Kitabı oku: «Playing Dirty»

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Susan Andersen

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that is graced with a gentle mystery, a vulnerable,

resilient heroine, and a worthy, wounded hero

and served up with empathy and a humorous flair.”

—Library Journal on Burning Up

“[A] fast-paced, charming romance

with plenty of heat and cool dialogue.”

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“A sexy, feel-good contemporary romance…

Palpable escalating sexual tension between the pair,

a dangerous criminal on the loose and a cast of

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“A classic plot line receives a fresh, fun treatment…

Well-developed secondary characters add depth to this

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Ava’s Taco Soup

1 lb ground turkey

1 onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 large bag frozen mixed veggies (cook’s choice)

2 cans diced tomatoes & green chilies (such as RoTel)

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 can black beans

1 can white beans

2 packages taco seasoning or ½ cup Costco taco seasoning

1 cup red wine

1 cup/can chicken or vegetable broth

Brown turkey, onions and peppers and toss in a large Crock-Pot. Add rest of the ingredients and simmer all day long. Leftovers can be frozen in ziplock baggies for on-the-go individual servings.

Playing Dirty
Susan Andersen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This is dedicated to my little corner

of the immense Facebook community—

especially the ladies (and occasional gent)

of the SusanAndersenFanPage. You make me laugh,

make me think and—I gotta tell ya—make me

feel much more important than I actually am.

Your collective willingness to open up pieces of your lives

to my voracious curiosity just knocks my socks off.

You all rock.

—Susan

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Virginia Bogert of

Laughing Dog Productions for the fabulous information

and peeks into the world of a working documentary

producer. I so appreciate all the time you gave me,

your wonderful ideas and your patience

with my many questions.

I hope I did your information justice,

but if any inaccuracies arise, they are solely mine.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Dear Diary,

I didn’t know you could feel such pain and still live.

Country Day School, Upper School building

Thirteen years ago

AVA SPENCER DANCED down the hallway toward the cafeteria, her hips slowly swiveling and her plump shoulders grooving to the Goo Goo Dolls’ rendition of “Iris” playing in her head. She supposed she could’ve picked something faster, but hey. She was in the moment, feeling good.

Really, really good.

“Ava! Wait up!”

Glancing behind her, she saw her two best friends hustling around a group of stragglers who, like her, were running late for second lunch. The music in her head shut down as she waited for them to catch up, only to be promptly replaced by the everyday rhythms of school lunch hour: the squeak of shoes against linoleum, the slam of an occasional locker door, the laughter of little kids out on the Lower School playfield competing with the muted roar of the teens behind the lunchroom door just down the hall.

“What’s up, girly girl?” Poppy demanded, striding up to her. The bangles on her wrist clinked as they slid down the arm she raised to brush back a curl that had strayed from the mass. “You’re looking exceptionally happy.”

“No fooling,” Jane agreed. “It’s not every day we see you boogie down the hallway.”

“I am feeling so fine.” If she felt any finer, in fact, they’d have to haul her down from the ceiling like a bouquet of helium balloons. She beamed at her friends. “I might even go so far as to say I’m feelin’ beautiful.”

And wasn’t that amazing. She felt reasonably attractive most days, pretty on occasion, but beautiful? That was something so rare it was the next best thing to never. Given her constant struggle with weight, it wasn’t an adjective anyone at home ever applied to her. Her parents were more likely to give her grief for not doing enough to lose her “baby” fat.

“Hey, you are beautiful,” Jane protested loyally.

“Yeah, ‘She’s got such a pretty face,’” Ava quoted dryly. “What a shame she’s so plump/heavy/hefty.” That was a conversation she’d overheard more than once.

“You know Janie better than to think she implied that, Av,” Poppy said. “She said you’re beautiful—and you are.”

“I love you both for saying so, but that would be you, Poppy, not me.” With her Nordic blond hair and breezy confidence, Poppy was in a category all her own. She could’ve been part of the popular kids’ clique if she’d given a rat’s ass about that sort of thing. Hell, Ava thought proudly, Poppy could’ve ruled that crowd. She and Janie, on the other hand, would have never made the cut.

Not that Jane wasn’t attractive, but it was a quiet prettiness that sort of snuck up on you. She had shiny brown hair and really great legs, but the clothes she wore made Goths look colorful. Plus, she was a brainiac—something most of the so-called in crowd were too stupid to appreciate.

Ava gave a mental shrug. Neither she nor Janie gave a rip any more than Poppy. The kids in that crowd were mostly asses, and the three of them had something worlds better than winning a high school popularity contest—each other. They were tight. BFFs. They’d met at this very school in the fourth grade and been a unit ever since.

Ava sure wished, however, that she were a size zero—okay, eight—like Janie and Poppy. Usually, in fact, she was fairly green-eyed over the knowledge that, no matter how nice her clothes, she always seemed to look like a sausage that had been packed too tightly into its skin—while her friends wore their Old Navy duds like runway models.

Today, however, it didn’t matter. Because last night Cade Gallari had kissed her, touched her, made love to her. And since the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning, she’d felt almost skinny, wholly desirable and, yes, beautiful.

Not that her first foray into sex had been completely wonderful. If the truth be told, the foreplay had been awesome, but the actual penetration part…well, that had been uncomfortable and over so fast she’d never actually gotten the chance to cross the finish line. But hey, it had been her first time, so it wasn’t as if she’d expected angels to sing or anything.

Still, Cade had made her feel special. Between kisses, he’d told her how gorgeous her lips were, how pretty her hair, how soft her skin, how awesome her breasts. And afterward he’d held her as if she were more precious than platinum.

Which didn’t prevent her from being blown away that she’d done it with him. She sure never would have predicted that. Up until six weeks ago, in fact, she’d have sworn it wasn’t even a remote possibility, since she couldn’t remember a time when Cade hadn’t been a giant pain in her butt. They’d known each other since birth, practically—yet at the same time hadn’t truly known each other at all. But the little she had known of him?

She hadn’t liked. He was part of the crowd that reveled in ridiculing anyone who didn’t fit their standards, which, face it, was nine-tenths of the student body. So when she and Cade had been assigned partners in Mr. Burton’s year-end seniors science project, she’d seen Titanic stamped all over it. Because, c’mon, her and Gallari? On a project that accounted for a quarter of their grades?

When the two of them were eight, he’d pulled her hair and trod all over her toes in cotillion class. In the tenth grade the guy had looked up her skirt from beneath the bleachers, for God’s sake, then told everyone she wore pink panties! Before last night, in fact, her blood had congealed at the thought of him seeing her fat thighs and probably laughing about them with those asshole buddies of his.

Yet over the past month and a half, she’d seen another side of Cade, a sweet, funny, thoughtful side she hadn’t dreamt existed. And sitting across from each other in the library or at the coffee shop tables they’d taken to staking out to work on their project, an insidious attraction had begun to grow. Soon they were sitting in the dark in his car just talking, talking, reluctant to call it a day.

Until one night he’d kissed her. And once that frontier had been crossed, there was no going back. Every time he’d kissed her these past couple of weeks, every time his hands had grown bolder charting new territory, she’d just melted, finding it really difficult to call a halt as, little by little, he’d pushed the envelope on their intimacy level.

Until, last night, she just couldn’t make herself say they had to stop. Her lips curled up in a secret smile.

“Okay, that’s it!” Stopping in front of the cafeteria doors, Poppy grabbed Ava’s arm. “What is up with you?”

She laughed.

Tried to keep the news to herself.

Then ultimately caved, because they were a sisterhood and she told them everything.

“I did it, Poppy. I thought for sure I was going to graduate—if not die—a virgin, but last night I…” Heat crawling up her chest, she suddenly turned shy at the idea of saying the words aloud.

Jane’s mouth dropped open. “Oh. My. Gawd,” she said slowly. “You did the deed?”

She nodded.

Poppy looked perplexed. “With who?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, crap, please tell me it wasn’t Buttface Gallari!”

“Don’t call him that!” Okay, so she was the one who had given him the title way back when. But still—

“Just…don’t, okay?” she said in a softer tone and shook her head. “Look, I want to tell you guys everything, and I will—after school when the potential to be overheard isn’t so high.”

“Yeah, all right,” Poppy agreed. “But the minute we’re clear of this place, I’ve got some questions for you, sister.” Turning Ava loose, she pushed open the lunchroom door, and they walked into the chaos and bedlam of second lunch.

Trays and crockery clattered, voices reverberated off walls, and students seemed in constant motion as they either moved between the long tables or jockeyed for position at them. Peering around a couple of jocks tossing a baseball back and forth, Ava looked for Cade. Not wanting to appear too obvious when she didn’t immediately locate him, she followed her friends to the lunch counter.

She’d picked up a tray before she noted an unaccountable lessening in the noise level. It was never quiet in here, yet except for a few conversations still going on at the farthermost tables, the usual babble had faded to near silence. She looked over her shoulder to see everyone looking at her.

Someone snickered.

She smiled uncertainly, so damn dumb that even then she didn’t get that she was the butt of some joke. It wasn’t until Dylan Vanderkamp, the biggest ass in Cade’s crowd of mega-asses, rose to his feet, smirked at her and brandished a fat roll of cash that she began to get an inkling that this was not going to be good.

“Here you go, Gallari,” Dylan said, “two hundred bucks.” He extended it across the lunch table. “A bet’s a bet, my man. You said you could bag the fat girl, and by God you did it.” Giving Ava a slow up and down that left her feeling naked, he curled his lip. “I’d say you more than earned it.”

It was a bet? a voice shrieked in her head. I’m the “fat girl” he slept with on a bet? Her hands went numb, her legs lost strength and sickness rose in a sour tide up her throat.

Dylan stepped to one side, and for the first time she saw Cade, who was lounging on his tailbone looking bored. He glanced at her, and for one crazy, hopeful second, she thought he’d slap the money out of Vanderkamp’s mitt. But he merely raised a languid hand and plucked it from the other boy’s fingers.

“Thanks,” he said and tucked it in the front pocket of his jeans.

Everything inside her turned to ice. At the same time, all those eyes avidly waiting for her reaction seemed to burn pinprick holes everywhere they touched.

But she couldn’t simply stand here, taking shit off Cade’s group of over-entitled Neanderthals. Her chest might feel as if a two-ton rock sat on it, and God knew she desired nothing more than the ability to turn invisible—but she and her friends had always given back as good as they’d gotten from these idiots. Suckered by Gallari’s sweet talk, she’d forgotten for a while who she was dealing with.

She sure as hell remembered now. And, dammit, she would get a handle on herself, if it killed her.

A bitter laugh almost escaped her. Because the treacherous, lying, two-faced bastard had gotten a jump on that, hadn’t he? Still, if she was going down, she’d at least do so dealing a little damage of her own.

“I think I should get part of that,” she managed to drawl past the huge lump in her throat. “One session with Quick Draw McGraw here pretty much put me off sex for life—and if that doesn’t entitle a girl to a cut, I don’t know what does.”

It was the slightest balm to her wounded heart that a few people laughed at Cade’s expense rather than her own. It wasn’t enough—she’d prefer that his dick shrivel up and drop off—but it would have to do. That lump was growing and she couldn’t force out another word.

As if she knew, Poppy placed an unobtrusively supportive hand on her back. “Yeah, what was it she told us, Jane?”

Jane shrugged. “That if she ever got over the trauma of Gallari’s fumbling and worked up the nerve to try it again, it would be with someone who knew what the hell they were doing.”

Cade continued lounging and looking bored, but Ava had the satisfaction of at least seeing a little dull color climb up his razor-sharp cheekbones.

She’d take more pleasure in seeing him experience a fraction of her humiliation, but God, she just hurt so bad. She felt shattered, as if her insides had been torn apart, then put back wrong. She would never, ever forgive him for setting her up this way, for lifting her up—only to slam her down.

Swallowing hard against a rising tide of grief, she turned her back on him, blindly grabbed a bowl of Jell-O and slapped it on her tray. No way would she be able to swallow a bite.

But damned if she intended to turn tail and run from Buttface Gallari. Even if, inside, a piece of her had just died.

CHAPTER ONE

I’m not sure if I just made a really savvy move—or the biggest blunder of my life.

Present day, the ninth of November

THE BASTARD was late. Ava Spencer cursed the man she was waiting on as she paced the front foyer of the Wolcott mansion, alternately hugging herself against the cold and trying to rub some warmth into her arms through her coat sleeves. The place had been closed up for several weeks, and between the wind currently buffeting the mullioned windows and the rainstorm that had blown through earlier, leaving a Seattle-centric damp-to-the-bone chill in its wake, she was freezing her ass off.

She would’ve turned on the heat, but there was little point. If the guy ever deigned to get here, she’d be showing him the mansion from attic to wine cellar. And while Jane kept the front parlor and hidden closet in Miss Agnes’s upstairs sitting room climate-controlled for the preservation of the Wolcott collections that weren’t currently sold or on loan to museums, it would take until noon tomorrow to warm up the rest. And although she had turned on every light in the house, the illusion of warmth from the yellow glow of the lamps and overheads didn’t come close to replacing the real thing.

A laugh that went a little wild escaped her. Like that was the crucial issue here. Because… It’s not some guy, Av. It’s Cade Calderwood Gallari.

Jeez Marie. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to this. So, yes, she was concentrating on the minutiae for all she was worth to keep from thinking about him. Because it was too freaking late to second-guess herself now.

Wasn’t it?

She froze for an arrested second. Hell, no, it wasn’t! The heavy feeling in her stomach lightening, she snatched up her purse and started down the hallway to the kitchen. Its exterior door was the direct route to where she’d parked her Beemer. Cade was late? She was out of here.

Headlights swept the east wall across from the kitchen archway, stopping her dead. “Shit.”

Too late.

She did a little dance in place to shake off the tension that had her tighter than an over-wound watch, throwing in some yoga breathing for good measure. Exhaling a final gusty breath, she nodded to herself. “Okay. Time to pull on your big girl pants.”

She forced herself to shove down her irritation over Cade’s tardiness, over the fact that he breathed, and bury it deep. It’s been thirteen years, girl. He’s a footnote, someone who no longer matters. Who hasn’t mattered for a very long time. So it probably wouldn’t do to snap his head off first thing.

But, oh, boy. The temptation.

She watched him through the back-door window as he climbed the steps and stopped beneath the porch light, and her annoyance surged back with a vengeance. She fought it to a standstill once more, pushed out a final exhalation and reached out to unlock the door.

The knob turned before she could open it, and he blew into the kitchen, shaking himself like a wet dog and sending raindrops flying in all directions from his sun-streaked brown hair. Looking beyond him, Ava saw that it had begun to pour again.

“Man, it’s wet out there!” He flashed her his trademark Gallari smile, white teeth flashing and deep creases bracketing his mouth. Only she noticed that this time the blue, blue eyes glinting between dense, dark lashes held…something. Wariness maybe or…calculation? Something cooler and edgier than the smile that for years had haunted her dreams.

It just bugged the hell out of her that she felt his impact like a cattle prod to the breastbone. Why was it like this every damn time she laid eyes on him: this immediate, visceral one-two to the heart? It was identical to the reaction she’d had around teenaged Cade—and even after everything she knew about him, everything he’d done—seeing him gave her that same hot punch to the solar plexus.

Well, it would be a cold, cold day in hell before she felt the least bit tempted to act on it. She raised an eyebrow. “And you call yourself a Seattle native?”

“I forgot how fast the rain can soak a guy up here.”

She gave him a polite smile. “I suppose living in southern California will do that to a person.” She made a show of glancing at her watch. “Tell me why you think I should give you the time of day—let alone rent you the mansion for a documentary.”

“O-kay. No small talk.” His mouth developed an unyielding slant that somehow looked more at home on his chapped lips than his old smile. “Sorry I’m late. There was a wreck on I-5 and it took a while to get traffic moving again.”

She nodded her acceptance of his apology and watched as he looked around the kitchen. A small pucker of dismay appeared between his dark eyebrows. “It’s been modernized.”

When Ava looked him fully in the face this time, she found it less unsettling. “Surely you didn’t expect it to be the same as it was back in the eighties?”

“I guess I’d hoped it would be.”

“As soon as Poppy, Jane and I inherited it, we had the awful sunroom addition removed and, yes, modernized the place throughout. We were expecting to sell it, Slick, not rent it—and even that’s not a done deal.” She raised her brows. “Your pitch?”

“As my production assistant told you on the phone, I want to do a documentary on the Wolcott Suite mystery. But more than that, I want to feature Agnes Wolcott.”

She had, and Ava had to admit that was the reason she was standing here. But—“Why? I mean, sure, the Wolcott diamonds gained urban legend status locally, but I doubt the story surrounding it is nationally famous.”

“Maybe not, but I grew up in this town, and I’ve been fascinated by the mystery of it since I was a kid.” His blue eyes lit with enthusiasm. “It’s got everything, Ava—a cool old mansion, a fortune in diamonds that were never recovered, a murder…and a woman at the heart of it that I find more and more remarkable the deeper I dig.”

She really liked that last part. What she didn’t like was him. “And I should care about what you want, why?”

“Because I can do justice to a woman I know you cared for. And because I’ll give you and your friends thirty grand for six weeks’ use, pay all the peripheral expenses for the time Scorched Earth Productions is here and landscape the grounds back to the way they were in the eighties.”

Oh, low. The mansion had turned into an albatross around her and her friends’ necks in this economy, and he undoubtedly knew it. Desperately, she wanted to spit in his eye. But she thought of her friends. Poppy and Jane had never complained, but she knew this place was a drain on them, too. So, sucking up her ire, wondering if she was making the worst decision of her life, she gritted teeth and said through them, “Fine.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes.” What the hell. She wouldn’t have to see him. “Have your assistant call me for my lawyer’s number—you can send him the contracts—and if he finds it agreeable you’ve got a deal. Do you want a tour before you go? Since you seemed concerned about the work we had done, I’d be happy to show you. I think you’ll agree our crew did a wonderful job of preserving the spirit of the original design in their restoration.” She stepped back.

“One more thing,” he said, halting her. “I want to hire you as the production company’s concierge, as well.”

She laughed in his face. “No. Do you want that tour or not?”

“Forget the tour—”

“Works for me. Send your paperwork to my lawyer.” She turned to go.

“Look. I’ll pay you two grand a week plus a fifty thousand dollar bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

“Which somehow won’t happen, right?”

“The bonus is a legitimate offer, Ava. I’ll email my own contracts for your attorney to look over while he’s going over yours, and you’ll see I have a lot more to lose than you.”

Doesn’t matter. Because it’s not going to happen. But damn him. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Not only had her trust fund taken a huge hit in the economic downturn, so had the finances of many of the clients who formed the foundation of her concierge business. And as one of the gazillion mortgage holders who’d been caught up in the subprime lending disaster, she was facing a huge balloon payment on her condo that was coming due in the not-nearly-future-enough future.

Well, too bad, so sad for her. She’d rather lose the place than spend six weeks in this bastard’s company.

Seriously? her hardscrabble practicality demanded. She had to admit that was pretty cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face idiotic. This could actually be the answer to her prayers. And hell, it wasn’t as if she were worried about falling under his spell. Been there, done that.

“You’d be in place to make sure I do credit to your Miss Wolcott,” he said softly.

She blew out a defeated breath. “All right. Contingent on my attorney’s evaluation of the contracts, I’ll do it—to see you do justice to Miss A’s story.” And if she was also doing it for the money, he didn’t have to know. “Do you want that tour? We can start with the dining room across the hall.”

She turned, only to feel Cade wrap a hand around her forearm to halt her. Heat seeped through the cashmere of her coat sleeve beneath his light grasp, and she promptly swung back around, twisting her arm free.

“Do not,” she said with hard-fought calm, “touch me.”

Releasing her, he stepped back. “I just wanted to tell you, before we get started, how genuinely sorry I am for what happened back in high school. I was—”

“Forget it,” she interrupted. She so did not want to rehash the ugly details of the past with him. “I have.”

“Really?” An eloquent eyebrow rose, surprise flashing in the depths of his cobalt eyes.

She gave him a regal nod. She had cut him off at the knees the other times he’d sought her out over the years to apologize, but if acknowledging his regret would move him along to a place where they didn’t have to discuss the past, then, fine. She’d grant him his damn redemption.

“You forgive me then?”

No. Hell, no. That would be a snowboarding day in hell.

But she gave him a serene smile, knowing from this point on she had to be professional. “Let’s just agree to leave the past in the past, shall we?” Not awaiting a response, she led him to the dining room and got down to business. “As you can see, great care was taken in here to preserve the integrity of the era in which the Wolcott Mansion was built—”

SHE MET JANE AND POPPY at Sugar Rush, her favorite neighborhood coffee shop/bakery, the next afternoon. As they took their seats at a round table by the play area, she sucked in a quick inhale, then eased it out. “I did something last night I hope you’ll be okay with,” she said to her two best friends amid the clatter of crockery and conversations. She hesitated for a brief second, then blurted, “I agreed to rent the mansion to Cade Gallari.”

Okay, her ripping-off-the-Band-Aid delivery was clearly a little too abrupt, for Jane’s blue eyes went round with shock. Then her friend slapped both hands onto the tabletop, came half out of her seat to shove her face closer to Ava’s own and said, “You agreed to rent it to who?”

Ignoring the two women at the next table whose attention was drawn by Jane’s incredulous rising voice and aggressive stance—a look at odds with her neat, shiny brown hair and dark-hued clothing that always looked so conservative at first glance—Ava focused on her friends. She knew perfectly well she’d been heard. Nevertheless, she repeated evenly, “Cade Gallari.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.” Poppy’s voice might have been calmer than Jane’s, but as the curly haired blonde set her coffee cup down the expression in her topaz-brown eyes held identical disbelief. “Why would we let that douche anywhere near our inheritance?”

It was a fair question. Miss Agnes, the cool old lady who’d started having the three of them over to her mansion for monthly teas when they were twelve, who’d given them their first diaries and gotten them started on their lifelong journaling habit, had become a friend and a mentor. In Ava’s and Janie’s case, she’d been more parentlike than their own parents. And when she’d died a year and a half ago, she’d left a big hole.

Even in death, however, she’d been full of surprises, and Ava, Jane and Poppy had been astounded to learn she’d bequeathed them her estate. Miss A might well be rolling over in her grave at the thought of Cade in her home. God knows she’d played a large role in helping Ava pick up the pieces after his betrayal.

Feeling a little beleaguered, she stared at her friend. “It’s not as if I would’ve chosen to let him use the Wolcott mansion, either, Poppy, given any other option. But I’m fresh out of those. I said yes because the market for houses in our price range is stagnant and we’re paying through the nose for taxes, lights, utilities, yard maintenance and all the other crap that goes along with maintaining a place this size. He’ll pay very well for the privilege.”

She told them the terms. “And he’ll pay even more if we decide to rent him a few of Miss Agnes’s collections to use in his production—something I told him he’d have to discuss with you, Janie. You both know he produces documentaries about unsolved mysteries, right?”

The other women shifted guiltily, and she laughed, feeling tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying—in her neck, her shoulders, her spine—release its grip. “Relax, I don’t doubt your loyalty—you guys have boycotted all things Gallari forever. But we’d have to live in outer Mongolia not to have heard something about the name he’s making for himself.”

“Okay—I confess—I saw one of his films.” Poppy held her hands up in a Don’t shoot! gesture when both Ava and Jane gaped at her. “I didn’t pick it out—Jason ordered the damn thing from Netflix one night. He-who-shall-not-be-named is never mentioned in our house, so Jase had no way of putting the documentary maker together with the guy he saw upsetting you in that bar in Columbia City last year. Murphy’d just told him he had to see it.”

Focusing on the sign next to the kiddie play area, Ava did her best to wrestle her curiosity to a standstill. Unsupervised Kids Will Be Given An Espresso And A Free Puppy, she read. Usually that tickled her, but now the words simply bounced around in her head like Ping-Pong balls in a box—until finally, unable to help herself, she surrendered to her need to know. “All right, I give. Did it live up to all the hype?”

“Yeah.” Her friend grimaced. “I’m sorry, Av, but it did. I’ve never liked the dramatization-type documentaries because the acting is usually abysmal. But apparently Gallari’s gaining something of a cult rep as a star-maker. Several times now he’s chosen unknown talent that he’s gotten on the cheap from SAGIndie or university drama programs, who’ve then gone on to garner moderate-to-Ohmigawd-worthy success.”

“And you know this how?” Jane demanded. “Jeez, what are you, Gallari’s biggest fan now?”

“Seriously?” the blonde demanded right back. “Could you be any more insulting, Janie? Of course I’m not. Jase was so blown away by the documentary he insisted on watching the extras.”

“Good God,” Ava muttered. “The thing was that good?” As she watched Jane reach for Poppy’s hand and say, “Sorry, babe,” she wasn’t sure how she felt about Cade’s achievements. On the one hand, she would hardly cry a river if he tanked in every endeavor he touched.

On the other, his success might well help her and her friends’ finances.

“I’m afraid so.” Elbows on the table, Poppy skimmed back her cloud of curls with both hands. “He really does have an eye for talent. But he only used the reenactments in tiny doses. It was the interviews that really sold it. The whole thing was just so…compellingly presented.”

Then her slender brows drew together. “Still. Why the hell would he want to shoot one in the Wolcott mansion, which he had to know would be a hard sell, given it belongs to us now? Unless—?” Abruptly, she let go of her hair and snapped her spine erect.

“Ho-ly shitskis, Av. You said he’ll landscape the ground back to the way it was in the eighties?”

“Of course.” Jane, too, sat straighter. “The break-in where Miss Agnes’s guy was killed and the Wolcott diamonds disappeared.”

“That would be the unsolved mystery,” Ava agreed.

In 1985, during a remodel of Miss Agnes’s bed-and-sitting-room, her suite of diamond jewelry had been stolen. Late one night six months later, “her man, Henry,” as she always referred to him, heard a noise and came out of the office where he’d been working to find Mike Maperton, the head carpenter from the remodel, inside the mansion. Henry tripped the alarm, but Maperton killed him before help could arrive. It was assumed the construction worker had been retrieving the jewelry from where he’d hidden it, but if so, it was never recovered.

Jane smiled crookedly. “I always got the impression, whenever Miss A referred to Henry, that he was a lot more to her than just a factotum or man of business or whatever the heck he was supposed to be.”

Poppy shrugged. “We all did. What’s your point?”

“Damned if I know, except that I can see the story playing out in a documentary.” Jane hooked her hair behind her ears. “And I hate to admit it, but it would be nice to have the financial burden taken off our shoulders for a while. But Miss A was one of a kind—so, unless Gallari’s scored Streep to play her, I can’t imagine the actress who could do her justice.”

“I’d like to talk to you about something that’s related to the Miss A part, but first I should probably tell you—” okay, this is the tricky part “—that I, um, agreed to work for him next week, then for an additional six weeks during the actual production, which starts around the first of the year.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Poppy kept her voice low to prevent two nearby little girls eating the frosting off their cupcakes from overhearing, but her tone held a fierce edge.

“Maybe.” Tough to take offense when she’d been asking herself the same thing way too frequently since walking away from Cade last night. “Probably, even. My first impulse when he approached me was the same ole, same ole—to either spit in his eye or gouge them both out.”

Straightening her shoulders, she looked from one friend’s face to the other. “But that’s just a knee-jerk reflex.”

“One that totally works for me,” Jane interjected in a dry tone.

Ava shook her head. “He’s old news, Janie. I am so over him. But you know how dicked up my finances have been the past year.” Her lips tilted wryly. “So when he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as the production company’s personal concierge—I didn’t.”

Watching her with concern-filled eyes, neither Janie nor Poppy smiled back and Ava sighed. “What? You think I’m too fragile to handle it?”

“No, of course not,” Jane said. “But I don’t trust that bastard as far as I can throw him. We were there the last time he got up close and personal with you and had to watch you struggle to put yourself back together.”

“It was a piece-by-piece process,” Poppy agreed, “that took way too long and too much glue before it held together. And then you had to handle most of it on your own because of him screwing up our after-graduation plans—”

Yeah, getting shipped off to the fat farm didn’t help hasten the process, she thought wryly. Which, okay, was more her mother’s fault than Cade’s. But screw that—the truth was, if she hadn’t been so flattened by his betrayal, something her mother hadn’t even seemed to notice, she would have dug in until she’d won that battle. So, for all intents and purposes, it was his fault.

She tuned back in to hear Poppy continue, “So I suppose that I, at least, am a little afraid for you. You worked like a demon to build yourself back up, and I just don’t want to see all your hard work go down the drain because of Buttface Gallari.”

“Neither do I. And I won’t let it. I will never forgive him, Poppy—ever. But I’m through running away from him. Because you’re right, I did work too hard building myself back up to keep doing that. I’m not surprised you might have reservations about my ability to handle myself—”

“I don’t! You’ll go down in the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar annals for your counterattack on Gallari during the worst moment of your life. You more than proved you can handle yourself.”

“Since then, though, I’ve been more reactive than proactive whenever I’ve run into him. So maybe I feel I have something to prove—to myself, if no one else. It doesn’t help that I looked in the mirror this morning and had a ‘fat’ moment.”

“Dammit, Av,” Jane said. “When are you going to let those go? You’ve been a size twelve for twelve years.”

“Which you like to remind me would be a size fourteen if I’d buy my clothing at the less spendy stores where most women shop.” She knew her friend was only teasing when she said that, but she couldn’t honestly deny Jane was right.

“Please.” The brunette made a rude noise. “You know I only say that because I’m jealous you have big boobs. I wanna have big girl boobs some day.” She gestured at Ava’s emerald-green cashmere sweater and the black pencil skirt she’d tucked it into. “Look at you!”

She glanced down at herself. “I know. Does this make me look rotund?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Spencer, snap out of it!” Poppy gave her a get-over-yourself glare. “As Janie said, you’ve maintained your killer bod for pretty much your entire adult life. And you know men trip all over themselves when you walk by. It’s not because you’re fat, girlfriend.”

“Okay. Sorry.” She shook out her hands and picked up her coffee cup—then merely held it for a moment as she gave her friends a rueful smile. “I backslid for a minute there. Jeez. I’ve been down Insecurity Road so many times it likely has a butt-shaped rut etched in it. But I’m good now.”

“It’s that damn Gallari, showing up out of the blue and shaking you up.”

She shrugged. Seeing him again had contributed for sure, but it was really the telephone conversation she’d had with her mother earlier in which Jacqueline had made her usual crack about Ava’s weight. Why was her mom always so sure that she could do better, diet herself thinner? Never mind that she was a busty, hippy, big-boned girl who could starve herself into an early grave and still not die a sylphlike woman.

Well, she mostly knew her worth. She also knew she’d earned it for more than shedding thirty-nine pounds.

She knocked back a sip of coffee, set her cup on the table and, hands flat on either side of the mug, leaned into them in her intense need to make her friends understand why she’d agreed to do the last thing they’d expect from her. “Look, I’m not exactly raring to play personal concierge to Cade myself. But it’s work I can do with my eyes closed and he’ll pay me a weekly bundle for it, plus a huge bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

“Even if he’s on the up-and-up, how on earth are you gonna deal with seeing him day in and day out?”

“By being the biggest professional you’ve ever seen. By reminding myself that if all goes well, I can finally pay off that frickin’ balloon payment that’s been hanging over my head.”

Remembering a discussion with Cade last night that she had almost enjoyed, she flashed her dimples at her friends. “One of the things I’m genuinely excited about is an agreement I made to talk with Cade and his scriptwriter about Miss A to get her part as authentic as possible. So tell me what you guys would like to see included about her.”

After an enthusiastic conversation about their mentor, Ava looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. “I know this is a bombshell and I’m sorry to drop it on your heads and run, but I’m meeting Cade again this evening at my lawyer’s to go over the fine points in my contract and discuss my job description in more detail. Until that’s taken care of, I don’t plan to sign anything.” Rising to her feet, she looked down at her two friends. “We good?”

“Of course we are.” Poppy stood as well and gave Ava a hard hug. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“Not gonna happen,” she promised.

“Don’t forget dinner at Dev’s and my place next week,” Jane added as she, too, rose to give her a hug. “And you step carefully around that man, you hear?”

“I will,” she said, pulling on her plum-colored Steve Madden wool peacoat, flipping up the collar and picking up the plum, blue and green scarf Poppy’s mother had made her to wind around her neck. “Love you guys.”

She headed for the door, but paused to shoot her friends a cocky smile over her shoulder. “And don’t worry! I’m gonna kick some serious booty on this job.”

CHAPTER TWO

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to being in the mansion as an owner after Miss A died. So how weird is it that it feels so strange to suddenly be here as an outsider?

Nine weeks later

“SHE HERE YET ?”

Beks Donaldson, Cade’s production assistant, was slow to pull her attention away from the chart she was putting together at the kitchen table in the Wolcott mansion. By the time she craned around to look at him over her shoulder, he was seconds from tapping the face of his watch with his forefinger—that detested, time-is-money gesture his old man always used to use on him. Fuck. He’d sworn he would never do that to anyone else, so what the hell?

Annoyed by his slipping control, he found it didn’t help his mood that while Beks didn’t roll her gray-blue eyes, she somehow managed to convey the impression of doing so.

But all she said before turning back to her chart was a mild, “No.” He noticed she also refrained from reminding him that he’d interrupted her work less than ten minutes ago to ask the same damn question.

“She’s late,” he growled at the feathered tips of Beks’s Harley-Davidson shield n’ wings tattoo showing on either side of her nape above the neckline of her sweater.

“Uh-huh.”

Okay, he was being an idiot. But damn Ava Spencer anyway for keeping him waiting. He considered giving Beks a you-don’t-even-wanna-mess-with-me look, but she didn’t bother to turn around again. He had to settle for a stern, “Let me know when she arrives.”

“You got it, boss.”

He went back to the parlor where he’d been working on his own prep work—only to discover that he couldn’t concentrate for shit.

Dammit, he never lost the ability to focus when it came to work. He’d bled too many buckets, poured too much of his heart and soul into carving out a place for himself in this industry, to allow himself the luxury.

Not that he didn’t understand what the problem was, of course; he knew exactly where he’d gone south. He was always proactive, accustomed to working through every eventuality ahead of time to avoid spanners being thrown in his works during the actual production. Generally, by the time he was ready to dig in and really rock and roll, he’d worked out ninety-nine percent of the kinks, thereby sidestepping a lot of blunders. But he’d made a serious one with Ava that night back in November.

Yes, he’d owed her an apology for being such a shit in high school. But considering he’d attempted to give her one several times over the past decade, there had been no need to lead off with it the minute they’d come face-to-face. Her coolness that evening had made him rush the sorrys instead of waiting to get a feel for the emotional climate, a skill he’d developed early in his career and found handy in damn near every situation.

The trouble was, he had everything riding on this project. In order to get it funded he’d had to accept a couple of contract clauses he ordinarily would have avoided like a flaming case of jock rash. So he’d gone in knowing he had to talk Ava into renting him the Wolcott mansion. It was that or scrap the project, because if he had to build sets to duplicate it, his budget would be a bust before he even got started. And considering he’d already signed the damn contracts, that wasn’t an option.

Not that he’d hamstrung himself entirely. Never one to go into anything blind, he’d investigated before he’d signed anything, then deemed the risk worthwhile when he’d discovered the extent of Ava’s financial difficulties. And if securing the mansion had been his sole objective, things would have been business as usual.

But while he prided himself on always hiring efficient crews, for this project he’d needed not just efficient but the very best. That was a nonissue when it came to industry personnel. He’d known exactly who to hire: the professionals he’d worked with most successfully in the past. The ones whose visions meshed best with his own.

He always used a local as well, however, someone familiar with the area, to manage logistics and coordinate daily living for his cast and crew so he could focus his own attention where it belonged—on the production. To his dismay, not only had Ava turned out to be one of the owners, hers had also been the name that had kept cropping up when he’d started putting out feelers for a Seattle go-to, detail-oriented person with the best contacts. How ironic was that?

Karma sure was a bitch. Still, he had bet on himself. Because while the risks of this project might be greater than all his other ventures combined, so were the rewards.

The Wolcott documentary was his ticket to even bigger and better things. Velcro it to his past several achievements and maybe, just maybe, he’d finally get to take the script he’d been sitting on for three long years and turn it into the film he’d been dreaming of. The latter wouldn’t have a blockbuster-sized budget. But that only meant it would be all his to do the way he wanted to do it.

Well, either that or it would be the flush heard around the world if his gamble failed and Ava Spencer decided to use the mansion or her position on his crew for payback. He had to admit it was a concern that had been scratching at the back of his mind ever since they’d signed the contracts. Yet, staring at the blustery weather outside the parlor window, he didn’t see how she could do it, given that she needed money almost as badly as he needed this documentary to succeed.

Still, it had been naïve of him not to even consider the possibility that she had an agenda of her own before he’d all but handed her carte blanche to the most important project he’d ever worked. Which was surprising, considering naïveté hadn’t been a part of his makeup since the day he’d found out his dad wasn’t really his dad.

“Boss!”

Grateful for Beks’s bellow yanking him away from the pit into which that last thought likely would have landed him, he stalked over to the open pocket door and stuck his head out into the hall. “Yo!” That subject was a dead horse he had no desire to beat all over again.

“Your concierge is here.”

There was no good reason for his heart to start tripping all over itself. Snapping off a silent command for it to get the hell back to its normal steady rhythm, he muttered a terse, “About damn time,” and headed down to the kitchen.

“You ever consider going into acting?” he heard Beks demand as he neared the room. “’Cause you’re, like, a ringer for those amazing actresses that ruled back in the Hollywood studio system era. Same vibe, same glamour, swear to God.”

He paused in the doorway to watch Ava peel off a pricey-looking coat as she smiled in bemusement at his production assistant.

Beks had that effect on people. If she harbored a single inhibition in her entire body, he had yet to discover what it was. A guy could rack his brain until it liquefied, in fact, and still never come up with an instance in which the younger woman had bothered to censor her thoughts before loosing them on the world.

He had to admit, though, that she was right on the money with her assessment of Ava. Between the concierge’s flame-red thirties-style bob and her forties, knock-you-on-your-ass body, she had the retro glamour of a Hollywood golden age starlet. The impression was only reinforced when she finished removing her coat and revealed a black cashmere sweater dress that clung here and skimmed there, showcasing spectacular curves both above and below the skinny red belt that cinched in her waist.

Feeling a primal pull of attraction, he took a step closer to the threshold.

Then she tipped her head back and laughed in genuine amusement, and he stopped in his tracks. Because he remembered that sound. Remembered it from that long-ago time before he’d made one of the dumbest decisions of his life.

“Me, an actress?” Even in profile he could see a dimple flash. “No, I can honestly say I’ve never considered that as a career choice.” Another laugh burbled up her throat. “Really, truly never considered it. I couldn’t act my way out of a paper bag if my hair was on fire.”

“Which the color sorta suggests it is,” Beks said.

“Yes, well, that’s the curse of the redhead for you. Trust me, given a choice, I’d much rather have black hair like yours. But no one who knows me would ever put me and acting in the same sentence. I’m supereffective when it comes to making people’s lives run smoothly. But be scintillating in front of a camera?” Her quick grimace produced another dimple. “Not so much.”

“Yeah, I can’t act for shit, either,” Beks admitted gloomily. “Otherwise, I’d be all over gettin’ into the star groove.”

Stepping to the side of the archway out of Ava’s sight, Cade watched as she studied Beks’s skim-milk skin and dark hair, which the younger woman wore in high, fan-shaped, burgundy-streaked pigtails. Ava’s lips crooked up in the faintest of smiles as she took in the Goth eye makeup and bloodred lipstick, both of which presented a stark contrast with the Catholic schoolgirl uniform and knee socks Beks wore, yet tied right in with her black lace-up, patent leather ankle boots with their clunky heels and three inch, correction-shoe-looking platforms.

Ava’s smile grew wider, punching dimples deep in her cheeks. “Yeah, speed assessor that I am, I kind of guessed right away that you’re not the repressed type.”

Cade frowned. They were obviously in the throes of one of those instant bonding moments females were so freaking fond of—and he hadn’t hired Ava to hang out with Beks.

He stepped into the room. “Good of you to finally make it, Spencer.”

Her dimples disappeared as she turned to give him the same cool, detached look that had been a trademark of their previous meetings. “Mr. Gallari,” she said coolly. “I said I would be here, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, at one-thirty.” He resisted the urge to drive home the fact she was an hour and a half late. He didn’t doubt for a second that she was every bit as cognizant of the fact as he.

“Oh, gosh, you didn’t check your messages, did you?” Her tone was easy, friendly, but her gaze seemed to say something else. “I called last night to let you know that, although I’d secured the house for your crew that I told you about last month, I had a last-minute opportunity to strike a better deal, so I would be late.” Reaching into a vintage alligator briefcase, she extracted a handful of papers and extended them to him. “I had a meeting with the owner this afternoon and I think you’ll be happy with the results of my negotiations.”

Accepting the stack without looking at it, he gave the pocket where he kept his cell phone a surreptitious pat, only to find it empty. Shit. He knew he should own up to the dead battery he’d discovered when he’d turned his cell back on after debarking the plane this morning, and the fact that he’d plugged it into the rental car power source—where he’d undoubtedly left it. He absolutely should, but he was irritated with her even though it wasn’t her fault.

Still…

If he were to be honest about it, his and Beks’s arrival into town had been extremely smooth—maybe even the smoothest ever. The town car driver had been there with Cade’s name printed on a sign when they’d reached Baggage, the key to the back door had been exactly where Ava had said it would be and her instructions to disarm the security alarm clear. Unlike the last time he’d been here, the mansion had been warm and inviting, and they’d found the refrigerator stocked with cheese, meats, fresh fruit and an assortment of drinks, both hard and soft. On the counter had been two different kinds of crackers and a box of Fran’s Gray and Smoked Salt caramels. So she’d done her job—and then some.

He let his irritation go on a quiet breath. “You’ve met Ms. Shy and Retiring here, I take it?”

Ava smiled at the nickname but said, “Yes and no. We’ve been talking for a few minutes but never got around to the actual introductions.”

“In that case, let me present Rebekka Donaldson, my production assistant.”

“Okay, there’s a name I haven’t been called in a while,” the younger woman said as she reached out to give Ava a firm handshake. “It’s been so long, in fact, that unless you’re my grandmother, it’s unlikely I’ll respond to it. Everyone except Granny Louise—and maybe Mom when she’s unhappy with me—calls me Beks.”

“Come to think of it, except at our own introduction I’ve never actually heard anybody call you Rebekka,” he agreed. “So, Ava, Beks. Beks, meet Ava Spencer, our local concierge.”

“What does a production assistant do?” Ava asked, folding her coat and laying it over the back of an antique oak chair. As she looked at Beks with bright-eyed interest, she smoothed the soft fabric with a long, pale hand. Her fingertips bumped one of the turned spools that rose on either side of the chair’s back and she traced its shape between her fingers and thumb.

He looked away, jolted all over again by her unconscious sexuality. He’d felt it when they were kids but had always assumed that was merely because A: she had a way of moving that made him think of sex and B: sex was all he had thought about at the time. Hell, he’d been a teenage boy, ready and willing to nail anything with tits. And God knows she’d always had great breasts.

But that didn’t explain his reaction to her now.

“I’m half gofer and half coordinator,” Beks said. “Cade’s giving me my big break.”

Clearing his throat, he shook the reaction aside. “Beks is our detail woman. There are a million attached to filming and she’s a genius at keeping track of ’em all.”

Beks nodded. “That whole ‘making people’s lives run smoothly’ thing you said you do?” she said cheerfully. “Well, I am to the running of a production what you are to people’s lives.”

Turning back to Cade, she waved at the papers in his hand. “Go ahead and look over the contracts, boss. I’ll show Ava what I’m working on at the moment.”

It wasn’t a quick tutorial he heard, however, as he turned his attention to the rental agreement. Instead Beks mentioned that while the weather up here would take some getting used to after L.A., at least she didn’t have to worry about getting a sunburn.

Ava laughed but then said that even in Seattle in the winter women with skin as fair as theirs required a good sunblock.

Which promptly segued into a spirited debate over the best brand.

Shaking his head, he searched the contract for the bottom line, flipping through the pages until he came to the one that had the clause disclosing the monthly rent. He read it swiftly. Then went back to read it again more slowly.

And blew out a breath. “No shit?”

Ava turned her head, raising her brows at him. “I assume that meets with your approval. In fact, a nice little gift certificate to my favorite spa for my negotiation skills wouldn’t be out of line.”

“It really wouldn’t.” He read the clause again, then looked up at her, feeling some of the she’s-gonna-blow-my-big-chance-all-to-hell-and-gone knot he’d been packing for the past couple of months dissolve. “How the hell did you talk the owners down to a rent this reasonable?”

She shrugged. “By being the best at what I do,” she said lightly. “Which is why you hired me. Although I did have to give the owner my word that if he finds someone interested in seeing the place while your crew is still in residence they’ll be reasonable about allowing it to be shown—with the strict understanding, of course, that it’s not available until your lease expires.” Leveling those green eyes on him, she said, “I also promised that your crew would leave it in as good, if not better, condition than they found it.”

“We will,” Beks agreed, and Cade nodded.

“If there are any small repairs that need doing—and they have time and the union allowing—I’ll talk to the guys about taking care of them,” he said, then gave her a solemn, head-on gaze. “Good work.”

AVA INCLINED her head. “Thanks,” she said. But she wasn’t as uninfluenced by his approval as she might have wished.

Not that she wasn’t over Cade, because she so was. It was more that…she hadn’t expected to still feel this pull of unwilling attraction.

She supposed that was precisely what she should have expected, given she’d had a similar reaction at their earlier meetings. But perhaps because she’d handled the first face-to-face pretty well and had felt reasonably removed when she’d had to see him again at her lawyer’s office, then again during the summit with his scriptwriter in the beginning of December, she had assumed she’d gotten the whole oh-my-gawd-am-I-really-going-to-work-with-the-bastard thing out of her system.

Apparently not.

Still, that was all this was, a sort of knee-jerk what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here vibe at being thrown together again with the author of her worst insecurities.

Which she had worked her way through, thank you very much, more than a dozen years ago. She didn’t discount the great deal of effort it had taken on her part, but damned if she intended to go back there again. Squaring her shoulders, she dug two sets of keys out of her briefcase. She handed the larger one to Beks. “These are to the house. I think I have enough for everyone who’s staying there, but if you need more let me know and I’ll have the landlord make them up.”

The other set she handed to Cade, along with an additional contract. “I wasn’t able to get as good a deal on the Belltown condo you requested, because short-term leases on units in that area have a built-in demand. I did, however, talk them down two hundred and forty bucks from the original asking price, since historically January is a postholiday lull month.” She shrugged. “It’s not much, but I imagine every little bit helps.”

“You rock, girlfriend,” Beks said and offered up her palm for a high five.

As Ava slapped it, Cade gave her an unsmiling nod. “It does, yes. Thank you.” His fingers, brushing hers as he accepted the keys, were warm and hard.

He was harder and tougher-looking all over, in fact, than he’d been at eighteen, his shoulders wider, his chest brawnier. The sleeves of his blue sweater were pushed up, revealing silky dark hair that feathered tan, muscular forearms. And his face, which was more angular and less…pretty…than it had been in high school, sported even darker stubble around his mouth and along the inflexible lines of his jaw.

He also seemed a great deal less carefree than he’d been back in the day, more somber-mouthed and watchful-eyed.

Not that she gave a great big rip one way or the other. Who didn’t change after high school? She was just interested in discovering the kind of man she’d be working with in the here and now. The more she knew, the better prepared she’d be to keep him at arm’s length, right where he belonged. Because while a whole lot had changed in thirteen years, the fact that he couldn’t be trusted remained the same.

But speaking of work…

“As you requested, several of Miss Agnes’s collections are in a vault here,” she said briskly. “If you’ll give me some times that work best for you, I’ll coordinate them with Jane’s schedule so we can discuss which ones you want to use for your documentary. Once you’ve made your decision, we’ll arrange to have the rest moved to off-site safekeeping.”