Flirting With Danger (19 page)

He caught her arm as she pulled on her loose shirt over the tank. “I’m a rather single-minded individual, Samantha. And I’ve already told you, you have my attention.”

“I’m not jealous, Addison.” She took her seat again. “You’re fun. Now move it. I’m busy.” Ha. That would show him. He hadn’t been her first, either.

“Fun,” he said slowly, not moving from his stance behind her. “I’m fun.”

“Yes. Go away and buy an island or something.”

Before she could finish her smirk he yanked her chair, tilting it back on two legs. She flailed, trying to keep her balance, while he leaned over to look down at her upturned face. “Telling me what to do is a good way to convince me to do the opposite, just to spite you,” he murmured, and covered her mouth with his in an upside-down kiss that curled her toes.

“Point taken,” she managed, grabbing on to the edge of the table to pull herself upright again.

“Not yet, but you’ll take it soon,” he whispered, and strolled out of the room, whistling.

“Shit,” she muttered, shivering, and went back to the book.

As he finished his conversation with Frank Castillo and hung up his office phone, Richard realized that he hadn’t informed Samantha they would be dining out that evening. Well, it would undoubtedly cause an argument, and considering the day she’d had so far, he’d give her a bit more time to recover herself.

Castillo had been highly interested in the demise of Sean O’Hannon, though if anything it made more trouble for the police where Danté Partino was concerned. With a death in England, Partino had likely had a very limited role in this mess, if any at all.

He sat there, gazing out over his garden and pond. When he’d flown in from Stuttgart last week, he’d intended to buy a
television station, spend a day or two relaxing with Tom Donner and his family, arrange for Danté to ship the tablet to the British Museum, and with a handful of business detours follow it back so he could stay a few weeks at his main house in Devon.

Instead he’d nearly been blown up, had the tablet stolen, missed the deadline on WNBT, gotten Tom thrown into his pool, and met Samantha Jellicoe.

Of course there were additional highlights: dead thieves, mysterious tails, Sam nearly getting killed in the room he’d given her, fake tablets, a man he’d known and trusted for ten years arrested, and some really fine sex.

Samantha had called him “fun.” While he had no personal objection to the term, he knew what she meant by it, and that was what he didn’t like. “Fun” meant something you did for an afternoon or while you had nothing better to do.

That should have been perfectly agreeable to him—but it wasn’t. In the American vernacular, it pissed him off. He still wanted her in his bed, in his arms. And if he wasn’t finished with her, she wasn’t allowed to be finished with him.

Whichever body part he was thinking with, though, he was well aware that there was more to this than the vertical and horizontal maneuverings of the two of them. O’Hannon’s death meant that for certain someone else was involved. As far as he could tell, the number of people who had something to do with the tablet for one reason or other was at least six: Samantha, Stoney, DeVore, Partino, O’Hannon, and whoever had killed O’Hannon.

“Why?” he muttered to himself. Yes, it was rare and valuable, but so were a great many other things. Why this one, why here, why now?

Someone knocked at his door. “Come in,” he called, then remembered that he’d locked it for his phone call to Castillo. He started to rise, but the door swung open before he could get to his feet.

“Okay,” Samantha said, pocketing something that looked like a paper clip, “tablet number one is in the possession of
Gustav Harving in Hamburg. Number two belongs to the Arutani family in Istanbul, but apparently there are several prominent families by that name.”

“Good enough for a start. I’ll call Sarah. We should actually be able to do this through completely legitimate connections.”

She gave a brief smile. “That’ll be a nice change, won’t it?”

He had a few other things he needed to go over with his secretary, but he preferred to discuss them without Samantha being present. “Do you have plans for this afternoon?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, her voice rich with sarcasm. “
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
. How about you?”

With a chuckle, he rose. “Might I join you? You can explain the finer points of giant monster warfare to me.”

“Sure.” She shrugged, studying his expression. “You want me to leave you alone now, right? Just sit around and not do anything?”

“And stay out of trouble,” he added. “I need to make a few more phone calls. I won’t be long.”

“I’ll be in my room, then.”

She turned on her heel, but he caught up to her, sliding a hand down her arm. “I thought we might go out for dinner again tonight,” he said, wondering how she would react to what he was about to tell her. Damn, she kept him on his toes.

“Okay. Won’t Hans be hurt, though? He does worship me, and I was hoping for an ice sculpture carved in my likeness.”

“It’d melt in a second flat. And Hans will survive.” Richard kissed her cheek. “I’ll call Kate and confirm.”

She stiffened. “Kate? Kate who?”

“Kate Donner. Tom’s wife. They’ve invited us over for dinner.”

Her expression folded into a comical mix of horror and disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope. We’re to be there at seven.”

Sam backed toward the door. “No way. Forget it. I am not doing the domestic.”

“It’s just one evening,” he cajoled, advancing as she re
treated, in their own private version of the double-dare tango. “The Donners are just about my only venture into the domestic, as you call it. I happen to enjoy it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she returned, running a hand down his chest. “We stay here, and you can have your way with me.”

Richard grinned. “I intend to do that anyway, when we return.” He kissed her again, this time on her warm and soft mouth. “You like new experiences,” he said. “This’ll be one for you.”

With a grimace she unlocked his door and pulled it open again. “Fine. But only because I owe you, Brit.”

“Thanks, Yank.”

Sunday, 5:48 p.m.

Samantha could hear the soft whir of her father spinning in his grave. By no stretch of the imagination would Martin Jellicoe have been able to picture his daughter preparing for a date with Richard Addison—at an attorney’s house, of all things. He wouldn’t see any profit in it, and even worse, he would happily point out that the venture had the high likelihood of a negative outcome for her.

She had her own reservations, but they were more along the lines of just how deeply she was becoming involved with this man. Sex was one thing; and supremely pleasurable as it had been, it had also put Rick firmly on her side. She’d be an idiot not to make good use of that and not to be flattered by it. But dating him was a whole different matter. It wasn’t just her looking after her own best interests; it was becoming entangled, meeting his friends, passing herself off as what—his girlfriend? His lover?

Her heart beginning to pound, Sam dug into her closet of borrowed clothes. “What the hell am I supposed to wear?”

From the sitting room she could hear Rick laughing at her.
“Wear whatever you want. But Godzilla’s attacking the mechanical one. I thought you said Godzilla was always bad.”

Picking a sundress, she walked to the bedroom door. “No, I said he was best when he was bad. How does this look?” She held up the short red and yellow dress.

He craned his neck to look over the back of the couch. “It’s nice. But—”

She scowled. “But what?”

“The scratches and cuts on your back will show.”

Crap. With the antiseptic Dr. Klemm had given her, the cuts had stopped hurting, and she kept forgetting about them. “What are you going to wear?”

“What I’ve got on.”

“But you look nice.”

“Thank you. I’ll spill something on my shirt, if you like.”

He was teasing her again, as he had been from the moment he realized that the idea of dining with Tom and Kate Donner unsettled her. She’d agreed to go, though, partly because he’d intimated that she was a coward if she refused, but mostly because after he’d charged to her rescue with the grenades that morning, she’d felt like she owed him something.

“Found anything?” Rick asked, leaning into the closet.

“Go back and tell me what’s happening,” she said. “I’ll show you what I find.”

“Something in green would be nice. In honor of Godzilla.”

“Get back to the couch, fella.”

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right.”

Despite herself she was chuckling, which in itself was frightening. She couldn’t be that connected to him yet, that seeing him happy made her happy.

This new life was so strange—and so tempting. She shook herself, pulling another summery dress off its hanger and shutting the closet door so she could try it on without him commenting on it. She needed to stop being distracted by the soft pleasures of this life. In her line of work, softness
equaled imprisonment—or death. Work. She was working, trying to figure out what was going on.

And while she might still have a halfhearted question or two about Donner’s involvement, she had none regarding Danté Partino’s. When the cops had carted off the estate manager, they’d also taken boxes of paperwork from his office. For such a prissy man, he’d kept a cluttered work area, but she hadn’t commented on that. Rather, she intended to visit it later tonight to see what might be left. If that failed, finding out where Partino lived should be simple enough. Since Rick had taken the tracking down of the other two tablets out of her hands, she needed to do something. Sitting on her ass drove her crazy, and she wasn’t about to forget that someone seemed to want her dead. As opposed to Addison, who just wanted her.

“Okay, how’s this?” she asked, putting a firm clamp on her nerves. She would fit in tonight, because that was what she did. If not for Addison’s irritating ability to decipher exactly what she was thinking and feeling, she would count this evening as an easy job. Okay, fairly easy.

“You did pick green,” he said, standing again.

“It has short sleeves and a high back,” she explained patiently. “If you think I look like the monster who ate Tokyo, though, I’ll go change again.”

“You don’t look like Godzilla,” he returned, the warm smile lighting his lean, handsome face. “You look great.”

Sam blew out her breath. “Good. Now for hair and makeup.”

“You don’t need any.”

“Good answer, but I’m not asking for flattery. I want to look…nice. Like for normal people. I assume Mrs. Donner is normal, anyway. I know Harvard isn’t.”

“You got on Tom’s bad side, since he thinks people occasionally try to take advantage of me. He really is fairly normal—though my experience in that area is rather limited.”

“Mine, too.” The big battle between the Godzillas was
heating up, so she took the seat beside Rick on the couch. Makeup could wait until Tokyo was saved. “May I make a guess?” she asked after a moment, slanting him a look.

He was still gazing at her. “Of course.”

“No one takes advantage of you, do they? Ever.”

“Nope.”

“But your friend Peter Wallis did.”

His jaw clenched. “There’s one exception to every rule, I suppose.”

“Just one?” she returned.

“You’re talking about Danté, I presume?”

She’d meant Donner, but nodded anyway. “You trusted him.”

“I did, but it’s not the same. I’ve known him for a while, but he’s not in the same category as Peter. And because of Peter, I choose my friends carefully these days, Sam. I’ve been disappointed once. It won’t happen again.”

She met his gaze again. “So which category am I in?”

Gray eyes touched hers. “You’re a whole new category, I’m afraid.” He ran a hand slowly up her thigh. “A very interesting one.”

Heat began at the point of contact and slid up her leg. “Okay, another question.”

“You’re making me miss the movie, Yank.”

She ignored the protest; he obviously had no true appreciation of campy monster movies. “You’ve been sitting on this couch with me for half an hour, and you’re being a perfect gentleman.”

“Ah. You mean why aren’t we naked and making passionate love to one another?”

Oh, boy
. “Yes, something like that.”

“Because we have to be somewhere in an hour, and I don’t want to rush right now.”

“You did this afternoon.”

“That was before we heard about O’Hannon. Now I find myself…concerned over your continued safety, and I in
tend to take my time with you later tonight and savor every inch of your very attractive body.”

She shivered. God, he made her feel so…weak. “It won’t last, you know,” she said, trying to put some mental distance between them.

A frown furrowed his fine brow. “What won’t last?”

“This.” She gestured between them. “You and me. Face it, we’re novelties to each other. But this is almost figured out. Once we know who has possession of the tablet, the story’s over. I have no reason to stay, and you certainly have better things to do than screw me.”

He stood, anger in the precise, spare movement. “Nice. I’m going to get a beer. Meet me downstairs at half past six.”

“Fine.”

Halfway to her door he stopped and turned around, stalking back up to her and placing his hands on her knees so their faces were inches apart. “A lot of people have thought they had me figured out,” he said in a low voice, eyes glinting, “and a lot of people have regretted making that assumption.”

“Rick, it’s just a fact. I’m not—”

“You’ve given me what I assume to be your opinion on several occasions now. I would appreciate if you would wait until I offer my own before you chisel it in stone on my behalf.”

With that he was gone, the door closing gently behind him in spite of—and probably because of—the fact that she would prefer he slam it. Dammit. Nobody was this difficult to figure out. She was good at assessing people’s character in a few seconds. Her life frequently depended on her skills in that department. Addison seemed genuinely worried about her and genuinely insulted that she didn’t consider this a possible long-term relationship.

Solve this and get out
. That was the solution. She was here on her own terms, and for her own reasons. When she left it would be because
she
wanted to, not because he decided it was time for her to shove off. As she returned her attention to the humongous television, Mechagodzilla went down for the
count. Ha. At least some things in the world went the way they were supposed to.

She put on her makeup and did her hair about five times before she was satisfied that it looked presentable, then deliberately waited until twenty minutes to seven before she appeared downstairs. Richard Addison could dictate all he wanted, and she could just as easily remind him that she was an independent contractor.

While she anticipated him being angry and pacing in the foyer, waiting for her, she actually had to go and find him out on the pool deck and nursing what smelled like gin. “Ready?” she asked, unable to keep the snippiness from her tone.

He stood. “Is it time?”

She would have given him the raspberry, but then he would know that he’d annoyed her. Instead Sam nodded, leading the way out to the front drive.

The blue Bentley sat—no, crouched ready to leap forward—in front of the steps. Despite herself, a low thrill ran up her spine. She was going to ride in a goddamned Bentley.

“Here,” he said, and tossed her the keys.

Sam started to comment that she didn’t have a valid driver’s license, but luckily talked herself out of that stupidity almost before the thought could form. “Oh, Mama,” she sang, sliding behind the wheel as Ben held the door for her.

“How much is this thing worth?” she asked, turning over the engine and gunning the motor for the hell of it.

“A lot. Try not to kill us.”

Unable to hide her wide grin, Sam punched the car into gear and smashed her foot down on the accelerator. They flew down the drive and barely missed clipping the gate on both sides as the surprised cops leapt out of the way.

“Which way?”

“Turn right at the intersection. I’ll give you directions from there.” He’d buckled on his seat belt, but other than that didn’t seem concerned about any damage she might do.

Once they’d left estate row and crossed the bridge to reach
the wealthy, more uniform residential neighborhoods of Palm Beach she slowed to a more conservative pace. In this part of town kids on bikes and roller blades and razors cluttered the sidewalks, and she certainly didn’t want to damage any of them. They all looked so…oblivious to the idea that bad people existed in the world. She couldn’t remember ever being that naive. A horrifying thought struck her.

“They don’t have kids, do they?”

“Turn right,” he said, adjusting the airflow from the vent on his side of the car.

“Oh, good God. You didn’t tell me there’d be kids.”

“You were one once,” he said, amusement deepening his voice. “I’m certain you’ll cope.”

“I was never a kid. How old are they?”

“Chris is nineteen, but he’s not home. The semester’s started at Yale.”

“Yale. That’s far away. So far, so good. Now give me the bad news.”

He chuckled. “Mike’s fourteen, and Olivia is nine.”

Sam groaned. “This is a damned ambush.”

“No, it’s not. They’re great kids. And Kate’s a good cook. The third house on the left.”

The houses here were austere, with large yards and gates for privacy. The Donners’ was ungated, but had a nice white picket fence running along the street side just for appearance’s sake. Holy cow, a white picket fence.

Richard kept his attention on Samantha as they turned up the short drive. He’d cheated by not giving her all the details, but she’d made him mad, so fair was fair.

From her reaction this really was her first trip to suburbia—or at least her first trip to a nice, normal family’s home for dinner in suburbia. The house of hers the police had ransacked was in the middle of a run-down housing tract, but somehow he doubted that she socialized much with her neighbors. From the official report, none of them had known her as anything but that nice, quiet niece of Juanita Fuentes.

She put the Bentley into park but didn’t turn off the engine.
Instead, she sat there looking as though she’d like nothing better than for a hurricane to hit and sweep them into the ocean.

“Come on. Take a deep breath, and let’s go in.”

Giving him the evil eye, she shut off the car and opened the door. Then she froze again. “Shit. We weren’t supposed to bring them a present or something, were we?”

Richard wondered if Jane had had this much trouble with Tarzan’s first polite family dinner. It would be fun, guiding her into civilization. “I took care of it. Pop the boot.”

“Trunk, Addison. If I can’t say jelly, you can’t say boot.”

He wasn’t going to argue with her at the moment, but dug for a pair of small, wrapped gifts. “Shall I carry them, or do you want to?” he asked, closing the boot—trunk—with one elbow.

“I’ll drop ’em.” She scowled, falling into step beside him as they walked up the cobbled path to the double front doors. “No, give me one. It’ll give me something to do with my hands.”

Judging which of the two presents was the less breakable, he handed it over to her, then jabbed the bell with a forefinger. He’d also declined to tell her that she looked more than great; with her wavy hair loose around her shoulders and her lips tinted a faint bronze, she was stunning. She’d done something with her eyes, as well; the green of the dress deepened their color to emerald, with impossibly long, black lashes.

“Okay, they’re not home,” she said after about five seconds. Let’s go.”

“Coward.”

That got her attention, as he’d thought it would. Her back went ramrod straight, and her lips thinned as she clenched her jaw. “I faced a damned grenade today,” she growled. “Two of them.”

The door swung open. “Then this should be easy,” he murmured, and stepped forward to greet Tom.

He’d always liked the Donners’ house. It felt…warm,
and intimate and inviting, in a way a twenty-acre estate never could. This was a home where people lived, not a showplace where one entertained heads of state and held charity balls and stayed for a month or two out of the entire year.