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“Well, the days just sort of whizzed by and the right moment never …”
“Uh-huh. You didnae tell me Beckett hired you because you were afraid I wouldnae approve. You worried I’d stop teaching you the basics, yeah?”
“No.”
He stilled my nervous scratching.
“Maybe.” My brain acknowledged the ugly truth. “Oh, God, Arch. I used you.”
“Dinnae look so stricken, love. I’m impressed.”
“I manipulated you.”
“I didnae feel a thing. Either I’m slipping or you’re gifted. A bit of both, I imagine.” He clasped my hand and skimmed his thumb over my knuckles. “Beckett has a brilliant eye for talent. He’s also obsessed with his work. If he hired you, it’s because he believes you’re a valuable asset to the team.”
My heart pounded. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Arch’s touch or Beckett’s belief. Probably both. “What do you think?”
His mouth quirked. “I think you’ve changed.”
I took that as a compliment. Three weeks ago, my self-esteem had been at an all time low, but instead of sticking my head in the sand, I’d taken a walk on the wild side. For the first time in years I felt genuinely motivated and happy. Well, except for now. Just now I felt ill. “I hope you don’t think I slept with you just to learn your secrets.”
“You slept with me because you wanted me, yeah?”
I rolled my eyes, but it was true. “Please don’t make me say it out loud. Your ego is scary big enough.”
He smiled, that ornery smile that made the back of my knees sweat. Great. “You once said that mixing business with pleasure is messy.”
“Aye.”
“Beckett said the same thing.”
“He would.” The grin broadened. “So you’re breaking off with me, yeah?”
“We’d have to be in a relationship to break up. You don’t do relationships, remember?”
“That bang-on memory of yours is going to bite me in the arse one day.”
I forced a smile of my own. “Maybe it’ll save your ass.”
He laughed. “Maybe.”
I marveled at my sudden calm. Another talent of Arch’s: obliterating my frustrations. “So you’re okay with me working for Chameleon?”
“Not my call, Sunshine.”
I frowned. “You’re not okay with it.”
“I’m okay with you.”
The man talked in circles, but I was used to it. So had my ex. “What about the not-having-sex part?”
“Are you sure you’re not breaking off with me? That sounded a wee bit like the ‘can we still be friends’ speech, yeah?” He squeezed my hand and smiled. “We don’t have to shag to get on.”
I scrunched my brow. “The least you could do is sound disappointed.”
“Didnae say I wouldnae miss it.” He kissed me then. Slow. Deep.
Heat spiraled through my system. I dug to the center of my soul not to feel anything other than lust. Lust I could manage. Anything deeper was dangerous. Loving a man like Arch was insane. First, he was too young for me. Second, what if he’d plotted to kill Simon the Fish from the get-go? Third, he’d once told me I couldn’t believe anything he said. One way or another, the man would mangle my heart.
He eased away, and my heart thump-thumped at the teasing sparkle in his eye. “So how do you want to spend your last night in London, friend?”
Sweaty-kneed, I gave him a come-hither grin. “I haven’t officially started with Chameleon.”
He nipped my earlobe. “I’ll race you back to the flat. First one to get naked gets to be on top.”
CHAPTER THREE
Atlantic City, New Jersey
SHE LOOKED LIKE MEG Ryan, only shorter and softer. Blue eyes, full lips and pair of killer legs. She ran toward him singing a Joni Mitchell classic. “Help me! I think I’m falling …”
Her voice jumped an octave, a feminine squeal, as she tripped and plowed into his open arms. They landed on the beach, rolled around in the sand and surf. “From Here to Eternity,” she said in her little-girl voice. She was obsessed with Hollywood. A real fruitcake. Twinkie, he called her, because she was so damn sweet. He shouldn’t do sweet, but he wanted to do her.
“Help me,” she sang in his ear.
“I’ll save you,” he said.
“My hero.” She flashed her dazzling smile and breasts.
He reached for those perfect 32Bs, but an alarm stopped him cold. No, not an alarm. A phone. What was a phone doing on the beach? “If this is a dream, please don’t let me …”
Milo Beckett woke up reaching for thin air. “Dammit.” He squinted at the digital clock, cursed again. Not bothering to turn on a light, he palmed his cell phone and fell back against his pillows. “Beckett here. What’s up?”
“Are you mental?”
“I’m sleep-deprived. It’s 3:00 a.m., Arch. This better be good.”
“She’s not like us.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Ah.” Evie Parish. The woman of his fractured fantasy.
“Why didnae you tell me you hired her?”
“Figured you had enough on your mind. The shooting. Dodging Scotland Yard.”
“Haven’t given the shooting a second thought, mate.”
“That because it was a straight-up accident? Or because he deserved to die?”
“Let’s just say the world’s better off, yeah?”
“Skirting the issue.”
“Speaking of skirts, what’s the deal with Evie?”
Milo reflected on the half-pint fireball awakening in the island hospital. How she’d asked after everyone’s welfare, never complaining about her own injury. He remembered her passionate argument regarding her qualifications and the spark of desperation in her deep blue eyes. He remembered how she made him feel every time they were in the same room—alive, amused and, dammit, randy. “She wanted to work for Chameleon,” he said. “I agreed to give her a shot. I didn’t specify the job.” Arch didn’t comment, but Milo heard relief in the significant pause. “Unlike you,” he continued, “I wouldn’t put an untrained civilian in the field.”
“Aye, except she’s not a novice anymore.”
“One sting does not make—”
“I taught her a few short cons, yeah?”
Milo pressed a thumb and forefinger to his closed lids. The throbbing behind his eyeballs promised to intensify within the next thirty seconds or however long it took his partner to explain his asinine actions. “Why?”
“Because she’s gullible and someone needed to open her eyes to the real world.”
“Huh.”
“Stop projecting, Jazzman.”
“Who’s projecting? One minute she’s anxious to start her new job, the next she remembers she booked a vacation. To England, no less. I assumed it was your doing, but I didn’t pry. Figured you had unfinished business.”
“Figured I owed her after dragging her into that land-investment mess. So I treated her to a holiday. So what?”
“So is it finished?”
“Aye.”
“Good. Because mixing business with pleasure—”
“Messy. I know.”
“Look what happened with Gina,” Milo said. An ex-cop, Gina Valente was a valuable member of the team, and they’d almost lost her because of Arch’s fickle dick. Thwarting company policy, they’d had a short fling. Shorter than what Gina would’ve liked.
“She still pissed?”
“I think her exact words were I’m over that amoral prick.”
“All’s well that ends wonky. Nice to know.”
Milo rolled to his side and felt his nightstand for the ever-present bottle of pain relievers. “When are you coming back?”
“Depends. We clear with the Agency?”
“Yes and no.”
“Meaning?”
“Chameleon’s on sabbatical until the new director re-evaluates our purpose.”
“You’ve got a new boss?”
“We’ve got a new boss. Vincent Crowe. Company man.”
“Hard-ass?”
“You got it.” He popped two aspirin and swallowed them dry.
“You dinnae sound happy, mate.”
Try miserable. Even before Crowe had been appointed, the Agency had started mangling Milo’s vision for Chameleon by inundating the team with cases pertaining to high-profile scams. Scams that target the select upper crust, as opposed to those that ruin lives of the blue-collar majority. Given his dealings with the new director thus far, he feared his vision was one step closer to history. “Maybe Evie could sing me a song. Cheer me up. Where is she, anyway?”
“Just put her on a plane. She’s on her way home. Be warned, she’s over the moon aboot her job with Chameleon. Has illusions aboot saving the world. Reminds me of you, yeah?”
“I don’t want to save the world, Arch. Just a naive few.”
“People like Evie.”
Milo didn’t comment.
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, mate. Remember what you told me aboot mixing business with pleasure.”
“That a warning?”
“Just an observation.”
The exchange reignited Milo’s previous suspicions that Arch had fallen in love. Dangerous territory for a man who valued emotional detachment. Never attach yourself to anyone you can’t walk away from in a split second. “You sound jealous. Just an observation.”
“Bugger off.”
“Fuck you.”
“Beckett?”
“Yeah?”
“Try a glass of warm milk. And dinnae worry aboot Crowe.”
“Thanks.” Milo disconnected and fell back against his pillows. His relationship with Arch was complicated. Onetime rivals, they now danced the same dance. Partners in anticrime. Arch occasionally slipped into old routines, solo. His last performance had earned Milo an ass chewing from Crowe. It had also pulled Evie Parish, a sexy variety performer, into their lives. As if he needed another complication coming between him and his professional goals.
He massaged his temples, dreaded another bout of insomnia. He swung out of bed and headed for the kitchen, contemplating this new and constant restlessness. He needed to take charge.
First order of business: tackling insomnia. Which meant two things: addressing his discontent with the Agency and getting a grip on his infatuation with Twinkie. In a warped, adversarial way, he considered Arch Duvall a friend. But it was his obsession to learn everything the crafty genius knew about grifting that motivated Milo to keep him close. If he pursued this attraction to Evie, he risked driving a wedge between him and the Scot. Just because Arch claimed the affair was over didn’t mean he was over Evie.
