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“Well?” she said. “Are you going to speak first or should I?”
“I guess I should, since you walked out of our last meeting before I had a chance to fully explain myself.” She had the nerve to cock a brow at his tone but damned if he cared. She knew damn well why he was there and exactly what he wanted, and if his tone was sharp, she knew why that was, as well—because he was on the verge of shaking her until her teeth rattled around in her head like loose marbles.
Anticipating another round of pointless sparring, he put up a hand to ward her off and tried for a more diplomatic tone. “Look, obviously, I had no idea who you were when we met earlier, and, for the record, I didn’t figure out what Joel was up to until right after I arrived at his estate, which was about five minutes before you did. If I’d known beforehand, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But since I am here and the circumstances surrounding Meagan’s disappearance are less than ideal, I came here to ask you to please reconsider Joel’s and my proposal.”
He expected her to start hissing and spitting at him again, but she surprised him, instead, with a thoughtful expression and a few seconds of contemplative silence. “Joel’s proposal?” she asked, pursing lips that begged to be sucked and staring at him through narrowed eyes. “Sounds interesting. Go on.” She leaned against the door casually and waited.
“I’d be glad to but could we talk inside?” The temperature had dropped to somewhere between twenty and twenty-five degrees in a matter of hours and, the later it got, the more brisk the wind became. Supposedly, it was an unseasonably warm midwestern February, but to Broderick, who’d grown up on the West Coast, anything below seventy degrees was cruel and unusual punishment. He couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Dodge.
“Sorry, but no. You’re a complete stranger, so right here works for me.” She giggled at his pithy expression and then gave him one right back. “So what was it that you wanted me to reconsider, again?”
“As I said before, I wasn’t expecting that Joel would hire you to find Meagan and then want us to work together, but now that I’m here and the idea is on the table, I think we should seriously consider it.”
“Oh?” She cocked a brow. “Why?”
“Meagan is my goddaughter, and while this isn’t the first time she’s run off, it is the first time she’s run off without her medication. We believe she’s with a guy that she’s been dating behind her parents’ backs for the past couple of months. His name is Peter Danforth, as in the son of state senator Frank Danforth.”
“I see, and are Peter’s parents searching for him, as well?”
“Apparently, they flee to the Caribbean when it’s wintertime here. But we do know that their son is a grad student at Mizzou, who just happens to be well over the age of twenty-one, and, according to the family’s housekeeper, present and accounted for on campus as we speak. So, technically, he isn’t missing and I, for one, couldn’t care less about him right now. Frankly, I’d have hung up on Joel when he called me late last night, if it wasn’t for the fact that Meagan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a month ago and she’s been refusing treatment. Let’s just say that her decision-making skills are questionable under the best of circumstances. Factor in a rich boyfriend with a valid ID, platinum credit cards and mental illness, and she’s a ticking time bomb. As of about fifteen minutes ago, she was in the Jefferson City area, which isn’t very far away, but based on her travel pattern so far, it doesn’t look like she’s planning to head back in this direction any time soon. I could be wrong, but I’d rather go after her now than have something that could’ve been prevented happen later, because I didn’t.”
“I get that part,” she said, looking slightly confused. “But what I don’t get is why you need a partner. You seem to have a handle on things already.”
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but I’m in the middle of another case right now and there’s a possibility that I could be called away without notice. I’d like to have an associate with me in case that happens, someone who could pick up the slack, if necessary.”
“You mean like a sidekick?”
He shrugged. “That’s one way of putting it, but—” He realized his mistake a second too late, when her expression went from open and curious to closed for business in the blink of an eye. “If I might rephrase—”
“No need. I think I understand perfectly, Mr...”
That made him laugh. “Oh, so now you don’t remember my name?”
She looked taken aback. “Is there a reason why I should?”
Was she serious? Just a few hours ago, he’d been positive that something interesting was happening between them, something that, if played right, would eventually lead to her straddling him and riding his stiff, swollen cock until they were both out of breath. He wanted her, and, underneath her prickly exterior, he thought he’d sensed a mutual attraction. But now, standing face-to-face with her again, without so much as a spark between them, he reminded himself that there was always room for error, and, though it didn’t happen often, he wasn’t above entertaining the strong possibility that he’d made one. Either that or he’d been right all along and she really was nuts, in which case he was probably talking to one of her multiple personalities.
“No, I guess not,” Broderick conceded after several seconds of holding up his end of a staring contest. “Look, about Joel’s proposal...”
“It sounds like what you need is an assistant, and I’m afraid that’s something we can’t help you with. I could, however, recommend a couple of our past interns who might be available for a last-minute assignment like this, if you’d like.”
The emphasis that she’d placed on last minute hadn’t escaped his notice, but he wasn’t in the mood to rise to the bait. He’d wasted enough time already. “I have an entire staff of assistants at my disposal, Elise. The last thing I need is another one.” Something flickered in her eyes when he said her name, but it came and went so quickly that he wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen it or if it was a trick of the light.
“Fine, so use one of them,” she suggested and he thought, for a tense millisecond, that he saw it again.
“I would if it was that simple,” he said, and the sigh she offered in response was soft and wistful, sexy in a breezy, nonchalant kind of way that irritated the hell out of him. He rolled right over it. “But the thing is, both cases require extreme discretion. Meagan’s case, in particular, needs to be kept away from both the press and local law enforcement, for obvious reasons. So far, that hasn’t been much of an issue, but if her behavior were to escalate and she were to become a threat to herself or others, because she was off her meds and not thinking clearly, then who knows how things could play out.”
“Okay, but I still don’t understand what any of these situations you mentioned have to do with me.” Now it was Broderick’s turn to sigh and he did, deeply, impatiently and borderline rudely, a fact that she seemed to find funny.
He hated wasting time, particularly when lives could be at stake, and he especially hated having to explain himself when it came to his business and how he chose to handle it. In his line of work, every second counted and, so far, Elise Carrington had already caused him to squander so many of them that he’d lost track. And, like an idiot, he had let her. She was right. It wasn’t like the fate of the world relied on whether or not she helped him. Truthfully, he’d move much faster and cover much more ground without her slowing him down. She was beautiful, but he wasn’t under any illusions about the scope of her professional capabilities. Her expensive, scented business card had introduced her as a Private Investigations Consultant, whatever the hell that was. But based on her red-bottom boots, painted-on designer clothing and the mini-mansion that she called home, it was way more likely that she spent most of her time trailing cheating husbands and reporting back to disillusioned housewives. Which meant that her skill set, or lack thereof, as the case likely was, was a liability that he could’ve happily done without. He was surprised that Joel had sought assistance from someone like her in the first place.
Clearly Joel’s anxious mental state had compromised his thought process but what the hell was Broderick’s problem? The jury might’ve still been out on whether or not she was certifiable, but the longer he stood there, spinning his wheels and ogling her on the sly, he wondered if maybe he had it all wrong and he was actually the crazy one.
“They have everything to do with you because, thanks to you and the traffic accident you caused, I don’t have time to vet another candidate. As it is, I should’ve been in Jefferson City hours ago. If I had been, I’d probably be on my way back here with Meagan right now and none of this would even be an issue. But, since it is an issue and Joel has apparently already vetted you, I think an appropriate gesture of professional goodwill would be for you to accept the case and see it through.”
She stared at him for several seconds—a wide-eyed, stunned stare that he was compelled to return full measure—and then she reached up, plucked her glasses out of her hair and slipped them over her eyes. Behind the spotless lenses, her eyes were narrowed and searching. “You’re saying that your failure to plan accordingly is my fault?”
“What I’m saying is that Joel and I need your help.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but Carrington Consulting has a very strict policy against partnerships with outside entities,” she informed him tartly, her eyes still narrowed and, now, a hand on her hip. “So, while I can appreciate your dilemma, I can’t violate policy.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She hesitated for a moment, then rolled her eyes heavenward as if to say, hey, what can we do? Then she mouthed the word sorry to him, stepped back and began closing the door in his face.
Let her go, his mind screamed at the same time that his foot shot out and breached the threshold at the last possible second. He hadn’t planned on going into detail about the other case that he was working on because it was none of her business. But the bottom line was that she had something he wanted—her time—and, since appealing to her professional ethics hadn’t worked, because she apparently had none, then maybe the truth would.
“Three years ago,” he blurted out, barely able to conceal his irritation at having to do so, “my sister disappeared. I was on an assignment in the United Kingdom when it happened, so I didn’t find out until after I got back to the States, a couple of weeks later.” He caught the door with the tips of his fingers before it collided with his foot and held it open. “By then, whatever leads the local police thought they had were cold and the world had pretty much moved on to the next tragic story. To everyone else, including the police, it’s a cold case, but a body was never found and I believe that’s because she’s out there somewhere. So I still look for her.”
His announcement was met with complete silence, during which time she didn’t open the door again but she didn’t close it, either. He chose to take that as a good sign.
“Hers is the other case that I’m working right now,” Broderick went on. “Around the same time that I got the news that Meagan was on the run again, a new lead into my sister’s disappearance popped up—the first one in over a year. I have some associates looking into it as we speak but if they find something significant, I plan to be the one who follows up. Since I can’t be in two places at one time, that’s where you come in.”
He breathed an audible sigh of relief when the door slowly moved in reverse and she came into view again. “Plus,” he added, catching her eyes and cocking a brow, “you’d be saving me from having to make a very difficult choice.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Broderick Cannon,” another woman’s voice said from somewhere behind the first one. His head snapped up and his gaze quickly roamed the foyer beyond the woman standing in front of him. By the time he had located his target and zeroed in on her, she was already walking toward them, moving up behind her identical twin slowly and eyeing him warily. “What are you doing here?”
“Talking with you, I thought.” He slanted a chastising look in the other woman’s direction and received a grin in return. He barely resisted the urge to grin back at her.
Well, that explains it, he thought as he stared into Elise Carrington’s eyes and mentally commanded his swooning cock back into semihibernation. In a blatant act of rebellion, it yawned and stretched against his thigh, and then tightened in anticipation.
Right down to their facial expressions and physical mannerisms, the resemblance between the two women was beyond uncanny. As far as he could see, the key to the only identifiable difference between them rested squarely in his groin. The woman standing in front of him was just as beautiful as the one who’d just walked up, but he hadn’t once caught himself wondering what she tasted like. His mouth was definitely watering now, though.
Elise—the real Elise—had traded her sexy dress and designer boots for a pink fleece jumpsuit that zipped up the front and bare feet. The material clung to her curves like a second skin, revealing just how dangerous to a man’s sanity they really were. He couldn’t help staring.
A throat cleared softly and he looked up to find two sets of amber-colored eyes trained on him—one wide and unblinking, and the other alert and amused. Not the least bit repentant, he cleared his own throat and tried again. “Miss Carrington, as I was just explaining to your sister, I’d like to talk with you about what happened between us earlier.”
She cocked a brow. “Elise.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, I’m Elise.” She touched a delicate hand to her chest in case he needed a visual. “You obviously can’t tell me apart from my sister, so...”
They stared at each other, one of those if looks could kill stares, and he was the first to look away.
Okay, so she was pissed. He got that. But if she thought they were about to have a repeat of their interstate showdown, then she was sadly mistaken. For one thing, he was tired and starving, and for another, every synapse in his brain was on overload at the moment, blindsided by a swift punch of lust that had completely missed his gut and exploded, instead, in the center of his groin. He hated to ruin her diabolical little plan but divine intervention couldn’t have helped him hold up his end of an argument just then.
“Okaaaay,” Broderick hedged carefully. “I believe I’m completely clear now. So can we talk?”
Her other eyebrow joined the first one, high up on her forehead. “No.”
“Elise—”
“Elise,” her twin said at the same time. “You’re being rude.”
Elise turned to her sister with murder in her eyes. “Excuse me?”
“I’d like to hear what he has to say,” the other woman murmured close to Elise’s ear.
To Broderick, she said, “I’m Olivia Carrington.” Then she extended a hand and shook his firmly. “I think you’ve already met my sister.”
“That I have,” Broderick confirmed, liking Olivia immediately. After a few seconds, he released her hand and turned his attention back to Elise. “That I have,” he said again, his voice turning thoughtful.
“Well, then, welcome to Carrington Consulting. Come inside,” Olivia said and took Elise with her as she moved aside so that he could do just that.
Chapter 5 (#ub9443291-05e4-532f-b9e7-b724160c85a9)
Olivia was sprawled across Elise’s king-size bed with her feet waving in the air, lying in wait for Elise when she emerged from her walk-in closet with a packed Louis Vuitton carryall and her portable gun safe. “That delicious specimen downstairs,” she said, sitting up and announcing as soon as she spotted Elise, “is Broderick Malcolm Cannon.” She consulted the iPad in her hand and nodded in approval at what she saw on the glowing screen. “He’s thirty-seven, single and, according to the information that Eli was able to dig up on short notice, very financially solvent, which is always a plus in my book. Oh, and he owns Cannon Corp, which is apparently some sort of underground investigations firm with hush-hush assignments and a very high-level security clearance. Even Eli couldn’t find out much about it, but he did say that our Mr. Cannon has a reputation for being a bit of a beast in the field, so we can assume that he’s probably at least a little dangerous.” She paused to giggle delightfully. “And, hopefully, an animal in bed, which makes the fact that Eli didn’t find anything to support your theory that he could be a serial killer very good news. For you, I mean.” She set the iPad aside, looking pleased with herself until she noticed Elise’s incredulous look. “What? I’m sorry but he’s hot. Did you really expect me not to comment on it? What is it about fine men, exactly, that makes you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous,” Elise said, lying through her teeth. She dropped her carryall on the upholstered bench at the foot of her bed, then plopped down next to it and unlocked the gun safe. Opening it, she took out a pearl-handled Ruger .38 pistol and began loading it. “What I am is pissed.” When she was done, she snapped the revolver into a leather holster and dropped it inside her tote. “I can’t believe I let the three of you talk me into this.” Badger was more like it but, whatever. Either way, the result was the same—she’d been ganged up on and guilted into hostile compliance. Adding an apologetic and pleading Joel to the mix via Skype had not only compounded the pressure that Olivia and Broderick had piled on her, but it had also been a stroke of evil genius on Olivia’s part. She was good, Elise had to give her that. Damn good. The traitor.
“Why can’t you believe it?” Olivia asked, and Elise didn’t buy the confused expression on her face for one second. “This is a perfect example of why you and I started Carrington Consulting in the first place, isn’t it? To help people? To help women? If you’d stop thinking about yourself for one second and think about the situation from Mr. Cannon’s perspective, you’d see that he’s really nothing more than just another client who’s in need of our services.”
“Let’s not forget that he’s just another client who, according to Eli, runs a very successful security firm of his own. If he handles the kinds of cases that you and Eli seem to think he does, then he probably has resources at his disposal that we’ve never even heard of. Doesn’t it seem a little strange to you that he needs my help? Why doesn’t he just put one of his minions on Meagan’s trail, so that he can deal with his other case without any interruptions?”
“Probably because, thanks to the little fender bender that you caused this afternoon, there isn’t time.”
“Of course there’s time,” Elise refuted, jumping up from the bench and throwing up her hands in outrage. When Olivia only smiled, she snatched up the safe and took off for the closet again, unable to shake the feeling that she was being hoodwinked and bamboozled. The more she thought about it, the more irritated she became. “Meanwhile,” she chirped in a voice that was somewhere near the soprano range, “don’t I get a say about how I choose to spend my time?” She brought a pair of jeans and a sweater out of the closet with her and dropped them on the bed.
“Of course, you do,” Olivia cooed.
“Except that, thanks to you and Mr. Chippendales down there, apparently, I don’t.” She shrugged out of her jumpsuit, tossed it on the bed and snatched up her jeans. “He doesn’t really need me and you know it. And stop calling him ‘Mr. Cannon.’ You’re such a suck-up.”
“Maybe so, but you have to admit that this arrangement makes sense. This way, if something does come up while you’re together, it’ll be easier and less time-consuming to deal with. Besides, it probably won’t even come to that because, thanks to Meagan’s obsession with social media, you already know that she’s in the Jefferson City area and has been for several hours. Once you two get there, you could drive from one end of that place to the other in, what, an hour or less? You’ll find her, toss her in the car with you and get back on the road,” Olivia predicted, waving a dismissive hand. “Trust me, you’ll be back here by this time tomorrow evening, if not before, at which time I will try very hard to refrain from saying ‘I told you so.’”
Elise paused in the midst of jumping into her jeans to glare at Olivia. “All right, then why don’t you go in my place?”
“I would, only I’m not the one he was down there seducing in his mind. You are.”
Elise’s sigh was long-suffering. “Why is everything about sex with you?” she asked, dropping a peach cable-knit sweater over her head and smoothing the hem around her denim-clad hips. “I think you need to see someone about that.”
“I think it’s cute that you think that,” Olivia shot back. “The question is, why is nothing ever about sex with you? My God, Elise, loosen up a little, would you? He was flirting with you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you just now and you didn’t even seem to notice. How long has it been since you’ve been out on a date, because this could be a prime opportunity for you to—”
“Are you serious right now, Olivia?”
“Oh, come on. Tell me you don’t find him attractive and I’ll shut up.”
Elise was instantly conflicted. Despite the fact that she and Olivia were opposites in more ways than they were alike, they couldn’t be closer. Even when they were at each other’s throats, they’d always been as thick as thieves, partners in crime in whatever nefarious scheme that one or the other had masterminded. If there were secrets between them, Elise couldn’t think of very many, and, if there was a subject that was or had ever been off-limits, it didn’t immediately come to mind. Under different circumstances, keeping the fact that she was attracted to a man from Olivia wouldn’t even occur to her. It wasn’t like she’d never been pursued by a man or been interested in one, and, contrary to what Olivia seemed to believe, she had actually dated twice as many men as she’d ever slept with. Which wasn’t saying much, but, still. It was just easier for both of them if Olivia didn’t know every single detail of her sex life. Like the fact that she’d just turned thirty-three and had only ever had three lovers. She knew her sister, and, in Olivia’s hands, information like that would die a very slow and painful death.
Did she find Broderick Cannon attractive? Of course she did. What red-blooded woman in her right mind wouldn’t? But that was another little nugget of information that Olivia didn’t need to know because, with it, she’d have the power to drive Elise crazy.
“Okay, yes,” Elise reluctantly conceded. “He’s attractive. But that’s not the point. This isn’t a date.” She snatched up a pair of silver hoops from her dressing table and put them on, then reached for her watch. “This is me being tricked into riding off into the night with a man that I barely know. Which reminds me, in the event that I’m never seen or heard from again, do me a favor and tell Mom and Dad that I did love them, no matter what you always said to them behind my back.” Olivia was giggling way too hard for Elise’s taste. “I’m glad you think I’m so amusing.”
“Not amusing, just in dire need of some serious loosening up. You do know that we’re not in high school anymore, right? There are no more midterms and finals to study for. It’s okay to have a life now.” She caught the distressed look on Elise’s face in the dressing-table mirror and launched into a full-fledged laugh. “Hey, I’m just trying to save you from a future filled with a bunch of cats and a house that looks like a shoe.”
“Yeah, well, as long as this shoe house of mine has a heated pool and local pizza delivery, I’m good.” She stepped into tan pumps and grabbed her cell phone from the dressing table as soon as it rang.
“I’m just saying. No one would blame you if you let your hair down a little...for once. I can’t think of a better way to kick off a vacation than with hot, sweaty sex. Milk isn’t the only thing that does a body good, you know.”
Relieved to see Eli Seamus’s name flashing on her cell’s screen, Elise touched an icon to accept the call and put the phone to her ear. She covered the mouthpiece, hissed at Olivia to shut up and, when she didn’t, waved a hand for her to at least quiet down. “Eli,” she said into the phone. “Hi, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Please tell me you found something helpful.”
Nearby, Olivia murmured something about seeing her downstairs. After nodding, she listened to what Eli had to say.
As soon as she’d been able to pry herself away from the dynamic duo downstairs, she had excused herself to her room to change clothes and pack an overnight bag. But first, she’d called Eli and shared what little case information there was with him, hoping that he’d be able to pin down Meagan’s exact whereabouts quickly enough to eliminate the need for a partnership and, even worse, a road trip. But, as she listened to Eli’s report, she realized that there was no way out, at least not yet, anyway. He agreed to stay on top of things and let her know if something interesting popped up but, in the meantime, it looked like she was stuck playing Robin to Broderick Cannon’s Batman.
Dammit.
Resigned to her temporary fate, Elise emerged from her bedroom ten minutes later, ready to get the show on the road. She found Olivia and Broderick in the study, sitting close together, with their heads bent even closer and their voices hushed. “I’m ready if you are,” she announced, interrupting their nearly nose-to-nose exchange. Their heads flew up guiltily, as if they’d been caught sharing government secrets. Trying not to scowl, Elise slung her tote strap over her shoulder and looked from one face to the other. She wasn’t jealous. Really, she wasn’t. But, damn, did Olivia ever turn it off? “Shall we go?” she asked, glancing at her watch meaningfully and then pinning Broderick with another look. He rose from the couch slowly, smirking. Was he really smirking?
“Of course. After you.”
* * *
“Truth or dare?”
She turned away from the passenger-side window and looked at him like she was surprised to see him sitting in the driver’s seat. “What?”
“I said, truth or dare?”
It was almost ten o’clock at night, and they’d been driving in complete silence for an hour. A few miles back, at around the halfway point, the Hummer’s GPS navigation system had routed them away from the interstate and onto an isolated stretch of paved service road that weaved through several miles of pitch-black farmland. It would eventually lead to a rural road in Jefferson County, and, shortly afterward, they would enter Jefferson City limits via a small residential community on the south end of town. But not for at least another three thousand six hundred seconds, which, in Broderick’s estimation, was just about enough time for the spicy, exotic fragrance clinging to Elise’s skin to finish driving him crazy.
Every time he inhaled, he was transported back in time to a mission in Bangkok, to a smoky massage den in the red-light district, and a 3:00 a.m. curfew that he’d taken his punishment for missing with a sleepy, satisfied smile. Every exhale was an irritating little reminder that it had been five months since he’d known anything close to that kind of satisfaction.
Something had to be done and, unfortunately, Truth or Dare? was the first PG-rated solution that came to mind. It wasn’t the best idea that he’d ever come up with but a distraction was in order and at least this one would end the ridiculous silence between them. Or not, he thought as the light cast by the dashboard console illuminated the doubtful smirk on her face.
“I’m not playing a silly game with you, Mr. Cannon.”
He bit down on a smirk of his own and cocked a brow. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”
“No, I’m not afraid and I’m not ten, either, so your peer-pressure tactics won’t work on me.”
He glanced over at her and then took his eyes to the rearview mirror. “You sure about that?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Then prove it,” he challenged, catching her eyes for one tense second and then winking at her. “Play with me.”
