about Victor,” her father noted.
Duke felt Josh’s presence stealing across the showroom floor like the imposing shadow he was. Josh never said much when they went someplace together, falling into his tough guy guise with ease and—Duke was pretty certain—pleasure.
“Actually, the New York Police Department is very pleased to have Gallagher behind bars,” Duke corrected the designer as Josh moved silently into place behind him. “We would like to know if anyone has offered to take Gallagher’s place as one of your fabric suppliers this week.”
Matthews’s eyes darted over Josh. “No one has presented themselves yet.”
Amanda leaned forward into the polite male face-off, gently touching her father’s arm. “You must have forgotten, Daddy. A man left his card for you just yesterday.”
Matthews set his coffee on the front counter with a slam, splashing the brew all over the bespectacled woman’s papers. “Whose side are you on, Amanda? They carted off your boyfriend last week and now they want to lock up every fabric supplier in the city. And you want to help them?”
Amanda frowned, clearly annoyed, yet her voice remained as smoothly placating as before. “Victor was a criminal, Daddy. And he might have criminal friends taking his place. We don’t want to do business with them.”
Matthews picked up his coffee again, seemingly oblivious to the woman scrambling around behind him with paper towels to clean up his spills. The silent ledger-carrier scowled so hard her glasses were skewed on her nose.
“I like doing business with people who are respectful.” Matthews glared at Duke, almost as if he’d picked up something going on between him and Amanda on his parental radar.
Unless Amanda had told him what happened.
Duke gulped. Matthews didn’t intimidate him a bit, but Duke couldn’t help but feel guilty for the way he’d treated Amanda. He didn’t need her father’s censuring look to remind him he’d screwed up.
Amanda sighed. “Of course Victor was respectful. Thanks to your business as a convenient cover-up, he was able to smuggle drugs into the city and make a mint.”
“At least he knew how to dress.” Matthews smiled like an unrepentant child. “Will you get me my sketchpad, sweetheart,
so I can go to work? I had the best ideas this morning at the coffee shop. I need to get them on paper before I lose them.”
The designer stalked into the back room with his sloshing cup in hand, singing an aria at the top of his lungs.
Amanda nodded to the clerk who jumped to follow the man, a sketchpad in her hands.
“Sorry about that.” Amanda offered Duke a tight smile. “My father resides in an artistic world that doesn’t always overlap the real one. The man who offered his services yesterday was named Henry. No, Herbert.” She nodded, sure of her facts. “Herbert Rainey.”
Josh pulled out his cell phone and started dialing before the words were all out of her mouth.
Duke took the opportunity to drape his arm around her shoulders, to touch her for another minute. “Thanks, Amanda. I appreciate you helping me with this case.”
She ducked out of his grasp, but her simple fragrance lingered in his mind, firing up his senses with memories of their night together. “Despite my father’s attitude, I assure you our business is police-friendly and we are happy to help in any way we can.”
“Does that mean you will still testify against Gallagher?”
She blew a stray hair off her face with a twisted gesture of her mouth, an act that both aroused the hell out of him and made him wonder if uptown Amanda hid a down-to-earth side somewhere under that sleek veneer of hers.
“Of course I will testify. I promised I would, didn’t I?”
Yeah, but Duke had been too busy telling himself she was probably as shallow as other women he’d known in his life to believe her.
Because the bespectacled woman at the counter still watched their actions with interest, Duke kept his response to a minimal brush of his hand across Amanda’s cheek. A too-brief stroke of her hair behind one ear. “Thank you, Amanda.”
He knew the feel of her cool skin, the scent of her soft hair, would torment him all day. He looked forward to it.
Even more, he looked forward to finding a way to win her back and finagle his way into her good graces again. Maybe all his granddad’s lessons about how to be a charming gentleman instead of a brazen scapegrace would finally find a practical application.