Meeting Eddie and realizing how genuinely good Dallas was had Nikki singing a different tune about the whole relationship issue. Or maybe she’d actually found a bit of wisdom from Nana’s heart-off-the-leash talk. Then again, maybe she was just on a sugar high from having eaten four cupcakes. She was still scared, petrified actually, but had stopped thinking about trying to put distance between Dallas and her and started thinking about how to get closer.
And naked.
Which was hard to think about with a nineteen-year-old hovering over her. Not that she minded—Eddie was great. He reminded her of the art students she taught every June for the foster care program. Good kids cheated out of opportunities that other kids took for granted. A road Nikki herself could have gone down, if she hadn’t had Nana.
Her phone rang for the third time and, not wanting to appear eager, she let it go one more. “Hello,” she said seductively.
“Hello,” an unfamiliar male voice answered.
Disappointment filled her. “May I help you?”
“It’s Andrew Brian. I thought I’d remind you that I’d be happy to accompany you to the funeral home tonight.”
Maybe it was because Nikki’s mind was on sex, or because of what Dallas had said about him hitting on her, but she got the feeling that Brian’s offer to go to the funeral home wasn’t just out of the goodness of his heart.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I think it would cause a stir. It wouldn’t be fair to his parents.”
“What about what’s fair to you?” he asked.
“I think they get the most consideration right now.”
“That’s big of you. Are you still at the shop?”
Chills ran up her spine. Dallas suspected this man of killing Jack and stabbing Ellen. “I’m about to leave, actually. I have a friend with me.” Suddenly she was glad Eddie was there.
“I was hoping to run by and buy that painting.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay.” He sounded almost annoyed.
She couldn’t hang up fast enough. She looked at Eddie. “We should leave.”
Dallas arrived at the fitness club three minutes late. Rachel Peterson stood by the door and she didn’t look happy.
“I don’t like to be kept waiting.” She sounded like a class-A bitch.
Three minutes? What are you, the time police? “Sorry.” She was already in her workout clothes. The sleeveless tank top and biker shorts made her muscular form stand out. While she wasn’t butch-looking, Dallas couldn’t help but compare her to Nikki. He’d pick petite and soft over Rachel’s built form every time.
“You look like you spend a lot of time here.” He worked to make it sound like a compliment.
“I’m a body builder on the side. Won some competitions.” She ran her hand over his abs. “You could use some tightening.”
Oh, she knew how to make a guy fall for her all right. “I’m working on it.” Wanting to shift the conversation, he added, “I work out with my brother, but he’s been busy lately.”
“You two close?” she asked as they walked up to the check-in and got him a friend pass.
“Yup.” He followed her to the hand weights.
“Has he mentioned the Leon case?” She started doing arm lifts.
“Some. He can’t divulge too much.” He picked up a weight set.
“Is he arresting the wife?”
“I don’t think he’s convinced she did it.” He noticed the ease with which Rachel lifted her weights.
“She’s gonna get off scot-free?”
“I think he’s still looking at other suspects. Which is why he’s nosing around your office… looking for a few answers.”
“Good luck. Attorneys are famous for keeping their mouths closed.”
“What about receptionists?” He tried to put some teasing in his tone.
“I need my job.”
“There is that.” He itched to ask why she thought her job might be in jeopardy, but didn’t want to appear too interested.
She moved over to a machine and added two more cast-iron plates. She did ten leg lifts, of two hundred pounds. Impressive, Dallas admitted. He set himself up beside her to do his own. “As long as it’s not Canton. I want this custody mess cleared up.”
“Please, the man’s a wimp. If it is someone at our firm, I’d have my bets on Andrew.”
“Which one is he?” he asked, even though he knew exactly who he was.
“The senior partner’s son. Let’s just say he has a white powder problem.”
“Really?” Dallas asked.
“I don’t tolerate drugs. So if you’re into that, you’re not going to get any of this.” She waved a hand down her body.
Holy shit, the woman moved fast. Little did she know he wasn’t interested in any “of this”… or that, either. “I’m not into the drug scene.”
“Good.” She smiled. Dallas got a feeling she expected them to take this workout someplace else later. Not.
She did two more leg presses. “Is your brother coming by Monday to do more interviews?”
“I guess.” Dallas suddenly found it interesting that getting her to talk was so easy. Was she just the type who loved to gossip? Or was there something more?
“Do you think you could give him a hint from me without it ever coming out?”
“Depends on how small of a hint it is.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to lose my job.”
“I totally get that.”
She sat up, reached for the towel, and wiped the sweat from her brow then stroked the towel down to her cleavage… no doubt for his benefit.
“On Tuesday, I left to go work out but forgot my suit coat. I went back inside.” She watched him doing his leg lifts.
“When I went back in, I heard Leon and Brian Junior arguing.”
“About what?” Dallas asked.
“Don’t know. But it sounded… hostile. I grabbed my coat and left. With Brian being the senior partner’s son, if I tattled, I’d be out of a job.”
That did make sense, Dallas amended. Maybe Rachel Peterson’s willingness to talk wasn’t so suspicious after all. Maybe her show of interest in him was more about him being Tony’s brother than her wanting to take him home tonight. He could hope. If not, she was going to be disappointed.
His last hope was shot to hell when her hand landed on his thigh way too close to his crotch. “With a little work, I’ll bet I can have you hard as a rock.”
Dallas tried to think fast. “You know, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Thirty minutes later, earlier than he’d expected, Dallas aimed his Mustang toward Nikki’s gallery. He’d never had to work so hard not to get lucky. When he’d been slow to explain his reasons, Rachel had been quick to guess. It had been easier to just agree, but he didn’t like it. Then again, he did have a pink sofa!
Scary thought. Then a realization hit that was even scarier. He hadn’t even been tempted by Rachel. And the reason was all too clear. Nikki.
Where was this thing between them leading? He remembered the conversation he’d had with Tony. Where did he want it to lead? Dallas pushed back into his car seat and decided he needed to put on some emotional brakes. Hadn’t he promised to never commit himself to another woman?
But damn it to hell and back! He didn’t want to start thinking about this tonight. He wanted to think about Nikki, getting her naked, keeping her naked all night long.
His cell rang. Temporarily distracted by his thoughts, he answered without checking the number. “Yeah?”
“Hello, Dallas.”
Fucking great. If he needed a reminder of why he didn’t want to commit, the universe had just supplied one. “What do you want, Serena?”
“If I said you, what would you say?”
“I’d say go screw your boss again. Isn’t he your fiancé now?”
“You can be an asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah, prison”—and being married to you—“will do that to you.”
; “I heard you talked to my lawyer.”
“I heard you talked to my dad. I just suggest you don’t do it again.”
She ignored his comment. “Leo said you practically agreed to sign the papers.”
“Leo? You mean Mr. Canton? What? You sleeping with him, too?”
“You’re a bastard.”
“A good reason not to want to deal with me, Serena. He’s my dog. I’m not sharing him.” Dallas hung up.
He pulled up at Nikki’s gallery and saw immediately that the lights were out. Nikki’s grandmother’s car and Nance’s green Saturn were missing.
Where the hell was Nikki? Had something… happened? Any thoughts of trying to establish an emotional distance were shot to hell and back.
He grabbed his phone and dialed her number. “Pick up, damn it!”
She didn’t. The call went to voice mail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“YOUR PHONE’S RINGING,” Eddie said from the table.
“I’ll call them back.” Standing at the ice cream shop counter, Nikki glanced at the clock. She planned to call Dallas in a bit to let him know where they were and why they’d left the gallery. Maybe she was overreacting, but the call from Andrew Brian gave her the heebie-jeebies.
Snagging a couple of napkins, she took her order from the attendant. With the two ice cream cones in hand, she walked back to the table just as the phone rang again.
Passing Eddie his double dip of strawberry, she held tight to her one scoop of chocolate, and reached into her purse for her phone. Her one-handed attempt failed. Her purse and contents went scattering across the floor.
“Shit.” She looked up at Eddie as she crouched to retrieve her stuff. “You didn’t hear me say that.”
“I’m about to be sent to prison and you’re afraid the word ‘shit’ will be a bad influence on me?” Laughing, he knelt to help pick up her mess.
“You shouldn’t curse,” she said. “And you’re not going to prison.”
“Yeah, right.”
She snagged a loose tampon and dropped it into her purse, along with her wallet, brush and almost empty can of Mace.
“Here.” Eddie handed her a compact mirror and flash drive.
“This isn’t mine.” She returned the flash drive to him.
“It came out of your purse.”
“You sure it wasn’t just on the floor?” She stood and dropped her purse back on the table.
Eddie sat up and dropped the flash drive on the table. “It was with your other stuff.”
“I never use ’em.” Seeing a big drip of ice cream slipping down her cone, Nikki licked it. “Umm.”
As she slid her purse away from the table edge, she pushed the napkins onto the floor.
“Ten-second rule.” Eddie snagged the napkins and passed one to her.
“What’s a few germs?” Déjà vu hit her. Jack had dropped his napkin when they met for dinner at Venny’s. She remembered thinking how odd it was that…
Her gaze shot toward the flash drive. She didn’t use the memory sticks, but Jack did.
Dallas and his brother had asked her if Jack had given her anything the night he was killed. Her purse had been under the table when he’d retrieved his napkin. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Hold this.” She passed Eddie her ice cream cone and called Dallas.
Dallas walked into the ice cream shop. The smell of cold, creamy sweet stuff filled his nose. Sitting at a nearby table, Nikki slowly ran her pink tongue up a cone. A pang of lust hit so hard Dallas had to concentrate to rein himself in. Still, he couldn’t help watching her tongue slide over her ice cream.
Seeing him, she grinned, picked up the flash drive and held it out. She’d already told him about it on the phone and damn, he hoped she was right.
“I dropped my purse and it spilled out.” Her tongue licked the side of the cone.
He nodded at Nance and took the memory disk. “I saw this the first night at the hospital.” Then he snagged her cone and ran his tongue over the smooth chocolate, thinking about doing much the same to her when he got her back to his place. Just as soon as he plugged in the flash drive to see what was on it.
“So I was right.” Nance chuckled.
Dallas returned Nikki’s cone. “Right about what?”
“Right about you two being more than friends.”
Dallas looked at the blush creeping up Nikki’s neck, then glanced back at Nance. “Why would you think that?”
Nance laughed and Dallas realized it was the first time he’d heard the kid do that since he’d met him. Did Nikki have that effect on everyone?
“I used to work at an ice cream place. I know the language of ice cream sharing between a man and a woman. There’s the nibble on the other side.” He took a bite of his cone. “That means I haven’t slept with you yet, but I really want to. Then there’s this.” He turned the cone around and slowly swiped his tongue across the ice cream. “That means—”
“It means you had way too much time on your hands when you worked at the ice cream shop.” But Dallas couldn’t help but smile and offer the kid a wink.
Less than twenty minutes later, he and Nikki stood peering over Tyler’s back while he plugged in the flash drive. Dallas could have done it, but he would’ve needed to move his hands off Nikki and he hadn’t wanted to do that.
With a few of Tyler’s keystrokes, the screen changed. “One file, an Excel spreadsheet named ‘Xfers.’ Transfers.” Tyler clicked on the file.
Seconds later, the file appeared. Tyler looked at Nikki. “You know what this looks like?”
“No.”
“It looks like a list of amounts of cash. Maybe deposits,” Dallas said.
“Over two hundred thousand,” Tyler said. “Could Jack have been embezzling money from someone? The law firm?”
“No,” Nikki said. “Jack wouldn’t steal.”
Dallas resisted the urge to point out that a man who cheats on his wife might have no problem cheating his employer. Instead, he decided to be diplomatic. “Well, since he’s keeping tabs on it, maybe he considered it just borrowing.”
“No,” Nikki said again and her loyalty to her ex stung Dallas a little. “First off, Jack didn’t need the money. His parents are super wealthy.”
“Not anymore.” Tyler looked at her. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my little Internet search says differently. Your in-laws lost their assets on the last stock market tumble. They’re actually involved in a lawsuit against their broker for making bad investment recommendations.”
Nikki’s eyes widened. “Still, Jack would never take something that didn’t belong to him.” She stepped away from the warm place at Dallas’s side.
“He took your hired help,” Dallas insisted.
“That’s different,” Nikki said. “And if he had been doing this, why would he put the drive in my purse? Why would he want anyone to know what he was doing? I think he put it in there in case something happened to him.”
“Okay, now I see your point.” Dallas looked at Tyler. “Is there nothing else on there?”
“Just dates,” Tyler said.
Dallas remembered Rachel Peterson saying Andrew Brian and Jack Leon had argued. He felt pretty damn certain he knew who was embezzling money from the firm.
“So this isn’t going to help at all?” Nikki asked, sounding deflated.
“I didn’t say that,” Tyler said. “If these numbers and dates are compared to the records of a bookkeeper’s files, even if the books were fixed, I imagine I’d be able to discover some missing funds.”
“Right,” Dallas said. “Now all we gotta do is figure out how we can get to look into those files.”
LeAnn came home prepared to ask Tony why he was there and what he wanted, because if he really wanted her out of the house, she’d move.
However, the moment she stepped into the house and inhaled the scents of dinner, heard the soft music, and saw Tony—shirtless and barefoot—bebopping around the kitch
en, she lost her nerve. Or maybe, it wasn’t her nerve she lost. Maybe she didn’t lose anything—maybe it was what she’d gained. Tony. He was home. With her. A part of her wanted to weep with joy.
Another part of her felt paralyzed with fear, afraid to hope what all this really meant.
“You’re home,” Tony said, wielding a spatula and a sexy smile.
Home. Her throat tightened. This was home again. She nodded, unable to talk.
“Good day?” He leaned against the counter. Why was he shirtless?
“It was okay,” she said, forcing the words out.
“You hungry?”
“Yeah.” They’d had several new patients added to her floor and she’d skipped lunch.
“Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll get everything on the table.”
Ten minutes later, showered and dressed in a simple yellow sundress, and vowing to get through the evening, she went back into the kitchen.
“Smells good. What are we having?” Her gaze kept slipping to his chest. All that bare skin begged to be touched.
He handed her a glass of wine. When his fingers touched her, it was like a thousand volts of electricity shot right to her heart.
“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll serve you?” he said.
She sat and Tony quickly placed a plate of tiramisu in front of her.
“Dessert first?” She brought a big spoonful of the fluffy sweetness to her mouth. The flavors, the different textures on her tongue, made her purr.
“It’s what you like.” He sat in his normal spot across from her.
God, she’d missed seeing him there. Missed eating tiramisu. Missed breathing the same air he breathed.
“You’re not having any?” Unable to resist, she took another bite.
“I’m saving myself for dinner.” He sipped his wine, watching her over the rim.
“Am I supposed to believe you made this?” The mocha flavor exploded on her tongue.
He grinned and put a hand on his bare chest. “Of course I did. I have no idea how the Little Italy box got in the garbage.”
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