She shook her head. “He got into the car. I sensed it immediately. The interior smelled like sweat. BO.” It made her nauseous to think about it even now.
Dent frowned. “He only wanted to violate your space. Spook you.”
“Which is more sinister than a theft.”
He sat back in the chair and took several swallows of water. As he replaced the bottle cap he asked, “No idea who this smelly creep is?”
“No. But as you said last night, it must be someone who dislikes my book. Intensely.” She looked away but was unable to hide her guilty expression.
“Oh, I get it now,” he said, drawing the words out. “You thought it was me. That’s why you booked the charter. All that bullshit about wanting to see how I had fared was just that. Bullshit. You wanted to see if I was your evil prankster.”
“Dent, I—”
“Save it,” he said angrily, coming out of the chair. “No wonder you fold up like a daylily every time I get too close. You’re afraid I’m about to pounce.” He gave her a scathing look. “Just for the record, I haven’t been to New York lately. I wouldn’t touch a rat, dead or alive. Most days I shower and use deodorant, and I sure as hell couldn’t have been in two places at once yesterday. I was in Houston with you, not back here in your bedroom. And if my hands are ever on your panties, believe me, it won’t be for painting.”
She felt the heat rising in her cheeks and cursed her tendency to blush.
A long silence ensued while waves of anger radiated off him. Finally she said quietly, “Are you finished?”
“More to the point, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Here.” He gestured to encompass the room. “Are you finished with what you came to do?”
“Yes,” she replied, somewhat warily. “Why?”
He reached down and encircled her biceps with his hand, pulling her up off the sofa. “The people who’d be upset over your book is a short list. I want to go back to your house, see it in daylight, see if we can pick up a clue to identify the villain.”
Bellamy put up token resistance, but actually that was what she had intended to do without him, so she let herself be propelled from the office. Once they were inside the elevator, he asked if she’d had an update from Houston and when she told him no, he said that was probably good news.
The banal conversation got them through the awkward confinement and to the ground level.
Outside, the sun was so bright it momentarily blinded her, so she didn’t see Rocky Van Durbin until he was standing directly in her path.
“Hello, Ms. Price. Long time no see.” He smirked at her, then gave Dent a slow once-over. Hitching his head toward him, he asked her, “Who’s the cowboy?”
“Who’s the asshole?”
Chapter 5
There was barely a heartbeat between Van Durbin’s question and Dent’s comeback.
Bellamy answered neither of them and instead demanded of Van Durbin, “What are you doing here?”
“Free country.” He looked beyond them at the building’s glass facade. “So this is the family business’s headquarters.”
“Is that a question? If so, I believe you already know the answer.”
He flashed his smug grin. “What gave me away?”
Her repugnance plain, she sidestepped him. “Excuse us.”
But he was persistent. “I only need a moment of your time. Pretty please? It’s been a few weeks. We have a lot to catch up on.”
The night she’d fled New York, an international rock star had been found dead in his Manhattan hotel suite, the apparent victim of a drug overdose. Speculation over whether it had been a suicide or a tragic accident had dominated the scandal sheets like EyeSpy for days.
That story had shortly been followed by a supermodel’s claim that an “unnamed member” of the British royal family had fathered her twins. The allegation was exposed as a publicity stunt intended to jump-start her flagging career, but it had kept the Van Durbins of the world busily hopping between continents to hound their prey.