Hero for Hire

by Jill Shalvis

  Little Miss Helpful Nina Monteverde was not going back to her bedroom, she was entering yet another door off the hallway and shutting it behind her.

  Damn it!

  When he hauled it open a second later, she whipped around, eyes huge. “You scared me.”

  “I should.” He stalked toward her, toward the chest at the foot of the bed that she’d been just about to open. “What’s in there?”

  Instead of backing away, as he imagined she would, she drew the blanket around her like a queen gathering her robe, and lifted her chin. “Nothing.”

  “If it’s nothing, why are you so desperate for me to leave?”

  The pulse at the base of her neck drummed wildly.

  “I thought you were going to bed,” he said.

  “I was.”

  “This isn’t the bedroom I found you in, Nina.”

  “I...like to trade off.”

  “Uh-huh.” The walls were bright yellow, the bed coverings leopard print. Unlike Nina’s conservative, nearly all white bedroom, which had held only a bed, a dresser and a wicker chair, this bedroom had a huge vanity table, every inch covered with bottles and stoppers and makeup galore.

  “It is true. Look.” Nina plopped on the bed, and when the blanket around her hips gave away, exposing her thighs, she scrambled to cover herself.

  A damn shame, he thought. It should be illegal to hide a set of legs like that, all toned and tanned—

  “I am going to sleep right here.” She stretched out, taking care to keep herself covered. “So if you would care to leave...”

  Leaving was the last thing on his mind. The first had everything to do with how she looked sprawled out on the bed, but he shoved away the hot, racy thoughts. “I’m not going anywhere, Nina, because annoying as you are, you’re my only lead.”

  “I told you, I know nothing.”

  “This was Terry’s room.”

  “No.”

  Leaning forward, he took his gaze from her body and opened the chest. Like the vanity table, it was full. Reaching in, he pulled out a string with two tiny triangles of bright yellow attached to it. “What...”

  “Bathing suit top.”

  He’d have used the term top loosely. The bottoms came next, also consisting mostly of string, with one tiny patch of material in the front. “Yours, I suppose,” he said dryly, dangling it from his finger for Nina to inspect.

  Her face went fiery red. “Um...yes, of course.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It is!”

  “Prove it.”

  “H-how?”

  “Put it on.” At his wicked suggestion, she went even redder, and it was everything he could do not to laugh in her face.

  “I will not.”

  “What a shame.” Tossing it onto the bed, he went back to the chest. Out came a bright-yellow sundress that presumably covered up the bikini, though it was also majorly short on material.

  Imagining the prim and reserved Nina in it did odd things to his head.

  And his body.

  Annoyed at the loss of concentration, Rick dived back into the chest and came up with a matching yellow beach bag. Inside was an empty gum wrapper, a tube of lipstick and a little orange pill.

  Stumped, he stared down at the things. “Yours, too, right?”

  “Of course.”

  He opened the lipstick. Cherry red. Slanting a doubtful look at Nina, he shook his head. “Try again.”

  “I wear lipstick.”

  “Not this color, you don’t.” Tossing it aside, he picked up the pill, which could be anything. “I can’t imagine you on drugs, but since I’ve seen and heard everything in my day, try me. Go ahead,” he said into her stubborn silence. “Tell me it’s yours.”

  “I—” She stared at the little pill and chewed her lip.

  “Untangle yourself from that ridiculous blanket, it’s not covering anything I haven’t already seen anyway. Get out of the bed and come talk to me.”

  Surprising him by doing exactly that, he watched as she rose out of the bed, tossed back her hair and stared at him regally. “Okay. This is not my bedroom.”

  “No,” he said with feigned shock. “Do tell.”

  “You do not have to be rude about it. I decided I could tell you that much, at least. I have been trying to protect my sister’s past.”

  Since he’d screwed up protecting the one person who had ever really mattered to him, he found himself utterly unable to respond to that.

  A first.

  “My sister was a bit—” eyes sad, voice quiet, she looked around the bedroom “—flamboyant, I guess you would say. Wild. Loved the party life. But she was also much, much more than that. She was incredibly intelligent, and had an amazing business sense. She ran All That Glitters, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “She knew how to get the most of out that place, how to make it shine. While I—” she lifted a shoulder “—I am just a jewelry designer.”

  He doubted Nina Monteverde was “just” anything. “So now you run All That Glitters?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the necklace Terry wore in that picture...was that your work?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re good.”

  “It is my life,” she said simply. “Terry’s is the business end though, and I miss her with all my heart.”

  He had no idea why she was suddenly telling him all this. Either she’d finally come to the conclusion he wasn’t going to hurt her, or maybe she just wanted him the hell out of here, and thought by giving him a few tidbits, he’d go.

  No matter which, he was learning some interesting things. “You just talked about her in the present tense, Nina.”

  “Yes, I know.” She met his gaze then, directly. “It is hard to let go, as I love—loved. See? I loved her very much.”

  Oh, she was good. “What happened?”

  A little shrug and a big break in eye contact as she turned away. “All I can tell you is that she came to work one morning, like always, and was immediately arrested for embezzlement and smuggling gems, neither of which was true. She was framed. While awaiting trial, she jumped bail.”

  “Then showed up dead.”

  “Yes, after a boating accident off Galveston Island. She was sailing into an approaching storm, and drowned.”

  “She died wanted for her crimes?”

  “I tried to help, tried to find who framed her—and she was framed, believe me—but I could not, not by myself, and no one else could help.”

  Again, that reference to being utterly alone. Rick didn’t want to acknowledge she was as alone as he, didn’t want to bond with her over that. “But she was innocent.”

  “Oh yes,” she breathed, turning back, her entire heart in her eyes, so much that it hurt to look at her. “She was most definitely innocent. My sister was a lot of things, but not a thief. Never.”

  Rick withheld judgment. “And your business didn’t suffer from the scandal?”

  “At first, yes. But eventually it died down.” Her expression darkened as she once again looked at him. “Until now, that is. With you digging everything up, who knows what will happen?”

  Her indignation seemed as real as her grief, and gave him more than a moment’s pause.

  What was the real truth?

  Could Terry Monteverde have faked her death, then disappeared to have the baby, only to later really die?

  That would be a great coincidence, and Rick didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Still, that niggle of doubt bothered him, as did Nina’s beautiful eyes and seeming sincerity.

  He didn’t want to trust her. Didn’t want to trust anyone. So he held up the bathing suit, lipstick and pill one more time, forcing himself to remember that no matter how hauntingly beautiful, how vulnerable, this woman was capable of lying.

  He needed to remember that. “So these were Terry’s.”

  She bit her lower lip.

  “Nina.”

  “No.”

>   “No?”

  “This was her bedroom, but we often shared clothes. As I told you, these things are mine.”

  * * *

  NINA LIFTED her gaze to Rick’s, forced herself to look right into his eyes, though it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she’d do anything to protect the sister she loved with all her heart, anything, including facing down the toughest, most enigmatic man she’d ever met.

  Not to mention the most gorgeous.

  Reaching out, he once again twirled the thong bikini bottom around his finger, a wicked half smile twisting his lips. “Then, as I said, prove it.”

  Grabbing the bathing suit, she tossed it over her shoulder. “In your dreams.”

  “I have a feeling that could be arranged,” he muttered, picking up the orange pill again. “We’re back to this, then. What is it?”

  “I cannot recall.”

  In response, he opened the adjoining door, which was a bathroom, and once again, as if she were no more potentially dangerous than a flea, turned his back on her.

  If only she had the nerve to clobber him over his very handsome head! If only someone knew where she was, darn it.

  John Henry knew, not that he’d care if she didn’t show up at work. Maybe he’d mention it. Preferably to Meg Turner, the woman in bookkeeping. With the financials due tomorrow, she’d be wondering.

  But would the standoffish Meg care if Nina didn’t show up? Probably not, as Meg had been hired by Terry, and seemed unhappy without her.

  Nope, no one would notice.

  Searching through the medicine cabinet, Rick suddenly went very still.

  Behind him, staring at nothing but his wide shoulders so rippled with strength, Nina swallowed hard.

  When he turned around, he was holding up a small bottle, mouth grim, eyes hard. “Yours, huh?”

  Oops. This was bad, very bad. “Um—”

  “Let me refresh your memory.” He shook the bottle. “Seasickness pills. Still want to claim that little orange pill as yours?”

  “Um—”

  “Give it up, Nina. I know damn well you’d die before wearing that yellow scrap for a bathing suit. And don’t even try to tell me you bought that sun-dress designed to give fully grown men heart failure. I won’t buy that, and I won’t buy you wearing screw-me-red lipstick, so I sure as hell won’t buy this pill being yours.”

  She just stared at him, utterly unused to being so thoroughly cross-examined.

  “I suppose you can tell me why Terry, a woman prone to seasickness, would go out sailing in an approaching squall?”

  He took a step toward her, and suddenly the rather spacious bathroom seemed far too confining for the both of them. She backed up and found herself caged in by the sink.

  He kept coming, a strange light in his eyes. “You’re not talking.”

  “I...” He had the most amazing, arresting, mesmerizing eyes. She couldn’t tear her gaze away, and yet she needed to duck, to run past him and go for the phone, for anything that would get her far, far away.

  “You what?” he asked softly, pinning her to the sink by placing a hand on either side of her hips. His mouth curved slightly. “Run out of excuses? Lies? What?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  “I have my own questions!” She risked his wrath by lifting her hands and shoving against his chest.

  She’d have had more luck trying to move a brick wall.

  “Your own questions, huh?” He cocked his head. “Okay, that’s fair. I’ve asked enough of my own. Go ahead—ask me a question.”

  “Just one?”

  He looked down at the hands that were still on his hard, unyielding chest.

  She yanked them back.

  “Just one,” he said, lifting a mocking brow, entirely unmoved by her fear, by her frustration, by the fact she’d touched him.

  Her hands were burning. “And you will answer?” she asked doubtfully, oddly breathless.

  “You won’t know until you try, will you?”

  If only he’d back up. This close she could see his eyes were so green, so fathomless she could have drowned in them. There were fine lines fanning out from the corners, lines that she somehow doubted were from laughter. His hair curled around the collar of his shirt.

  And his mouth, Meu Deus, what a mouth. “If you had found Terry here, would you have turned her in?”

  He frowned. “To the law? No.”

  “But—”

  He set a finger to her lips, a touch that electrified her from the inside out. “One question,” he said in a voice of silk. “That was all I agreed to. Now I get one. Where is she?”

  Nina stiffened, and would have backed up if she could. Now was the time to run, she decided, and she ducked, intending to go for it.

  He had her against the wall, held there by his body, before she could blink. “Going somewhere?”

  Locking her jaw, she refused to talk.

  “Lord, save me from stubborn women,” he sighed, a motion that brought her body in even fuller contact with his long, lean, tough one. “Is this your decision then? Are you going to keep running without talking to me?”

  She glared up at him.

  “Okay, just remember, I tried to give you a way out of this.” With that warning, he pulled something out of his back pocket.

  She heard the click of metal, then another, and looked down in horror.

  He’d handcuffed her to him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TOY CONNOISSEUR—and brilliant gem thief, if he did say so himself—Leo Hayes paced the length of his spacious living room, which overlooked the bay.

  It was a gorgeous night. Brilliant stars made the water sparkle. During the day, the view became even more spectacular, because on the beach far below the cliffs where he’d had his mansion built lay wall-to-wall bathing beauties, all scantily dressed.

  Leo had only dreamed of such a world, and now it was his.

  He’d made his name by being the best toy maker in all of North America. And thanks to his contacts, he was well on his way in South America as well.

  But that’s not what had made him wealthy beyond reason. No, that came from his little hobby—smuggling gems.

  And yet that lucrative sideline had been yanked out from beneath his feet, all in one swipe, thanks to Terry Monteverde. She’d been framed for embezzling and gem smuggling, in supposed cahoots with his operation here in Rio, and his entire setup had been shut down.

  By a stroke of luck—and some heavy bribing—Leo himself had only had one brush with the law. Regardless, he wanted his revenge, since Terry had ended up with two of his most precious diamonds, which had been stolen to implicate her.

  They were still missing.

  Oh, yes, he wanted his revenge, though fat lot of good that would do him now that she was dead.

  He really resented that.

  “It’s a pretty evening, right, boss?”

  Maybe. But he saw none of it, saw nothing but the three minions standing nervously before him, shifting uncomfortably on their feet at his unwavering stare.

  “You’ve failed me,” he said quietly.

  They trembled.

  “I asked for one thing. Watch the sister. Find out if she has my diamonds. How difficult could that be?”

  “Senhorita Nina Monteverde has been watched very carefully,” one dared to say, though his voice quavered. “We’ve not seen or heard of your diamonds.”

  Leo slid his hands into his pockets, filling his fingers with the two toy marbles he always kept there. The cool comfort of them rolling between his fingers soothed his temper. Slightly. “What have you seen?”

  “The American bounty hunter. He’s been sniffing around for a few days.”

  “Why?”

  The three men shuffled some more and studied their shoes, the ceiling, anything but Leo, which only enraged him.

  “You do not know,” he breathed softly. “You should. It’s what I pay you for.”
/>
  “He’s after Nina Monteverde.” The one who spoke took a sharp look from Leo, and he ducked his head. “He followed her to the mountain estate...we think.”

  “You think.” Leo nodded thoughtfully, worried the marbles between his fingers, and sighed. “You think. Obviously, you moron, someone else is searching for my diamonds.”

  Three faces looked dismayed. After all, the diamonds were an unusual, perfectly matched pair worth millions, and had last been seen in the possession of the dead Monteverde sister.

  Now someone was following Nina.

  “I should kill all of you,” he said conversationally.

  They looked horrified.

  “But I will give you one more chance.”

  Three eager heads nodded with relief.

  “Find out who the American is working for, and exactly what he wants. You do that, and I will forget how stupid you all are.”

  * * *

  NINA REACHED for her glass of water, heard the clank of metal on metal, and glared at the man seated at the kitchen table with her, the man she was currently handcuffed to. Forcing her jaw to relax, she said, “I am thirsty.”

  “Are you?” Sprawled back in his chair, hands behind his head—which left her reaching up at a funny angle, not to mention sitting far too close to him—he crossed his booted feet as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  While he appeared incredibly lax and maybe even lazy, Nina knew this to be far from true. Coiled in that stretched-out body was more muscle, more rangy strength than she’d ever seen in a man.

  Granted, she had little experience. Okay, one experience. But that had been long ago. And no man she had ever met had been like Rick Singleton.

  “Can you lean forward?” she asked frostily.

  Only his eyes moved, and they landed on her with unerring accuracy. “I’m quite comfortable.”

  “But I want my water.”

  “All you have to do is talk to me. Tell me what I want to know.”

  “And you will let me go?”

  “I told you I would.”

  She thought about Terry, about how much danger her sister must be in that she hadn’t been able to contact Baba to let her know she was okay.

  If she was okay.

  At that thought, Nina’s eyes burned. Her throat closed as the grief welled up and grabbed her by the heart.