“I don’t know.” Now Chance was musing. “I think a woman who knows criminals as well as you do, I think a woman like you might be able to predict that the ADA would move Daniel to the station—and that would put him within reach of Griffin, right?”
She whirled to face Chance. “You have a great imagination.”
He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
Lex growled. He was pissed at Chance but something was nagging at him. Something about the shooting at the station.
“For the hit to go down, there couldn’t be witnesses, though. So maybe that was where you came in. Your job was to get the ADA out of that room. You distracted the ADA, and Griffin made the hit.” Chance slapped his hands together. “And just like that, a threat is eliminated from your life and from Ethan’s.”
“A great imagination,” Sophie said again. “But that’s all it is…imagination.”
A knock sounded on the door.
“Come in, Dev,” Chance called.
Lex looked over and saw Dev head into the office. Dev’s face was far too grim. This isn’t going to be good. Nothing about the trip to VJS had been good so far.
“You accessed Griffin’s bank records?” Chance asked.
Oh, hell.
Dev nodded. “Twenty grand was deposited into Griffin’s account two days ago.”
“What?” The surprise in Sophie’s voice seemed real.
“Two days. That sure is real close to the time of that little visit you got from your stalker,” Chance pointed out.
Sophie marched toward Dev. “That twenty grand you found…where did it come from?”
“I’m still tracking it. Right now, I just know there was a payoff.”
She swallowed. Lex saw the delicate movement of her throat. Her gaze came to him, then darted to Chance, and finally back to Dev. “So that’s it. You all think I’ve been tricking you? Using VJS as what—some kind of cover? That the plan all along was to move Daniel out into a more accessible spot to off him?” She smiled. It was grim. Cold. “A good plan. But not my plan.”
“Was it Ethan’s?” Chance asked.
She sighed. “You are so hung up on him being the bad guy. Why? Because he had sex with your precious Gwen? Don’t get me wrong, I like Gwen, but jealousy can make a man go blind. In this case, you’re blind. Ethan didn’t do this. I didn’t do this.” She flashed her gaze at Lex. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
He did. “I don’t think you were involved,” Lex replied. Screw his friends, he knew her. Inside and out. “I saw your face at that station. You didn’t know what was going down.”
One of her delicate shoulders lifted in a move that was probably supposed to look careless. “Maybe I’m just a really good actress.”
“Not that good.”
Her chin notched.
Dev cleared his throat. “I will trace that money. I’ll find out who was behind that hit.”
“If it was even a hit,” Sophie noted. “Maybe Griffin inherited money from a dead uncle. Maybe he sold furniture or a car. I’d call this circumstantial evidence, nothing more.” Her voice dismissed them all. “Now, I have clients waiting at my office. This little stop was fun, but I’m done.” She stared directly at Lex. “Done here. Thanks for your services, but they are no longer needed.”
What?
She marched for the door, her heels sinking into the carpet.
He shook his head, pretty sure that she hadn’t just told him he was fired.
But she was opening the door. Leaving him. “Sophie, dammit, wait!” He lunged forward.
Dev caught his arm. “Man, there is still more you don’t know. More you probably don’t want to know about her. She isn’t what you think. Not at all. Save yourself some serious trouble and let her go.”
Maybe he liked trouble, because Lex shoved Dev out of his way and gave chase. So what if he looked desperate? She couldn’t get away from him, not like this.
He caught her at the elevator. His fingers curled around her shoulder, and he swung her back to face him. “Sophie, no.”
Her face was a perfect blank—no emotion at all. No fury. No pain. And he knew she had to be hurting. Hurting because if she hadn’t been involved in the hit on Duvato—and, yeah, it sure sounded like a hit now—then she’d been used as bait for the killing. Maybe she’d been used by the one man she considered family.
“Get your hand off me,” Sophie ordered. “I told you, we’re done.”
No, they weren’t even close to being done.
He lifted her up against him and she gave a little yell. “What are you doing?” Sophie demanded. “Stop it! Put me down! Now!”Ah, that last word held plenty of emotion. Fire. Fury.
The receptionist came running. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at them in shock. Dev and Chance were right on her heels.
Sophie squirmed against him. He just tightened his hold.
“Uh, Lex…” Dev began. “I don’t think you should—”
“Fuck off. You’ve done enough damage.”
Sophie frowned down at him. She wasn’t struggling in his arms. She was so warm and perfect. So Sophie. “Lex?” Her voice was softer now.
He carried her into his office and kicked the door shut. Then he let her slowly slide down his body. One sensual inch at a time.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Then she sucked in a sharp breath. “No, you don’t get to manhandle me and carry me in here like some kind of—”
“I’m sorry,” he told her softly. “I just wanted you to stay.”
“Too bad.” She jerked away from him. “I don’t need your services any longer. But then, according to your buddies, I never did. I’m some scheming criminal mastermind who was just using you as a cover for my big plan of killing Daniel.”
“You’d probably make an awesome criminal mastermind.” He fully believed that.
Her brow furrowed. “Did you just insult me or compliment me?”
Lex paced to his desk. He opened the top drawer and pulled out her check. “You paid too much.”
“Yes, well,” she pushed back her hair, “let’s just call it even and be done.”
“I don’t like that word. Done.” He shook his head. “We aren’t.” Keeping his gaze on her, he ripped up the check.
“That’s a ten-thousand-dollar check,” Sophie said, lifting her right brow. “What was tearing it up supposed to prove?”
“That I don’t give a shit about the money.”
Her eyebrow dropped.
“That I plan to keep watching out for you, protecting you, until I’ve caught the man who broke into your place. The same man I’m damn sure tried to run us down in front of the courthouse.”
She advanced toward him, then seemed to catch herself. “But what if I’ve just been scamming you? What if I’m just some cold-blooded killer and none of what I’ve told you before is true?”
“Then I’m a piss poor judge of character because I don’t think you’re cold-blooded.” He tossed away the scraps of the check. “I don’t think anything about you is cold.” Lex headed toward her and pulled Sophie into his arms. “Not a damn thing.”
***
He’d done it. Griffin Hollister tried to keep his face suitably stoic as he sat through the endless round of questions. He knew the drill, of course. He’d have to bide his time and play the role. The slightly shell shocked man who’d been forced to take a life.
As if a jerk like Daniel Duvato mattered in the grand scheme of things. The bastard deserved exactly what he’d gotten. Actually, he deserved more. For his crimes, the fellow should have suffered so much longer.
But his suffering hadn’t been part of the deal. Duvato’s death—oh, hell, yes. It had been.
And that twenty grand was just the start. Now that the job is over, I’ll get the rest of my money. He just had to finish jumping through hoops first. He had to answer all the questions and play the scene just right.
Then, when the ADA let him go and all the police suits were out of his way, he’d collect his final
payment and leave the country immediately. No one in DC would ever see him again. Because that, too, had been part of the plan.
Good-bye, asshole criminals. Hello, sun-kissed girls in bikinis. He couldn’t wait to get down to the Caribbean.
Chapter Eight
Lex lifted Sophie up—she loved his strength—and pushed her back against the wall. Her legs curled around his hips, her skirt hiking up. She should be telling Lex to get his hands off her. She should be walking out that door.
But Sophie felt as if she were splintering apart on the inside, and he was the only anchor she had.
I don’t think anything about you is cold.
She’d just wanted to run away from him. From Chance Valentine. From Chance and Dev’s accusations. From the very real fear that, maybe, just maybe, Ethan had used her. That he’d set her up in one of his careful plans. That the one person she’d truly trusted in the last ten years had used her.
“Forget everything else,” Lex rasped against her mouth. “Screw the others. Just focus on me. On you. Come back to me, Sophie.”
The small handbag she’d been carrying hit the floor. Her hands lifted and curled around him. Her nails sank into his shirt as she held him tightly. She wanted to be with him. Wanted to forget the rest of the world and just vanish with Lex.
Lex was heat. He was passion. He was need.
“I want you, sweetheart,” he told her, the words a fierce growl, “so damn much.”
She looked into his eyes and saw the truth of those words. His desire was plain to see. No lie, no deception. He stared at her with a fierce lust in his gaze, a desire darker and hotter than anything she’d seen before.
Had any man ever wanted her the way he did?
Had she ever wanted any other man this way?
No.
“Here,” Sophie heard herself whisper. “Right now.”
“Sophie…” Not an argument from him, but a hungry, wild answer. Then his right hand was pushing her skirt up even more. She still had on thigh highs, so she felt the rough touch of his fingers on her inner thigh. That touch electrified her and Sophie arched toward him because she needed the pleasure they could share.
It was the wrong place—his friends were just down the hallway.
It was the wrong time—she should be getting the hell out of there.