by Avery Flynn
“What do you mean dangerous?” she asked, feigning a naïve look.
“Many have come looking for Molina family members, and not all have returned.” The agent backed up a few steps.
“But we need to ask her some questions,” Devin said. He pulled out his wallet and took out a hundred dollar bill.
The agent’s gaze locked on the greenback. “Questions?”
“She has something of mine.” He held out the money.
“I see you speak our native tongue.” The agent swiped the bill and glanced over his shoulder. “Find Borja at The Palm Inn.” Without another word, he jogged back to the terminal.
“Please tell me The Palm Inn is the hotel where we’re staying,” Ryder said.
Devin pulled out his cell phone and texted a travel change request to George’s executive assistant, Suzie, so she could make the reservation change, then he climbed into the Jeep’s driver’s seat. “It is now.”
“So, it seems Sarah was hiding more than just her embezzlement scheme.” She slid into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door. “If her family is the local badass clan, this whole operation just kicked it up a notch.”
With that thought hanging in the wind, he hit the highway for the ten-mile drive to Andol City proper. As they drove, he rolled the idea of a Molina crime family around in his mind, and the best way to go after her, if it was true.
“I see the wheels turning in your head.” Ryder twisted in her seat to face him. She wore sunglasses, but he could still feel the weight of her glare. “You can forget about it. George hired Maltese because we’re good. I’m in charge of this case because I’m good. You’re going to have to relax and let me take the lead.”
“So, in your imagination”—he put a full slathering of prep school snob into his voice—“I’m just your driver?”
She raised her sunglasses to her forehead. “If it makes you feel better, you can add arm candy to your list of duties.” She winked, and lowered her glasses.
“That doesn’t fly. I’m the client, and whatever the client says, goes.”
“When we set up base camp, go through that list of files on your laptop and look for the Maltese contract. You’ll see it in black and white. When George signed the dotted line, he ceded primary decision-making on the case to Maltese—ergo, me.” She grabbed her long, thick hair and whipped the wavy mass into a braid that fell between her shoulder blades.
“I’m not George.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel before he bent the damn thing. “And I’m not the assistant.”
“Pity. I think this case would go a lot smoother if you were.” She scrolled through her notes on her tablet. “We need to hit the tea shop first.” Wisps of the wavy strands whirled around her face, a few sticking to the shiny gloss of her full lips.
How could such a hot woman be so fucking annoying?
He pulled his gaze from her in time to see a beat up van that was coming toward them drift into their lane. Heart racing, he slammed his hand on the horn.
The van continued straight for them, the driver either too out of it or not giving a shit that he was about to ram another vehicle head on. Considering the horror stories Devin had heard about drivers here, it could be either one.
Devin swerved off the road, the dirt shoulder rumbling beneath the tires, and hit the gas. The Jeep bolted forward, avoiding the van by inches before leaving the bucket of bolts in the dust.
“Shit. Tell me everyone around here doesn’t drive like that.” Ryder tested her seat belt.
“I sure as hell hope not.” Adrenaline sailed through his veins.
The first brightly-colored, single-story buildings of Andol City appeared around the bend. Something about the cheerfulness of it all calmed Devin’s jittery pulse. He kept his gaze locked on the unlined blacktop road and the rolling hills beyond it. “You sure we should hit the tea shop first and not Sarah’s family farm?”
If he were hiding out, he’d pick a huge tract of land to get lost on, instead of a tiny store in the heart of downtown Andol City. But it wasn’t like Sarah gave a flying fuck about getting caught. Everything she’d done so far had been thrown straight in George’s face, like a woman scorned.
“I went through the pictures of her office and the written inventory of her stuff.” Ryder tapped her stylus on the screen and brought up a photo. “There are teapots from the same Andol City shop everywhere. This is a woman with a serious kettle addiction and almost five million dollars burning a hole in her pocket. Trust me, if she’s not at the shop now, it’s only because she’s already been there.”
He hated to admit it, but her plan made sense.
“Sarah’s niece, Dominga, manages the place, so I’m guessing the staff probably won’t be open to telling us if they’ve seen Sarah,” she said.
“It’s a small island. We’ll find her.” He turned the corner. “Anyway, it’s not like she’s been inconspicuous so far.”
Andol City was home to fifty thousand residents and several thousand tourists every season—enough to make finding Sarah a challenge, but not impossible. Especially when she wasn’t trying to hide her tracks.
Tea Time was located in a teal blue building that sat on the north corner of the tourist-clogged downtown square. Everywhere he looked, the distinctive ring-tipped Andol cats roamed the streets, free and unafraid of humans, much like the monkeys in India.
Devin parked the hot pink monstrosity of a vehicle in front of the store. The six-feet-high windows showcased shelf after shelf of delicate china teapots painted in island colors.
“I didn’t realize tea was so big here.” Ryder’s seat belt zipped across her high breasts as it rewound into the Jeep’s frame.
Devin fought to make his brain process her words, while his body processed something else entirely. “It’s not, but a majority of the tourists are British, so the teapots make sense.”
“Is there anything your research didn’t turn up?”
Such a smartass.
He grinned despite himself. “Sarah’s exact GPS coordinates.”
They got out of the Jeep and crossed the raised boardwalk to Tea Time’s display windows. Ryder peeked in. There was no way the woman could pass as a tourist. Dressed in head-to-toe, tight-fitting black, she looked one hundred percent badass business and zero percent vacation. What he wouldn’t give to strip her out of those clothes and talk her into making it a naked vacation. His cock certainly liked the idea.
She eyeballed his reflection. “So, if this is such an open-and-shut, grab-and-bag case, why did you need Maltese Security’s help?”
Guilt’s strong fingers squeezed his chest like a stress ball, and he considered taking the chicken’s way out. He could make up an excuse. He opened his mouth, but his tongue refused to form the lie. “You’re here for the same reason that I’ll go down if the merger fails.”
A warm island breeze teased loose a long strand of dark brown hair from her braid. The strand batted against her locked jaw as she thinned her full lips. “Maltese is the scapegoat.”
“If George has taught me anything, it’s always to have a backup plan.”
“Sweet guy.”
Devin grunted. What could he say? It wasn’t like he could deny it. George might look like a slightly slimmer, beardless Santa, but when it came to business, the man was as cold and calculating as Jack Frost—something Devin had learned firsthand as the old man’s protégé.
George had taught Devin everything he knew about surviving in the ultra-competitive fashion merchandising world. He thought he’d seen cut-throat players when he played tight end at Stanford, but Dylan’s Department Store’s pocket-sized head buyer, Betty Webster, would have made the three hundred pound linebackers quake in their cleats. And the number one lesson George had taught him was: always watch his back. Always.
“Come on.” He rested his palm against the small of her back to guide her into the tea shop. Electricity, strong and sure, surged up his arm and straight down to his dick. “Let’s see if a
nyone inside knows where Sarah is.”
Ignoring the world-weary sigh Ryder let out, he pushed open the door and marched after her. A blast of arctic-level air conditioning and the trill of a bell welcomed him into the Earl Grey-scented store. A pair of elderly women in flower-print dresses puttered around the teapot displays, while the men he assumed were their husbands loitered by the door. Each held four shopping bags in his liver-spotted hands.
Wordlessly, Devin and Ryder split up, taking opposite routes around the crowded shop. He turned down a narrow aisle and came face-to-face with a young woman in an orange Tea Time golf shirt.
Her almond-shaped eyes widened at the sight of him. “Is there anything particular I can help you find?” She swept back her long, straight black hair and revealed the name Dominga embroidered on the shirt.
Bingo.
He plastered on his most charming smile—the same one that had gotten Ann Ackerman to slide off her panties in the back of his Beemer during their sophomore year in prep school. “I’m sure you can.”
Dominga’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Devin Harris. She said George would send his lackey for the money. Stay here. Aunt Sarah left you a note.”
A bird could have pooped on his head and he wouldn’t have been as surprised. Mouth gaping, he watched Dominga disappear behind a door marked Employees Only.
“This just feels wrong on so many levels.” Ryder sidled up to him.
“Agreed.” He kept his gaze focused on the door, but his body instantly hardened in some kind of Pavlovian-response to her proximity and her intoxicating scent.
“What’s really going on here?”
Now, that was the billion dollar question. “Wish I knew.”
Dominga sauntered out, handed him a pale pink envelope and, without another word, wandered off toward a pair of older women excitedly discussing a teal teapot in clipped British accents.
Clearing his throat, he bought time by slowly turning the envelope over. The soft, feminine paper made him as edgy as if he’d held a damaged grenade with a loose pin. With care, he picked at the sealed flap, then slid his thumb across the opening until he could pull the note free.
Ryder scooted in closer, her bare shoulder brushing against him.
He flipped open the note. Four sentences in blue ink were scrawled across the unlined paper.
It figures that he’d send you to do his dirty work. You’ll never get the money back. Leave now or you’ll pay the price. The store’s bottom line isn’t worth your life.
“She’s looking out for us. That’s comforting.” Ryder’s frustrated words brushed against his ear. “You go ahead and take the jet home. I’ll find her and bring her back.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” A twitch in his left eye—the one that usually announced an oncoming migraine—started in full force. “You may be the investigator, but I’m still running the show.”
Too bad it felt like the show was running him over. Exhaling a deep breath, he closed his eyes and counted to twenty. “Let’s check into our rooms at The Palm Inn. We have an hour before the opening celebration for Andol Fashion Week. It’s a traditional affair with costumes. Ours will be waiting at the hotel.”
He needed to get to the damn hotel, take his migraine medication, and figure out some fucking answers before another curveball hit him between the eyes.
God, he fucking hated surprises.
Chapter Six
“It’s pathetic to have regrets about fashion.”
— Simon LeBon
Gritting her teeth, Ryder turned sideways and checked herself out in the floor-to-ceiling mirror next to the huge sunken tub in the suite at The Palm Inn that was supposed to have two bedrooms, but instead held only one large bed. By the time they’d checked in, all of the other rooms had been taken.
She couldn’t deny it, her nipples looked like she’d spent the afternoon in the Siberian tundra instead of traipsing from one end of this tiny tropical island to the other. As president of the itty-bitty-titty committee, her idea of a boob support usually meant the little shelf bra in her tank tops, which she had in abundance in twelve shades of black. But the diaphanous, soft yellow sarong didn’t come with a built-in bra, and the feel of the silky material against her sensitive flesh had her headlights flashing. That had to be the reason. The only other explanation was because she’d spent the day with Devin, and she wasn’t willing even to contemplate the implications of that. She still wanted to smack herself for telling him about Heath, but couldn’t deny that the unburdening had left her feeling lighter.
However, she still wasn’t crazy enough to enjoy this outfit that was in another time zone from her comfort zone. For the billionth time in the past three minutes, she considered refusing to wear the damn thing that tied around her neck like a filmy halter dress. But that would only serve to tip off the fashionable elite gathering in the courtyard to celebrate the opening of Andol Fashion Week that something was amiss with Devin and his new personal assistant. They couldn’t afford to have the gossips talking about them when they needed to get them to talk about Sarah.
Staying in hiding while the fashionistas gathered had to be driving Sarah nuts. From what Ryder had read in the brief, the older woman’s ego wouldn’t be able to take it. She’d have to show up. Hell, she might even be downstairs right now.
She smoothed her palms down the filmy material as if she could iron out the jumbled turns her stomach was taking.
You can go out there like this. You don’t have a choice.
Capturing Sarah was the fastest way to get Devin Harris and his drool-inducing ass out of her life forever. And that was worth enduring the sarong, nipple hard-ons and all.
Resolve strengthening her spine, she ignored the mirror and strutted out of the safety of the bathroom. She made it three steps across the sand-colored tile floor before she came to a dead stop.
Devin lay in the middle of the king-sized bed. He’d flung one muscular arm across his eyes, highlighting his square jaw and lush lips. He wore a matching yellow sarong, but his was draped low on his narrow hips, leaving his tattooed chest on full display. The man was a brick house of painted muscle and power.
Her tongue turned to lust-flavored sawdust and an ache began to build in her core.
A series of sharp beeps sounded, and Devin rolled over and sat up with his back to her. A giant oak tree climbed up his spine, its branches covering his shoulder blades. A set of initials were carved into the finely-detailed bark near the bottom of the trunk: J.H. Whoever she was, J.H. obviously meant something to Devin.
Don’t care. Doesn’t matter.
“We gotta get rolling.” Devin stretched, his back muscles undulating the tree branches like a stiff breeze. “Although, I don’t know if I can face anyone I know wearing this outfit.” He shut off the phone’s alarm, grabbed the room key from the bedside table, and started to turn around. “I have no idea where I’m going to put this—”
His light brown eyes widened, and their black irises dilated. The muscles in his shoulders bunched, but the rest of him became as still as a statue—the kind that would put David to shame. His gaze dropped from her face, and he gulped audibly.
Tension snapped between them like a rubber band, stinging her already warm skin. Everything except for her damn nipples went soft and pliant. Like a lazy cat, she just wanted to curl around his thick thighs and rub against him.
“I don’t suppose I’m really going to need this.” He held up the phone, his hand shaking just a bit. “I’ll leave the key at the front desk.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Her plan needed to be ignoring the hard body in front of her.
Good luck with that one.
Devin locked his jaw and brushed past her, stopping only when he’d reached the suite’s door. His shoulders rose on a deep breath and he turned the knob, holding the door open.
Keeping her gaze on the diagonal pattern of the tile floor, she held her breath and hurried out into the hall speedily enough that her sarong’s train floated
behind her.
“Ryder.” Devin’s voice stopped her in her tracks and she turned. “You look really…pretty.”
Warmth rushed up her chest to her hairline. Men had called her hot or fine or sexy, but they’d never called her pretty. That descriptor was saved for sweeter girls than her. Emotional necessity after the Heath debacle had required her to create a hardened, bitch-please persona, and few people ever saw past it.
But Devin had. And she had no idea what to do with that bit of information.
…
A bellhop led them out to The Palm Inn’s large, private courtyard, overshadowed by the sleeping volcano, De Mis Promesas. Dozens of people sat at small tables scattered around the decorative brick patio. All were dressed in brightly colored sarongs of various tropical shades, the traditional garb taken upscale by the addition of enough diamonds to make even Harry Winston consider it overkill—and he’d owned the Hope Diamond.
Supermodels mixed with photographers, designers, and the lucky few able to afford the creations that would be displayed during Andol Fashion Week. Waiters carrying silver trays strolled between the groups, handing out fresh glasses of champagne, which was accepted immediately, and mouth-watering Hors d’oeuvres, which were not.
A long table sat in an open, grassy area and was covered in a beautiful white linen table cloth and dishes of exotic fruits and seafood. Ryder’s stomach growled and Devin’s echoed it. Considering the crowd, she doubted anyone would be elbowing her aside to get seconds at the buffet table.
A broad-shouldered man who looked as though he spent his life surfing between modeling gigs hurried to their side. “Mr. Harris and Ms. Falcon, I am The Palm Inn’s manager, Borja. I’m so sorry about the room. To make up for the mix-up in accommodations for such honored guests as you, we’ve prepared a blessing ceremony for you. Please follow me.”
“Really, it’s not necessary,” Devin said.
“But I insist.” Borja turned and walked across the courtyard.
After exchanging a let’s-just-follow-along glance with Devin, Ryder followed the man past the table and through the sparkling crowd. At the edge of the brick patio, Borja removed his shoes. She and Devin followed suit. The cool grass pricked the soles of her feet and tickled between her toes as they crossed to a tall palm tree standing alone in the volcano’s dark shadow.