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His eyebrows rose, and she flinched. It had just slipped out. None of the people she’d run into tonight were clients she actually liked, except Andre.
‘Who is?’ the detective asked, his question low amongst the rustling of the crowd.
She went still. He’d taken the conversation in a direction she hadn’t anticipated.
‘Who do you trust, Nina?’
‘Rielle, Sienna and a few others.’
She was aware that her friends were also her employees. She was a social butterfly who only let a small number of people close. Not many people saw that, though. It unsettled her that he had.
But it didn’t surprise her.
‘So there’s room for one more,’ he said as he settled their joined hands on his thigh.
That did.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, unable to help herself.
The announcer called for the national anthem. Morgan stood, tugging her up with him. Nina rose too, but pulled her hand away from his warm grip. She put it over her heart to keep it from hopping outside her ribcage.
Her friend?
Her thoughts whirled as the organist played. They weren’t even close to being friends. They were adversaries, at best. Adversaries conducting a momentary truce.
Although he had come to her rescue when she’d needed help for Rielle … And she’d repaid him with tickets to this game – the highest priced seats in the stadium – because she’d wanted to thank him.
No, friends they were not. She doubted they could ever be. There was too much standing between them, not to mention the … spark. She didn’t know what else to call it. Whenever they got close, she felt the energy running along the edges of her skin like static electricity.
No, she didn’t want him as a friend.
When they sat back down, she busied herself opening her programme and digging in her purse for a pen. Morgan made himself comfortable beside her. The seats behind home plate were wider and cushier than those throughout the rest of the stadium, and the size was needed to accommodate his tall form. It didn’t stop his knee from brushing against hers.
She crossed her legs, and her Prada sneaker bounced up and down as she waited for the first batter to step up to the plate. The shoes weren’t her customary heels, but they had a blue hibiscus print that was fun enough to make her give up the extra inches. Right now, though, she wished for that extra boost of power. She cast a quick glance at Morgan, but he was focused on the game too.
It let her relax.
She began tracking the game in the blank scorecard in the programme, writing details like F-7, 6-3, and moving Andre to first base with his hit.
The detective looked over her hieroglyphics. ‘You know how to keep score.’
‘I know a lot of things.’
He chuckled. ‘I don’t doubt that.’
She retraced Andre’s path from home plate to first base, making the line bold. He was always pushing, this one, looking for a way in. ‘I like it. It calms my thoughts and lets me focus.’
‘Baseball as Zen? What’s got you so stressed?’
Her pen stalled. She’d slipped. Again. By trying to avoid the subject that made him so curious, she’d opened up.
‘You played, didn’t you?’ she asked.
And scored, point-blank.
His curious expression turned suspicious. ‘You looked me up.’
‘What? No. Well, not your past.’ She’d had her investigators look into who he was when he’d started poking around Luxxor during that whole Jason Sloan affair. She’d needed to know how big of a threat he was to her company.
She needed to remember the outcome of that report.
‘I can see it,’ she confessed. ‘It’s in the way you walk.’
Not that she was watching …
‘You were in your element down on that field. I could hear it in how you talked to the players and coaches.’ She shrugged. ‘I knew you were a baseball guy before I bought the tickets.’
He sat back in his seat, and their shoulders brushed. ‘What position did I play?’
She nibbled at her lip and looked at the field. ‘First base?’
‘How do you know that?’
He had the body of a power hitter, but she didn’t want to say that out loud. ‘You clean up after others.’
He smirked. There was no other way to describe the expression on his face. It made her stomach flip. She wasn’t trying to intrigue him.
But it didn’t look as if she was putting him off at all.
‘You read people, don’t you?’ he said.
‘So do you,’ she replied softly.
Their gazes locked, and her foot stopped bobbing. She was scared to think of what he saw when he read her. Scared, defensive and maybe just a bit wistful. He saw inside her too easily – or he liked making her think he did. She was a strong woman, but the mind games were getting to her.
Because the one thing she couldn’t forget tonight was that he was a cop – and she was DC’s top madam.
She toyed with her earring, and it jingled a little warning. How much did he really know? How much did he suspect? He’d been hanging around Luxxor for way too long now, no doubt picking up details and puzzle pieces. She couldn’t let any more slip around him. Not only was it uncharacteristic, it was dangerous.
‘I played first base and batted fourth in the lineup in college,’ he said.
She twirled her pen. She couldn’t let him say what he saw in her. She couldn’t hear it.
A beer vendor was making his way up the aisle, and she waved him down. ‘Two, please.’
‘Running scared, Nina?’
‘I’m not scared, I’m thirsty.’
‘Right.’
He watched her steadily, not buying it. She passed him a beer and took a quick sip of her own.
He drank more deeply before turning his attention back to the game. ‘How’s Rielle doing?’ he asked.
Thank God, a mutually safe topic. ‘She’s stronger than I realised, in a lot of ways.’
He cocked his head and frowned. ‘You don’t do Muay Thai, do you?’
‘God, no.’
The tension left his big body. ‘Good, the heels are hazardous enough.’
She might do a little Tai Chi every now and then, but the martial arts weren’t her thing, especially the brutal, sweaty, close-contact ones. She shifted in her seat. Although hot sweaty close contact wasn’t totally out of her realm.
Her ears turned hot. ‘I didn’t even know she practised that.’
‘You tried to protect her.’
She had, but her efforts hadn’t been good enough – not on their own. ‘You locked her stalker up, and you gathered the evidence to keep him there.’
‘It was the only way to keep Scott away from the guy.’
Darien Scott was Rielle’s boyfriend. They didn’t come any more dangerous than that one, except for maybe the man sitting next to her.
What was she doing here with a cop?
‘Darien’s getting back on his feet,’ she said. ‘He’s not a very patient patient.’
‘I know. We grabbed a beer the other night.’
Her eyebrows rose. She really didn’t like the sound of that. ‘When did you two become best buds?’
‘When you and your assistant came sashaying into our lives.’
Nina tapped her pen against the programme. She did not sashay.
‘Nice shoes, by the way.’
Her jaw set. ‘I like them.’
‘So do I.’
Again, his low tone stroked over her skin in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Drink your beer, Josh.’
He didn’t grin, but it was close.
They stayed that way, talking and sparring, as the game moved on, inning by inning. He was a tricky one, though. It was probably from all the interrogation training he undoubtedly had – or because he’d figured out a way under her skin. Nina found herself answering honestly more often than not, and it unsettled her. She was usually more careful than that … had more control. She’d taught herself to keep her opinions and personal matters private around clients. It was only around those closest to her that she allowed more of her true self to show.
The man was neither a client nor a friend.
Why was she letting him get to her?
‘F-8,’ he said, pointing at her scorecard.
She’d fallen behind again. The man was distracting, to say the least.
‘So what big scandal is going to pull me out to Luxxor next?’ he asked. The crack of the bat against a ball reverberated around the park as the Phillies’ catcher smoked a line drive down the third base line. The action stopped just as suddenly when the ball smacked into the third baseman’s glove.
‘Nothing.’ Nina could feel the detective’s gaze on her rather than the action on the field.
She diligently wrote the out in her scorecard. On paper, all the fuss seemed like nothing. A simple out, the end of the inning – no sign of a close call.
‘There’s always something going on over there,’ Morgan said, not letting the subject drop. ‘Why is that?’
She felt that sizzle of danger again, riding along her nerve endings.
‘I couldn’t say, but we’ve appreciated your diligence. There’s no reason you should have to visit us again.’
‘So give me one.’
Her pen stopped, frozen on the paper.
‘Go to dinner with me tomorrow,’ he said softly. ‘My treat this time.’
Her brain stalled out, too.
The invitation was unexpected. It shouldn’t have been tempting … but it was. The plan tonight was to thank him for his efforts and then walk away. He was too close already. He’d seen more than he should.
But the words just wouldn’t come.
She could feel his gaze on her like a heavy weight. She knew she couldn’t see him again, inside her office or out of it. Yet, with every inning that passed, she was dreading the end of the night more and more.
Silence loomed between them. He wasn’t letting her off the hook. She felt like everyone in the park was looking at them and began to imagine murmurs. People in the stands close to them even turned to watch.
Suddenly, Nina realised she wasn’t imagining it. Looking up, she caught their reflection on the scoreboard. She and Josh were posted in stunning clarity on the big screen.
Her stomach dropped. Oh, dear Lord, no.
The Kiss Cam.
Hoots and hollers rang up loud around them, and she did the only thing she could think of doing. She lifted her programme in front of her face and hid.
She was a self-assured, sophisticated woman who didn’t need the attention the selfies crowd seemed to crave these days. Luxxor was known for being discreet. She didn’t advertise her company. The last thing she needed was her face plastered on a fifty-foot-high LED screen.
But then the detective moved in his seat.
He caught her wrist and slowly pushed the programme down. His hand slipped into her hair, and he cupped the back of her head. Their gazes caught as he leaned in.
