by Lori Foster
Lacey Baptiste had been the queen of the Atlanta party scene, crowned long before her eighteenth birthday. Since scoring her first fake ID in high school, Lacey and her friends had ruled the social arena in every part of Atlanta from Buckhead to Midtown. If other women envied her, Lacey barely had time to notice. She’d been too busy dancing and drinking and sometimes even singing on Karaoke night.
Not to mention hanging out with the guys who gave Hotlanta its name. Back then, she’d had more men chasing her than she’d known what to do with. Yet the ones she’d allowed to catch her had taught her quite a bit. But never one to dabble with anything as serious as a committed relationship, she’d flitted away from each of them at the first opportunity, preferring to live wild and free.
Now the words “serious” and “committed” defined her life. She’d graduated from Emory, then been recruited to Quantico, Virginia, as a supervisory special agent for the FBI, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime division. Now she was a top agent in her department and an instructor at Quantico. Her eye for detail, innate curiosity and natural profiling abilities clinched her quick invitation onto the elite NCAVC team. She trained new recruits, supervised interns, and often took the lead position in tough-to-solve cases, even though she was still considered a rookie by most of the vets.
So to ensure she held on to their respect, Lacey focused every aspect of her life on being the best FBI agent in Virginia. She wore professional clothes, hair and makeup—all the time, even when off-duty. She kept her voice low, her necklines high. Her flirtatious personality? Permanently sidelined. Her insatiable need for fun? Tucked neatly away in a memory book.
Just weeks away from her annual review, Lacey knew a promotion, perhaps even a transfer to headquarters, loomed in her future like gold at the end of the rainbow. The flavor of success teased her tastebuds with the same bite as the Pucker Sour Apple liqueur in her drink. She wouldn’t risk her career, but she’d been desperate to break free, live, party and savor life’s pleasures, if only for a few days.
Which was why she’d insisted her sister, her last living relative in Atlanta, arrange for some male companionship for her on her first trip home in four years. The guy Eve had lined up had possessed all the makings of a perfect weekend fling—good-looking, self-supporting, sports-car owning…and with enough clout to gain them entrance to Atlanta’s hottest new club.
Why he’d cleared out two minutes after learning what she did for a living had her considering just what he did to afford his designer clothes and foreign-made car. Luckily, she’d been quick enough to note the license-plate number on his Jag. Come Monday morning, she’d put her knowledge to use. No one ran from the FBI unless they had something to hide.
And no one dumped Lacey Baptiste without paying a price.
Yet until then, she had choices to make. Call Eve and suggest they share popcorn and pay-per-view back at Lacey’s hotel or hang out in the club in case her luck changed.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” the stranger added, waving the bartender over and pushing her nearly empty glass forward. She declined a refill, but grabbed a handful of the heart-shaped pretzels Lacey had been eyeing for the past few minutes.
Damn, but she’d been so looking forward to a romantic dinner for two in the third-floor restaurant. Something with lots of fattening sauce and, of course, dessert. She only had this weekend to be herself. She had to make it count.
“You’re not intruding,” Lacey said, smiling as she snagged a few snacks for herself. “But I sure find it hard to believe you got dumped, too. Not in that dress.”
The stranger’s laugh was guarded, but reached her eyes, a subtle shade of blue. But she was wearing colored contacts, Lacey noted, unable to turn off her instincts for more than a few minutes at a time.
“Thanks, and no, I haven’t been dumped tonight. Not yet. The man I’m supposed to meet is over there,” she nodded toward the entrance, “but I’m afraid I can’t meet him as we arranged. I’m all dressed up with no place to go.”
“Can’t meet him? Why not? If you don’t mind me asking,” she clarified. Lacey’s quenchless curiosity had been the personality trait that had pointed her toward her current career.
The stranger waved her hand. “I don’t mind at all. He’s a real hunk, but he used to date my cousin, until she broke up with him. She was so in love with him at first! And he is such a dreamboat. You know the type—flowers for no reason. Dance machine. Master in the bedroom.”
Lacey fought the need to close her eyes, to block the fantasy. Did they make guys like that anymore? Of course they did! She just didn’t allow herself to know them.
“Sounds too good to be true. Why did your cousin dump him?” she asked.
“Some women don’t know a good thing when they have it,” the woman claimed, causing Lacey to nod in total agreement. “She wasn’t nice about breaking his heart, either. And when she finally realized what she’d lost, he wouldn’t take her back. So despite how tempted I am, I can’t go out with him on this blind date. I don’t even want to deal with the drama. It’s such a frickin’ small world,” she finished, clearly exasperated.
Lacey glanced toward the entrance, but too many people were mingling about for her to pick anyone out without a description. Most of the people were already paired up, but it was hard to tell with whom. Blind Dates had hit the scene with a great concept—a restaurant, bar, dance place where you could meet the stranger of your dreams. In fact, you couldn’t progress to the second two levels—the dance floor and bar on the second landing and the restaurant on the third—without a date or reservation for two. On the bottom floor, they had a bank of computer terminals so people could communicate anonymously before they met and “moved up.” The staff even hosted speed-dating round-robins—twenty men and twenty women “dated” for five minutes at a time, then switched partners until everyone had met, then they voted on who they would like to meet again.
But mainly, Blind Dates had become a first-date haven for couples thrust together by family and friends. Lots to do and lots of eyes watching. And lots of other couples in the same boat. Safety in numbers.
“So, is Mr. Perfect from here?” Lacey asked, unable to tamp down her curiosity.
“From what I understand.”
“Then I might know him, too. Where is he? I want to see this monument to male perfection,” Lacey claimed, somewhat doubtful. Handsome, dances and good in bed? What were the chances, really?
The woman led Lacey around a potted ficus tree twinkling with tiny white lights. They shifted from side to side until enough people moved out of the way so she could point Lacey in the right direction.
“There,” the stranger said. “In the black shirt and jeans.”
Lacey nearly swallowed her tongue. The first thing that registered was that no, she didn’t know this god among men. The second thing that registered was that man-oh-man, could she have a hot time getting to know him. Dark, long hair brushing against impressive shoulders—so unlike the crew cuts she’d become used to seeing at the Bureau. His pecs looked rock hard, even from a distance. His hips bounced ever so slightly to the latin beat drumming off the dance floor. And man, she could grab that ass with both hands and likely break a few fingernails. Maybe this trip to Blind Dates wasn’t a waste of time. What was she going to have to pay her new friend to wrangle an introduction?
She turned to ask, but with a smug smile, the stranger winked. “Want to meet him?”
“Did Sherman burn Atlanta?”
“I suck at history, but I can definitely sense more than just a spark of interest in you.”
Lacey bit her bottom lip. “A girl would have to be an ice queen to walk away from him willingly. You sure your loyalty to your cousin is that strong, because if she was that much of an idiot…”
The stranger laughed, then lured Lacey back to the bar. “I can’t agree with you more, but I’m not going to be in town much longer. Why start trouble when there’s no possible future?”
Lacey ordered another martini, then directed her new friend to choose her poison. “After checking him out, I can think of a thousand reasons to start trouble. Particularly when there’s no possible future. I’m heading out of town myself come Sunday night and I was really hoping to hook up with someone this weekend. Have some fun.”
The woman waved away the bartender without ordering and nearly whooped with joy. “This is perfect then!”
“What?”
“You can take my place tonight on my blind date. I was fixed up through friends at work and I was supposed to meet him five minutes ago. That’s why he’s standing right by the door. I don’t want to have to explain why I’m bailing on him. But if you distract him…”
The hairs along the back of Lacey’s neck tingled. Something wasn’t right here. But did she care? Really? This wasn’t her jurisdiction. Besides, the woman in the red dress certainly didn’t look like trouble…at least, not the criminal kind. What did Lacey care, anyway? She’d come to Atlanta for the weekend precisely to give her FBI persona a long-deserved rest and drag out the much-beloved, much-ignored party girl she used to be. And if this guy could really dance…
“What the hell,” she concluded. “You think he’d be interested?”
The stranger leveled her with a mocking look of indignation. “You’re kidding, right?”
She was kidding, partly. Lacey looked hot and she knew it. Immediately after landing at Hartsfield, she’d driven her rental car straight to Lenox Square and bought the least amount of dress for the most amount of money. And of course, spiky heels and a teenie, tiny purse to match.
Which reminded her. All she’d been able to shove inside the Kate Spade was her driver’s license, her ultra-thin cell phone, a roll of breath mints and a compact. She’d left her lipstick in the car. One glance in the mirror behind the bar told her that the second sour apple martini had completely diluted the last of her Chanel Ruby Slipper lip color. She couldn’t go meet Mr. Perfect by the door until she fixed her face.
“I need to go out to my car for a minute,” she explained.
“You can’t! By the time the valet gets your keys, he’ll be gone. I’m already late!”
Lacey sensed something off-kilter with the stranger’s level of desperation, but she couldn’t deny the reality. No guy that hunky was going to hang around long without a date. The time to act was now.
“I need lipstick,” she said simply.
The stranger responded in a flash, whipping out a metallic silver tube. “Here, take this. Tell him Gina said maybe next time, okay?”
Gina shoved the lipstick into Lacey’s hand and by the time Lacey had pulled out her compact to guide a quick application of the dark raisin color, she’d disappeared. Well, not completely. As Lacey moved toward the entrance, she spotted a flash of red just on the other side of the dance floor, undoubtedly waiting to make a break toward the back exit.
Whatever. If this Gina woman wanted to blow her chance on account of some loyalty to her dippy cousin, who was she to argue? For all she knew, the whole story was a lie. But bottom line—Lacey didn’t care. She’d come home to Atlanta to have a good time, and she was going to live it up if it was the last thing she did. If this hunk wasn’t agreeable, she’d simply find one who was.
Though she planned to do everything in her power to make sure he was agreeable—at least for one night.
2
SETH KINGSTON glanced at the bar on the other side of the club, wondering if he could grab a scotch and water without missing his “date,” who was already ten minutes late. Not that he was that thirsty, but he could use a distraction. Atlanta’s beautiful people milled around him in prearranged couples—flirting, teasing and otherwise attempting to entice their blind dates into bed.
He, on the other hand, had to center his mind firmly on exposing a woman who wasn’t who she claimed to be. Though he’d much rather focus his attention on charming the panties off one of the lovely ladies gyrating on the dance floor, this was the price a working man had to pay. He had to stick to one goal at a time.
When Seth had received his walking papers from the Atlanta police force after ten solid years of flawless duty, he’d wondered what manner of indignities he’d be reduced to in his quest for gainful employment. He’d entered the police force immediately after college, where he’d studied criminal justice. He knew how to be one thing—a cop. And since he had no desire to leave his home state, he’d had little choice but try his luck in the field of private investigation.
A team player, Seth wasn’t sure he’d like working alone all the time. And yet, with this first assignment, the worst he had to do was endure a blind date with a relatively attractive, yet wholly deceptive woman. Wasn’t so bad. Still, standing smack-dab in the middle of the hip, hot party scene he’d grown tired of after years on the vice squad, he wouldn’t have minded a dose of fortification—preferably the type that came straight-up or on the rocks.
But then he noted the thick crowd and harried bartenders scurrying beneath neon signs and glittering bottles of such varied and colorful libations as blood red orange liqueur and cinnamon schnapps. Deciding against the drink, Seth shoved his shoulder against the wrought-iron pole not five feet from the main entrance to Blind Dates and waited. Liquor wasn’t worth the chance of missing her. Gina Ralston was one slippery woman. Even during his time on the force, he’d never before wrangled with a suspect he couldn’t get at least one bit of dirt on. She had no parking tickets. No speeding citations. And most interesting—no past. According to his checks, Gina Ralston had arrived in Atlanta a year and a half ago without ever having been anywhere else. Her birth certificate? Supposedly lost in a fire. Work history? None—she claimed to be a former housewife. Educational history? Except for vague references to overseas and online study, nothing he could verify. He’d tried every avenue, from legal to slightly legal and downright criminal. The main material witness in a federal case, Gina Ralston apparently had no past, no dirty secrets, nothing Seth could use to discredit her in the eyes of a jury.
Though the fact that she had no past seemed enough to incriminate her in his eyes. No one went to such lengths to hide their former life without a damned good reason. Or a nefarious reason, at least.
Seth had been hired by federal prosecutors to produce evidence that would cast doubt on Gina and her dubious testimony in the murder case against Eric Miller, a suspected crime boss. Because Seth needed the potential vindication, he’d agreed. Under no other circumstances would he have come up with this blind date scheme.
Drummed off the force due to a politically motivated house-cleaning by the new city council, Seth now had a chance to reestablish his hard-won reputation. The feds—feds on the other side of the political fence from the yahoos who canned him—had tapped him to work covertly on this high-profile case. And when Seth fulfilled his charge, he’d see to it that the city councilmen who’d fired him would have enough egg on their faces to scramble omelettes and feed the entire population of Georgia.
But first, mysterious Gina Ralston had to show up.
With his considerable charm, Seth had managed to cozy up to the people Gina worked with at a barely legit telemarketing firm. From them, he’d discovered that Gina Ralston had a penchant for anonymous dating—one-shot deals that resulted in a free meal and a good time and in some cases, no names exchanged—no real names, at least. Unfortunately, her unconventional social tastes also weren’t enough to throw doubt on her reliability as a witness and definitely gave no clue as to who Gina Ralston had been before she moved to Atlanta. For this, he needed to get up-close and personal. Seth didn’t doubt that from close proximity, he could find out whatever he wanted to know.
He glanced at his watch again. She was now fifteen minutes late. His instincts screamed that she wasn’t going to show. Could mean she was on to him—which he sincerely doubted. He’d give her ten more minutes before he blew this human meat market. Some things he could take only in small doses.
Though the brunet
te suddenly swinging toward him…he could certainly take her in a large dose.
She stopped directly in front of him and blessed him with a devilish grin. “You Sam?”
“Who wants to know?”
The brunette glanced coyly to her side, then fluttered her lashes in an expertly flirtatious glance that could get her in serious trouble. Fortunately, this babe looked like she could handle trouble of any shape or kind.
“Seems obvious that I do. I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
Seth drank her in with his eyes, taking his time, making no secret of his interest. Her dark purple dress hugged her curves like a Corvette going ninety on the Loop. She had a slim waist and legs, but the generous contours of her hips and breasts dried all moisture from his mouth. And this woman knew how to make the most of her body. Her high heels highlighted the taut muscles of her calves and an amethyst choker and long, dangling earrings drew his eyes to her elegant neck. A man could lose himself for hours nibbling on all that smooth flesh.
“If you are talking to me, I’m one lucky man. Most of the girls here are spoken for before they walk through the door.”
“I could be, too, if you don’t waste time. Buy me a drink?”
Seth chuckled. She certainly took her own advice and moved fast. Almost too fast. Something about her suddenly struck him as familiar. She wasn’t Gina, of course. But damned if he didn’t care as much as he should.
He glanced around the room one last time, wondering if the object of his investigation was watching him flirt with another woman. Before he’d entered the club, he’d staked out the parking lot and watched Gina drive up, valet park and scoot inside. He knew she was here—somewhere. Hiding out in the bathroom, maybe? Lingering in the crowd and checking him out from a distance? Would talking to this lovely lady in the purple dress ignite Gina’s jealous streak or would she run off in a huff?
Did he have the time to take the chance?
“I’m meeting someone,” Seth finally volunteered. This undercover sting didn’t involve this beauty—the least he could do was be honest.