Leave it to Seth to skip right over the facts and continue with his argument. “Do you know anything about women?”
“Well, I wasn’t the one alone last night. I put my condom to good use.” Seth gestured with his arms open wide and his mouth in constant motion. As usual. “Can you say the same thing?”
Eric actually thought about answering honestly and then decided not to. “No.”
“You disappoint me.”
“My apologies.”
Seth exhaled as his puffed-up chest fell. “So what now?”
Eric knew the answer to that one. He’d worked it out that morning in the shower. He needed to do a little damage control. Better to apologize to his mystery waitress than run the risk of having her show up in his opponent’s campaign commercial and make the story even worse.
Yeah, he’d find her, make an ally, and if they got naked again, well, he wouldn’t complain.
Chapter 2
“There you are. Where did you disappear to at the end of the wedding? I haven’t seen you since yesterday.” Cara Long talked in a nonstop stream as she buzzed around the small catering kitchen, putting away pans and stray cake ingredients. “Hate to think a little honest work terrified you so much that you had to take off for the night.”
Katie wanted to ignore her big sister’s prodding. Admitting the truth seemed dangerous. There really wasn’t a good way to say, “I used your business to hunt down a guy at the wedding…and then lifted my skirt for him in the bathroom.” Not when Cara had worked so hard to establish her business and had nearly fainted when she was handed the opportunity to do something as prestigious and impressive as the wedding of a wealthy socialite and her big-time hero DEA fiancé.
Cara had fought back against every piece of crap life threw at her and kept going. Bad husband. A checking account balance that hovered near zero. Single parent to a baby who demanded her attention every two seconds.
None of that sounded good to Katie. Of course, neither did being homeless, which explained why she took the job watching Eric. Someone wanted information on the guy’s activities and she needed the money. It was a simple matter of math.
She kept repeating that in her head every time the doubt threatened to overtake her. Taking cash so soon after having sex left her with a dirty feeling she could not shake. Watching Eric at his ex’s wedding was one thing. Dropping her panties and wrapping her legs around him…yeah, not part of the assignment.
“Uh, hello?” Cara stood in the middle of the one-room business with cookie sheets stacked in a pile on her arms.
“What?”
Cara’s eyes narrowed in the disapproving way she’d mastered as a responsible teenager horrified by her baby sister’s antics. She’d been using it ever since. “Where did you go?”
“What are you talking about?” Katie knew but she asked anyway because stalling for time seemed like the right choice.
“You’ve got this dreamy, I’m-about-to-cause-trouble look in your eyes.” Cara shook her head. “I’ve seen it before and am not a fan.”
When in doubt, hide behind false outrage. The plan had rarely worked for Katie in the past during sister-to-sister battles, but she decided to try it again anyway. “I helped out at your big job and this is the thanks I get?”
Cara lost all color in her face. “Oh, no.”
Katie recognized the horrified look. It meant one thing. Busted. “What?
The color came back to Cara’s cheeks but it was kind of a yellowish-green tint. Not all that attractive. A little scary, actually. “Oh, this is bad. Like, when you got picked up on the drug charge, bad.”
It had been almost a week since Cara brought up that little gem. Katie had started to think the memory might have faded. Apparently not.
She waved off the reminder even as she winced inside. “That was three years ago and a complete misunderstanding.”
Fact was, she was a person who stepped in crap every time she turned a corner. Luck had never been her friend. But sleeping on the floor of an acquaintance who claimed to waitress at a club but really spent her evenings dealing drugs was a particularly awful moment in her glass-half-empty life. Not a highlight in the sister-to-sister bond either. Cara screamed for a good three days without stopping after that one.
Never mind that Katie wasn’t involved in the mess. The police didn’t exactly listen as they dragged her out of her sleeping bag, but they were a joy compared to Cara’s “I told you so” diatribes.
“Tell me now.” Cara dropped the load of metal from her arms to the butcher-block counter. The clanging bounced off every wall. “Did something happen at the wedding?”
Something about six-feet tall with dark hair and an expert set of hands. “I was there for a job and I did it.”
Those knowing eyes narrowed. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you prefer to think the worst of me.” Forget the fact Cara usually was right to go that route.
“That’s called experience.” Cara blew out a long breath. “Look, Katie.”
Oh, not the “look” conversation starter. Katie could tolerate anything but that.
“I didn’t do anything illegal. Just worked the wedding and chatted with the guests.” Katie decided the word ‘chatted’ was sufficiently vague enough to cover her wedding activities. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“You promised me you were going to turn your life around. Start working, go back to school.” Cara ticked off the ideas on her fingers. “Focus.”
Katie thought about rolling her eyes but refrained. “I am twenty-five years old.”
“And?”
“I am doing everything I told you I’d do, but it all takes money.”
“Which is why I offered you the job.”
“And I’m grateful.” Perpetually grateful.
“I don’t want any other surprises.” A dark sadness fell over Cara’s eyes. “After Bill…well, I’ve had enough. I need to concentrate on growing this business and raising Ashleigh. Josh and Deana trusted me with a huge responsibility. Their wedding, for heaven’s sake. I really need it to turn into more work.”
Guilt snuck up out of nowhere and smacked Katie right across the cheek. She’d spent the years since her parents’ deaths as the ultimate screwup. Cara did everything right. Katie got most everything wrong. Irresponsible and difficult, she’d heard all the comments teachers and relatives whispered behind her back and into Cara’s ear. The years from eighteen to twenty-three were a blur of partying and waste. But that was over. She worked for Cara now. She watched Ashleigh. She registered for night classes that would begin in the summer session. She’d made a few extra bucks reporting back on Eric.
Eric.
Yeah, that brought Katie spinning back to Cara and the guilt thing.
“Okay.” Katie grabbed her sister’s hands and willed her to calm down before the thumping blood vessel in her forehead burst. “Listen to me. The wedding job went really well. You’re going to get lots of new business from it, and I’ll be here to help out. It will all be fine. You’ll see.”
Cara bit her bottom lip. “Promise?”
“Yeah.” Katie nodded. For a second, she even believed the words coming out of her mouth. “Let’s forget all about the wedding and start getting ready for that insurance conference you’re catering in two days.”
And she would forget all about one Eric Kimura, those hands, and the e-mail report she’d sent as a requirement of her paycheck after the wedding. The same one that left out any mention of the extracurricular bathroom activities. After all, some things were private. Stupid and self-destructive, but private.
“Anything else?” Eric pushed back from his kitchen table and headed for the coffeepot. A two-hour evening meeting on political strategy with his friend and campaign manager was enough to dull the senses for a month.
All Eric wanted to do was run for the job of prosecuting attorney, a job he currently held on an interim basis since his boss had left the position. Eric under
stood the office and saw what needed to be streamlined and what needed to be eliminated. Working his way up through the ranks gave him an insight that the guy he was running against, Howard Gunnery, a former military lawyer, didn’t have. In Eric’s view, that should have been enough, but he had to convince the entire island of Oahu, or at least the majority of it, to agree and vote for him.
“I hate to bring this up.” Kevin Willis traced his finger down his water glass. Didn’t look up. Didn’t joke or smile.
Eric knew from experience that whatever he was about to hear was going to be bad. Kevin wasn’t an avoid-eye-contact kind of guy. He was an attorney in private practice and politically connected. If anything, people viewed him as harsh. Right now, he looked like he had eaten bad Chinese food off the floor of a sewage plant.
“Just tell me,” Eric said.
Kevin finally looked up as he leaned back in the chair. “The rumors about Deana are kicking up again.”
Everything always came back to her. Eric was sick of it. “Why can’t people believe we’re over?”
Kevin cleared his throat as he pushed the papers in front of him off to the side. “Not those.”
As far as Eric was concerned there was nothing else. “What then?”
“There’s a suggestion out there about Deana and her nephew and questions about your integrity on the job.”
Eric had expected half-baked crap about his being in love. This theory came out of nowhere and brought a kick to the stomach with it. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just going to ask straight out.”
“Do that.”
“Did you give her nephew special treatment during his murder case?”
The only other person guaranteed to put Eric in a bad mood: Ryan Armstrong, Deana’s nephew. A spoiled teenager and a heartless killer. Instead of taking every opportunity handed to him by his wealthy family, he took the easy way out and managed to drag Eric down with him.
“The same nephew who is jail for murdering his parents, Deana’s brother and sister-in-law?” The memories crashed in on Eric. Hell, he’d lost Deana over the entire disastrous case. “I recused myself, built a complete wall around the matter in the office so I wouldn’t be involved in the trial or the investigation. No one talked to me about it, and I stayed out of it.”
“I know.”
Eric heard his friend but yelled right over him. “The idea was to act like a boyfriend instead of a lawyer, but we all know how that worked out.”
Deana had wanted him to step in and save Ryan from prosecution. Eric refused. He knew the evidence against the kid was strong, knew she didn’t see him for the spoiled psychopath he was. Knew Ryan was headed for jail, and when he went, she would blame Eric for everything. That’s exactly what happened.
Well, almost.
“You went to the wedding,” Kevin pointed out. “Your photo was in the paper.”
“I went to keep the gossip at a minimum. I thought it would take away the ammunition.” Really, he went to prove to himself that he could take it. “Guess that didn’t work.”
Kevin started taking notes. “You’ll need to make a statement.”
“No.”
The pen dropped. “Eric?”
“Deana and my private life are just that. Private.” Eric dumped the cold coffee down the drain. Looked like caffeine might not be strong enough to help him get through this night.
“There are some folks out there who smell a story. They’re going to keep digging until they find it. Even if there’s nothing there, the searching and all the assumptions that come with it can be devastating to a political career.”
“They should find someone else to piss on,” Eric said. Preferably someone who didn’t have anything to do with him or the prosecutor’s office.
“Some people can’t believe you’re as clean as you seem.”
“In other words, everyone likes to see a public figure implode.”
“Something like that.”
Exactly like that. Eric turned around in his kitchen with no real destination in mind. The goal was to burn off the energy building in his gut. “Then they’re going to be disappointed. I don’t have anything to hide.”
Kevin hesitated. The silence stretched until he finally spit out his thought. “You can tell me anything. I’d rather know and be able to fight it than have to read it in the paper.”
Eric gripped the counter hard enough to make the granite crumble under his fingertips. “We’re good.”
Kevin didn’t move for a second, then he nodded. “That’s all I need to know.”
Eric hoped like hell that was true because he really didn’t want to go into a drawn-out discussion about his role in Ryan’s case. Or why he’d ended up having sex with a complete stranger ten steps away from a pool of reporters. He was a grown man and his sex life was his own, but his timing was questionable on this one.
There had been enough scandals what with Josh’s boss trying to cover up a botched DEA investigation and Josh replacing him. People didn’t want to read about another government official being more concerned with covering his butt than doing his job. That meant staying as clean as possible and not doing anything to raise questions.
“Well, enough said on that.” Kevin stood, gathering the documents and stacking them in straight piles. “Grab a late dinner?”
“Can’t.” More like didn’t want to. Eric didn’t want to invite another round of questions. Kevin would pretend the meal was informal, but Eric knew everything they did right now was about getting him elected. “I have work to do, but you can check one thing for me.”
“Sure.”
“Find out who catered Deana’s wedding. I’d like to have a professional on call for events and that sort of thing.” It was time to tie up that loose end. If Kevin got flustered by an old rumor about a murder case and airtight convictions, Eric hated to think what he’d do with the truth on this one.
“I have a list of people you can use.”
“No, I want that caterer.”
If Kevin thought it was a strange request, he hid it well. “I’ll have the name and number for you by tomorrow morning.”
Chapter 3
Katie stared at the pans and trays piled in the overflowing sink and wondered what her future would look like if she skipped college and took up life as a professional dishwasher instead. Sounded like a one-way ticket to mind mush to her. Working for her sister and collecting a paycheck, no matter how small, meant moving on. It also meant getting stuck with the crappy jobs like serving food to idiots and handling catering cleanup.
Cara spent her nonwork time with Ashleigh, her blond-haired bundle of wild energy. Six months old, she never stopped moving. So, when Cara cut out early to catch a few extra minutes with her daughter, which rarely was possible, the responsibility for bringing the catering kitchen back to order fell to Katie.
The bright spot was that the insurance catering job had gone well today, as evidenced by her sore feet and the smell of puff pastry in her hair. Even now she hid in the small room at the center of the strip mall where no other human might be forced to see her. That would be a mean thing to do to anyone with decent vision. Good thing her Wednesday evening plans consisted of scrubbing, drying, stacking, and sweeping.
“Hello?”
Katie froze at the sound of the familiar male voice. Then her head whipped around. The main door was open, but the metal security screen was closed and locked. It would be hard for people to see inside and impossible for anyone to break it down, but, oh boy, could she see out.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
She repeated the refrain as she stared at the outline on the other side of the steel screen. Dark hair, broad shoulders, and relaxed stance. She’d know that body anywhere.
That would teach her to want fresh air. If the stifling heat hadn’t bothered her, she’d be hiding in the storage closet and ignoring him right about now.
“Can you hear me?” He lo
oked right at her as he said it. Clearly he knew she was there. Could see her, despite the promises in the sales brochure about the door providing protection and privacy. It didn’t seem to be doing either at the moment.
With wet hands dripping on the floor beside her sneakers, she stood there. “Uh…”
“Not sure if you can see me.” He waved his hand. “We met at the Armstrong-Windsor wedding.”
Met? Now there was an interesting word for what they did. “Oh, I know who you are.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Eric chuckled in a rich open tone that vibrated down to her feet.
She could hear the amusement in his voice. Figuring out how to take it was the bigger issue. She rubbed her hands on the towel hanging out of the waistband of her khaki shorts and adjusted her white tee to make sure everything that should be covered was. “What are you doing here?”
“I can explain if you’ll let me come inside.”
Talk about a stupid option. “No.”
After a beat of silence, he spoke up. “Really?”
He sounded stunned at the idea of being turned down. Apparently the big, important man didn’t like it when people disagreed with him.
That realization was enough to make her brain reboot. While running held some appeal, it wasn’t very practical. They lived on an island, after all. And she needed to know how he’d tracked her down. “I mean, why do you want to come in?”
She could see his broad shoulders through the thick safety mesh and the way he balanced his hands on his lean hips. He was a man in control of his surroundings, even though this part of town didn’t fit him at all. He wore tailored suits and walked into a fancy high-rise office every day.
Many of the folks in the Kalihi neighborhood never ventured near the expensive restaurants and exclusive communities around the island. This was a working-class area with an increasing crime rate, older and lined with warehouses, a little rough. A place where words like “redevelopment” were thrown around but never brought to fruition. In other words, not the place where one would expect to find Eric Kimura.
“I wanted to talk with you,” he explained.
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