Until he crumpled over in pain.
The little witch had kneed him in the balls and he hadn’t even seen it coming. Over his gasps, he heard her say, “I can take care of myself, whoever you are.”
By the time he could stand up again, he saw that she had sauntered into Beckett’s state-of-the-art kitchen that her brother had by all appearances never even boiled an egg in. She was rummaging inside a practically empty cupboard when he entered. “It’s a mystery to me what Brendan eats when he’s home. He never has any food. I don’t know why he even has a butler if the guy never shops or something.”
When she turned back to him, a ghost of a smile played on her glossy lips, some cherry-colored lip balm appearing to be her only makeup. “Oh, you. Come to frighten the little girl again?”
He smiled despite himself. “I do like a woman who can protect herself. My apologies, Miss Beckett. I underestimated you.”
She laughed. “My new brother-in-law taught me a lot of neat moves like that. He grew up on the streets or something. He thinks every woman should know how to defend herself. You should see my sister Virginia now. She’s really into it.”
“Yeah, well, from what I’ve heard, Virginia Beckett’s always known how to take care of herself.”
“I guess that’s true. So, should we start again? I’m Brendan’s sister, Mindy, and you are in Brendan’s apartment why?”
“I’m putting in some security systems for him.” More or less true. “And I of all people should know better than to judge a book by its cover. Sorry for that, Miss Beckett. You’re not the shrinking violet I took you for.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everybody does. Underestimate me, I mean. I’m used to it.”
“I’ll get going now, then.”
“Don’t let me chase you out.”
“Well, you did beat me up,” he pointed out.
She smiled. “If I promise to go easy on you, will you stay and finish doing whatever it was you were doing before I got here?”
She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and wrapped it around her tiny waist. It amazed him what young girls these days considered tops. The black bustier with spaghetti straps encasing her high, sweet little tits looked more like lingerie to him, but she undoubtedly didn’t think twice about wearing it to class.
She caught him looking and smiled.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Old enough.”
Man, this girl really was dangerous.
“Nineteen,” she added, as if that was supposed to make him feel better.
The front door opened and slammed shut again. “Mindy? Are you here?”
Sam turned around and saw this girl’s twin. Literally. She was dressed differently, a little more upscale in a short miniskirt and some high heels he bet cost more than he made in a month, but her face was identical. More make-up, but identical. And this one wasn’t carrying any books.
“Well, hi! Who is this, Min?”
“Actually, I never got your name,” the first girl said to him.
As if one gorgeous young girl wasn’t enough. “Sam Kendon. And I’m just going.”
“Don’t go, Sam Kendon. Are you my sister’s?”
“No, Missy, he’s not mine. I just found him here when I got here. He’s doing some work for Brendan on the apartment.”
“Ooh la la, a carpenter or something? How sexy, with those big brown eyes and dark hair. Though you should let it grow out a little. You look like you just got out of the marines or something.”
Okay, time to go. They weren’t jailbait, but close enough to make him uncomfortable. Especially given how open they seemed to be.
“No, he does security systems, Missy. Or else he broke in here. I’m not really sure which.”
“A thief! Wow. Even better.”
“Okay, well, I’ll just be going now.”
“I don’t know,” the new one said, “maybe we should take you as our prisoner. What do you think, Mindy? He’s awfully cute.”
Again with the cute. It was starting to piss him off, maybe even more than getting kicked in the balls had. When had he become such a pussy?
“Maybe we should just call Brendan,” Mindy said.
“No way, he’d just yell at us for barging into his apartment without asking for permission first. Although I don’t see the big deal would be since he’s off in the Caymans with Miss Mystery Babe.”
Sam had his hand on the door knob to the front door, but turned around at that. “Mystery Babe? What do you mean by that? Just that you’ve never met her?”
“More like Brendan’s barely met her. The story I got from Virginia, who got it straight from Aaron, is that Brendan didn’t even know who the girl was before the wedding. Virginia’s wedding, I mean.”
“But someone did,” he persisted. “Know her, right? I mean, she was at your sister’s wedding, not working at it or something?”
“In the dress she had on,” Mindy commented, “I should say she wasn’t working at it. Though I did see her holed up with one of the waiters later on.”
“She’s probably just Brendan’s usual easy lay.”
“Was she a guest or wasn’t she?” he said sharply.
“Well, that’s the funny part. Virginia and Aaron didn’t really know who she was. Neither of them did. And she probably didn’t come with anyone since Brendan got her up to his room without much trouble. So why she was at the wedding—”
“Hey, where are you going?”
He was in the penthouse elevator before he allowed himself the luxury of swearing. When he was done, it all came down to one thought. That stupid jerk.
* * * * *
Brendan was just stepping out of the shower, one he’d had to force himself not to wake Sophia up to join him in, when his cell phone rang. Toweling himself off, he glanced at the caller ID. Shit. He should just ignore it, like he had the previous five calls. What was with this guy? He couldn’t just leave a message? He threw the towel down and stepped into a pair of shorts. Picking the cell up, he glanced at the closed bathroom door, and said in his most unwelcoming voice, “What?”
“You really are a dick, Beckett.”
What the fuck? Who was bothering who here? Mandrake was showing his usual bad taste in men with this guy apparently. “Look, Kendon, forget you have this number. I don’t like to be bothered with details—”
“And I don’t like to be bothered with spoiled rich guys who are too stupid to take the most basic necessary precautions or at least to warn me when they don’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You hired me to try to find out why someone would break into your apartment, bug it, drug you probably—”
“What? I was drugged, you think?”
“And then hold you at gunpoint. That’s my job, right?”
“Until I fire you, which I believe I may be about to do.”
“Well, before you do, might I point out that guys held at gunpoint in their apartment by women they can’t see should be a little cautious in their dealings with the opposite sex immediately thereafter?”
“Who’s saying I’m not?”
“You are so thinking with your dick. You run off to the Caymans—“
“What business is it of yours?”
“With a mysterious girl you picked up at your sister’s wedding.”
“Is that all this hissy fit is about? Don’t sweat it, Kendon. I pick up mysterious girls all the time. It’s no big deal.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d suspected the same thing himself, especially now that he knew that was ridiculous.
“Yeah, everybody’s free with that particular fact, which leads me to believe that whoever that babe is you got with you is probably your midnight intruder.”
“Based on what?” Brendan scoffed.
He could practically hear the other guy shaking his head over the phone. “What’s her name?”
“Sophia.”
“Sophia what?” At the noticeable pause on Brendan’s part
, Kendon added, “The fact you don’t know her last name is the only thing you got going for you. Any con would have a phony last name and a whole background story mapped out.”
“See?” Brendan said. “It’s not her. I knew it couldn’t be anyway.”
“Oh yeah, how is that?”
He didn’t want to tell him the real reason, so he told him the first one that had occurred to him. “The girl in my bedroom that night, ah, felt different.”
“Not the right height?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“What?”
“Okay, she was flat.”
“Oh, for Christ sake.”
“And Sophia is most definitely not.”
“You ever heard of a jogging bra, buddy?”
Brendan let the uncomfortable thought—which he’d dismissed when he discovered Sophia was a virgin—back into his head. He supposed the two, virgin and burglar, were not necessarily mutually exclusive. He didn’t like the idea she might be mixed up in all this, even less so than when he’d had it originally. It couldn’t be Sophia. It couldn’t be. This guy was just paranoid. “Look, why are you so worried it could be her? As I said, this kind of thing is not that unusual for me.”
“Because the thief was a woman, which is unusual. Because if she was beautiful, she’d know that hooking up with you would be fairly easy and that it’d be the perfect way to get what she wants.”
“Which is what?”
“You bought something of value recently. What was it?”
“I buy a lot of things. Can you be a little more specific?”
“There was a withdrawal from one of your accounts a few weeks ago. Fifty thousand dollars. Why would you need that much cash? What was it for?”
“Jesus, Kendon, I guess cell phone numbers aren’t the only unauthorized thing you’re good at getting. You snooped into my bank records?”
“Get over yourself. What was it?”
“Nothing. Just a wedding present for Virginia. But it sure as hell isn’t important enough to break into my apartment for or,” he glanced at the closed door from the bathroom to the bedroom, “anything.”
“You let me be the judge of that. I need to know every detail. But most importantly, I need to know where it is now. And another thing, as soon as we hang up, take a picture of your friend there with your cell phone, preferably without making a big deal of it. Then email it to me.”
* * * * *
After a few minutes, Brendan came out from the bathroom, cell phone in hand, at the last minute holding it out in front of him. Catching her by surprise, he took a picture with it.
Sophia blinked, bringing her hand up too late to block her face. “What was that for?”
“Nothing.” He fiddled with his phone, and then slid it into the pocket of the shorts that he, to her disappointment, had put on. If she had her way, they’d just stay naked the whole time. “You just looked cute curled up under the covers is all.”
“Did somebody call?”
“One of my sisters. So you want to walk into town today?”
Not really. She’d really rather stay in bed with him. She stretched. How pathetic was that?
“Maybe later?” she responded.
“What do you want to do now?”
“What do you usually do in the morning when you bring a girl here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never brought a girl here.”
“You’re kidding me.”
He kissed her lightly. “No, I’m not.” He pushed her to lay back on the pillows and sat on the bed next to her. “But I’ll tell you what I’d like to do with the girl I did bring here.”
“What?”
“Just let me get these shorts off if we’re not going to walk into town and I’ll tell you.”
A few hours later, they did manage to make it into town, an open-air bazaar of sorts lining the street with all manner of colorful wares for sale. From one of the displays, Sophia picked up a pair of black sunglasses, big and round and Jackie-O style. Just how she liked them. She slipped them on.
“You like those?”
It was a young man’s voice. He sounded no more than her age. She took the sunglasses off and hung them on the rack. “No.”
Only then did she take a good look at the man behind the makeshift counter. She would have recognized him, despite the goatee and the cheeks and whatever he’d done to his hair. Even the remarkable change in carriage that Arthur was perfect at would not have fooled her. If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her fantasy of being Brendan Beckett’s girlfriend.
“What are you doing here?” she asked coldly.
“Give you a good price, man,” Arthur said loudly, handing her the glasses back. “They look good on you.”
Only when she slipped them on again did he answer, presumably because no one was standing nearby at that particular moment. His voice was the same, but quieter. “I’m here to see that you remember what you’re here for.”
She dug into her purse for some bills. “It’s going fine.”
“Not the honeymoon part. Spare me the details on that. Midnight swims and all.” She was handing him three one-dollar bills with suddenly shaking hands. He took them.
“Can’t you just leave me alone? Just for a few days?”
“We don’t have a few days, Sophia. I can’t seem to get that fact through to you.” He turned around abruptly and slid the bills into a cash box.
“Nice. I like them.” Brendan slid his arms around her waist.
“Yeah. Me too. And they were cheap.”
He laughed. “Watch out. You get what you pay for.”
“Don’t I know it. Come on. I’m hungry.” She took his hand from around her waist and led him away.
“No glasses for you, mister?” Arthur called after them.
Brendan looked back over his shoulder. “No thanks. I got all I need.”
Sitting out at an open-air table in a cafe a few minutes later, looking out at the water, a cruise ship within sight, Sophia tried to muster up some of her training. “So, I was thinking, Brendan. You have so much stuff. How do you even go about deciding what to buy and not buy? Does somebody just do that for you? A personal shopper or something?”
“Why? Are you volunteering?”
“No. I hate to shop.” Why the hell was she giving honest answers again? “But if I did, what would I have bought for you in the last few weeks?”
His face tightened imperceptibly. Imperceptible to most people. She was good at reading faces. Another gift from Arthur and his early rigorous training.
“I don’t know. A wedding present for my sister, maybe. Why were you at the wedding?”
She could see the suspicion in his eyes. Had she been too clunky about all this? Was she losing her perspective?
She fiddled with the salt shaker. “I was there to meet you.” Sometimes, only the truth would do. Or part of it anyway. Again, another of Arthur’s life lessons.
“Why would you want to go to all the trouble to do that?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“No, Sophia. I can’t.”
Oh, that hard note in his voice was oh so not good. She had never heard it. Not even when she was sitting on his stomach with a gun to his head. She was going to blow this. She really was.
“I had a crush on you.”
After a moment, he said, “I’ve never even met you before.”
“Well, I’ve met you. You just didn’t know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Four Seasons. San Francisco. Three and a half weeks ago. You were in the hallway with this total jerk who was abusing some maid.”
“What?”
“That’s how I knew you spoke Spanish.”
“You weren’t there. I would have seen you.”
“I was looking through the peep hole.” Sticking as close to the truth as possible when you were really lying through your teeth was always a good idea. “From my own room.” Not too close to the truth, thou
gh. “I heard a ruckus, as they say, through the door. It was so unusual for a hotel of that caliber that I couldn’t resist being a busybody. I saw what happened.”
“What happened?” he said cautiously.
She didn’t know if it was a test or if it was so inconsequential to him he really didn’t remember. “You were really sweet to this Hispanic maid, who wasn’t even pretty or anything, and you practically beat up the asshole who was rude to her.”
“You saw that?”
“Yep. And the guy said your name. It made me want to meet you.”
“So? We were at the same hotel. Why didn’t you?”
“My Dad was still around then.”
“Oh.”
“And then I read about your sister’s wedding and, I admit it, I crashed just to meet you. But I’m not a stalker or anything,” she added hurriedly.
The waitress finally came to the table. Sophia ordered a lemonade and a burger. Brendan ordered a beer. Just a beer.
“You’re not hungry?”
Without answering, he downed the beer handily when the waitress brought it and caught her attention to get another. He seemed to be working up to something. She gazed out at the cruise ship, too big apparently to dock right in the harbor. It was some ways off. They must shuttle people to and from it.
“Look, Sophia,” he finally said. “I like you. A lot.”
She smiled.
“But you have to admit you’re acting kind of weird. And I’ve had some things happen to me recently—”
“Like what?”
“Somebody broke into my apartment.”
She laughed. There was no other way to play this. “You’re accusing me of breaking into your apartment? I wanted to meet you, but not that bad.”
He said nothing.
“What did they take?” she prompted.
“Nothing, as far as I can tell.”
“Wouldn’t a stalker at least take a pair of underwear or something?”
SeductiveIntent Page 11