“Before the people you work with realize you’re innocent, your counseling program at the Humboldt Park Center for Change will be in shambles.” She knew that particular program was his baby.
“Don’t hold back, tell it like it is.”
Stella started, then recognized the irony for what it was. An admission. She was preaching to the choir. He already knew how this was going to go down. Of course, he would. Though it might have been another life as far as he was concerned, Dermot had been through the system, something she was sure he could never forget.
“What do you suggest?” he asked.
“Let me help you.”
“And ruin everything you’ve worked so hard to get? I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t even be a cop if not for you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know it. You saved my life.”
“I don’t think he meant to kill you.”
Stella swallowed hard. Even after all these years, the details of her attack were clear in her mind. Her rapist had been carrying. He might have used the weapon… after… if Dermot hadn’t come to her rescue.
Closing her eyes, she remembered the expression of pity on Dermot’s face while he’d gathered her clothes around her and helped her off the ground. Though she had known her rapist, she’d refused to press charges against Rick Lamey. He’d threatened that if she did, her younger sister would be next. But Dermot had assured her everything would be all right, had promised he would see to things personally.
Later, she’d heard Lamey had been found beaten and bloody in an alley the following night, and she’d known—priest or not—Dermot had done what she hadn’t been able to do.
Had that been the moment she’d fallen in love with him? Or had it been when he’d convinced her she could find her way to taking power over what happened to her? She’d done that by applying to the Police Academy.
Soon after that, Dermot had removed his collar and disappeared from her life. She’d heard he was back some months before, volunteering with the ex-cons at Heartland House, though she hadn’t seen him until now.
Stella opened her eyes and realized Dermot was staring at her. Was he remembering, as well? How could he not? How could he forget seeing her so vulnerable? Stella’s throat tightened. If there was one thing she didn’t want from him, it was pity. Any attraction she’d been feeling fizzled at the thought and left her nerve endings raw.
Not that it changed what she had to do.
“If not my life, you saved me in another way, then,” she said. “You gave me direction. Purpose.”
“You were a strong girl, Star. You would have found all that without me.”
“Maybe, but we’ll never know.” She wanted to prove that she was strong now. That there was no room for pity in her life. “Let me help you.”
“It’ll cost you.”
Perhaps with her job, she knew, if she turned her back on the law she served. But Dermot was innocent. And innocent men were sometimes convicted. No matter how difficult this was going to be for her, no matter the personal or professional cost to herself, Stella couldn’t take the chance that he might go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
“I know the chances. My decision. Let me do this for you.” She thought he would continue to fight her, but his hesitation showed her a slight chink in his armor. “Dermot, please. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t help prove you’re innocent.”
“How?”
“I’m gonna call in a favor from some people I know. A really big favor.”
***
Hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake, Dermot followed Stella toward the century-old building with a restored pale-green-tiled facade and a neon sign identifying it as Club Undercover. The entertainment destination was in the eclectic Bucktown-Wicker Park area on Chicago’s north side. Along with restaurants and boutiques, bars and cafés, the club sat on Milwaukee Avenue, an angled street with a distant view of the downtown Chicago skyline.
The city had been blessed with a bout of Indian summer—unseasonably warm days and crisp but comfortable nights. Standing on the corner, a threadbare man hawked Streetwise, the newspaper of the homeless, to anyone who would come up with a buck. On an evening walk, a Mexican family strolled past them, the grandmother swaying to the music oozing from the club. Twenty-somethings with wild hair and tattoos and body piercings waited in line to get inside along with thirty-something professionals in designer wear.
And Stella walked right past them all, ignoring protests that she wait her turn.
Dermot followed, his discomfort at pushing through the crowd vying with his discomfort at putting his life into the hands of some secret organization she jokingly called Team Undercover. She’d told him that, a few months before, an old friend from the old neighborhood who worked here had played bodyguard to a stalking victim. Blade Stone, bartender and former military man, and a few others had helped Stella keep the woman safe and nail her stalker.
What would make people who didn’t know him want to help him, perhaps in defiance of the law? the therapist in Dermot wondered. What would make him trust them? He certainly didn’t trust the system.
Stella. She made the difference.
He trusted her.
“Stay with me,” she said, grabbing his hand and plunging down the staircase.
As Dermot followed her downstairs toward the lower-level entrance, he couldn’t help but admire the view before him. The golden-brown hair demurely coiled at the nape of Stella’s neck didn’t minimize her attractiveness. Tonight she wore a print skirt, whose thin material fluttered around her long legs, and a soft gold sweater that revealed her neck and shoulders and accentuated her full breasts. Her body was buff due to her physical training, but in a womanly way that made Dermot’s mouth go dry when he thought too closely on it.
He had to stop this. She was helping him as a friend. Friends were all they could ever be.
She glanced back at him, and her lips, softly blushed with a pink-gold luster, were curved in a smile. “Almost there!” she shouted over the music blasting out of the club.
Raising his voice, Dermot said, “I forgot how noisy it is to be young.”
“I’ve simply forgotten how to be young,” Stella admitted.
Undoubtedly it was difficult for her to remember she’d been young once, considering she’d lost her innocence in a dark alley a dozen years before.
The reminder clenched Dermot’s gut.
Was she healed now? he wondered. Really healed deep inside? Or did she put on a good front during the day, while her sleep was still filled with nightmares?
Hopefully time had worked its magic on her. Not that she would ever forget.
Nor would he.
Stella pulled him right up to a woman at the door, whose black hair was striped with electric blue, saying, “We’re here to see Blade.”
The hostess stepped aside and waved them into a cave of glowing neon and music that vibrated the floor beneath his Italian leather loafers.
They skirted the red dance floor awash with gyrating couples and headed for the blue glow of the bar. There, a big man wielded a martini shaker like a weapon. How appropriate, Dermot thought wryly, considering what Stella had told him about Blade. If his long, dark hair pulled back from high cheekbones and a straight-bridged nose and tied with a leather thong were any indication, the man had claim to some Native American ancestry.
The bartender spotted them and grinned. “Hey, Star, good to see you. This your date?” he asked as they settled on stools before him.
Stella neatly avoided the question, merely saying, “Blade Stone, meet Dermot O’Rourke.”
“O’Rourke,” Blade echoed. “As in the priest?”
“Ex-priest,” Dermot said, shaking the other man’s hand and wondering how much Stella had told her friend about him.
Blade’s dark stare got to him. The big man was taking his measure… as if judging him… not that he could possibly know
all about the past…
“I heard about you growing up. And now I finally get to meet the man who saved my best friend’s life,” Blade said. “I’ll always regret I was in the military when she was targeted. But you were there for her. Thank you.” Then he turned his attention back to Stella. “What can I get you?”
“A few minutes with your boss. We, um, need all of your help.”
Stella had told him about Gideon, owner of the club and a man with an enigmatic past; Logan, security chief and ex-CPD detective; Cassandra, hostess and former magician’s assistant; Gabe, another man of mystery.
Blade’s gaze drilled into him. Apparently understanding Stella’s vague request, he nodded.
Dermot felt as if he’d earned the ex-military man’s seal of approval and wondered if he would have to pass a similar inspection with all members of Team Undercover.
Continue reading Velvet Ropes on Amazon…
About the Author
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Patricia Rosemoor has had 101 novels and more than seven million books in print. She’s fascinated with "dangerous love" – combining romance with danger, bringing a different mix of thrills and chills to her stories. Patricia has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and two Reviewers Choice and two Career Achievement Awards from RT Book Reviews, and in her other life, she taught Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing, credit courses at Columbia College Chicago.
Find more about Patricia’s work at her Website or at her Facebook page and at her Twitter page. Sign up for her newsletter, Dangerous Love.
Other digital novels by Patricia Rosemoor
See Me in Your Dreams (The McKenna Legacy 1)
Tell Me No Lies (The McKenna Legacy 2)
Touch Me in the Dark (The McKenna Legacy 3)
Never Cry Wolf (The McKenna Legacy 4)
Mysterious Stranger (The McKenna Legacy 5)
Cowboy Protector (The McKenna Legacy 6)
Wolf Moon (The McKenna Legacy 7)
In Name Only? (The McKenna Legacy 8)
Rescuing the Virgin (The McKenna Legacy 9)
Fake ID Wife (Club Undercover Book 1)
VIP Protector (Club Undercover Book 2)
Velvet Ropes (Club Undercover Book 3)
On the List (Club Undercover Book 4)
Red Carpet Christmas (Club Undercover Book 5)
Sheer Pleasure (Chicago Heat 1)
Improper Conduct (Chicago Heat 2)
Hot Zone (Chicago Heat 3)
In Dreams (New Orleans Heat)
Andrei (Gypsy Magic 3)
Rico (Renegade Magic 3)
Zachary (New Orleans Magic 3)
Pushed to the Limit (Quid Pro Quo 1)
Squaring Accounts (Quid Pro Quo 2)
No Holds Barred (Quid Pro Quo 3)
Quid Pro Quo Boxed Set (above 3 books)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (Dangerous Male 1)
Lucky Devil (Dangerous Male 2)
Dangerous Male Duet (above 2 books)
Crimson Holiday (Crimson Duet Book 1)
Crimson Nightmare (Crimson Duet Book 2)
Crimson Duet (Crimson Holiday & Crimson Nightmare)
Ticket to Nowhere (Double Trouble Book 1)
Torch Job (Double Trouble Book 2)
Heart of a Lawman (Sons of Silver Springs Book 1)
The Lone Wolf’s Child (Sons of Silver Springs Book 2)
A Rancher’s Vow (Sons of Silver Springs Book 3)
The Silent Sea
Haunted
SKIN
Hot Corpse (Short Story)
From other Publishers:
Animal Instincts (Kindred Souls Book 1)
Animal Attraction (Kindred Souls Book 2)
Eyes of the Tiger
Written in the Stars
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