Bait & Switch (6 page)

“But that guy’s paying for champagne.”

“How do you think I make my money, asshole? I’ll let it go this time, but you give me any more champagne, I’m tellin’ Millie. Got it?”

She shuffled back to the bar stool, the material of her dress looking in danger of ripping with every small step she took. The businessman watched her with a leering expression. She leaned over and straightened his tie. The man’s blood-shot eyes focused squarely on her cleavage.

Mitch could have kicked himself for failing to notice her aim was to get the man to spend money. In return, she received a cut for her efforts. If the mark got drunk enough, she probably reached inside his wallet and helped herself to a tip. If he didn’t, she most likely offered sex for money.

He might be able to prove that Flash Gordon ran a prostitution ring out of Epidermis, but Mitch wasn’t sure that was where he should direct his efforts. He surveyed the dark, smoky bar, trying to pinpoint the top dog so he could decide upon the best course of action.

For the time being nobody seemed the wiser about Cary skimming money from the cash register. Mitch might not have long before somebody figured it out, though.

“Gimme a New Orleans Fizz.” A man sitting at the bar tossed the order over his shoulder, barely glancing at Mitch.

Mitch wasn’t much of a drinker, but he’d waited tables one summer at a restaurant that did a healthy bar business. Did a New Orleans Fizz contain gin or whisky? He settled on gin, not that it would have made any difference. The man at the bar was mesmerized by a statuesque blonde with a centerfold-worthy body who was wearing nothing but a g-string and a smile.

Mitch slid the drink in front of the man, wondering what Peyton would think about him serving drinks in the shadow of the naked ladies on stage? Cary probably hadn’t told her about his second job. He didn’t think he should, either.

“Hey, sugar buns,” Millie sidled up to the bar and leaned across, cleavage first. Mitch tried not to look. “Flash wants to see you in the back room.”

“He’s here?” Mitch asked. “I didn’t see him come in.”

“He never steps foot in the club. You know that. He’s waitin’. I’ll cover for you.” Millie’s lipstick-red mouth curved into a leering smile, and she winked. “Love the black shirt, baby.”

Mitch beat a hasty retreat through the smoke, the stripper-ogling customers and the maze of tables. He jerked open the door to the back room, shut it behind him and tried to recover from shock. The place was awash in red velvet, from the carpeting to the wallpaper border, to be expected considering they were inside a strip club.

No, the surprise wasn’t the interior decorating. It was sitting behind the gleaming black desk.

“I suppose I should thank you for pretending you didn’t know me earlier tonight.” G. Gaston Gibbs III leaned back in his chair, the strands of his blonde hair barely moving. “The McDowells are too uptight to condone ownership of a strip club. Even if I am a shadow owner.”

Mitch tried to stop his brain from reeling. The G. in G. Gaston Gibbs obviously stood for Gordon. As in Flash Gordon. Another small detail Cary hadn’t mentioned.

“I’m nothing if not discreet,” Mitch said.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want Peyton to hear about your indiscretions, either. Starting with your weakness for strippers and ending with your unfortunate gambling problem.”

Mitch cleared his throat. “You’re right about that.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.” He picked up a squishy rubber stress ball from his desk. His sharp features tightened. “What you said when Peyton and I were dancing, about hurting me if I didn’t let you cut in.”

“Yeah?”
 

Gaston squeezed the ball. Hard. “You were kidding, right?”

Mitch kept quiet. He was confident he could beat Gaston if it came down to hand-to-hand combat, but they were involved in another kind of struggle.

“Because I’m a reasonable man, I’m willing to overlook this little thing you’re carrying on with Peyton. Make no mistake about it, though. When it comes time for me to take a wife, she’s the one I’ll choose.”

Mitch fought not to recoil at the thought of Gibbs so much as touching Peyton. “I think she’ll have something to say about that.”

“Peyton does what her parents want her to do, and her parents want her to marry me.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you love her,” Mitch said.

Gaston laughed, a rasping, unpleasant sound. “Of course I don’t love her, but she’s a Charlestonian born and bred. She’ll provide me with the perfect cover.” He heaved a sigh. “This conversation is boring me. I didn’t call you back here to talk about Peyton.”

Mitch had to unclench his teeth before he responded. “Why did you call me here?”

“I have your first assignment.” He spoke in a cruel whisper, the culture gone from his voice. He rubbed his smooth cheek. “Guy by the name of Cooper Barnes works at a restaurant in North Charleston. If he doesn’t pay up, I want you to break something.”

Mitch blinked. “Break what?”

“A leg, a finger, an arm. I don’t care which. Just get the money and make him understand he can’t mess with me.”

His brother, Mitch realized with sinking dread, was a debt collector for a bookie.

“Nobody messes with me, Mitchell,” Gaston bit out. “You’d do well to remember that.”

The instant he was on break, Mitch ducked outside the club and called Cary’s cell. No answer. He disconnected, tried his Atlanta apartment and listened to the phone ring unanswered. His grip on the phone tightened, impotent anger welling up in him.

His brother owed him a lot of answers. At the moment, one question was more important than the rest.

Where the devil was Cary?

Lizabeth Drinkmiller sat alone outside a Key West cafe at a table built for two, chastising herself for being unable to go through with her grand plan.

She glanced down at the fancy alcoholic concoction with the colorful paper umbrella floating on its surface.
A rum-ba
, the menu had called it.
Sure to make you want to shed your inhibitions and dance
. The drink had been sitting in front of her for thirty minutes, and Lizabeth still couldn’t bring herself to take a sip.

Why had she believed she’d act any differently on a two-week vacation than she did the rest of her life?

She was what she was. An information professional with a masters degree in library science who was more at home with computers than people. No wonder she hadn’t had a date in almost two years. She was the epitome of every bad stereotype about a mousy librarian, as boring as heat in the tropics. Like a chameleon that attached itself to a leafy, green bush, she faded into the scenery so well nobody noticed her.

She might as well start going by the name Lizabeth the Lizard. Even the dye job she’d done on her mousy brown hair didn’t make a difference. Of course, at the last second, she’d put down the bottle of Yowlin’ Yellow and gone with Barely Brunette.

She’d been more daring while shopping for a vacation wardrobe, choosing outfits that showed so much skin she’d nearly fainted dead away when she saw herself in the dressing-room mirror. But what good was a miniskirt when she had her legs tucked under the table? Or a plunging tank top when she’d covered it with a sweater buttoned to the chin?

Determined to live it up, she began unbuttoning her sweater. And stopped at the second button. Okay. Exhibitionism wasn’t her thing, but she could at least imbibe. She picked up her drink. And managed a single sip before putting it down.

She propped her chin on her hands, watching the tourists walk by as they enjoyed an evening in Key West. A woman, plain except for her smile, strolled by with a hunk of a man on her arm. Lizabeth bet
she
was secure in her own skin. That woman wouldn’t have a problem going to her boss and demanding a raise. Or getting a date.
 

She watched the parade of tourists with growing despondence. They all looked happy and well-adjusted. The kind of people who went after what they wanted and got it.

Unlike Lizabeth, who sat on the sidelines while life passed her by.

A man on the other side of the street came into view, and Lizabeth’s entire body went rigid. Even from a distance, she could tell he was gorgeous. Taller than most of the other passers-by, he had thick hair the color of night and a broad-shouldered, long-legged physique that commanded attention.

He passed under a streetlight that lit his features. She took in the cleft in his square jaw, the generous width of his mouth, the tilt of his nose. A shock of recognition passed through her, and her breath seized in her chest, the way it used to whenever he passed her in the hall at Hatfield High.

Grant Mitchell. The hunk across the street was Grant Mitchell, the boy who’d sent her schoolgirl heart palpitating.

She made herself breathe as her eyes devoured him. His body had filled out, but he still favored worn jeans and denim shirts. He’d been wearing a cap and gown the last time she’d seen him, striding across the stage in the high school auditorium to receive his diploma. She remembered her hot tears of frustration as she watched him. Even though she feared she’d never see him again, she’d known she wouldn’t approach him.

Now, ten years later, he was the width of a street away. In another few moments, he’d be gone. Again.

“No,” Lizabeth said aloud, the word emerging from deep in her soul. She couldn’t let Grant disappear. Not this time. Not when she’d come to Key West with the express purpose of shedding her retiring personality and going after what she wanted.

She wanted Grant.

She looked down the length of her body. She also wanted Grant to notice her, the way he never had in high school. Before she could change her mind, she fluffed her barely brunette hair, pulled off her sweater and gulped a big portion of her drink.

Then she dashed across the street toward her fate, forgetting that the heels she wore with her short skirt were much higher than she was used to. The driver of one of the rental scooters that darted through the narrow Key West streets honked his horn, and Lizabeth panicked.

She lunged for the sidewalk, her heel catching on the curb. Grant turned toward her at the same time she squealed, and his arms shot out to save her from falling.

The sensation of his large, well-formed hands on her bare arms sent warmth pouring over her, like the cascade from a waterfall in the tropics. Her heart pounded a heavy beat and not because the scooter had nearly flattened her. He was looking at her in a way he’d never looked at her in high school, with an appreciative gleam that heated her entire body.

“This is backward,” he said, grinning. “I’m the one who could fall for you.”

He righted her, his warm hands secure on her hot flesh. She blinked up at him, unable to look away from his eyes. They were blue. So very blue. Like the water surrounding the Keys that had appeared so inviting from the window of the 747 that had flown her here.

“Did you know that, other than humans, black lemurs are the only primate that can have blue eyes?” she asked.

Lizabeth nearly closed her own boring brown eyes in mortification when she realized how hopelessly gauche she was. What had possessed her to spew that piece of useless trivia?

His eyes smiled at her. “A black lemur couldn’t appreciate someone you the way I do.”

She gulped. Was Grant Mitchell actually flirting with her? It was such an impossible dream that she figured she must have misinterpreted him.

 
“You didn’t appreciate me in high school,” she blurted out. Damn. Why had she said that? In order to masquerade as a self-confident woman, she needed to act like one.
 

“We went to high school together?” He released his grip on her shoulders, cocking his head and scrutinizing her.

Lizabeth’s disappointment was swift and all-consuming. Of course he didn’t remember her. She forced herself to smile. “You grew up in Richmond, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.” He continued to stare at her. Then he smiled, and the beauty of it sent her heart pounding the way it always used to. He snapped his fingers. “I remember now. You were in my biology class.”

“I wasn’t in any of your classes,” Lizabeth countered. “You were two years ahead of me.”

“I’ll be sure to remember if you tell me your name,” he said, but she was equally positive he wouldn’t. Their paths had crossed only once, at a high school dance when the boy she’d been dancing with had cut in on his partner. Grant had graciously finished the dance with her, but she’d been too tongue-tied by the feel of his hands on her waist to say a word.

She started to tell him her name was Lizabeth, but it was such a boring name, not in keeping with her new image at all. “It’s Leeza. Leeza Drinkmiller.”

“Leeza,” Cary repeated, wondering why he didn’t remember her. His taste in women hadn’t changed much since high school. With her curvy body and revealing clothing, she was exactly the kind of woman he usually dated. So how had he missed her?

“You still don’t remember me, do you?” The corners of her mouth turned downward, and he found himself thinking that mouth would be prettier if she weren’t wearing so much lipstick. “I’m not surprised. I blended into the scenery in high school.”

“You could never blend into the scenery,” Cary said. Her tank top was cut low, revealing a pair of gorgeous breasts. In her heels, she could look him straight in the eye, which meant her legs went on and on. He even liked her face with its big-eyed, gamin quality. The net effect was wildly appealing. “If I didn’t notice you, I must’ve been blind.”

“You struck me as someone who had his eyes wide open.” Her smile looked forced. “You seemed like you knew exactly where you were going.”

“I did?” Cary asked, amazed she’d had that view of him. Then again, he had been a star pitcher at Americana High with a bat so potent he was the team’s best hitter. Anybody could have seen he had the talent to make it to the pros.

“Definitely.” She sounded like a one-woman fan club. “Anybody could see you had the brains to achieve whatever you set your mind to.”
“They could?” All Cary’s mind had been on in high school was scoring, both on the field and off it. That was the direction his mind was headed now. Scoring with Leeza would be more thrilling than hitting a home run.