Archer shrugged, stretched his legs while he watched the man with the calcified toupee pointing to a digital rendition of the province, complete with tacky sun charts and fluffy clouds. Low-tech crap. Why did he insist on paying for that channel when he could watch some hot babe in a tight suit purring the day’s meteorological goodies on another?
“Search me. I don’t know. But I do feel shitty, so watch your mouth.”
“You know why.”
“Fine. Tell me what’s wrong then, O Enlightened Female.”
She gave him the Spock salute, followed by the single-finger one then twisted her wrist back and forth, alternating the two gestures as if it were a flashing sign. Live Long and Prosper…Kiss My Ass…Live Long and Prosper…Kiss My Ass…
“You like her.”
“Are we having this conversation again? I already admitted I liked her then I followed with a very logical explanation of why it wouldn’t work. Remember? Me fraudster, her cop. Me escort, her…oh, wait, let me see. Cop! From the Morality squad on top of things.”
“If you could just get your head out of your ass, you’d probably notice she wouldn’t mind your extracurricular activities and probably doesn’t give a shit about the state of your income tax.”
“She does, believe me, it’s in her. She was all ‘isn’t downloading songs illegal’ this morning—”
Mel rolled her eyes. “That is so lame, even from you.”
“I can’t tell her. She wouldn’t understand…”
Perhaps it was the tone or the way he sighed the last syllable but something must have caught Mel’s scalpel-sharp antennas for she sat straight up, put both hands over her mouth. “Oh…you really do like her and you’re afraid she’ll reject you.” Her voice sounded muffled.
“Pfft!”
Yet the remark snuck under his carapace and readily found a weak spot to bury itself. Was that it? Was he afraid Joan wouldn’t accept him? He’d already lied to her once about his supposedly not having sex with his students—or not often anyway, when the truth was he slept with pretty much every single cute woman who walked in and looked willing. Surely that little lie wouldn’t paint him a jerk worth kicking out.
But you’re not even in, genius. You just had sex with Joan. Nothing more.
Unfortunately.
“What did you do?” Mel asked with that tone of voice he hated. The one that told him either he came clean or spent hours being prodded and poked.
So he told her.
She seemed to require a bit of time to formulate her comment. Her eyes closed, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why did you say that? It’s not true, like not even a little.”
“See? You’re like her, all truth and virtue and shit. I panicked. I didn’t want to make her feel as if she’s one of many, just another notch.”
“Isn’t she?”
“You always have a way with words,” he snarled, sitting deeper into his leather sofa. “Of course she’s not. I like her, remember, Miss 154 IQ?”
The flat screen flashed with a commercial about some type of dishwasher that supposedly left one’s dishes so sparkling one needed sunglasses to empty the machine. He wanted sound, dammit.
“Give me the remote.”
“She’ll understand. Just ask her if she’d like to take things further, you know, start dating. If she says yes, then come clean right away. Tell her you’ve dated other students before, I dunno. But make sure to tell her she’s special.”
“She is.”
“Then there’s no problem.”
Oh, but there is.
He was afraid to lose his heart in the deal again. Afraid to reach out then stand there like an ass. Alone.
The thought made him abandon all pretense. He did like Joan enough to worry about his careless words and there’d be no denying it. Not with Mel anyway. Everybody else, he kept at arm’s length. But not her. And anyway, she wouldn’t stay away. His best friend could be as bad as the proverbial spaghetti stain—when one thought one had gotten rid of it, it came back at the least opportune moment. He should know. Hadn’t she caught him making love to his hot lady cop against one of the poles?
Mel nodded, her argument gathering steam with every second of his silence. “Tell her about the other students you dated and about Gentlemen Inc. too. You have to. Or I will.”
“Don’t. You. Dare, Mel. I’m serious. It’s none of your business.”
Mel grinned wide. “Oh, getting all hissy, are we? That’s good. It means you’re in love.”
The L-word.
She hit the mute button again and seemed to become instantly engrossed in a quick science spot about some new plankton life form they’d found south of Don’t-Give-a-Shit Island.
Archer let the narrator’s boring voice wash over him as he considered Mel’s dire words. He’d fallen for a lady cop.
No, I haven’t. We’ve had incredibly hot and satisfying sex. Twice. In two days.
Liar.
He liked her. He liked being around her, liked that she made him laugh. He hadn’t laughed that often and that unguardedly since…
Yeah. Remember Vickie?
He’d sworn it’d never happen again. Never. So he sure as hell wasn’t getting into a relationship with a hot lady cop who had to pretend she was a pole dancer and sneak into a nightclub owned and operated by organized crime. Only hurt there.
Stay away, screamed his brain.
Invite her over, screamed his dick.
His heart didn’t say a thing. Chickenshit. Maybe he just didn’t have one.
He wouldn’t take the chance she’d reject him for that one stupid lie and his escort status. Plus, she had her career. He had his. They didn’t mix well since her colleagues tended to harass his. If not arrest them outright when they came down on a nightclub, for whatever reason du jour they happened to have. He probably knew by face some of her coworkers. Like that big dumb brute from the Morality squad with the brush under his nose. Archer had been arrested twice in those “raids”, detained for part of the night then released without charge. Why? Because he was having a drink with a hot girl who wore nice shiny boots. Only nice shiny boots.
So it’ll never work out with Joan.
He felt Mel’s stare on him and turned toward her, putting on his most lethal glare.
“Are you trying to convince yourself it wouldn’t work?”
“Stay out of my fu—”
“You are so doing it! I can’t believe you! She’s fun and cute and there you go, you make sure to sabotage yourself!”
“Mel, shit! What the—” He shook his head, cursed. “You have a probe in my brain or what? Stay out of my head, okay? And while you’re at it, stay out of my house too!”
She froze looking at him. Then Mel stood, dusted her lap and put the remote on the coffee table. Without a word or backward glance, she left the living room.
Jesus fucking Christ!
He heard her soft tread as she walked down the corridor. She must have been passing the gilded mirror, his mother’s favorite piece in the whole house. It was too posh and big for him alone, but he’d promised to keep it in the family after she’d died, not even a year preceding her husband’s own death. He’d lost both of them to the same disease, lung cancer. It’d only been his father who’d smoked though. Problem was, Archer was it as far as family went. No brother or sister. Cousins, those he preferred to keep far from his affairs. No wife. No kids. And now he’d just kicked his best friend out the door too.
Great going, George Berthold Archer.
The front door closed. It didn’t slam. Mel was a door-slammer. Especially when she was angry.
You’ve hurt your only friend, you jackass.
Archer instantly reached for the cell phone to leave her a message for when she’d get to her own house but changed his mind. It was too pathetic. Even for a guy.
Not thinking things through—full of surprises, are we, these days—he rushed out of his house barefoot and wearing only a pajama bottoms, sprinted down th
e driveway and waved frantically for Mel to stop the old Subaru Outback her big brother had passed down to her when he’d bought himself a new set of wheels. And a new wife.
She stopped barely a foot from his shins. Through the windshield, he spotted Mel’s face, tight and hard. She avoided his gaze. He heard the gearshift tunk in reverse.
“Wait! Mélanie!!” He ran to the side of the car and opened it. Mel never locked her car doors despite years of his constant admonitions. Didn’t she realize a bad guy could pick her up with one hand and yank her out of her car?
Being the softie she was, Mel abruptly stopped the car, which rattled as it settled on its busted suspension. “What?!”
Archer crouched by her leg, put his hand on her lap. “J’suis un trou d’cul.”
“An asshole and a genius. Wow.”
Whoa. Sarcasm. She really was pissed. And hurt. He could see the pain plainly in her dark eyes. He was such an asshole.
“I’m sorry, okay. I don’t know what to do. I dug myself a hole. If I tell her about all the other women, she might take it the wrong way. And if I don’t and we start dating, she’s bound to find out eventually. And then there’s Adriano…”
“You can’t not tell her, especially since you like Joan.”
It came to him suddenly. He hadn’t even thought of it, not that he could tell anyway.
Mel’s eyes flared.
“I’m going to quit Gentlemen Inc.”
“What? You can’t. Adriano already wired you the money. It’d be like stealing.”
“Not like stealing, it’d be stealing. So what? I’ll just give him his money back.”
“How? We can’t even trace it closer than a country and now maybe a city. You can’t give him his money back.”
“I’ll contact him and leave him a message. That I don’t want to do this job. Maybe he’ll give me another.”
“You know that’s not true. It’s in your contract. You refuse to finish a job you started, you’re out. Simple as that.” Mel shook her head. “Why don’t you wait until after Joan’s job? Let her do her thing, catch the bad guy then tell Adriano you quit. Nice and easy.”
But that’d mean facing Joan for the next two days while the back of his head burned with the urge to tell her he hadn’t been one hundred percent truthful, that he did tend to have sex with his students, that she wasn’t the only one, that he didn’t think she’d understand his lifestyle, her being a cop and all. Tell her that he was an escort who’d been paid thirty thousand undeclared dollars by an anonymous guy living in Italy. She’d think he was with the mob or something! She’d think he was doing it all for the money. Which he was. Only not with her. She’d never believe that.
For fuck’s sake!
He closed his eyes, breathed in and out slowly. “What if she thinks I’m a loser for pretending to be something I’m not? What if she can’t deal with Gentlemen Inc.?”
“You have to take that chance.”
Archer didn’t like the idea of gambling Joan’s affection. He wanted it. Needed it. The sex was good but he wanted more. He wanted her to like him in return. What if she pushed him away instead when he came clean?
He tried to smile, probably cringed instead. “She might even kick my ass.”
“But you enjoy that,” Mel replied deadpan.
He caught the look of satisfaction on her face and wondered for a second if he hadn’t been manipulated all along. He was such a guy.
“After the job,” he said, more to himself than to his best friend. That scheming little witch! “After the job, I’ll tell Joan everything and let her decide if I’m good enough to keep around.” Fear twisted his inside. Where was his macho pride when he needed it?
“I bet she’s going to kick your ass something fierce.”
Archer couldn’t help the wicked grin. “Mmm.”
* * * * *
The brutish cop with the paintbrush under his nose. Well, shit!
When he entered his studio, Joan on his heels, Officer Brute extended his bear paw of a hand and squeezed Archer’s way too hard for polite society.
Weren’t you the provincial judo champion George Berthold Archer or were you not? Hell yeah!
With just a bit of wrist action, Archer buckled the man’s arm and walked into his “bubble”.
“That’s a good handshake you have there, Constable,” he snarled through a smile. By his side, Joan emitted a sort of squeak that would’ve made him laugh had he not been wading knee-deep in testosterone. “But a bit weak on the wrist, eh?”
His face becoming blotchy right away, Officer Brute nodded once quickly. Pain did that to people. Made them all nice and polite.
“Pas pire,” he murmured through his moustache.
Not bad? Ha!
To preserve the man’s dignity—and to show Joan he wasn’t a total asshole—Archer released the man’s hand and stepped back, his smirk taking flight. “So? You’re staying to watch your colleague’s work, are you?”
You goddamn sleaze.
Joan crossed her arms and shook her head. “Sergeant-detective Sauvageau is just here to brief you about tomorrow.”
The big man nodded and suddenly, the way he looked at Joan, all paternal and kind, calmed Archer considerably. So he wasn’t so bad after all. Just brutish.
“Constable Blair already ‘briefed’ me twice actually.”
That’s a nice blush right there, Archer congratulated himself. He felt a good snigger was in order but held it in. She was rubbing off on him, that big kook.
Sauvageau’s eyebrows twitched. Clearly, he wasn’t getting it. Poor man. “Yeah, okay, so. You need to know a few of the protocols we have since you’re a civilian and all.”
Archer timed him. Took the large man seventeen minutes to basically tell him two things. One, if he messed up and got Joan hurt, he’d be a dead guy. Two, he was a civilian, therefore expected to mess up, but if it got Joan hurt, he’d be a dead guy. Oh, and maybe a third thing as well. The Big Boss at the station thought this was all a bad, bad idea. But they were desperate to pin the bad guy, whoever that was, before he left the country. So time was of the essence here. But he if messed up and got Joan hurt…
As if I’d let her down. Jeez.
By the time Sauvageau had finished with his “briefing”, Archer knew his smirk must have reached biblical proportions. It was all he could do not to shake his head and just laugh. Man, the “sergeant-detective” enjoyed repeating himself.
“Okay? Got all that?”
Archer nodded. “Wear the wire. Stay close to Joan. Act gay. Got it.”
“Arghhhhh, Archer!” Joan snapped, eyes flashing.
Sauvageau’s laugh was as large and overpowering as his presence. And his mustache. He nodded. “Good one, Mr. Archer. Not that I have anything against…er…alternative lifestyles.”
“It’s okay,” Archer replied, in the mood to taunt the guy a little, poke the bear with a sharp stick. “I don’t have anything against polyester and facial hair. So there you go.”
Sauvageau’s grin crystallized a bit at the edges but he took the shot and rolled with it. He meant to shake Archer’s hand, seemed to rethink that and just snapped his chin at him instead.
“It’s dangerous work, getting close to that asshole, Mr. Archer. Just ask one of INTERPOL’s informants. He’s dead. So we don’t want any surprises, okay? Laramée makes his living selling girls to pimps and ‘private collectors’.” He offered a protective glance to Joan, who just rolled her eyes and shooed the large man out the door. She said something to him. But Archer didn’t hear anything else, too busy digesting the bad guy’s name.
Laramée. As in Claude Laramée?
Shit.
As soon as the door closed over Sauvageau’s wide back, Archer threw his hands up. “Laramée?! Joan, man, that’s way too dangerous.”
He realized he’d stepped over a line without realizing it. The jovial expression flipped abruptly to frustration, even anger.
“Of course he’s a dangero
us man. We wouldn’t go after him if he weren’t, we wouldn’t be that…desperate. But too dangerous? Too dangerous for what? For me?”
“For two people, I meant,” Archer replied quickly before the firestorm of “you’re just a male chauvinist pig” hit. “Why don’t you cops just raid the place? You do it often enough in other clubs.”
Why did that come out all petulant and whiny? When had his Cool Factor flatlined?
Joan crossed her arms. “If we could just ‘raid the place’ to catch him, don’t you think we would’ve done it already? He’s like smoke, that guy. Even INTERPOL, with their long arm and the network of informants, couldn’t catch him when he was on their turf. So now that he’s back here, we need to make sure he stays put until my guys come in and slap a pair of handcuffs on him. And not the pink fuzzy kind.”
Had she just seen in his head? He’d been fantasizing about that a lot lately. Joan slapping pink fuzzy cuffs on him and spanking his ass because he’d been a bad, baaaad boy. Mmm!
“So they’re using you as bait, a diversion. Just like— What? What did I say?”
Joan’s cheeks had just turned a “you’re in so much shit your kids will stink” shade of red. She advanced on him, pointed an index finger in his chest. “I’ve never disrespected you or your work. I never made one remark about what you do for a living, the kind of friends you have. I’m the vanguard. The one on the inside who has to pin the tail on the donkey, okay? Laramée may be slimy, but he’s not unbeatable, okay? He has his weakness. From what we know of him, he likes women. So we’re hoping he won’t see this one coming until it’s too late. But don’t call what I do baiting. I’m not bait.”
He huffed and puffed for a reply but soon gave up. “Look, I didn’t mean it that way,” he began, took a long breath, let it out through his nose. Mel, this is all your fault. “I’m just worried backup won’t get there quickly enough if things turn to shit. That’s all. Nothing to do with your abilities or guts or anything. Okay?”
Her grumbled reply didn’t sit well with him so he approached, cupped her chin and angled it to him. “Okay? I’m just worried. It’s built into us—males—the worry gene, the ‘step away from my female’ thing. We hide it, play cool cats, but it’s there all the same.”
Tease Page 9