Unlawful Attraction: The Complete Box Set: Alpha Billionaire Romance (35 page)

I kept that in mind as I stayed closeted away from the world, feeling more and more isolated as Thursday wore on. Except for a text from Carrie, I didn't speak to anybody outside a few people to request evidence.

Well, and the barista on the corner.

I really wouldn’t have minded a call, say from somebody like Arik.

But the phone stayed stubbornly silent.

***

“You’re looking in the wrong place.”

Arik slid his hands up my torso. His mouth grazed mine before he caught my wrists and guided them behind my back. “You should have told me about getting second chair. You didn’t. Now I’m going to punish you.”

The shiver that slid through me was delicious. I shouldn’t have felt so excited. I was still mad at him, wasn’t I? And I had a right to be. Didn't I?

Making myself look at him, I said, “I was going to tell you. I just needed time to think about what it meant.”

“You could have thought about it and told me. We could've talked about it. If we’re going to have a relationship, we don't hide things. We talk.” He tugged me closer, tucking me up against him so that his cock was pressed against my ass. “So...do we have a relationship?”

“Yes.” I whimpered as I said it, loving the way it twisted something inside me. Something stroked me between my thighs, dragging a moan from my lips. “Are you...how are you going to punish me, Arik?”

He laughed, the sound low and husky.

“You know you deserve to be punished, don't you?”

Face flushed and hot, I nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He stroked a hand down my hair and stepped away. I strained to see him and that was when I realized I was tied to a chair. My office chair. And I was naked.

He passed in front of me, tapping a crop against his thigh. I licked my lips and Arik wagged a finger at me. “Don’t go getting impatient, Dena. This is the reward. Not the punishment. You only get the reward if you solve the puzzle.”

“What puzzle?”

He gestured toward my desk.

“That’s the punishment. You have to solve the puzzle.”

Confused, I shook my head. “That’s not how this works. Arik, untie me.”

“No. You have to solve the puzzle. Look again.”

I looked and this time, I saw something else. The courthouse. In miniature. Like a dollhouse.

I tried to stand up and realized I could.

I was dressed again, and Arik was gone. I wasn't worried about that though. I was focused on the puzzle. Moving forward, I stared down into the courthouse. The roof was gone and I could see a miniature me standing outside Bethany’s office. She was in there, with that guy.

“Solve the puzzle.”

I jumped at the sound of Arik’s voice.

He was behind me and I almost yelped.

He grinned at me, his teeth flashing white. “Jumpy, Dena. You should get more sleep. You wouldn’t be so nervous. Who is he, Dena?” He pointed at Bethany and her...friend.

“I don’t know!”

“That’s the puzzle.” Arik went back to staring at the miniature of the man I’d seen with Bethany. “Solve it and you can have your reward.”

The miniature man and Bethany weren’t having sex now. The man was going through the papers on Bethany’s desk and Bethany...I swallowed when I realized she was on the floor with a bright red dot in the middle of her forehead.

“What happens if I don’t solve it, Arik?” I didn't look at him as I asked the question.

He hugged me against him. “You have to, Dena.”

***

I jerked awake, my temples throbbing. That hadn't been the best dream I'd ever had. If anything, it just made things worse. Then I looked down at my desk and sighed as I remembered why I'd closed my eyes for just a minute.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

Rubbing my temples, I went over the figures again.

I didn't know why I was even bothering, because I’d already done the calculations a good four times, and had come up with the same result.

It wasn’t my math that was wrong.

As much as I hated finances, over the past few years, I'd become depressingly good at eyeballing things and seeing where the discrepancies were, where the lies hid. Too many of my former clients had spouses who tried hiding money to avoid claiming the assets. Then there'd been the ones who tried hiding an affair or some sort of crime.

If there was one thing I'd learned from years as a divorce lawyer, it was that numbers talked.

And these numbers were telling one hell of a story.

Mr. Mance had spent more money than he’d made, and his corporation had been in trouble. He’d tried to get loans over the past year, probably trying to shore things up, but he’d been turned down.

“Banks know a bad bet.” Blowing out a hard breath, I leaned back and studied the sheets filled with my scrawling notes.

The data for the business had all looked pretty much the same for three years running, right up until six months into this past year. Then, things had turned around. A sudden influx of money. I would've assumed a loan, but there was no sign anybody legit had paid anything out. However, he’d suddenly been able to do exactly what needed to be done, shored up some of the areas that were bleeding money, cut some of them off entirely. He'd managed to salvage his company.

I just had no idea how he'd done it.

“Where did he get the money?” I ran my finger down the column more slowly.

Shit.

There it was.

Fifty thousand.

In cash.

My heart thudded loudly in the silence.

Coincidence.

Had to be.

But...

I ran my hands over my face. The police had searched the apartment of my dead police informant slash possible witness.

And they'd found a bag of fifty thousand dollars in cash.

Officer Dunne had told me that the rumor around the station was that the guy had been involved in organized crime. I'd originally thought that the man had been Mance's lover, though that hadn't been an angle I would've brought up to Bethany unless I had proof. Now, however, I was thinking that might not have been true. Or, at least not the whole truth.

Organized crime. Large amounts of cash found. Equal deposits of cash. Secret meetings at strip clubs.

What the hell had Mance gotten himself into?

Chapter 9

Arik

I’d had worse weeks.

Really, aside from one personal matter, things hadn’t completely sucked. It was just that the one
personal matter
had colored everything else I’d done.

“Personal matter,” I muttered, climbing out of my car and tossing my keys to the valet outside the building. I paid a small fortune just to keep a car in the city, but I was too used to having my own transportation. The few times I'd tried car services and taxis, it'd been all I could do not to backseat drive.

“Sir?”

I looked over and saw the valet’s puzzled expression and realized I’d been grumbling out loud. “Sorry. Just talking to myself.”

“Of course.” He nodded as if that was perfectly normal.

Then again, I could've told him that I was talking to an elephant in a pink tutu, and he wouldn’t have blinked. When you had money, you were allowed more than a few eccentricities. People excused all sorts of shit when dollar signs got involved.

Which was why I didn't really let anyone know that I had money. I liked people taking me at face value, for who they thought I was or wasn’t, just based on how I acted.

Like with Dena. I’d acted like an asshole, and now she was making it pretty damn clear that she wasn’t impressed.

What in the hell had I been thinking?

As I headed into the high rise, I debated on whether or not to call her. She’d said she needed space, time to figure things out. I’d given her that. A few days, at least. But if she didn’t have an idea about whether or not she was going to forgive me by now, then I’d like to know when she thought she might be ready to talk to me.

Besides, I should apologize, right? I’d been a tool.

In front of the elevator bay, I glared at the numbers as if they were responsible for how things were going between Dena and me. I might have continued to do that if somebody hadn’t delicately cleared her throat. Jerking myself out of the brooding haze, I looked up just in time to see a thin blonde dressed in yoga gear lean over and punch a button.

She gave me a cautious look, one of those speculative looks that I might've acted on a couple of months ago.

Instead of initiating a conversation or even smiling, I just nodded and punched in my own floor. We rose in silence, and she got off first. When I reached my floor, however, instead of going to my apartment, I headed out to the rooftop to think.

Somebody was up there smoking. That went against the tenant’s rental agreement, but as long as they kept the smoke on that side of the building where the wind could grab it, I didn’t care. Hands braced on the railing, I stared out over the sprawling Manhattan skyline.

Part of me was homesick. Not for Chicago, exactly, but for the friends and family I had there. I might've grown up with money, but my family had never really seen themselves as rich. We worked hard for our money, got our hands dirty alongside our employees. There'd been no hard feelings when I'd gone into law instead of business. I'd been grateful for it, just as I'd always been grateful that my parents hadn't cared if my friends were rich, poor or in-between. Some had moved away after high school, some after college, but there'd always been someone I could call to go out and have a drink with when I needed one.

And I sure as hell needed one right now. Both a listening ear, and a drink.

This whole case was rubbing me the wrong way and not just because of Dena.
That
was pissing me off, but that wasn't the main thing nagging at me.

The case...I didn’t like anything about it.

I’d talked to the cops who’d handled the investigation and any number of steps had been missed. The autopsy had pointed at somebody other than Leayna, but no one had made much noise about that. She was tall, but still not tall enough to have created the right angle for the wounds. And then there had been her clothes. She hadn't had enough blood on her face or her clothes. I knew Bethany would argue that Leayna had changed into something else before calling me and the cops, but there wasn't any forensics to support that either.

I pointed all of this out just a day ago when I managed to get a judge to talk to me about the case. He’d nodded and smiled, and then told me to present my findings in court. When I said I planned to file for a dismissal, he flat-out told me that he wouldn't rule for that. In his mind, if a grand jury had seen fit to indict, then there should be a trial.

So, unless there was a plea deal – or the real killer came forward – we were going to court. Possibly as early as next week, although I’d already put things in motion to stop that from happening. Bethany seemed determined to get through this as quickly as possible, and that made me that much more determined to slow it down, let other evidence have time to come to light.

Thunder rumbled overhead, and I lifted my gaze, staring up at the clouds gathering overhead. A fat raindrop fell, hitting me right between the eyes. Somewhere off to the east, lightning cracked down and the smell of ozone tinged the air.

“Can’t even get a brood-on going with this case,” I scowled. Even Mother Nature was against me.

Shoving away from the railing, I turned. I paused, though, when I saw the guy with the cigarette still there. Leaning against the railing, his gaze was fixed in my direction.

I had the weirdest feeling he’d been staring at me.

And that wasn't creepy at all.

His face was too far away for me to make out details, but as rain began to beat down on the rooftop, he didn’t move. The cherry-red tip of his cigarette went out, but he stayed there, half-hidden in the shadows, and I knew I was right. He was watching me.

Shit.

Starting toward the door, I kept my steps slow and even, my body balanced so I could fight if necessary. I'd never been mugged, and I had no intention to experience it any time soon.

But he never moved.

Once I was inside, I debated on calling building security, but if the guy had just been staring off into space or even watching me because he was trying to figure out if he knew me, I didn't want him to get in trouble. Besides, I was determined not to be
that
tenant who acted like everything was all about them.

I shook my head as I headed for the stairwell, ready to get inside my apartment now. Take a hot shower, have a scotch. Call Dena.

I almost reconsidered that last thought, but I really didn't want to.

I needed to talk to her. I couldn’t think clearly when it came to her, and I was just realizing that when things weren’t right between us, it was even worse. I needed to call her and make things right, then focus on the case so I could get through it.