Brief Encounters
Brief Encounters
Suzanne Forster
Swan McKenna's racy men's underwear company, Brief Encounters, is on the brink of incredible success…when she's accused of stealing five million dollars!How can she launch her newest naughty designs with a federal agent watching her every move? Of course, once she gets a glimpse of Special Agent Rob Gaines, all she can think about is seeing his moves. With his government-issue good looks, he'd bring down the house modeling for her upcoming fashion show.And she desperately needs models…. But little does Swan expect Rob to help her out by reluctantly agreeing to strut his stuff. Nor does she realize that once she sees Rob in his underwear, she won't be able to resist catching him out of it….
“Whatever you want to do with me, do it.”
At Swan’s words, Rob’s mouth pressed to hers. Then she felt a sharp sensation and cried out in surprise. He had nipped her lip, the inner edge where it was plump and tender.
“You taste good,” he whispered. “Like sex and deep, shuddering sighs. I want to drink you to the last drop.”
He tasted like sex, too. Powerful male-on-the-hunt sex. It was intoxicating.
His lips found the side of her neck. Instinctively he seemed to know the sweet spot at the base of her throat. Hot kisses there made her arch her back as she rocked against his pelvis. The hard flesh encased in his jeans caused her to moan in anticipation.
“We can still stop,” he told her. “It’s not too late.”
Stop? Swan had never heard anything more ridiculous in her life.
Dear Reader,
Every once in a while, if we’re lucky, we get a chance to revisit something that has brought us great joy and satisfaction. This is one of those times for me. When the opportunity to write for Blaze came my way, I felt very lucky, and not just because it’s an exciting, innovative and no-holds-barred line. It was my chance to revisit series romance.
I started my career at Harlequin-Silhouette, and what a great way to start. The books were fun, sexy, challenging and intensely satisfying to write. I hope they were as satisfying to read. But things have changed a little since then. Blaze has broken new ground, not to mention a few rules, and they continue to shake things up, which makes them irresistible to writers—and readers—who love to live on the edge.
When the idea for Brief Encounters came to me, I knew it was a series romance, and I suspected it was a Blaze book. So I was delighted when my editor agreed and invited me to write not one, but three, Blaze books. The prospect of writing about a heroine who designed men’s underwear seemed to have limitless possibilities for racy fun and games. Swan McKenna doesn’t just fantasize about whether men are wearing briefs or boxers, she gets to go there!
I hope you enjoy Swan’s “encounters” with FBI agent Rob Gaines, whose turn as an underwear model was about as much steamy fun as I’ve ever had writing about a hero. I also hope you’ll look for Beyond Suspicion, a two-in-one collection that features the reissue of my top-selling series romance, The Man at Ivy Bridge, available in January 2004.
It’s good to be back!
Suzanne Forster
Brief Encounters
Suzanne Forster
Long overdue thanks to my intrepid plot group: Olga Bicos, Lori Herter, Lou Kaku, Jill Marie Landis and Meryl Sawyer. For the group therapy as much as for the brainstorming. Your support makes work—and life—a pleasure!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
1
SWAN MCKENNA had been inspecting half-naked men for the better part of the afternoon. And she still hadn’t found Mr. Right. Watching men strip down to their underwear was a job most women would have loved. And Swan should have loved it more than most. It was her underwear they were stripping down to. Well, not her underwear. She was wearing that. This was underwear she’d designed.
Now she needed a guy who could sell it.
“I need a man who can bump and grind!” she implored.
Swan was speaking on her cell phone to her assistant, Gerard Nichols, who was acting as host for the auditioning models. Swan’s partner, Lynne Carmichael, who normally dealt with this sort of thing, was on the road doing advance work for their upcoming boutique tour. Her departure had left Swan and Gerard scrambling to get ready for the launch party tomorrow night. This was their first real show and L.A.’s fashion press had been invited for an exclusive sneak peek at the “cheeky” new line of male undergarments.
If Swan wasn’t a bundle of naked nerve endings, she should have been. She and Lynne had worked for years to get to this place, against staggering odds. The fashion world regularly feasted on its own young and Swan felt a little like a chicken wing right now. One scathing review could crush them.
A couple of guys who can striptease without getting all tangled up in their army camouflage thongs. Is that too much to ask?
“It’s a Village People revival out here,” Gerard replied in theatrical whispers. “We’ve got a Native American chieftain, complete with headdress, a fireman with an ax, a pistol-packin’ cowboy. And, oh, my, call 9-1-1! The telephone repairman who just walked in is to die for, Swan. To die for.”
Gerard was stationed in the foyer and Swan was in the spacious music room of the Italianate villa that had recently become the operating headquarters for Brief Encounters, Swan and Lynne’s design company.
“Oh, oh, oh, and there’s a Marquis de Sade.” Gerard let out a little squeak. “He has a whip, Swan! An honest-to-goodness whip! Shall I send him in?”
Swan’s only response was a tiny jet of air through her nostrils. Laughter took too much energy. Gerard was in his element right now, she supposed. From the moment she’d first met him, Swan had known that Gerard was gay. She knew because he’d told her. Hello, my name is Gerard Nichols, and I’m gay. At the time Swan had wondered if that was how he introduced himself to everyone. She discovered later that, generally, it was.
When he’d walked into her tiny Manhattan Beach, California, office that day, he’d also informed her that he was answering her Assistant Wanted ad and she need look no further. Sure, he’d grown up wanting to be an underwear model like Mark Whalberg, but, at thirty-something, he was a little too fond of strawberry-cheesecake ice cream. Design was his second choice, but he couldn’t draw. So he was content to be indispensable.
And he was. Swan would have been lost without him.
“Let’s try the telephone repairman,” she said. “He sounds safer. That fire-swallowing Adonis you just sent in here dropped his baton and nearly set the place ablaze. No more of that, okay? And no more live animals, especially snakes.”
Swan didn’t like snakes and this one had actually fallen from its handler’s bare shoulders and slithered under the sofa Swan was sitting on. She still had goose bumps over that. It was a wonder it hadn’t sent her running to the bathroom to relieve herself. For as long as she could remember, she’d suffered with a high-strung bladder. Some people got hives when they were nervous. Swan McKenna had to pee.
“But, Swaaaan—”
“No way, Gerard. Nothing creepy crawly, nothing with more than two legs, nothing flammable and nothing that is going to explode. This is a fashion show, not a demolition derby. Besides, I’m late with the insurance premium this quarter. I’m not even sure we’re covered.”
She heard him sigh into the phone. Gerard enjoyed bells and whistles and had been arguing that the party’s fashion show needed more special effects. Since Swan and Lynne couldn’t afford pyrotechnics and laser lights, Gerard had suggested they let the models provide the runway pizzazz. Swan had finally agreed that he could invite some of his more exotic friends to audition, but this was ridiculous.
“The marquis looks like fun, Swan. Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure, Gerard. Do not send in the guy with the whip.”
Gerard clicked off, and Swan went back to work on the growing stack of portfolios provided by the models. Résumés and glossy head shots were strewn across the glass-topped coffee table she was using as a work surface. Most of the guys were wanna-bes rather than professional models, which was lucky because Brief Encounters was currently too broke to pay modeling fees. The party food and decorations were largely donated, thanks to Gerard’s ingenuity, and the men who’d shown up to audition were volunteering their time, hoping to get some exposure, probably—which shouldn’t be a problem in her underwear.
Swan held the back of her hand to her forehead and felt the stickiness. August was typically the hottest month of the summer, even at the beach, and the fifty-year-old villa wasn’t air-conditioned. Swan had dressed defensively, in capris and a tank top, but naked would have been too warm in this place.
The kicker was that she wasn’t even supposed to be doing this task. Lynne had cooked up the impromptu launch party idea, hoping it would generate some publicity. It was a good idea and Swan had gone along with it, but Lynne was the gregarious one, the free spirit who had a flair for this sort of thing, which was why she worked sales, marketing and PR. Swan was the organizer and the bean counter. She also did most of the actual designing, but other than a few fittings and alterations, she rarely worked with the models.
Lynne was supposed to have come back to run the auditions, but she’d left a message from San Francisco, saying that something big was up and she would call back later to explain. She’d also dropped the name of a huge international designer. Lynne loved being mysterious, but this wasn’t the time, not when they were facing their first-ever tour. At least Lynne had finalized all the details of their first runway show in Los Angeles, including the models, but Swan still had the launch party to deal with.
The music room door opened and the telephone repairman was all but pushed inside by Gerard, who grinned and waggled his fingers at Swan before leaving. The new model looked around as if he had no idea where he was or why he was there. A bad sign. Swan waved him into the room, but he didn’t budge.
“I’m here to—”
“Yes, I know,” she said brightly. “Great outfit. You’re my first repairman, and I must say, it works.”
And how it worked. This guy could have installed her phone any day of the week. Gerard hadn’t done him justice, she realized. If Lynne had been there, she would have given him the compliment she reserved for lifeguards and the Olympic water polo team: studly.
Of course, Swan was trained to notice such things, but the man’s legs were so long he must have had his blue jeans specially made. And who could miss the way he’d planted himself, his hips canted at an angle that emphasized their narrowness and the wide rake of his shoulders. The expression on his face was priceless, too. Bemused and quizzical, faintly suspicious. Male.
Swan felt heat stealing up the back of her neck and realized she was having a physical reaction right here in the music room. Was that possible? Something was tingling, and it wasn’t her bladder!
“Ma’am…?”
His voice snapped her out of her trance. What in the world was she doing? Fantasizing in broad daylight? The only question that should have been on her mind at that moment was, can he dance?
“The CD player’s over there,” she said, pointing at the boom box that Gerard had set up on an antique tea cart. The regal old piece sat by a wall of cherry bookcases that housed the room’s music library, and Swan wondered if the cart was appalled at the noisy machine that was vibrating its brass knobs and handles. She wondered if the whole house was appalled.
“Go ahead and put your music in,” she told him.
The heat had now spread to her face, but she resisted the impulse to fan herself as she sorted through photos. She found one she planned to call back, but now she needed a pencil to make a note of it. Of course, every pencil she owned was missing in action. When the August weather had started to get to her, she’d pulled her long auburn hair up into a loose bun to cool her neck. Patting around, she found a No. 2 Ticonderoga stuck in the waves. Her hair probably resembled a floor mop by now, but there wasn’t time to repair it. She tugged the pencil free, her hair miraculously staying in its knot, and her gaze drifted toward the model.
He was standing right where she’d left him.
“You didn’t bring any music, right?” Some of the guys had brought their own CDs and some hadn’t. “That’s okay,” she said as she hurried over to the boom box, popped in a disc and pushed the Play button. Hot, pulsing music filled the room. If you could dance, “Disco Inferno” was your song.
The music was too loud to talk over, so she gave the model a directorial point of her finger. “You’re on,” it said. She moved to the music herself, shaking her shoulders and nodding encouragingly. She’d actually had to dance with one of the guys to get him going, and it looked as if she had another shy one on her hands.
Maybe that was the secret of this one’s appeal. Not just studly, but shy.
He was heart attack material, she admitted, wondering what she was going to have to do to inspire him. It was just plain hot the way his blue work shirt fell open at the neck and his tool belt hung on his hips. His hands were braced on the worn leather and he’d cocked his head, as if to say he wasn’t making a move until he was good and ready. But, boy, when he did. All he would have to do was to shake those shoulders and women everywhere would fall on their noses. Swan was teetering already. He could have sold underwear to a nudist colony.
This was the best raw material she’d seen all day, so to speak. She had to get him dancing. Okay, what would Lynne do? she asked herself—and not for the first time. Her partner had a bold, carefree manner that Swan had always admired. Lynne knew how to keep men guessing, which seemed to make them want her all the more. She was flirty and provocative, but whenever Swan tried that, she got into trouble. Maybe this was her chance to practice.
Swan walked briskly over to the model. To hesitate was death. As she approached, he gave her a searching look and a lazy smile that said he might be checking her out, as well. Not as shy as she thought? She felt an instant’s unease but dismissed it. Her mission was to find men with happy feet. Sure he looked good, but could he move? Could he dance and undress at the same time? Could he make a woman hot, maybe even her, who hadn’t been above 98.6 in years? And, more important, could he sell the thongs, briefs and tank tops that were going to be Brief Encounters’s showcase products?
“Maybe I can help,” she said. “Just relax and go with me.”
She braced her legs and rotated her hips, only to see his brows flatten skeptically. “Come on,” she coaxed. “You can do it.”
She began to sing along with the music and shake her shoulders, but still nothing. What? Was he practicing to be a palace guard?
With a sigh, she placed her hands on his hips and began rocking them back and forth, encouraging him to rotate. This was exactly what Lynne would have done, but it was so not Swan McKenna. Her heart was pounding as fast as the music.
“Yes, that’s it!” she said, thinking she’d felt him move. “Work with me. That’s right, work with me, baby.”
Work with me, baby?
She didn’t dare look up, or he would have seen the flush creeping up her neck. She gripped him harder, rotating wider. “Shake it one time for me,” she croaked.
What was happening to her voice?
“Ma’am?”
“No, keep moving,” she insisted. “I think you’re getting the idea.”
Swan was staring at the man’s rotating pelvis so hard she could have counted the teeth on his zipper. It didn’t take X-ray vision to know what was lovingly cradled inside those beautifully worn jeans. She could see the tell-tale bulge. It ran nearly the length of his fly, and as much as she didn’t want to be guilty of ogling him, there was nowhere else to look.
“You are so hired,” she said under her breath.
She wasn’t quite sure what happened next. Either her hands slipped or he suddenly mastered Bump and Grind 101, because his rotating pelvis came into brief heated contact with her thigh.
“You mean, like that?” he asked.
Swan gave out a little squeal and jumped back. She sounded like Gerard, but the unexpected contact had startled her. Had he actually brushed her leg with his crotch? Obviously this guy didn’t need any more help. He had the idea.
“Oookay,” she said, “that was progress.”
Swan was now red to her scalp. Nevertheless she ordered herself to meet his gaze and to hold it until she’d calmed down. He still looked a little perplexed, rather like a stag in headlights, but she wasn’t buying the innocent act. This was a business and she had a show to put on. Her entire future was riding on it and the futures of others, as well. She’d had to let their seamstresses go until things picked up, and that had been far harder to do than this. Besides, Lynne would never have been playing coy games with one of these guys. She might have coaxed him along with a few dancing lessons, but if he hadn’t caught on, he would have been sent on his way.
“Nice move,” she said, trying to sound faintly sardonic. “Now drop those jeans and show me what you got.”
Her partner would have been proud.
But the repairman was still hesitant and something in Swan took over again. This was where all the other models had balked, too. Not that she blamed them. She couldn’t have stripped for an audience, either. With her nerves she would have had to wear diapers!
Business, she reminded herself. You’re not asking him to expose state secrets, just the underwear you designed. All the models were supposed to be wearing Brief Encounters under their costumes.
“All right, I’ll help,” she told him, “but this is the last time.”
She walked back to him, snappily undid the tool belt that hung around his trim waist and let it drop. It landed on the floor with a heavy metallic thud.
Whoa. The ladies were going to scream when that happened. Swan could guarantee it. If he had anywhere near the effect on them he was having on her, Brief Encounters was going to sell out their stock at the first show.
“Disco Inferno” blared into its chorus and the repairman lifted his hands as if he were either surrendering the fort or waiting for her to do the honors. Swan quickly obliged, wondering what alien organism had taken control of her brain. She undid the brass button on his jeans and lowered his zipper.
“I can’t do this for you on the runway,” she said.
But then again, maybe she could. What a video clip that would be. It’s the middle of the fashion show and one of the models can’t get his costume off, so the designer goes up to help him? That could be a showstopper. Oh, my God, Lynne, come back. I’ve either had a flash of brilliance or I’m losing my mind.
His jeans were undone, but she still had the challenge of getting them over his tightly locked gluts. It took some tugging, but finally the denim material gave way and dropped to the floor. Unfortunately the stubborn jeans took her with them. Suddenly she found herself squatting right in front of him, staring at the bulge in person. But there was just one problem.
He wasn’t wearing her underwear. He wasn’t wearing anyone’s underwear!
It was a penis, Swan realized to her horror. The very thing she was trying to cover with her designs. No one should ever see a penis in one of her shows, especially one that looked suspiciously…alert?
Swan was just inches away from said organ, but she was still too shocked to do much of anything but gape. Worse, much worse, for some inexplicable reason, she was intrigued. Her whole body vibrated with a wild, unfamiliar emotion and for one crazy second in time she fought off a terrible impulse to touch it. Only to see how it felt. She wasn’t going to run a finger up and down the entire length of it or fondle it, for heaven’s sake. She was just curious.
The object of Swan’s fantasy suddenly twitched and a strangled sound slipped from her throat. Worse, her valiant attempts to speak resulted in nothing but helpless gurgles and groans. At that very moment the music room door opened and as if summoned by the Devil himself, Gerard poked his head in.
“Are you finished? Oh, I guess not!” He swiftly shut the door.
Swan knew how it must have looked. And sounded, given the obscene noises she’d been making. She would never hear the end of this. At least the music had stopped. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Now she needed to get up off her knees so she could climb to the top floor of the mansion and jump out the window.
The model offered a hand, but Swan didn’t dare. He was bottomless and parts of him were still winking at her. What in the world was wrong with him? Did his privates have some neurological disorder?
“Ma’am? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, turning away from him to get to her feet. Once she’d managed that, she slapped smooth her bunched-up capris and straightened her top.
Without turning around she said, “I guess there’s no point in getting you some underwear and starting this audition over?”
“No, probably not. I don’t dance.”
“You don’t wear underwear, either. So then, why exactly are you here?”
“To fix the phone?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the decidedly virile specimen with his jeans around his ankles. “You really are a telephone repairman?”
“Afraid so,” he said.
“Oh, my God.”
“Can I put my pants on now?” he asked.
What had she done? Swan had no idea what the correct etiquette was in a situation such as this. Should she go back and pull his pants up for him? Should she beg his forgiveness? Luckily, the repairman wasn’t concerned about manners. He bent down, grabbed his jeans and shimmied back into them. As he retrieved his tool belt, a flood of apologies began pouring forth from Swan’s mouth. She wondered if she and Lynne could be sued for something like this! That was all she needed. A sexual harassment charge.
“Could I give you some underwear?” she offered. “A lifetime supply?” Now she was bribing him. Were there laws against that?
“What fun would that be?” he replied in a tone that was wickedly soft.
She searched his handsome face, looking for signs of mercy and compassion. “Fun? Oh, right! That wouldn’t be any fun at all.”
Was that a flicker of amusement in his cool blue eyes? She couldn’t tell. She was momentarily distracted by the striking contrast of the dark hair falling onto his forehead and his faintly arched brows. She would have given anything to know if he was attracted to her. His body seemed to like her well enough, but maybe that was an aberration. She didn’t usually have that effect on men.
He picked up his tool belt and draped it over his shoulder. “Maybe you should point me to your office,” he said, “and I’ll make myself useful. Someone reported a phone problem.”
Swan wasn’t aware of any such problem, but Lynne or Gerard could have called it in. “Through that door and down the hall to your right,” she said. “You can’t miss it. There’s a life-size poster of a local lifeguard in Brief Encounters. We wanted Vin Diesel, but—”
He was already heading for the door. “I am so sorry,” she called after him. “I thought you were one of the models. Really, I did! Sir?”
He hesitated, and she immediately thought better of the question that had been in her head since she’d been on the floor in front of him. Is that normal for you? I mean, in a resting state, is that normal?
“Never mind,” she said, waving him on. “I just, uh, well—I’m sorry about that twitching problem. I have a nervous condition myself.”
He turned around with a glint in his eye that was positively demonic. “Nerves don’t make me twitch,” he said. “Women do—and you should be sorry.”
His voice was dangerously low and husky, and she had the feeling he didn’t often give women the once-over quite so boldly. His hot gaze brushed her body, lingering here and there—especially there, as if he were imagining her with her pants down and him on his knees. Her belly clutched deeply. Her skin had begun to flush and tingle, and by the time his eyes returned to hers she was actually trembling inside. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Swiftly another sensation came upon her. She had to pee! She crossed her ankles and smiled as best she could under the circumstances.
He must have noticed because he snorted low laughter. “Maybe we had both better get back to work?” he suggested. And with that he was gone.
Swan groaned and headed for the bathroom, which was just off the music room, fortunately. Her face was still ablaze with embarrassment, but at least she would get a moment alone to collect herself.
From behind she heard Gerard call out, “Oh, Swaaan…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, whirled around and pointed her finger at him. “Not a word, Gerard. Not one word from you.”
“Whatever you say,” he murmured.
Swan thought she heard a reference to “Deep Throat” as she dashed into her sanctuary and shut the door. She didn’t have to see her beastly assistant to know that he was grinning from ear to ear.
ROB GAINES should not have been smiling. He had work to do. He shouldn’t have been thinking about her, either, but short of a drug-induced coma, he didn’t see that happening. How often did an incredibly hot redhead sidle up to a man, pull down his pants and drop to her knees in front of him? At a moment like that there wasn’t a whole lot else to think about except what she was planning to do next, with her breath so steamy hot and her gorgeous mouth just inches from his—
The twinge of near pain in his groin brought him back to his senses.
Gaines, stop smiling or you’re going to permanently injure yourself.
He pulled a pair of needle-nose pliers and went to work. But as he played with the phone, his thoughts veered back to her. Too bad he couldn’t sign up for dance lessons. She could teach him how to dip and he could teach her what happens when curious little girls play games with big boys.
He could imagine reaching around to undo all that wild redness she kept piled on top of her head and letting it fall loose around her shoulders. He could also imagine kissing her gorgeous lips until they were wet with desire.
He could imagine a few other things, too, but his jeans were getting crowded again—and he had work to do. A mission to accomplish. Quickly. Before anyone had a chance to walk in and interrupt him.
2
SWAN HAD ALL OF NINETY seconds to herself in the bathroom before her cell phone rang. She considered ignoring it but remembered Lynne had promised to call, and she needed to talk to her partner. If it turned out to be someone else, they would just have to listen to her tinkle.
Swan hit the talk button, but didn’t even get to say hello.
“Can you spell yacht?” Lynne Carmichael sang out. “I’m on his yacht, Swan! Gvon Marcello’s yacht! We’re heading out to sea in a matter of minutes.”
“I can’t even spell Gvon,” Swan admitted. “What are you doing on his yacht? I need you here!”
And that was an understatement. She and Lynne weren’t just business partners, they’d been all but inseparable since childhood, sharing everything, especially their problems. They’d gone to the same schools right up until they graduated high school, when Swan had received a scholarship to study design at Brooks College, and Lynne had pursued a business degree at U.S.C.
“Swan, this is big. Big. I showed Gvon our stuff, and he loves it. He’s dropping hints that he might give us our own label. We’d design for him, but it would be our name on the clothes. And he doesn’t want just underwear. He wants loungewear, too, and maybe eventually, sportswear, men’s and women’s. Think about it, Swan. This is a dream come true.”
Swan had thought their tour was a dream come true, but she could hear Lynne’s excitement. “How did you meet him and why are you on his yacht?”
“It was that fund-raiser fashion show I told you about. One of the models introduced me to Gvon, and I had my suitcase of samples with me. Now he wants to talk business, and he said we could do that on his boat—I mean, yacht, excuse me!”
Swan’s sense of urgency grew and it wasn’t just physical. “Lynne, is this what we want to do? Team up with someone else?” They’d worked so hard for this chance to have their own line and they’d always seemed equally driven to succeed. Lynne came from money and Swan didn’t, but that had never mattered to either of them. Swan sometimes wondered if they each needed to prove themselves because of their very different stations in life—Lynne because she’d been given so much and Swan because she’d been given so little.
“It’s not someone else. It’s Gvon Marcello! How many pipsqueak designers like us ever get this chance? Just to be near him is golden.”
Lynne was not going to be talked out of this opportunity. That much was clear, and Swan didn’t necessarily want to pass it up, either. Big breaks came rarely in their business.
“Okay, okay, do what you can,” Swan said, “and then get yourself back here. The party’s tomorrow night.”
There was a distinct gulp on the other end. “I’ll never make it back for the party, Swan. We’re heading out for some secret destination, and even I don’t know where we’re going. Gvon’s destinations are always secret, so the press won’t find out.”
“And you’ll be back when?”
“Two days, three at the most. I know this is crazy and unexpected, but think of the chance to bond with a couture designer.”
“Bond? It sounds like you’re being kidnapped.”
“Oops, we’re leaving. Hear that horn? Now, listen to me, Swan, this is important. Art Long called me, and our loan’s come through. You need to go to the bank at ten tomorrow and pick up the check. Art will be waiting for you.”
The check, thank God! They’d had to mass produce their line to supply the boutiques, and the cost was staggering. Without this money, they wouldn’t be able to handle the mounting bills or pay their share of the tour expenses.
“You’re going to have to sign for it,” Lynne was saying, “and you may have to sign my name, as well, but don’t worry. You’ve done that before on business stuff. Besides, Art’s the loan officer, and he’ll push it through.”
Swan winced at the pressure, both from Lynne’s news and her own bladder. She’d held back out of correct telephone etiquette, but everyone had a breaking point. A sigh of relief escaped her.
“Are you peeing?” Lynn asked.
How could she tell? Swan plucked the air freshener from the back of the commode and spritzed the air, as if that could disguise her failure of nerve. How many over-achievers out there had to trot to the john just when things were getting challenging? This had to be a club with a membership of one.
“I’ll take care of the check,” she assured Lynne. “Have fun, but if you’re not back in time for the L.A. show, I’m coming to get you.”
“So I guess the audition went badly?” Lynne persisted. “If you’re in the bathroom, it must have been bad.”
“Sometimes people just have to go. I was in here when you called.”
Lynne sighed. “How bad was it, Swan? You might as well tell me.”
“Terrible.” Swan shuddered at the thought. “I molested a repairman, thinking he was one of the models.”
“Way to go!” Lynn chortled with delight. “Was he cute?”
Swan found herself smirking into the mouthpiece. “Cute doesn’t begin to describe this guy. He’s sex on the cloven hoof, sent from the hottest region of hell to torment me.”
“Wow, that good?”
“Dark hair, blue eyes, the longest legs I’ve ever seen.” Including the third one. “Just my type.”
“I didn’t know you had a type.”
“I didn’t, either.” Swan sighed, perfectly aware that she would never see the man again. Lynne would have gotten his business card and his bank balance before she let him go. Probably a saliva sample, as well.
“Well, it sounds like you’re having fun, you vixen. How’s the model search going otherwise?”
“I still haven’t found anyone who can dance and unbutton his fly at the same time. I never realized what an art form that was. We should have called the modeling agency instead of letting Gerard recruit his friends.”
“Well, then call the modeling agency.”
“And how do you suggest we pay them?”
“With the check you’re picking up tomorrow!”
That prompted Swan’s second sigh of relief. Of course, they had money now. Maybe they could even afford to pay Gerard’s back wages. Oh, happy day. Now all she needed was for Lynne to come back safely and the show could go on.
“Gotta go,” Lynne said. “Something’s moving and it isn’t me.”
“Be careful!” Swan pleaded, but her partner had already hung up. And with the sound of Lynne’s voice went Swan’s elation. Somehow Swan was going to have to get through the launch party tomorrow night and probably the L.A. show on her own. The odds of Lynne getting back for either seemed slim. But Swan wasn’t alone. She had her indispensable Gerard—and some emergency funding to ease the pain.
Thanks to Art Long, she thought. Lynne had been dating him for a couple of months now, and Art was the one who’d suggested they use the villa as collateral for a business loan. Lynne’s mom and stepdad had retired and moved to the Florida Keys, leaving her the charming, three-story mansion. Unfortunately, Lynne could barely afford the taxes, and her mother’s one condition was that she cover all costs in maintaining the house.
Swan had moved in last year to help defray expenses and they’d converted the villa’s first floor into their design center and offices. But they were still running short every month. Then La Bomba, a trendy west-coast clothing chain, offered to show Brief Encounters’s wares exclusively and to promote them with a fashion show tour. It looked as if the struggle was over. But only in the long term. In the short term, their manufacturing costs had soared and they had yet to recoup any of the money. If the shows didn’t generate strong sales…
Well, Swan wasn’t going to think about that.
Art had pushed the paperwork through in record time, and now it seemed he was willing to participate in a bit of forgery, as well. Lynne had her ways, but Swan wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Lynne had managed to wrap a banker around her little finger.
Swan’s crisis seemed to be over, so she quickly finished. Washing her hands, she glanced at herself in the oval mirror above the marble sink, but did not like what she saw. She looked exactly like what she was: a thirty-year-old woman who’d had to sacrifice most of her “me” time to keep a business afloat. Her aquamarine eyes were her best feature, but even their rather exotic almond shape couldn’t stop them from looking stressed and weary.
Tired of fighting with her long auburn hair, she’d gone after it with a claw clip and it was now back where it belonged, sitting on top of her head. She was grateful for its rich luster, but she probably could have used a stylist—a few highlights wouldn’t have hurt, either. Still, all the sacrifices had been worth it, especially now. She’d come a long way since she and Lynne had joined forces. They both had.
They’d grown up together, though under very different circumstances. Swan’s mother, Pat, had worked for Lynne’s mother as a housekeeper, but they were both single moms and had many things in common, which was probably why their working relationship had developed into a lasting friendship. Eventually Lynne’s mother, Felice, had remarried, but she and Pat had remained close. Pat still worked as a housekeeper for another very wealthy family. Her duties now mostly involved supervising the household staff. Whenever she could, she traveled to Florida to visit Felice.
Swan owed much to her mother. It was Pat who had taught her to sew and to piece whole outfits together from whatever material was available. Swan took to it quickly, once fashioning slacks and a blazer from a corduroy bedspread. But her mother was also a cautious and fearful soul who believed that dreams were dangerous and pursuing them even more so. She’d never wanted Swan to do anything but follow safely in her footsteps. “It’s steady work,” she liked to say. “You’ll never go hungry or lack for a roof over your head.”
Maybe that was another reason Swan felt the need to prove herself. Her doting mom was waiting for her to fail.
Swan felt as if she were carrying Brief Encounters squarely on her shoulders right now, and everything she and Lynne had was at stake. It wasn’t just their business, it was this house, too….
But if she didn’t stop thinking like that, she would never get out of the loo.
She peeked up and down the hallway before letting herself out of the bathroom. Somewhere loose in this building was a dangerously attractive telephone repairman with a twitch, and she did not want to run into him again.
SWAN HAD ALWAYS FOUND banks a bit stifling, but this morning was different. She was absolutely thrilled to be at the Manhattan Beach branch of First National Heritage. Her pulse was alive with excitement as she walked into the heart of the brick-and-marble building and looked around for the man she needed. Now, where was Arthur Long?
She searched for a tall, lanky man with a heavily jelled crew cut and round Harry-Potter-like glasses. Swan didn’t know a whole lot about Art, except that he was a loan officer at First National and Lynne was quite taken with him. Art was cute in a bankish way, and he had a habit of looking you straight in the eyes and clasping your hand the way a minister would. Unfortunately, he reminded her more of a salesman than a minister. He talked fast and breathy, and he liked to slip your name into the conversation as often as possible, as if to cement the fact that you were friends, darnit.
There he was, coming out of one of the bank’s offices. She waved and managed to catch his eye. He headed her way, all horn-rimmed spectacles and big wide smile. Probably a perfectly nice guy, she thought, wondering why she wasn’t lucky enough to be attracted to one of the nice guys of the world. Her first—and last—romantic disaster had been a limo driver, a bad boy down to his muscle-man T-shirts and unfiltered cigarettes. And now she was losing her mind over a telephone repairman who was too sexy for his tool kit?
She could feel the heat rising all over again as she thought about what she’d done to him. What she didn’t understand was why she couldn’t get him out of her head. She’d even dreamed about him last night, and of course what had she done in the dream but give in to her crazy impulse and touch him. The entire vibrating length of him. What happened after that was the stuff of X-rated videos. It could probably have gotten them arrested in some states.
“Right this way,” Art said, seemingly unaware of his client’s rocketing blood pressure as he guided her into his office. “Have a seat and we’ll have this taken care of in a couple of minutes.”
Swan managed to sit in an overstuffed leather chair and return Art’s smile without giving away her breathy, over-heated condition. She forced herself to take in her surroundings. The size of the room and the quality of the decor were impressive. The desk looked as though it might be mahogany, and there was a matching credenza against the wall. Apparently Art was doing well. She was glad someone was. Was that gleam of gold on his wrist a Rolex watch?
“I can’t tell you how much Lynne and I appreciate this,” she assured Art. “I just wish she could be here.”
His nod said he did, too. “She told me about Gvon. If all goes well, and I know it will, Swan, you two could be doing your fall show in New York next year.”
He seemed very understanding about Lynne’s sea voyage with another man, but it was widely believed that Gvon’s interest in women was solely limited to the clothes he designed for them, so perhaps Art’s masculinity wasn’t threatened.
Art dragged a large folder of papers from the side of his desk to the center. Even though there was no one else in his office, he lowered his voice. “We just need you to sign Lynne’s name on a couple of these documents. As long as we have her permission, there’s no problem. Basically, this stuff gets filed away and no one ever looks at it again.”
Swan shifted uneasily. She wished she could be as casual about this little bit of forgery as Art and Lynne. Still, there weren’t any other options. They needed the money now. The fate of their tour was on the line—and if the tour was on the line, so was their business.
“Okay,” she said. “It isn’t as if I haven’t done this plenty of times—Lynne and I are always signing each other’s names to forms, but never loan documents.”
Art pulled a Cross pen from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’ll be fine, Swan. There and there.” He pointed to the appropriate places.
Unlike Swan’s carefully controlled signature, Lynne’s was a flamboyant scrawl that was completely illegible. It fit her carefree personality perfectly. Art slid the document that named the house as collateral over to her. Swan made a practiced twirl with her right hand and then laid pen to paper and signed her partner’s name.
“I hope there aren’t any problems with this,” she said. “Lynne would be devastated if she lost that house. It’s been in her family for ages, you know.”
Art just grinned and swept the papers into a neat pile. “You two are unstoppable, trust me. You have a great future ahead of you.”
“If only you were an underwear buyer.” Swan watched as Art bundled the documents into a fan folder. From his top desk drawer he took out a check and a leather-bound book. “How’s a hundred grand sound?” he said, handing her the check.
Swan’s hand trembled as she took the money from him. Her breath faded as she looked at it. One hundred thousand dollars.
“I had this organizer made up especially for your whirlwind tour,” Art said, holding up the leather book. “It has your company name embossed on the pages and there’s a digital order book in the back to keep track of your skyrocketing orders.”
Swan had a mental image of the old organizer in her bag, which was falling apart from wear. The book he handed her was beautifully crafted. The organizer section was made of high-quality paper with their company name inscribed in beautiful lettering. The other section contained several useful compartments, including the one that held a tiny computerized order book. Swan was sure the package must have cost several hundred dollars.
“Thank you!” she exclaimed softy. “It’s beautiful. Lynne will be as thrilled as I am.”
“Listen, when she gets back, we’ll all get together and have dinner. My treat.”
Swan shook her head in protest. “Our treat, and we’ll wrestle you for the check. You’ve been much too good to us.”
Despite the banker specs, Art had a dashing smile and he flashed it now. “What red-blooded guy would turn down a chance to wrestle two beautiful women?”
Once Swan had gathered up her belongings, Art escorted her as far as the door of his office when a ringing phone stopped him. Swan quickly thanked him again and left. As she walked through the lobby, heading toward double glass doors leading to the bright sunshine outside, she had a thought that almost frightened her.
No turning back now.
MOMENTS BEFORE THE PARTY was about to start that evening, Swan stepped out onto the patio and allowed herself a moment to take in the magical world that lay before her in the estate’s gardens. She clutched her new leather organizer, where she’d jotted her commentary for the show, and took a breath. Gerard had outdone himself. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to put together such an elegant display on a party budget that bordered on embarrassing. Buffet tables sat on the left and right of a rented champagne fountain. Japanese lanterns hung in colorful patterns, augmenting the starlight from a crystal-clear sky above. At the far end of the garden Gerard had set up a runway, accented by delicate white lights. The entire space had become a place of wonder and delight.
“Are you pleased?” Gerard asked as he hurried up the flagstone steps and joined her. He took a moment to check out Swan’s outfit and gave her a surprised blink of approval. It was a daring black silk halter top with a bias-cut skirt that she’d put together a couple of summers back, wondering if there would ever be an occasion to wear it. To gear yourself up for a bold move, this was the dress to wear, she thought. And tonight was the night.
“If you’re not thrilled with all of this,” he said, “I’m going to hang myself. Just like that nanny did in The Omen.”
The way he stood with his hands on his hips and his face all expectant made Swan laugh. Gerard was no taller than five feet six and on the plump side these days but his heart was large, and that was what mattered. Plus, whatever he lacked in stature, he definitely made up for in Sturm and Drang.
“Gerard, I love it! How on earth did you ever manage this?”
He flipped his hand casually. “Oh, it was nothing. A little of this, a little of that, and a lot of discount shopping.”
“I’ll never be able to repay you. Not just for this, for everything you’ve done these past few days. I couldn’t have made it without your help.”
“My pleasure, Duckling.” He loved to call her Duckling instead of Swan, but at least he didn’t put the U-word in front of it. “Lest you forget,” he said, “I’m your biggest cheerleader. It isn’t every day that a couple of feisty independents decide to strike out on their own, especially in this business—and you know how I love an underdog.”
He headed off, beckoning her to come with him. “The guests will be arriving any minute, and you’re the receiving line. Once you greet everybody and get them eating, drinking and mingling, I’ll do the honors and introduce you.”
Swan had been on the run for days, but suddenly her nervousness caught up with her. And it wasn’t just the stress of the tour, as if that wasn’t enough. She’d been having vivid dreams at night and flashbacks during the day, all of them erotic and all of them starring long-legged men with bulging tool kits. She never knew when the lurid images would pop into her head, and it was playing hell with her composure.
“I wish you were coming with me on the road trip,” she said, trailing after Gerard. “If you were there, I wouldn’t feel so…so…”
“Helpless? Vulnerable? Terrified?” Gerard offered.
Swan nodded. “Any one of those would fill the blank.”
Gerard grabbed her hand and led her back into the house and down to the foyer. Her black-beaded heels clicked on the marble steps and her skirt swished against her legs. The knowledge that at least she’d dressed for the part boosted her confidence. She left her organizer on an occasional table as he went to open the door and usher in the first of the guests. Here we go, she thought, taking a deep breath.
The guest list had been a calculated move with calculated risks. The L.A. Times and the Long Beach Press Telegram were both sending their assistant fashion editors tonight. Photographers from In Style magazine and Details were scheduled to show up, as well. The risk was that they would pan the line. Veteran designers could weather bad reviews, but hopefuls could be wiped out by just one, especially if it was the premier show.
Besides the press, the small staff of people who had actually worked with Lynne and Swan to get the new line from idea to reality had been invited, along with the managers of the Los Angeles La Bomba boutique. Swan’s mother had been invited, too, of course, but Pat McKenna was too concerned about the risks her daughter was taking to show up and witness them in person.
May she be wrong about that, Swan thought. With all due respect, may she be dead wrong.
Once she’d greeted everyone, Swan began mingling, making her way through the house and out into the gardens. It was quite a heady experience seeing so many enthusiastic faces and hearing the buzz of excitement about her new creations. Jan Hudson, the manager of La Bomba, rushed up to her.
“Wonderful party!” she said, clasping Swan’s hand. “We can’t wait for you to bring the show to the store. Everything is ready to go.” She glanced around. “Where’s your partner in crime?”
Jan clearly meant Lynne, but there was no time for Swan to explain. She was being summoned.
“It’s show time!” Gerard called, waving at her from across the wide expanse of neatly trimmed grass. He was climbing the steps to the stage and runway that he and his buddies had built.
“Good luck,” Jan said as Swan excused herself.
Swan silently rehearsed her opening lines as she headed for the stage. She wasn’t accustomed to public speaking, but the show had to go on, and she was the one who had to deliver it. Fortunately she had the organizer notes to back her up if she went blank. And this bold black dress as her shield.
Just don’t let me have to whiz, she prayed.
Gerard tapped the microphone with his hand. Three loud thumps assaulted the quiet night air. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “she is not only the designer of the hottest new line of male undies in recent memory—which will be sold exclusively through the La Bomba boutiques, I might add—she is also our master of ceremonies tonight. I give you Swan McKenna!”
Waving to the clapping crowd, Swan hurried up two creaky wooden steps to join Gerard at the podium.
“Swan McKenna!” he bellowed again. Gerard gave her a thumbs-up before disappearing behind the curtain of the makeshift stage. He’d also volunteered himself and his motley crew to run the slide show, lights and sound system.
“Thank you all for coming,” Swan said, still a little breathless. Her voice sounded loud and hollow as it came through the speakers. “Some of you may have noticed that my partner, Lynne Carmichael, isn’t with us tonight. She was called away on a business matter, but she sends her love and her gratitude for your support.”
Swan sucked in a breath and smiled. “And now, I would like to present a sneak preview of Brief Encounters’s first-ever line of male undergarments. This is our fall collection, and we have for your viewing pleasure our Romeo Underwear, our Hero Bodywear and our Machismo Activewear!”
On that cue, Gerard flipped on the sound system and the night erupted with Jerry Lee Lewis wailing out “Great Balls of Fire.” The audience applauded as three male models burst onto the stage and began their routine. Behind them, projected on a black silk screen, were huge color slides of other pieces from the fall line. The photos had been Swan’s idea, and it had cut down significantly on their need for models.
“Starting the show is our Romeo for tonight, Brad!” The applause was instantaneous as Brad took center stage. He wore an Armani tuxedo jacket and very little else. In one hand, he clutched a dozen roses, and in the other, a heart-shaped box of candy. His lower parts were encased in a snug-fitting thong that was glow-in-the-dark pink. But even Swan wasn’t prepared when the lights went out. For a few moments, all you could see was a disembodied hot-pink thong bobbing around.
Not unlike my dreams, Swan thought ironically.
The crowd howled and flashbulbs popped as photographers jostled one another for a better angle.
“The Romeo imprint is for the romantic at heart,” Swan said. “The man who knows how to sweet-talk and candy-walk his way right into his lover’s heart. Romeo gets his Juliet every time when he’s wearing a Brief Encounters design!”
As Brad left the stage, the second model came forward. He wore a traditional red fireman’s helmet and had a length of fire hose draped over his bare shoulder as he strode confidently down the runway. “For the damsel in distress, for the adventuress, and for all who love a man in uniform, bring on the heroes!”
This round of applause was even louder than the first. Swan noticed that a few of the women in the audience were actually getting to their feet to get a better look at Sam the Fireman. Sam’s formfitting briefs were fire-engine red with black suspender-like straps attached. When he got to the end of the lighted runway, he stopped and yanked the hose from his shoulder, pointing the nozzle at the audience.
“What do you think, ladies?” Swan asked cheerfully. “Is he hot enough for you? Should we hose him down?”
Sam dazzled them with a raffish grin before bowing his head. As he turned, the audience got their first good look at his tightly knotted buttocks, and the normally tranquil garden gave up a roar of approval.
“Whew,” Swan said, wiping her brow in exaggerated fashion. “We better cool things off.” There were loud groans of protest and Swan laughed. “You don’t want to cool off? Not even with a swim? How about a swim with the man who’s bold enough to wear Machismo?”
Model number three sprinted onto the runway in a black bikini swimsuit that left little to the imagination. Atop his head was a black swimming cap and goggles. Tall, tanned and sleek as a panther, he made his way down the runway.
Swan gave her spiel on the Machismo line and allowed the raucous response to build as she waved all three models back onto center stage. “This is only the preview,” she shouted, trying to be heard over the noise. “The entire line can be seen tomorrow night at the La Bomba boutique on Melrose. Again, thank you all for coming!”
With that, she grabbed her organizer from the podium and descended into a throng of well-wishers. Her sense of relief outweighed everything else, but the success of the event began to dawn on her as she was swept into one embrace after another. Her guests, professional and otherwise, seemed thrilled by the program—and happy for her. Maybe it was safe to say that the fashion show was a hit. She only hoped the line was, too.
The press rushed over with questions about the show, and there was a line of people waiting to extend their congratulations. Swan held out through most of it, savoring the sweetness of Brief Encounters’s first victory, and wishing Lynne had been here to share it. She had to find Gerard to thank him, too. But finally, she had no choice. The need to excuse herself was becoming more urgent every second.
“Brava!” someone called out as Swan hurried into the house. Some of the guests had moved inside from the garden, and she smiled, waving as she sailed by them. The closest bathroom was in the hall, under the foyer staircase. She turned the knob, grateful that she had made it. Locked! From inside someone said, “Out in a sec.”
But Swan didn’t have much more than a second. She trotted down the hall and ducked into one of the guest rooms. The bathroom door was open and the light was off. Empty.
In record time she had her ruffled skirt hiked up and her panties and panty hose down to her ankles. She’d worn panties because her new Tanga Totally Nude panty hose were quite risqué without them—and also because of the problem that had brought her to the bathroom. A psychologist friend had told her that her sense of urgency was nothing more than a reaction to stress. Swan didn’t disagree, but tell that to her bladder on a night such as this.
It hit her suddenly how exhausted she was. The past few days had been a whirlwind of activity, but she had made it through, and she had made it through on her own. It had not only gone well, it had gone better than she’d dreamed it might—the perfect day, really.
Lord, she was tired. She could go to sleep right here.
Letting her eyes drift shut, she reached for the toilet tissue. A few seconds later she heard a creaking noise and she slowly opened her eyes again. A few seconds? Swan blinked several times. It must have been long enough for her to have fallen into a deep sleep—because she was now dreaming that there was a man in her bathroom—a very tall, angry-looking man holding a big gold badge.
“Swan McKenna?” he said. “You’re under arrest.”
3
IT WAS A GOOD THING Swan had already finished her personal business. Otherwise she would have left a puddle on the bathroom floor. Under arrest? He had to be kidding. “Gerard!” she called. Her assistant must have put this guy up to it. “Get out of my bathroom,” she croaked at the intruder when there was no immediate response from Gerard. Leaning toward the partially open door, she shouted again, “Gerard! Are you out there? This isn’t funny. Get this policeman person out of my bathroom! The auditions are over!”
“FBI, ma’am,” the intruder said. His voice was quiet and calm in the face of her distress. “And I’m not going anywhere. You are. To jail.”
Swan couldn’t even stand to demand that he leave. She was sitting on the throne with her panties down and her skirt up. This had to be some crazy prank Gerard thought up with the help of his male model friends, although this guy didn’t seem to be one of them. He hadn’t been part of the crew. But now that she thought about it, she had seen him somewhere before.
“If you don’t leave instantly, I’m calling the law,” she warned. She grabbed a plastic plunger from its holder on the floor, as if to swing it at him.
“Ma’am, I am the law.” He flashed the badge again. “Rob Gaines, Special Agent, FBI. Now put that thing down and get up. Slowly.”
Swan peered at him for so long that it suddenly hit her where she’d seen him before. “I know you,” she gasped. “You’re not FBI, you’re that telephone repairman! Did you think you could fool me by changing costumes?”
“Trust me, Ms. McKenna, this is no costume. Now set the plunger down and put up your hands. Keep them where I can see them at all times.”
He wasn’t the sexy-as-sin telephone repairman who’d been invading her dreams for the past two days? He was a government agent? Boy, could she pick ’em. Swan wanted desperately to think that this was a dream, too, a very bad one, but as she scrutinized his dark hair and hot blue eyes, she realized something. It was him—and he wasn’t looking at her hands.
She followed his gaze to the length of thigh exposed by her hiked-up skirt. Apparently, FBI agents weren’t bashful about getting an eyeful. She dropped the plunger and tugged her skirt to her knees.
“Do you mind?” she said. “I’d like to finish up without an audience.”
“Sorry, ma’am, we can’t do that,” another voice said.
Swan looked around Gaines and saw a second man at the bathroom door. He was as tall as Gaines but possibly twenty pounds heavier, with short-cropped, sandy-blond hair that looked as if it might be prematurely graying.
“Joe Harris, FBI,” he said.
“Are you selling tickets out there or what?” she snapped. “I’d like some privacy, please.”
“Swan? Is everything all right?” Gerard was suddenly peering over the shoulder of Joe Harris. “Who are these men, Ducks?”
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “You don’t know them, either?”
Gaines had never taken his gaze from her person, and if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, he didn’t blink. Not once. The man had no reflexes—and his burning gaze had her heart thumping in that strange and unfamiliar way again. His jeans and work shirt were gone, replaced by a navy single-breasted suit that looked way too good on him. He could have been an old-fashioned G-man with his dark, sardonic eyebrows and his seen-it-all-and-then-some scowl.
He shot her a warning look that basically said, Don’t do anything to make me pull my gun and shoot you, and then he turned to his partner. “I can handle this, Joe.”
Joe didn’t seem to agree. “You may need a witness in case she claims you molested her or something.”
“I can handle it,” Gaines insisted. “Shut the door and take her friend with you.”
Harris backed Gerard out and once the two of them were gone, Gaines kicked the door shut with his foot. “Take care of business,” he ordered Swan, apparently referring to her nature call, “and make it snappy.”
“I’ll take care of business,” she said, yanking some tissue from the dispenser, “as soon as you look the other way.”
He turned sideways, clearly intending to watch her without staring right at her. It was all she was going to get, Swan realized, secretly furious at him for betraying her this way. How could he have let her think that he was some poor, defenseless, oversexed telephone repairman when all the time he was setting her up? A moment later she was bending down, wondering if she could get her panties and panty hose up all at once. She’d never been able to do it before, but she’d never been under surveillance in her own bathroom, either.
She arranged the slippery silk panties and the gossamer hose in her fingers and began easing both up her calves. Once she had them high enough, she would quickly stand and tug everything over her hips. At the same time her skirt would fall down, covering all the vital places. It could work, but it was a delicate operation.
Her calves were covered and she was inching the panty hose over her knees when he let out a sharp sigh of impatience. She began to hurry and the panties slipped from her fingers and balled up in the nylons. She kept going out of fear, but every tug made it worse. The nylons had curled into an airtight roll, sucking the panties in with them. They looked like link sausages. Damn! Now she would have to start all over.
“Time’s up,” he announced.
“Wait a minute!” Springing to her feet, Swan brushed her skirt down and gingerly coaxed the lingerie up at the same time. For a second she thought it was going to unfurl, but that glimmer of hope was her downfall. It made her hurry even more. She couldn’t see what she was doing because of the skirt’s ruffly hem, so she yanked the silly thing back up and stuffed a wad of it in her mouth, clenching her teeth to hold it while she worked. She felt like a Flamenco dancer with an entire bouquet of roses in her teeth.
Now the black silk material was rolling up, too! It had slipped in between her tummy and her underwear. She would soon be nothing but one big airtight wad, encased in nylon.
“Cuuduuupleeeeleeee!” she mumbled, asking him nicely to leave.
Her skirt was disappearing and her halter top would be next. Everything she owned had decided to tie itself into knots, including her tongue.
“Neeeeesummpriiisee.” She needed privacy. Couldn’t he see that?
Her struggles just twisted things tighter. And now her fingers were caught. Desperate, she released the skirt from her teeth and began to fumble inside her panty hose in earnest. She had to find her bikinis and separate the warring pieces of lingerie. Her hand was still buried inside her undies when he glanced her way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been taken hostage by her underwear.
“What are you doing?” Gaines asked.
“Concealing a weapon,” she said sarcastically.
Big mistake. Big.
Evidently, federal law enforcement officers didn’t appreciate a little harmless gun humor. Without warning, Gaines spun around to face her. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw her Houdini-like predicament. If someone had tossed her off a bridge, she would have drowned before she could get her hands free.
Swan tried to extricate herself, but she couldn’t. It was like being restrained with Saran Wrap. Somehow she had created a slipknot, perhaps out of an elastic leg hole, and it wasn’t about to let go of her fingers.
Gaines closed the distance between them in two easy strides. “What have you got in there?”
“Nothing! It’s just my underwear!”
“The hell you say. You’re trying to shove something into your panties.”
Swan gave him a look of utter exasperation. “I am not trying to shove anything into my panties. I’m trying to get something out of them. And it’s not working.”
Before she could explain, she felt herself being spun around like a toy top. The way he gripped her wrist and pulled, he didn’t seem to care whether or not he left her fingers behind. Fortunately it only took one firm tug to free her and then he yanked both of her hands behind her back.
“Hey, is that necessary?” she said as handcuffs locked down on her wrists.
“We’re going to clear this up and we’re going to clear it up now.”
Gaines turned her around and scrutinized her from head to toe. It was obvious from his perplexed expression that he had no idea how a woman could have been strait-jacketed by her own clothing in mere moments. And with no help from anyone else.
“You did this to yourself?” he asked.
Swan glanced down and let out a little moan of despair. A skirt that would normally have covered her legs to mid-calf now exposed her from her belly button downward. The link-sausage undies were an awful sight, but at least she wasn’t dealing with full-frontal nudity. She was too mortified to even consider what her backside must look like. From the way it felt, she was going to have to keep her rear to the wall at all times.
Swan wasn’t sure it was possible to be more humiliated.
Rob Gaines proved her wrong.
“I have to search you,” he said.
Swan shook her head so hard she nearly lost her balance. “I want a female officer to search me!”
His shrug said, Sure, whatever you want, lady. “Let’s go then.”
He pointed to the door, but she didn’t move. “Go where? I can’t even walk.”
“Headquarters. If you want a female, that’s where we’re going.”
If angry glares could burn, he would have been charcoal briquettes. “All right,” she sighed. “Get it over with then.”
“I should call in my partner,” he said.
“No! Search me, dammit. Frisk me, pat me down, probe my body cavities, whatever the hell you have to do, just do it and get it over with.”
“Thanks for all the options,” he said dryly. He placed his palms on her waist and began to frisk her in a way that was totally professional but not at all reassuring. He was thorough and patient as he slid his hands along the curves and swells of her body. He never touched her inappropriately. He never even spoke, but there was something about the feathery pressure of his fingers, or maybe it was his smoky aftershave or the heat of his breathing, that elicited what Swan could only call unwelcome sensations. Whew. He was everywhere with his velvet-soft hands, even inside her thighs.
Swan’s stomach took an express ride down, and her heart went the opposite direction. A weird tremble crept into her breathing, and she very nearly emitted an audible sigh of relief when he stopped. If her panties weren’t damp before, they certainly were now.
“Thanks,” she said, willing strength back into her legs.
Apparently satisfied that she was unarmed, he stepped back and studied her hopelessly snarled clothing. “Want me to fix that?”
It was either him or the bomb squad. “Sure.”
“Okay, but it may take surgical intervention.”
“Meaning you’re going to cut off my underwear?”
“Meaning I’ll try to untangle it, but if I can’t, this is Plan B.” He pulled a penknife from an inner pocket of his jacket and set it on the vanity table. “Either way, I’ll have to go in.”
“Go in where? Hey!” Swan gasped as he stretched her panty hose out like a slingshot and delved into her drawers. “Hey, stop that!”
His hand was much too large not to touch things it shouldn’t. So much for professionalism. Something brushed her pubic hair and she let out a squeal.
“What is this?” she cried, “some kind of macho payback for pulling your pants down?”
To his credit, he didn’t respond. He went about his business, feeling around some more, working the knots like a safecracker. He plucked and toggled and tugged, but nothing seemed to give way. When he went to pull his hand out, it didn’t give, either. He was stuck.
Swan let out a horrified gasp. This could not be happening.
“We seem to have a problem,” he said.
“No, we don’t,” she informed him in barely audible tones. “Just amputate your hand at the wrist and we’ll be fine.”
His expression told her he didn’t think much of her suggestion. In fact, if she’d been a zoo animal, and he’d had a tranquilizer gun, she would have been headed for a very long nap.
“I was thinking of something a little less drastic,” he intoned.
“Like what?” She didn’t trust any part of this. He wasn’t moving his hand, but she couldn’t help thinking that his eyes were unnaturally bright, and his breathing had deepened. It mortified her to think that he might have discovered the damp spot. Fiend. He was enjoying this.
“Like this wad of nylon must be ballistic,” he told her. “It could stop a bullet. I recommend Plan B.”
“These are my best black panties! And my last pair of Tanga panty hose!”
“Would you like us to be buried in them?” he inquired politely. “Because that’s how long it will take to get the damn things unsnarled.”
“Oh, use the scissors in the drawer,” she said crossly, gesturing to the vanity where he’d set the penknife.
Just moments later Swan’s panty hose were in shreds and so were her nerves. She told herself that going commando was preferable to having an FBI agent in her pants, but as Gaines snipped away at her underwear, she wondered how this entry would look in her journal. “Tonight I was handcuffed in my bathroom while an FBI agent surgically removed his hand from my panty hose, after which he hauled me to jail and threw me in a holding cell with hookers and drug addicts.”
A shudder started at the base of her heels and slithered up her spine.
“Hold still,” he said. “I’m almost there.”
She didn’t ask where. She just closed her eyes and held her breath until she felt the wad begin to give way. A moment later his fingers were no longer nestled against her private parts and the garrote that was strangling her stomach was gone! With a few more snips of the scissors, he had the lingerie free and he was gingerly peeling it off her. He even made sure her lower extremities were covered with her skirt. What a prince.
What was that he was humming? “Natural Woman?”
She opened her eyes and was surprised to find him standing there, studying her intently, his hands planted on his hips. She could hardly believe this was the same man who’d nearly achieved lift-off in her design center. He could have had the decency to look a little flustered, couldn’t he? Especially when she was breathing like a distance runner. All she could think about at that moment was the satisfaction of breaking through his reserve and making him squirm, too.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” he said, leveling a firm gaze at her. “But I don’t want any problems. Understand?”
He even waited for her to nod.
The moment her hands were free, Swan adjusted her blouse and skirt, as if that could restore her respectability. “This is outrageous,” she said in a trembling voice. “How dare you come in here and accuse me of— What am I accused of anyway?”
“You’re under arrest for several counts of bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy and forgery. Serious stuff.”
Swan gaped at him as he took a card from his coat pocket and began to Mirandize her. He was as nonchalant as if he’d never been messing around in her pants, as if he hadn’t made her tremble and gasp.
She heard the words about her rights, heard what he said about lawyers and about how anything she said could and would be used against her in a court of law. She heard every bit of it, but none of it truly registered. It felt as if she were not in her own skin anymore. Was she going into shock?
“Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
“Uh—”
“I need a yes or no.”
She gave him a defiant look, her spirit flooding back. “Yes, I understand my rights, and I also understand that I haven’t done anything wrong. You and your buddy out there have made a terrible mistake.”
“Have we?” he said. “It’s all on videotape.”
“Videotape of what?”
“Of you, forging a name on loan documents and walking out of the bank with an unauthorized bank draft for—”
“Unauthorized?” Until this very moment Swan had clung to the notion that this was a practical joke or some kind of mistake. Now, with a clarity that made her heart tumble, she understood what was happening. She didn’t know what he meant by “unauthorized check,” but she had signed Lynne’s name to the loan papers and somehow the Feds had found out. Those were serious charges.
But she could explain them!
She forced herself to breathe, even to smile. “It is a mistake. All you have to do is call Art Long at First National Heritage. He’ll explain everything.”
Art would probably lose his job over this, she realized, if he hadn’t already. She didn’t want that to happen, but she didn’t want to go to jail, either.
“Art Long has been taken into custody. He’s cooling his heels down at the federal building right now. And by the way, he cracked under pressure and told us everything.”
She stared at him in amazement. “You arrested Arthur? What did he do?”
“Conspired with you to rob First National Heritage.”
“No! That’s ridiculous. Lynne Carmichael and I got a loan from the bank. I did sign her name, yes, but I had her permission, and she’s my business partner.”
Gaines nodded, not particularly interested, apparently. “Long gave you some papers today and a book,” he said. “A gift, I believe. Where is that book now?”
Swan shook her head, confused. “The organizer?”
“Yes.”
“It’s right there.” She pointed to the floor between the commode and the vanity. In her haste to get her panties down, she had set it there.
Gaines took some rubber gloves from his coat pocket and tugged them onto his hands. He picked up the organizer, gave it a cursory once-over, and then opened the bathroom door a crack. “Hey, Joe, you want to witness this?”
From her vantage point, Swan could see Gerard as he sat on a chair in the far corner of the bedroom. He looked forlorn and frightened. Joe Harris stood over him, scribbling notes on a small pocket-size pad. Gerard glanced up and shrugged, obviously as much in the dark as she was herself. Harris said something to Gerard that she couldn’t hear. Gerard nodded weakly and stood up. He offered Swan a tiny smile and then left the room.
Special Agent Harris pulled on his own pair of gloves as he entered the bathroom. “Find it?” he asked.
Gaines casually waved the engraved book to prove he had it.
Swan’s stomach was in knots as both men focused on her. She felt like a lab specimen. “What does this have to do with the loan papers?” she asked.
Neither man replied. The silent treatment in full swing. Gaines plucked out the cashier’s check she’d picked up from Art Long yesterday. He handed it to Harris, who studied it for a moment and then slipped it into a clear plastic bag he’d taken from his pocket. As Harris was doing this, Gaines picked up the penknife that he’d planned to operate with and carefully cut a razor-fine slit down the inside of the book’s back cover. Swan was aghast. He’d ruined it! Wasn’t her underwear enough?
“What are you doing with my check?” she asked Harris. And then to Gaines, “Look what you’ve done to my organizer!”
“Evidence,” Harris said.
“Evidence,” Gaines said.
“Evidence of what? I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all a mistake. Lynn will tell you that!”
Gaines arched his brows. “This is a mistake?”
Swan watched in silence as he carefully removed a piece of paper that had obviously been hidden between the book cover and its back piece. He held it up for her to see. It was another cashier’s check of some sort. It was made out to Lynne Carmichael and the amount brought a gasp of disbelief.
Four million, nine-hundred-thousand dollars and no cents.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
Harris waved the plastic bag that contained her check. “Altogether, that’s five million in embezzled bank funds.”
Too much was happening too quickly. Too many questions were ricocheting inside her mind for her to grasp even one and examine it closely. Swan staggered back, lowered the lid on the commode and sat down. “Is there more?” she asked.
Harris frowned. “What? Money?”
Swan shook her head. She should be going crazy, but instead she was going numb. “No. Surprises. Are there any more surprises?”
Gaines gave both the book and the check to Harris, who was apparently in charge of submitting them as evidence. “I’ll tag and bag these,” Harris said as he stepped out of the bathroom. “It’ll take a few minutes. You got her?”
After Harris had left, Swan glanced pleadingly at Rob Gaines. “I really need you to explain what’s going on. This is all a mistake. I didn’t know anything about that check, the big one.”
For a long moment he simply stood there studying her as he slowly peeled the rubber gloves from his hands. She wondered if he was going to speak to her at all, when, finally, he leaned against the edge of the vanity.
“There’s no mistake, Ms. McKenna,” he said. “You and Lynne are up to your necks in this, however—”
He seemed to be deliberating again, but she sensed there was more on the man’s mind than bank robberies. Possibly a lot more. Possibly her.
“However what?” she asked.
“Well, there might be a way that we could work something out.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. She had a bad feeling about where he was going with this, but, at the same time, her vital signs were whipping themselves into a frenzy again. Her skin was feverish and her hairline was damp. He seemed to be able to do that to her under just about any damn circumstances.
“Just tell me what you want,” she implored.
That triggered a glance from him that nearly made her vital signs stop. It had all the smoldering intensity of an illicit touch and Swan was rocked back by it. But she’d barely had time to register the impact when she was wondering if the whole thing had been her imagination.
All at once he was the government agent again—standing tall, arms crossed with the authority of a hanging judge, and when he spoke, it was cool and professional.
“The FBI can count on your cooperation then?” he said. “We have a tough case on our hands, and you could be useful to us.”
She nodded. “Of course, I’ll cooperate. Tell me what’s going on.”
Gaines relaxed his stance and began. If he’d been harboring any prurient urges, they were well concealed. “Your friend, Art Long, is one of the best con men in the business,” he explained. “It’s taken us years, but we finally have him where we want him. Only there’s a problem. Long didn’t work this scam alone. Someone inside the bank helped him, someone highly placed. We want that person, too.”
“But how can I help? Lynne and I don’t work at the bank. Surely you must know that.”
“We do. But we also know that Ms. Carmichael and Art Long have been seeing each other socially. We know Long has visited this house and spent time with both you and Carmichael.”
“You’ve had us under surveillance?”
He ignored her and went on. “What we don’t know is whether you and your partner were duped by Long or whether you’re part of his scheme.”
“We were duped,” she assured him. “Lynn and I thought Art wanted to help us. And, I swear to you, Lynne doesn’t know any more about this than I do.”
“Speaking of Ms. Carmichael, where is she?”
“She’s with a designer. A big designer, who might be interested in sponsoring our line under his label. This could be the break of a lifetime.”
“That explains what she’s doing. Now, where is she doing it?”
Swan shifted and felt cool air swirling around inside her skirt. It was quite a draft. “I don’t know,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “They’re on a yacht somewhere on the high seas.”
“Ever hear of obstruction of justice?”
“I don’t know where she is!” Was her skirt still hiked up? Swan twisted around to look and nearly swooned as the blood rushed out of her head. God, wasn’t bladder urgency enough? Gaines caught her elbow to steady her. His grasp on her bare arm was firm, though not overly so. But his fingers were hot and strong, and she almost wished he would do something more with them. She didn’t want to think what exactly, but something.
“Take it easy,” he said.
Swan released a breath that helped clear her head a bit. “I’m fine,” she said, but it sounded as hollow as she felt. “Just tell me there’re no more surprises. I don’t think I can take any more tonight.”
She looked up at him, saw his expression and groaned inwardly.
“I’ve got one more,” he said, “and you aren’t going to like it.”
4
“MS. MCKENNA! Come back here!”
Rob Gaines belted out the command as Swan brushed past him and walked into the adjoining bedroom. She needed some space to clear her head and she needed it now. In less than twenty minutes he’d accused her of horrendous crimes and strip-searched her in a way that gave new meaning to the term.
What was next? Stop or I’ll shoot?
“That was not a request,” Gaines barked. “Stop or I’ll—”
Swan stopped. Oh, yes, she did. She stopped so suddenly she tilted forward like a ski jumper about to go off the ramp.
“I think we need to establish some ground rules,” he said. “First, turn around, and second, look deeply into my eyes and listen carefully to every word I say—as carefully as you’ve ever listened to anything in your life, because compared to this, none of that other BS matters.”
Swan wanted to tell him that his superior tone was not necessary but, of course, she didn’t. She turned, looked straight into his glacial-blue eyes, and felt as if her breath had been flash-frozen in her chest. If time travel were possible, this guy had been sent from the Ice Age. Even his impossibly long eyelashes did nothing to warm the chill.
“Rule number one,” he said, “since I’m the one with the badge and the gun, I’m in charge here. Rule number two, since you’re the one about to be wearing the handcuffs again, you’re not in charge. You’re the suspect. And rule number three, don’t ever walk away from the guy with the gun because he might think you’re trying to escape, and if he did think that, he would have to do everything in his power to stop you—and that would not be good.”
Not good for whom, she thought, mustering up some defiance. He’d probably love to pull out that big old six-shooter of his and blast away.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Rule number four, you’re in a shitload of trouble, Ms. McKenna. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that your very life is in my hands, so if I were you, I’d be very nice to my hands.”
Swan was drawn like a magnet to the body parts he mentioned, and they were exactly the kind of hands she loved on a man. Hard from use, brown from the sun, with strong, tapered fingers and a palm plenty wide enough to handle a football. Veins could be seen running down from his forearm, and the feathering of hair above his knuckles matched the sooty black of his lashes.
She was obsessing over the hands of a man who was a threat to her very existence. How normal was that? For that matter, how normal was anything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours? Maybe the threat he posed had something to do with it. He’d just told her that he held her life in his hands and the idea of being that vulnerable to a man, especially this man—
“Are we clear on the rules?” he asked.
“You’re the guy with the gun.” She gave him a tight nod. What else could she do? “And, by the way, what is this gun fixation of yours? You know what guns are, don’t you? Compensation for an inadequate penis.”
He shot a look at her that questioned her will to live. “Maybe we should talk about your penis fixation,” he said. “And while we’re at it, I don’t feel the slightest bit inadequate.”
That was no big surprise, but it brought a sting of awareness to her cheeks anyway. She also felt a thrust of something deeper, quicker and significantly hotter in her belly. She had to get a grip.
“Back to business,” he said. “I’m giving you a choice, which is more than most felony suspects get. Either you agree to help us catch Long’s accomplice or you and Art can have adjoining cells. Which is it going to be?”
Swan went icy cold. “That’s a choice? Everything Lynne and I have worked for is about to be destroyed, and you want me to pitch in and help so you and that other bully with a badge can use our show as a sting operation to catch someone you can’t catch yourself!”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
He actually seemed pleased with her assessment, and that was the last straw for Swan. She slumped down on the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. “This is not happening,” she whispered. If she kept her eyes closed long enough and said the words passionately enough, maybe this nightmare would go away. And it would take Rob Gaines with it.
Gaines sat down next to her. His voice took on an explanatory tone, along with a hint of compassion.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re going to be dragged into this mess whether you agree to help us or not. Now I know that stinks, but that’s just the way it is.”
Swan glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Art Long is smart. He’s been conning people for years but he’s not this smart. He didn’t put this plan into action by himself. Large amounts of money have been electronically transferred, and according to the bank examiners who tipped us, he doesn’t have the authority to do that on his own. Long hasn’t confessed to having an accomplice, but he had help from someone inside.”
“Inside the bank? How am I supposed to help you with that? Lynne and I don’t know anyone at the bank besides Art.”
“That’s what you claim, but someone opened an account under Lynne’s name and has been electronically transferring funds into that account. This same someone then issued a cashier’s check for those funds in the name of Lynne Carmichael—a check that you picked up after forging Lynne’s name. And now Lynne has conveniently disappeared.”
“Well, when you put it like that, of course we look guilty.” She pressed two fingers to her temple and hit exactly the spot where it was beginning to throb. “But Lynne hasn’t conveniently disappeared. She’s away on legitimate business, and I know nothing about any electronic transfers.” Frowning, she said, “What did you mean that I would be dragged into this whether I help you or not?”
Gaines rose and slipped his hands into the pockets of his charcoal slacks. She was reminded of the man in the gray flannel suit, except for one or two discrepancies—the rakish dark hair and disreputable blue eyes. There were con men in every profession, she reminded herself.
“You’re a marked woman, Ms. McKenna. You say you’re not in on this with Art Long, and if that’s true, then one thing is certain. Art did not intend for you to keep the five million. Someone was going to ‘relieve’ you of all that money—likely Art himself—and then split it with his accomplice.”
Swan didn’t like where this was going. “Are you suggesting that his accomplice might come after the money? Or after me because he believes I have the money?”
“You’re starting to get the picture,” he said. “If you work with us, we’ll provide you protection. When the accomplice makes his move, we can be there to make ours. You won’t be hurt, and we’ll have our coconspirator.”
Swan rose and walked to the double doors that led to a balcony above the gardens. White, lacy sheers covered the glass panes. She moved one aside and peered into darkness that was as opaque as an inkwell. The doors were closed, but she could hear the low roar of the ocean, and closer, the purr of traffic on a side street. The beach was always busy in the summer.
“When do you think this person might make a move?” she asked him. “Am I in danger now?” She needed the truth, no matter how bad it was.
Rob Gaines considered the value of lying to her and decided against it. There was nothing to be gained by giving her a false sense of security. Right now she was vulnerable enough to listen to what he had to say and frightened enough to accept it.
“You could be,” he told her, “which is why Joe and I are staying here tonight. I doubt anyone’s going to hit this place, though. They’ll wait for the confusion of the fashion shows. You’re being promoted as the designer of the line, which means you’ll be easy to find, and you’ll be distracted. Thieves love chaos.”
“Swell,” she said. “I’m being used as bait. I could be thumped on the head at any time, robbed and left for dead. And what happens when this accomplice discovers that I don’t have the five million dollars? I’m history, right?”
She shoved a handful of auburn hair away from her face and stared him down with an accusatory expression.
Not if I can help it, he thought. Her rising agitation gave off a scent that was part frightened woman and part French perfume. Both were totally alluring, and both were Swan McKenna. She could be hell in high heels one minute and visibly apprehensive the next, just as she was now. Rob preferred her vulnerable. She was much easier to handle. He was also aware that if she weren’t a suspect, he would have had a hard time keeping his distance. And the hell of it was, he wasn’t sure she would have stopped him.
“Relax,” he said, his voice softening. “Joe and I haven’t lost anyone yet. We’ll set up a security plan. If you do exactly as you’re told, you’ll be safe. We can protect you, but only if you cooperate.”
She hugged herself and he could see gooseflesh creeping up her arms.
“And what do I get out of this,” she asked, “besides a nervous breakdown?”
“Immunity from prosecution. You’ll probably have to testify against Art and his accomplice in court, but, otherwise, you’re off the hook.”
“What about Lynne?”
“That depends on Lynne. Partial immunity, possibly full, if she’s willing to testify.”
“Immunity from prosecution for something we didn’t do? You’ll excuse me if I don’t sound grateful.”
She swung her head and cast him a hard glance, her red hair dancing. Rob suspected she was about to slip on her high heels again and give him a hard time. But he didn’t have any more time to play.
“I need an answer,” he said. “Say yes, Ms. McKenna. It’s the only smart thing to do.”
Smart or not, Swan wasn’t sure she had a choice. There was no guarantee that Rob Gaines wouldn’t haul her off to jail if she refused to help. That would be disastrous for Brief Encounters, and the bad press could be enough to ruin them, even if her name was cleared. But bait for a sting operation?
On the other hand, it was also possible that whoever was helping Art Long had been frightened off and wouldn’t come after the money. That would make this whole exercise pointless. But there was no way to be sure of that, and five million dollars was a lot to walk away from.
“Did you say yes, Ms. McKenna?” Gaines intoned. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, Ms. McKenna.” She was giving up, but not happily. “You know,” she said, “if you and Joe are planning to go undercover, you could always be underwear models.”
She took some pleasure in watching his face go pale at the thought.
“I saw what you put those guys through tonight,” he muttered, “and I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those nut buckets.”
“Nut buckets?” Swan chuckled. First time she’d ever heard her thongs called that. It was also nice to know that she could still laugh.
“You’ll have people setting up the stage, doing the lights and the sound, that sort of thing?” he asked. Swan nodded. “Good, because Joe and I will blend in as a couple of workmen. We’ll do everything possible to stay out of your way. But you need to keep in mind that we’re conducting an investigation, and you’re still one of the suspects.”
“How could I forget? I’m getting tired of protesting my innocence, and you’re probably tired of hearing it, but someday you’re going to be damn embarrassed about the way you’re treating a woman who gives pennies back to store clerks when they make the wrong change.”
She expected some kind of wisecrack and when it didn’t come she stared at him hard. Maybe she was daring him. “Go ahead and say it,” she invited. “Tell me what an idiot I am for getting myself mixed up in this loan fiasco. But don’t tell me I’m a thief, because I’m not.”
He was suddenly very serious. The dark lashes lowered, masking his expression. “If you think I don’t want you cleared of these charges, you’re wrong. Nothing would make me happier. I mean it.”
The way he said I mean it made her stomach go weirdly light. This wasn’t butterflies or anything like it. It was as if the force of gravity had suddenly been lessened and everything might lift right off the ground.
“Nothing would make you happier? Why would you care what happens to me? You don’t even know me.”
He lifted his head. “I have my reasons.”
“Your quest to catch Art Long, right? And I’m your means to that end? Is that why you care?” She told herself to let it go, but she couldn’t. She wanted to grill him. She wanted to put him under bright lights in a darkened room and interrogate him until he surrendered them, one by one. Call it payback.
Maybe it was her imagination, or just wishful thinking, but she had the feeling he wouldn’t mind spending some time with her in a darkened room, either. He hadn’t smiled, hadn’t even looked as if he might, but there was an energy brewing in the cool blue irises hidden under those lashes, and it was sexual.
Her soul-searching came to an abrupt end as Joe Harris walked into the room.
“Everything is booked,” he said to Gaines, who simply nodded.
It took Swan a moment or two to figure out what he was talking about, and then it hit her that Rob had given Joe her loan check along with the other one. “I’m getting my money back, right?”
Harris looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “That’s evidence, Ms. McKenna. No way you’re getting that check.”
“You can’t mean that.” Swan’s voice went faint. “I need that money! Lynne and I have costs to cover for this tour. If I can’t come up with the money, it will ruin our relationship with the boutique chain. They may even cancel the tour, and I still have to pay for the launch party. I put that on a credit card!”
Harris and Gaines looked at one another. Apparently even tough FBI agents could be surprised.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Lynne and I went broke getting the line manufactured. Part of the loan from First National was to cover modeling fees, travel expenses and lodging. I won’t even go into the stack of delinquent bills I have on my desk. Without that money, there won’t be any shows.”
Gaines raised his hand for silence. After a moment’s reflection he spoke to his partner. “We could put in for an emergency requisition.”
“Worth a try,” Harris said. “All they can do is say no.”
Voices filtered up from below and Swan suddenly remembered her party, her guests. The fashion press was down there, along with the brass from La Bomba. She had no idea where Gerard was or what was going on downstairs. The last time she’d seen him, he was being ushered out of the room. He may have been taken in for questioning for all she knew. That would mean her guests were down there, fending for themselves. She had to go. Someone had to do damage control, and there was no one but her!
Without even thinking to ask permission, she breezed past the two agents and headed for the veranda. As she reached the doorway, she realized she’d just broken every one of Rob Gaines’s four rules and there was nothing she could do about it. Hell with it. Let him shoot her in the back. He might be doing her a favor.
IT WASN’T QUITE AS BAD as Swan had thought. Gerard hadn’t been hauled off in a squad car. He’d been holding down the fort until she got back, and her guests didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. That much she could be grateful for. They didn’t even notice that her outfit was a wrinkled mess.
She tried to think of some way to bring the evening to a close, but no one seemed in any particular hurry to leave, which, ironically, was the sign of a successful party. Something to celebrate, except in this case there were two government agents in her guest bedroom, and she did not want them mingling.
Too late. She caught sight of Joe Harris by the buffet table. He was helping himself to a healthy slice of Gouda cheese, but he was also watching her. Swan looked around for Gaines, but didn’t see him. She hoped it was because he was working on getting them some funds for the shows. That should keep him busy, and meanwhile his absence gave her another idea. There was something else she had to do tonight, and it would be far easier if she didn’t have to deal with Rob Gaines.
Gerard was heading her way with a small cluster of guests, hopefully to say good-night. She caught his eye and pretended to be adjusting her earrings. She was actually pointing toward Joe Harris. By now she and her assistant could read each other’s minds. She was asking Gerard to cover for her and he gave her a knowing nod. He excused himself and picked up a tray of canopies, hurrying over to where Harris was standing. In typical Gerard fashion, he had the agent engrossed in herb-stuffed mushrooms and conversation within seconds.
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Suzanne Forster
Swan McKenna's racy men's underwear company, Brief Encounters, is on the brink of incredible success…when she's accused of stealing five million dollars!How can she launch her newest naughty designs with a federal agent watching her every move? Of course, once she gets a glimpse of Special Agent Rob Gaines, all she can think about is seeing his moves. With his government-issue good looks, he'd bring down the house modeling for her upcoming fashion show.And she desperately needs models…. But little does Swan expect Rob to help her out by reluctantly agreeing to strut his stuff. Nor does she realize that once she sees Rob in his underwear, she won't be able to resist catching him out of it….
“Whatever you want to do with me, do it.”
At Swan’s words, Rob’s mouth pressed to hers. Then she felt a sharp sensation and cried out in surprise. He had nipped her lip, the inner edge where it was plump and tender.
“You taste good,” he whispered. “Like sex and deep, shuddering sighs. I want to drink you to the last drop.”
He tasted like sex, too. Powerful male-on-the-hunt sex. It was intoxicating.
His lips found the side of her neck. Instinctively he seemed to know the sweet spot at the base of her throat. Hot kisses there made her arch her back as she rocked against his pelvis. The hard flesh encased in his jeans caused her to moan in anticipation.
“We can still stop,” he told her. “It’s not too late.”
Stop? Swan had never heard anything more ridiculous in her life.
Dear Reader,
Every once in a while, if we’re lucky, we get a chance to revisit something that has brought us great joy and satisfaction. This is one of those times for me. When the opportunity to write for Blaze came my way, I felt very lucky, and not just because it’s an exciting, innovative and no-holds-barred line. It was my chance to revisit series romance.
I started my career at Harlequin-Silhouette, and what a great way to start. The books were fun, sexy, challenging and intensely satisfying to write. I hope they were as satisfying to read. But things have changed a little since then. Blaze has broken new ground, not to mention a few rules, and they continue to shake things up, which makes them irresistible to writers—and readers—who love to live on the edge.
When the idea for Brief Encounters came to me, I knew it was a series romance, and I suspected it was a Blaze book. So I was delighted when my editor agreed and invited me to write not one, but three, Blaze books. The prospect of writing about a heroine who designed men’s underwear seemed to have limitless possibilities for racy fun and games. Swan McKenna doesn’t just fantasize about whether men are wearing briefs or boxers, she gets to go there!
I hope you enjoy Swan’s “encounters” with FBI agent Rob Gaines, whose turn as an underwear model was about as much steamy fun as I’ve ever had writing about a hero. I also hope you’ll look for Beyond Suspicion, a two-in-one collection that features the reissue of my top-selling series romance, The Man at Ivy Bridge, available in January 2004.
It’s good to be back!
Suzanne Forster
Brief Encounters
Suzanne Forster
Long overdue thanks to my intrepid plot group: Olga Bicos, Lori Herter, Lou Kaku, Jill Marie Landis and Meryl Sawyer. For the group therapy as much as for the brainstorming. Your support makes work—and life—a pleasure!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
1
SWAN MCKENNA had been inspecting half-naked men for the better part of the afternoon. And she still hadn’t found Mr. Right. Watching men strip down to their underwear was a job most women would have loved. And Swan should have loved it more than most. It was her underwear they were stripping down to. Well, not her underwear. She was wearing that. This was underwear she’d designed.
Now she needed a guy who could sell it.
“I need a man who can bump and grind!” she implored.
Swan was speaking on her cell phone to her assistant, Gerard Nichols, who was acting as host for the auditioning models. Swan’s partner, Lynne Carmichael, who normally dealt with this sort of thing, was on the road doing advance work for their upcoming boutique tour. Her departure had left Swan and Gerard scrambling to get ready for the launch party tomorrow night. This was their first real show and L.A.’s fashion press had been invited for an exclusive sneak peek at the “cheeky” new line of male undergarments.
If Swan wasn’t a bundle of naked nerve endings, she should have been. She and Lynne had worked for years to get to this place, against staggering odds. The fashion world regularly feasted on its own young and Swan felt a little like a chicken wing right now. One scathing review could crush them.
A couple of guys who can striptease without getting all tangled up in their army camouflage thongs. Is that too much to ask?
“It’s a Village People revival out here,” Gerard replied in theatrical whispers. “We’ve got a Native American chieftain, complete with headdress, a fireman with an ax, a pistol-packin’ cowboy. And, oh, my, call 9-1-1! The telephone repairman who just walked in is to die for, Swan. To die for.”
Gerard was stationed in the foyer and Swan was in the spacious music room of the Italianate villa that had recently become the operating headquarters for Brief Encounters, Swan and Lynne’s design company.
“Oh, oh, oh, and there’s a Marquis de Sade.” Gerard let out a little squeak. “He has a whip, Swan! An honest-to-goodness whip! Shall I send him in?”
Swan’s only response was a tiny jet of air through her nostrils. Laughter took too much energy. Gerard was in his element right now, she supposed. From the moment she’d first met him, Swan had known that Gerard was gay. She knew because he’d told her. Hello, my name is Gerard Nichols, and I’m gay. At the time Swan had wondered if that was how he introduced himself to everyone. She discovered later that, generally, it was.
When he’d walked into her tiny Manhattan Beach, California, office that day, he’d also informed her that he was answering her Assistant Wanted ad and she need look no further. Sure, he’d grown up wanting to be an underwear model like Mark Whalberg, but, at thirty-something, he was a little too fond of strawberry-cheesecake ice cream. Design was his second choice, but he couldn’t draw. So he was content to be indispensable.
And he was. Swan would have been lost without him.
“Let’s try the telephone repairman,” she said. “He sounds safer. That fire-swallowing Adonis you just sent in here dropped his baton and nearly set the place ablaze. No more of that, okay? And no more live animals, especially snakes.”
Swan didn’t like snakes and this one had actually fallen from its handler’s bare shoulders and slithered under the sofa Swan was sitting on. She still had goose bumps over that. It was a wonder it hadn’t sent her running to the bathroom to relieve herself. For as long as she could remember, she’d suffered with a high-strung bladder. Some people got hives when they were nervous. Swan McKenna had to pee.
“But, Swaaaan—”
“No way, Gerard. Nothing creepy crawly, nothing with more than two legs, nothing flammable and nothing that is going to explode. This is a fashion show, not a demolition derby. Besides, I’m late with the insurance premium this quarter. I’m not even sure we’re covered.”
She heard him sigh into the phone. Gerard enjoyed bells and whistles and had been arguing that the party’s fashion show needed more special effects. Since Swan and Lynne couldn’t afford pyrotechnics and laser lights, Gerard had suggested they let the models provide the runway pizzazz. Swan had finally agreed that he could invite some of his more exotic friends to audition, but this was ridiculous.
“The marquis looks like fun, Swan. Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure, Gerard. Do not send in the guy with the whip.”
Gerard clicked off, and Swan went back to work on the growing stack of portfolios provided by the models. Résumés and glossy head shots were strewn across the glass-topped coffee table she was using as a work surface. Most of the guys were wanna-bes rather than professional models, which was lucky because Brief Encounters was currently too broke to pay modeling fees. The party food and decorations were largely donated, thanks to Gerard’s ingenuity, and the men who’d shown up to audition were volunteering their time, hoping to get some exposure, probably—which shouldn’t be a problem in her underwear.
Swan held the back of her hand to her forehead and felt the stickiness. August was typically the hottest month of the summer, even at the beach, and the fifty-year-old villa wasn’t air-conditioned. Swan had dressed defensively, in capris and a tank top, but naked would have been too warm in this place.
The kicker was that she wasn’t even supposed to be doing this task. Lynne had cooked up the impromptu launch party idea, hoping it would generate some publicity. It was a good idea and Swan had gone along with it, but Lynne was the gregarious one, the free spirit who had a flair for this sort of thing, which was why she worked sales, marketing and PR. Swan was the organizer and the bean counter. She also did most of the actual designing, but other than a few fittings and alterations, she rarely worked with the models.
Lynne was supposed to have come back to run the auditions, but she’d left a message from San Francisco, saying that something big was up and she would call back later to explain. She’d also dropped the name of a huge international designer. Lynne loved being mysterious, but this wasn’t the time, not when they were facing their first-ever tour. At least Lynne had finalized all the details of their first runway show in Los Angeles, including the models, but Swan still had the launch party to deal with.
The music room door opened and the telephone repairman was all but pushed inside by Gerard, who grinned and waggled his fingers at Swan before leaving. The new model looked around as if he had no idea where he was or why he was there. A bad sign. Swan waved him into the room, but he didn’t budge.
“I’m here to—”
“Yes, I know,” she said brightly. “Great outfit. You’re my first repairman, and I must say, it works.”
And how it worked. This guy could have installed her phone any day of the week. Gerard hadn’t done him justice, she realized. If Lynne had been there, she would have given him the compliment she reserved for lifeguards and the Olympic water polo team: studly.
Of course, Swan was trained to notice such things, but the man’s legs were so long he must have had his blue jeans specially made. And who could miss the way he’d planted himself, his hips canted at an angle that emphasized their narrowness and the wide rake of his shoulders. The expression on his face was priceless, too. Bemused and quizzical, faintly suspicious. Male.
Swan felt heat stealing up the back of her neck and realized she was having a physical reaction right here in the music room. Was that possible? Something was tingling, and it wasn’t her bladder!
“Ma’am…?”
His voice snapped her out of her trance. What in the world was she doing? Fantasizing in broad daylight? The only question that should have been on her mind at that moment was, can he dance?
“The CD player’s over there,” she said, pointing at the boom box that Gerard had set up on an antique tea cart. The regal old piece sat by a wall of cherry bookcases that housed the room’s music library, and Swan wondered if the cart was appalled at the noisy machine that was vibrating its brass knobs and handles. She wondered if the whole house was appalled.
“Go ahead and put your music in,” she told him.
The heat had now spread to her face, but she resisted the impulse to fan herself as she sorted through photos. She found one she planned to call back, but now she needed a pencil to make a note of it. Of course, every pencil she owned was missing in action. When the August weather had started to get to her, she’d pulled her long auburn hair up into a loose bun to cool her neck. Patting around, she found a No. 2 Ticonderoga stuck in the waves. Her hair probably resembled a floor mop by now, but there wasn’t time to repair it. She tugged the pencil free, her hair miraculously staying in its knot, and her gaze drifted toward the model.
He was standing right where she’d left him.
“You didn’t bring any music, right?” Some of the guys had brought their own CDs and some hadn’t. “That’s okay,” she said as she hurried over to the boom box, popped in a disc and pushed the Play button. Hot, pulsing music filled the room. If you could dance, “Disco Inferno” was your song.
The music was too loud to talk over, so she gave the model a directorial point of her finger. “You’re on,” it said. She moved to the music herself, shaking her shoulders and nodding encouragingly. She’d actually had to dance with one of the guys to get him going, and it looked as if she had another shy one on her hands.
Maybe that was the secret of this one’s appeal. Not just studly, but shy.
He was heart attack material, she admitted, wondering what she was going to have to do to inspire him. It was just plain hot the way his blue work shirt fell open at the neck and his tool belt hung on his hips. His hands were braced on the worn leather and he’d cocked his head, as if to say he wasn’t making a move until he was good and ready. But, boy, when he did. All he would have to do was to shake those shoulders and women everywhere would fall on their noses. Swan was teetering already. He could have sold underwear to a nudist colony.
This was the best raw material she’d seen all day, so to speak. She had to get him dancing. Okay, what would Lynne do? she asked herself—and not for the first time. Her partner had a bold, carefree manner that Swan had always admired. Lynne knew how to keep men guessing, which seemed to make them want her all the more. She was flirty and provocative, but whenever Swan tried that, she got into trouble. Maybe this was her chance to practice.
Swan walked briskly over to the model. To hesitate was death. As she approached, he gave her a searching look and a lazy smile that said he might be checking her out, as well. Not as shy as she thought? She felt an instant’s unease but dismissed it. Her mission was to find men with happy feet. Sure he looked good, but could he move? Could he dance and undress at the same time? Could he make a woman hot, maybe even her, who hadn’t been above 98.6 in years? And, more important, could he sell the thongs, briefs and tank tops that were going to be Brief Encounters’s showcase products?
“Maybe I can help,” she said. “Just relax and go with me.”
She braced her legs and rotated her hips, only to see his brows flatten skeptically. “Come on,” she coaxed. “You can do it.”
She began to sing along with the music and shake her shoulders, but still nothing. What? Was he practicing to be a palace guard?
With a sigh, she placed her hands on his hips and began rocking them back and forth, encouraging him to rotate. This was exactly what Lynne would have done, but it was so not Swan McKenna. Her heart was pounding as fast as the music.
“Yes, that’s it!” she said, thinking she’d felt him move. “Work with me. That’s right, work with me, baby.”
Work with me, baby?
She didn’t dare look up, or he would have seen the flush creeping up her neck. She gripped him harder, rotating wider. “Shake it one time for me,” she croaked.
What was happening to her voice?
“Ma’am?”
“No, keep moving,” she insisted. “I think you’re getting the idea.”
Swan was staring at the man’s rotating pelvis so hard she could have counted the teeth on his zipper. It didn’t take X-ray vision to know what was lovingly cradled inside those beautifully worn jeans. She could see the tell-tale bulge. It ran nearly the length of his fly, and as much as she didn’t want to be guilty of ogling him, there was nowhere else to look.
“You are so hired,” she said under her breath.
She wasn’t quite sure what happened next. Either her hands slipped or he suddenly mastered Bump and Grind 101, because his rotating pelvis came into brief heated contact with her thigh.
“You mean, like that?” he asked.
Swan gave out a little squeal and jumped back. She sounded like Gerard, but the unexpected contact had startled her. Had he actually brushed her leg with his crotch? Obviously this guy didn’t need any more help. He had the idea.
“Oookay,” she said, “that was progress.”
Swan was now red to her scalp. Nevertheless she ordered herself to meet his gaze and to hold it until she’d calmed down. He still looked a little perplexed, rather like a stag in headlights, but she wasn’t buying the innocent act. This was a business and she had a show to put on. Her entire future was riding on it and the futures of others, as well. She’d had to let their seamstresses go until things picked up, and that had been far harder to do than this. Besides, Lynne would never have been playing coy games with one of these guys. She might have coaxed him along with a few dancing lessons, but if he hadn’t caught on, he would have been sent on his way.
“Nice move,” she said, trying to sound faintly sardonic. “Now drop those jeans and show me what you got.”
Her partner would have been proud.
But the repairman was still hesitant and something in Swan took over again. This was where all the other models had balked, too. Not that she blamed them. She couldn’t have stripped for an audience, either. With her nerves she would have had to wear diapers!
Business, she reminded herself. You’re not asking him to expose state secrets, just the underwear you designed. All the models were supposed to be wearing Brief Encounters under their costumes.
“All right, I’ll help,” she told him, “but this is the last time.”
She walked back to him, snappily undid the tool belt that hung around his trim waist and let it drop. It landed on the floor with a heavy metallic thud.
Whoa. The ladies were going to scream when that happened. Swan could guarantee it. If he had anywhere near the effect on them he was having on her, Brief Encounters was going to sell out their stock at the first show.
“Disco Inferno” blared into its chorus and the repairman lifted his hands as if he were either surrendering the fort or waiting for her to do the honors. Swan quickly obliged, wondering what alien organism had taken control of her brain. She undid the brass button on his jeans and lowered his zipper.
“I can’t do this for you on the runway,” she said.
But then again, maybe she could. What a video clip that would be. It’s the middle of the fashion show and one of the models can’t get his costume off, so the designer goes up to help him? That could be a showstopper. Oh, my God, Lynne, come back. I’ve either had a flash of brilliance or I’m losing my mind.
His jeans were undone, but she still had the challenge of getting them over his tightly locked gluts. It took some tugging, but finally the denim material gave way and dropped to the floor. Unfortunately the stubborn jeans took her with them. Suddenly she found herself squatting right in front of him, staring at the bulge in person. But there was just one problem.
He wasn’t wearing her underwear. He wasn’t wearing anyone’s underwear!
It was a penis, Swan realized to her horror. The very thing she was trying to cover with her designs. No one should ever see a penis in one of her shows, especially one that looked suspiciously…alert?
Swan was just inches away from said organ, but she was still too shocked to do much of anything but gape. Worse, much worse, for some inexplicable reason, she was intrigued. Her whole body vibrated with a wild, unfamiliar emotion and for one crazy second in time she fought off a terrible impulse to touch it. Only to see how it felt. She wasn’t going to run a finger up and down the entire length of it or fondle it, for heaven’s sake. She was just curious.
The object of Swan’s fantasy suddenly twitched and a strangled sound slipped from her throat. Worse, her valiant attempts to speak resulted in nothing but helpless gurgles and groans. At that very moment the music room door opened and as if summoned by the Devil himself, Gerard poked his head in.
“Are you finished? Oh, I guess not!” He swiftly shut the door.
Swan knew how it must have looked. And sounded, given the obscene noises she’d been making. She would never hear the end of this. At least the music had stopped. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Now she needed to get up off her knees so she could climb to the top floor of the mansion and jump out the window.
The model offered a hand, but Swan didn’t dare. He was bottomless and parts of him were still winking at her. What in the world was wrong with him? Did his privates have some neurological disorder?
“Ma’am? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, turning away from him to get to her feet. Once she’d managed that, she slapped smooth her bunched-up capris and straightened her top.
Without turning around she said, “I guess there’s no point in getting you some underwear and starting this audition over?”
“No, probably not. I don’t dance.”
“You don’t wear underwear, either. So then, why exactly are you here?”
“To fix the phone?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the decidedly virile specimen with his jeans around his ankles. “You really are a telephone repairman?”
“Afraid so,” he said.
“Oh, my God.”
“Can I put my pants on now?” he asked.
What had she done? Swan had no idea what the correct etiquette was in a situation such as this. Should she go back and pull his pants up for him? Should she beg his forgiveness? Luckily, the repairman wasn’t concerned about manners. He bent down, grabbed his jeans and shimmied back into them. As he retrieved his tool belt, a flood of apologies began pouring forth from Swan’s mouth. She wondered if she and Lynne could be sued for something like this! That was all she needed. A sexual harassment charge.
“Could I give you some underwear?” she offered. “A lifetime supply?” Now she was bribing him. Were there laws against that?
“What fun would that be?” he replied in a tone that was wickedly soft.
She searched his handsome face, looking for signs of mercy and compassion. “Fun? Oh, right! That wouldn’t be any fun at all.”
Was that a flicker of amusement in his cool blue eyes? She couldn’t tell. She was momentarily distracted by the striking contrast of the dark hair falling onto his forehead and his faintly arched brows. She would have given anything to know if he was attracted to her. His body seemed to like her well enough, but maybe that was an aberration. She didn’t usually have that effect on men.
He picked up his tool belt and draped it over his shoulder. “Maybe you should point me to your office,” he said, “and I’ll make myself useful. Someone reported a phone problem.”
Swan wasn’t aware of any such problem, but Lynne or Gerard could have called it in. “Through that door and down the hall to your right,” she said. “You can’t miss it. There’s a life-size poster of a local lifeguard in Brief Encounters. We wanted Vin Diesel, but—”
He was already heading for the door. “I am so sorry,” she called after him. “I thought you were one of the models. Really, I did! Sir?”
He hesitated, and she immediately thought better of the question that had been in her head since she’d been on the floor in front of him. Is that normal for you? I mean, in a resting state, is that normal?
“Never mind,” she said, waving him on. “I just, uh, well—I’m sorry about that twitching problem. I have a nervous condition myself.”
He turned around with a glint in his eye that was positively demonic. “Nerves don’t make me twitch,” he said. “Women do—and you should be sorry.”
His voice was dangerously low and husky, and she had the feeling he didn’t often give women the once-over quite so boldly. His hot gaze brushed her body, lingering here and there—especially there, as if he were imagining her with her pants down and him on his knees. Her belly clutched deeply. Her skin had begun to flush and tingle, and by the time his eyes returned to hers she was actually trembling inside. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Swiftly another sensation came upon her. She had to pee! She crossed her ankles and smiled as best she could under the circumstances.
He must have noticed because he snorted low laughter. “Maybe we had both better get back to work?” he suggested. And with that he was gone.
Swan groaned and headed for the bathroom, which was just off the music room, fortunately. Her face was still ablaze with embarrassment, but at least she would get a moment alone to collect herself.
From behind she heard Gerard call out, “Oh, Swaaan…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, whirled around and pointed her finger at him. “Not a word, Gerard. Not one word from you.”
“Whatever you say,” he murmured.
Swan thought she heard a reference to “Deep Throat” as she dashed into her sanctuary and shut the door. She didn’t have to see her beastly assistant to know that he was grinning from ear to ear.
ROB GAINES should not have been smiling. He had work to do. He shouldn’t have been thinking about her, either, but short of a drug-induced coma, he didn’t see that happening. How often did an incredibly hot redhead sidle up to a man, pull down his pants and drop to her knees in front of him? At a moment like that there wasn’t a whole lot else to think about except what she was planning to do next, with her breath so steamy hot and her gorgeous mouth just inches from his—
The twinge of near pain in his groin brought him back to his senses.
Gaines, stop smiling or you’re going to permanently injure yourself.
He pulled a pair of needle-nose pliers and went to work. But as he played with the phone, his thoughts veered back to her. Too bad he couldn’t sign up for dance lessons. She could teach him how to dip and he could teach her what happens when curious little girls play games with big boys.
He could imagine reaching around to undo all that wild redness she kept piled on top of her head and letting it fall loose around her shoulders. He could also imagine kissing her gorgeous lips until they were wet with desire.
He could imagine a few other things, too, but his jeans were getting crowded again—and he had work to do. A mission to accomplish. Quickly. Before anyone had a chance to walk in and interrupt him.
2
SWAN HAD ALL OF NINETY seconds to herself in the bathroom before her cell phone rang. She considered ignoring it but remembered Lynne had promised to call, and she needed to talk to her partner. If it turned out to be someone else, they would just have to listen to her tinkle.
Swan hit the talk button, but didn’t even get to say hello.
“Can you spell yacht?” Lynne Carmichael sang out. “I’m on his yacht, Swan! Gvon Marcello’s yacht! We’re heading out to sea in a matter of minutes.”
“I can’t even spell Gvon,” Swan admitted. “What are you doing on his yacht? I need you here!”
And that was an understatement. She and Lynne weren’t just business partners, they’d been all but inseparable since childhood, sharing everything, especially their problems. They’d gone to the same schools right up until they graduated high school, when Swan had received a scholarship to study design at Brooks College, and Lynne had pursued a business degree at U.S.C.
“Swan, this is big. Big. I showed Gvon our stuff, and he loves it. He’s dropping hints that he might give us our own label. We’d design for him, but it would be our name on the clothes. And he doesn’t want just underwear. He wants loungewear, too, and maybe eventually, sportswear, men’s and women’s. Think about it, Swan. This is a dream come true.”
Swan had thought their tour was a dream come true, but she could hear Lynne’s excitement. “How did you meet him and why are you on his yacht?”
“It was that fund-raiser fashion show I told you about. One of the models introduced me to Gvon, and I had my suitcase of samples with me. Now he wants to talk business, and he said we could do that on his boat—I mean, yacht, excuse me!”
Swan’s sense of urgency grew and it wasn’t just physical. “Lynne, is this what we want to do? Team up with someone else?” They’d worked so hard for this chance to have their own line and they’d always seemed equally driven to succeed. Lynne came from money and Swan didn’t, but that had never mattered to either of them. Swan sometimes wondered if they each needed to prove themselves because of their very different stations in life—Lynne because she’d been given so much and Swan because she’d been given so little.
“It’s not someone else. It’s Gvon Marcello! How many pipsqueak designers like us ever get this chance? Just to be near him is golden.”
Lynne was not going to be talked out of this opportunity. That much was clear, and Swan didn’t necessarily want to pass it up, either. Big breaks came rarely in their business.
“Okay, okay, do what you can,” Swan said, “and then get yourself back here. The party’s tomorrow night.”
There was a distinct gulp on the other end. “I’ll never make it back for the party, Swan. We’re heading out for some secret destination, and even I don’t know where we’re going. Gvon’s destinations are always secret, so the press won’t find out.”
“And you’ll be back when?”
“Two days, three at the most. I know this is crazy and unexpected, but think of the chance to bond with a couture designer.”
“Bond? It sounds like you’re being kidnapped.”
“Oops, we’re leaving. Hear that horn? Now, listen to me, Swan, this is important. Art Long called me, and our loan’s come through. You need to go to the bank at ten tomorrow and pick up the check. Art will be waiting for you.”
The check, thank God! They’d had to mass produce their line to supply the boutiques, and the cost was staggering. Without this money, they wouldn’t be able to handle the mounting bills or pay their share of the tour expenses.
“You’re going to have to sign for it,” Lynne was saying, “and you may have to sign my name, as well, but don’t worry. You’ve done that before on business stuff. Besides, Art’s the loan officer, and he’ll push it through.”
Swan winced at the pressure, both from Lynne’s news and her own bladder. She’d held back out of correct telephone etiquette, but everyone had a breaking point. A sigh of relief escaped her.
“Are you peeing?” Lynn asked.
How could she tell? Swan plucked the air freshener from the back of the commode and spritzed the air, as if that could disguise her failure of nerve. How many over-achievers out there had to trot to the john just when things were getting challenging? This had to be a club with a membership of one.
“I’ll take care of the check,” she assured Lynne. “Have fun, but if you’re not back in time for the L.A. show, I’m coming to get you.”
“So I guess the audition went badly?” Lynne persisted. “If you’re in the bathroom, it must have been bad.”
“Sometimes people just have to go. I was in here when you called.”
Lynne sighed. “How bad was it, Swan? You might as well tell me.”
“Terrible.” Swan shuddered at the thought. “I molested a repairman, thinking he was one of the models.”
“Way to go!” Lynn chortled with delight. “Was he cute?”
Swan found herself smirking into the mouthpiece. “Cute doesn’t begin to describe this guy. He’s sex on the cloven hoof, sent from the hottest region of hell to torment me.”
“Wow, that good?”
“Dark hair, blue eyes, the longest legs I’ve ever seen.” Including the third one. “Just my type.”
“I didn’t know you had a type.”
“I didn’t, either.” Swan sighed, perfectly aware that she would never see the man again. Lynne would have gotten his business card and his bank balance before she let him go. Probably a saliva sample, as well.
“Well, it sounds like you’re having fun, you vixen. How’s the model search going otherwise?”
“I still haven’t found anyone who can dance and unbutton his fly at the same time. I never realized what an art form that was. We should have called the modeling agency instead of letting Gerard recruit his friends.”
“Well, then call the modeling agency.”
“And how do you suggest we pay them?”
“With the check you’re picking up tomorrow!”
That prompted Swan’s second sigh of relief. Of course, they had money now. Maybe they could even afford to pay Gerard’s back wages. Oh, happy day. Now all she needed was for Lynne to come back safely and the show could go on.
“Gotta go,” Lynne said. “Something’s moving and it isn’t me.”
“Be careful!” Swan pleaded, but her partner had already hung up. And with the sound of Lynne’s voice went Swan’s elation. Somehow Swan was going to have to get through the launch party tomorrow night and probably the L.A. show on her own. The odds of Lynne getting back for either seemed slim. But Swan wasn’t alone. She had her indispensable Gerard—and some emergency funding to ease the pain.
Thanks to Art Long, she thought. Lynne had been dating him for a couple of months now, and Art was the one who’d suggested they use the villa as collateral for a business loan. Lynne’s mom and stepdad had retired and moved to the Florida Keys, leaving her the charming, three-story mansion. Unfortunately, Lynne could barely afford the taxes, and her mother’s one condition was that she cover all costs in maintaining the house.
Swan had moved in last year to help defray expenses and they’d converted the villa’s first floor into their design center and offices. But they were still running short every month. Then La Bomba, a trendy west-coast clothing chain, offered to show Brief Encounters’s wares exclusively and to promote them with a fashion show tour. It looked as if the struggle was over. But only in the long term. In the short term, their manufacturing costs had soared and they had yet to recoup any of the money. If the shows didn’t generate strong sales…
Well, Swan wasn’t going to think about that.
Art had pushed the paperwork through in record time, and now it seemed he was willing to participate in a bit of forgery, as well. Lynne had her ways, but Swan wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Lynne had managed to wrap a banker around her little finger.
Swan’s crisis seemed to be over, so she quickly finished. Washing her hands, she glanced at herself in the oval mirror above the marble sink, but did not like what she saw. She looked exactly like what she was: a thirty-year-old woman who’d had to sacrifice most of her “me” time to keep a business afloat. Her aquamarine eyes were her best feature, but even their rather exotic almond shape couldn’t stop them from looking stressed and weary.
Tired of fighting with her long auburn hair, she’d gone after it with a claw clip and it was now back where it belonged, sitting on top of her head. She was grateful for its rich luster, but she probably could have used a stylist—a few highlights wouldn’t have hurt, either. Still, all the sacrifices had been worth it, especially now. She’d come a long way since she and Lynne had joined forces. They both had.
They’d grown up together, though under very different circumstances. Swan’s mother, Pat, had worked for Lynne’s mother as a housekeeper, but they were both single moms and had many things in common, which was probably why their working relationship had developed into a lasting friendship. Eventually Lynne’s mother, Felice, had remarried, but she and Pat had remained close. Pat still worked as a housekeeper for another very wealthy family. Her duties now mostly involved supervising the household staff. Whenever she could, she traveled to Florida to visit Felice.
Swan owed much to her mother. It was Pat who had taught her to sew and to piece whole outfits together from whatever material was available. Swan took to it quickly, once fashioning slacks and a blazer from a corduroy bedspread. But her mother was also a cautious and fearful soul who believed that dreams were dangerous and pursuing them even more so. She’d never wanted Swan to do anything but follow safely in her footsteps. “It’s steady work,” she liked to say. “You’ll never go hungry or lack for a roof over your head.”
Maybe that was another reason Swan felt the need to prove herself. Her doting mom was waiting for her to fail.
Swan felt as if she were carrying Brief Encounters squarely on her shoulders right now, and everything she and Lynne had was at stake. It wasn’t just their business, it was this house, too….
But if she didn’t stop thinking like that, she would never get out of the loo.
She peeked up and down the hallway before letting herself out of the bathroom. Somewhere loose in this building was a dangerously attractive telephone repairman with a twitch, and she did not want to run into him again.
SWAN HAD ALWAYS FOUND banks a bit stifling, but this morning was different. She was absolutely thrilled to be at the Manhattan Beach branch of First National Heritage. Her pulse was alive with excitement as she walked into the heart of the brick-and-marble building and looked around for the man she needed. Now, where was Arthur Long?
She searched for a tall, lanky man with a heavily jelled crew cut and round Harry-Potter-like glasses. Swan didn’t know a whole lot about Art, except that he was a loan officer at First National and Lynne was quite taken with him. Art was cute in a bankish way, and he had a habit of looking you straight in the eyes and clasping your hand the way a minister would. Unfortunately, he reminded her more of a salesman than a minister. He talked fast and breathy, and he liked to slip your name into the conversation as often as possible, as if to cement the fact that you were friends, darnit.
There he was, coming out of one of the bank’s offices. She waved and managed to catch his eye. He headed her way, all horn-rimmed spectacles and big wide smile. Probably a perfectly nice guy, she thought, wondering why she wasn’t lucky enough to be attracted to one of the nice guys of the world. Her first—and last—romantic disaster had been a limo driver, a bad boy down to his muscle-man T-shirts and unfiltered cigarettes. And now she was losing her mind over a telephone repairman who was too sexy for his tool kit?
She could feel the heat rising all over again as she thought about what she’d done to him. What she didn’t understand was why she couldn’t get him out of her head. She’d even dreamed about him last night, and of course what had she done in the dream but give in to her crazy impulse and touch him. The entire vibrating length of him. What happened after that was the stuff of X-rated videos. It could probably have gotten them arrested in some states.
“Right this way,” Art said, seemingly unaware of his client’s rocketing blood pressure as he guided her into his office. “Have a seat and we’ll have this taken care of in a couple of minutes.”
Swan managed to sit in an overstuffed leather chair and return Art’s smile without giving away her breathy, over-heated condition. She forced herself to take in her surroundings. The size of the room and the quality of the decor were impressive. The desk looked as though it might be mahogany, and there was a matching credenza against the wall. Apparently Art was doing well. She was glad someone was. Was that gleam of gold on his wrist a Rolex watch?
“I can’t tell you how much Lynne and I appreciate this,” she assured Art. “I just wish she could be here.”
His nod said he did, too. “She told me about Gvon. If all goes well, and I know it will, Swan, you two could be doing your fall show in New York next year.”
He seemed very understanding about Lynne’s sea voyage with another man, but it was widely believed that Gvon’s interest in women was solely limited to the clothes he designed for them, so perhaps Art’s masculinity wasn’t threatened.
Art dragged a large folder of papers from the side of his desk to the center. Even though there was no one else in his office, he lowered his voice. “We just need you to sign Lynne’s name on a couple of these documents. As long as we have her permission, there’s no problem. Basically, this stuff gets filed away and no one ever looks at it again.”
Swan shifted uneasily. She wished she could be as casual about this little bit of forgery as Art and Lynne. Still, there weren’t any other options. They needed the money now. The fate of their tour was on the line—and if the tour was on the line, so was their business.
“Okay,” she said. “It isn’t as if I haven’t done this plenty of times—Lynne and I are always signing each other’s names to forms, but never loan documents.”
Art pulled a Cross pen from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’ll be fine, Swan. There and there.” He pointed to the appropriate places.
Unlike Swan’s carefully controlled signature, Lynne’s was a flamboyant scrawl that was completely illegible. It fit her carefree personality perfectly. Art slid the document that named the house as collateral over to her. Swan made a practiced twirl with her right hand and then laid pen to paper and signed her partner’s name.
“I hope there aren’t any problems with this,” she said. “Lynne would be devastated if she lost that house. It’s been in her family for ages, you know.”
Art just grinned and swept the papers into a neat pile. “You two are unstoppable, trust me. You have a great future ahead of you.”
“If only you were an underwear buyer.” Swan watched as Art bundled the documents into a fan folder. From his top desk drawer he took out a check and a leather-bound book. “How’s a hundred grand sound?” he said, handing her the check.
Swan’s hand trembled as she took the money from him. Her breath faded as she looked at it. One hundred thousand dollars.
“I had this organizer made up especially for your whirlwind tour,” Art said, holding up the leather book. “It has your company name embossed on the pages and there’s a digital order book in the back to keep track of your skyrocketing orders.”
Swan had a mental image of the old organizer in her bag, which was falling apart from wear. The book he handed her was beautifully crafted. The organizer section was made of high-quality paper with their company name inscribed in beautiful lettering. The other section contained several useful compartments, including the one that held a tiny computerized order book. Swan was sure the package must have cost several hundred dollars.
“Thank you!” she exclaimed softy. “It’s beautiful. Lynne will be as thrilled as I am.”
“Listen, when she gets back, we’ll all get together and have dinner. My treat.”
Swan shook her head in protest. “Our treat, and we’ll wrestle you for the check. You’ve been much too good to us.”
Despite the banker specs, Art had a dashing smile and he flashed it now. “What red-blooded guy would turn down a chance to wrestle two beautiful women?”
Once Swan had gathered up her belongings, Art escorted her as far as the door of his office when a ringing phone stopped him. Swan quickly thanked him again and left. As she walked through the lobby, heading toward double glass doors leading to the bright sunshine outside, she had a thought that almost frightened her.
No turning back now.
MOMENTS BEFORE THE PARTY was about to start that evening, Swan stepped out onto the patio and allowed herself a moment to take in the magical world that lay before her in the estate’s gardens. She clutched her new leather organizer, where she’d jotted her commentary for the show, and took a breath. Gerard had outdone himself. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to put together such an elegant display on a party budget that bordered on embarrassing. Buffet tables sat on the left and right of a rented champagne fountain. Japanese lanterns hung in colorful patterns, augmenting the starlight from a crystal-clear sky above. At the far end of the garden Gerard had set up a runway, accented by delicate white lights. The entire space had become a place of wonder and delight.
“Are you pleased?” Gerard asked as he hurried up the flagstone steps and joined her. He took a moment to check out Swan’s outfit and gave her a surprised blink of approval. It was a daring black silk halter top with a bias-cut skirt that she’d put together a couple of summers back, wondering if there would ever be an occasion to wear it. To gear yourself up for a bold move, this was the dress to wear, she thought. And tonight was the night.
“If you’re not thrilled with all of this,” he said, “I’m going to hang myself. Just like that nanny did in The Omen.”
The way he stood with his hands on his hips and his face all expectant made Swan laugh. Gerard was no taller than five feet six and on the plump side these days but his heart was large, and that was what mattered. Plus, whatever he lacked in stature, he definitely made up for in Sturm and Drang.
“Gerard, I love it! How on earth did you ever manage this?”
He flipped his hand casually. “Oh, it was nothing. A little of this, a little of that, and a lot of discount shopping.”
“I’ll never be able to repay you. Not just for this, for everything you’ve done these past few days. I couldn’t have made it without your help.”
“My pleasure, Duckling.” He loved to call her Duckling instead of Swan, but at least he didn’t put the U-word in front of it. “Lest you forget,” he said, “I’m your biggest cheerleader. It isn’t every day that a couple of feisty independents decide to strike out on their own, especially in this business—and you know how I love an underdog.”
He headed off, beckoning her to come with him. “The guests will be arriving any minute, and you’re the receiving line. Once you greet everybody and get them eating, drinking and mingling, I’ll do the honors and introduce you.”
Swan had been on the run for days, but suddenly her nervousness caught up with her. And it wasn’t just the stress of the tour, as if that wasn’t enough. She’d been having vivid dreams at night and flashbacks during the day, all of them erotic and all of them starring long-legged men with bulging tool kits. She never knew when the lurid images would pop into her head, and it was playing hell with her composure.
“I wish you were coming with me on the road trip,” she said, trailing after Gerard. “If you were there, I wouldn’t feel so…so…”
“Helpless? Vulnerable? Terrified?” Gerard offered.
Swan nodded. “Any one of those would fill the blank.”
Gerard grabbed her hand and led her back into the house and down to the foyer. Her black-beaded heels clicked on the marble steps and her skirt swished against her legs. The knowledge that at least she’d dressed for the part boosted her confidence. She left her organizer on an occasional table as he went to open the door and usher in the first of the guests. Here we go, she thought, taking a deep breath.
The guest list had been a calculated move with calculated risks. The L.A. Times and the Long Beach Press Telegram were both sending their assistant fashion editors tonight. Photographers from In Style magazine and Details were scheduled to show up, as well. The risk was that they would pan the line. Veteran designers could weather bad reviews, but hopefuls could be wiped out by just one, especially if it was the premier show.
Besides the press, the small staff of people who had actually worked with Lynne and Swan to get the new line from idea to reality had been invited, along with the managers of the Los Angeles La Bomba boutique. Swan’s mother had been invited, too, of course, but Pat McKenna was too concerned about the risks her daughter was taking to show up and witness them in person.
May she be wrong about that, Swan thought. With all due respect, may she be dead wrong.
Once she’d greeted everyone, Swan began mingling, making her way through the house and out into the gardens. It was quite a heady experience seeing so many enthusiastic faces and hearing the buzz of excitement about her new creations. Jan Hudson, the manager of La Bomba, rushed up to her.
“Wonderful party!” she said, clasping Swan’s hand. “We can’t wait for you to bring the show to the store. Everything is ready to go.” She glanced around. “Where’s your partner in crime?”
Jan clearly meant Lynne, but there was no time for Swan to explain. She was being summoned.
“It’s show time!” Gerard called, waving at her from across the wide expanse of neatly trimmed grass. He was climbing the steps to the stage and runway that he and his buddies had built.
“Good luck,” Jan said as Swan excused herself.
Swan silently rehearsed her opening lines as she headed for the stage. She wasn’t accustomed to public speaking, but the show had to go on, and she was the one who had to deliver it. Fortunately she had the organizer notes to back her up if she went blank. And this bold black dress as her shield.
Just don’t let me have to whiz, she prayed.
Gerard tapped the microphone with his hand. Three loud thumps assaulted the quiet night air. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “she is not only the designer of the hottest new line of male undies in recent memory—which will be sold exclusively through the La Bomba boutiques, I might add—she is also our master of ceremonies tonight. I give you Swan McKenna!”
Waving to the clapping crowd, Swan hurried up two creaky wooden steps to join Gerard at the podium.
“Swan McKenna!” he bellowed again. Gerard gave her a thumbs-up before disappearing behind the curtain of the makeshift stage. He’d also volunteered himself and his motley crew to run the slide show, lights and sound system.
“Thank you all for coming,” Swan said, still a little breathless. Her voice sounded loud and hollow as it came through the speakers. “Some of you may have noticed that my partner, Lynne Carmichael, isn’t with us tonight. She was called away on a business matter, but she sends her love and her gratitude for your support.”
Swan sucked in a breath and smiled. “And now, I would like to present a sneak preview of Brief Encounters’s first-ever line of male undergarments. This is our fall collection, and we have for your viewing pleasure our Romeo Underwear, our Hero Bodywear and our Machismo Activewear!”
On that cue, Gerard flipped on the sound system and the night erupted with Jerry Lee Lewis wailing out “Great Balls of Fire.” The audience applauded as three male models burst onto the stage and began their routine. Behind them, projected on a black silk screen, were huge color slides of other pieces from the fall line. The photos had been Swan’s idea, and it had cut down significantly on their need for models.
“Starting the show is our Romeo for tonight, Brad!” The applause was instantaneous as Brad took center stage. He wore an Armani tuxedo jacket and very little else. In one hand, he clutched a dozen roses, and in the other, a heart-shaped box of candy. His lower parts were encased in a snug-fitting thong that was glow-in-the-dark pink. But even Swan wasn’t prepared when the lights went out. For a few moments, all you could see was a disembodied hot-pink thong bobbing around.
Not unlike my dreams, Swan thought ironically.
The crowd howled and flashbulbs popped as photographers jostled one another for a better angle.
“The Romeo imprint is for the romantic at heart,” Swan said. “The man who knows how to sweet-talk and candy-walk his way right into his lover’s heart. Romeo gets his Juliet every time when he’s wearing a Brief Encounters design!”
As Brad left the stage, the second model came forward. He wore a traditional red fireman’s helmet and had a length of fire hose draped over his bare shoulder as he strode confidently down the runway. “For the damsel in distress, for the adventuress, and for all who love a man in uniform, bring on the heroes!”
This round of applause was even louder than the first. Swan noticed that a few of the women in the audience were actually getting to their feet to get a better look at Sam the Fireman. Sam’s formfitting briefs were fire-engine red with black suspender-like straps attached. When he got to the end of the lighted runway, he stopped and yanked the hose from his shoulder, pointing the nozzle at the audience.
“What do you think, ladies?” Swan asked cheerfully. “Is he hot enough for you? Should we hose him down?”
Sam dazzled them with a raffish grin before bowing his head. As he turned, the audience got their first good look at his tightly knotted buttocks, and the normally tranquil garden gave up a roar of approval.
“Whew,” Swan said, wiping her brow in exaggerated fashion. “We better cool things off.” There were loud groans of protest and Swan laughed. “You don’t want to cool off? Not even with a swim? How about a swim with the man who’s bold enough to wear Machismo?”
Model number three sprinted onto the runway in a black bikini swimsuit that left little to the imagination. Atop his head was a black swimming cap and goggles. Tall, tanned and sleek as a panther, he made his way down the runway.
Swan gave her spiel on the Machismo line and allowed the raucous response to build as she waved all three models back onto center stage. “This is only the preview,” she shouted, trying to be heard over the noise. “The entire line can be seen tomorrow night at the La Bomba boutique on Melrose. Again, thank you all for coming!”
With that, she grabbed her organizer from the podium and descended into a throng of well-wishers. Her sense of relief outweighed everything else, but the success of the event began to dawn on her as she was swept into one embrace after another. Her guests, professional and otherwise, seemed thrilled by the program—and happy for her. Maybe it was safe to say that the fashion show was a hit. She only hoped the line was, too.
The press rushed over with questions about the show, and there was a line of people waiting to extend their congratulations. Swan held out through most of it, savoring the sweetness of Brief Encounters’s first victory, and wishing Lynne had been here to share it. She had to find Gerard to thank him, too. But finally, she had no choice. The need to excuse herself was becoming more urgent every second.
“Brava!” someone called out as Swan hurried into the house. Some of the guests had moved inside from the garden, and she smiled, waving as she sailed by them. The closest bathroom was in the hall, under the foyer staircase. She turned the knob, grateful that she had made it. Locked! From inside someone said, “Out in a sec.”
But Swan didn’t have much more than a second. She trotted down the hall and ducked into one of the guest rooms. The bathroom door was open and the light was off. Empty.
In record time she had her ruffled skirt hiked up and her panties and panty hose down to her ankles. She’d worn panties because her new Tanga Totally Nude panty hose were quite risqué without them—and also because of the problem that had brought her to the bathroom. A psychologist friend had told her that her sense of urgency was nothing more than a reaction to stress. Swan didn’t disagree, but tell that to her bladder on a night such as this.
It hit her suddenly how exhausted she was. The past few days had been a whirlwind of activity, but she had made it through, and she had made it through on her own. It had not only gone well, it had gone better than she’d dreamed it might—the perfect day, really.
Lord, she was tired. She could go to sleep right here.
Letting her eyes drift shut, she reached for the toilet tissue. A few seconds later she heard a creaking noise and she slowly opened her eyes again. A few seconds? Swan blinked several times. It must have been long enough for her to have fallen into a deep sleep—because she was now dreaming that there was a man in her bathroom—a very tall, angry-looking man holding a big gold badge.
“Swan McKenna?” he said. “You’re under arrest.”
3
IT WAS A GOOD THING Swan had already finished her personal business. Otherwise she would have left a puddle on the bathroom floor. Under arrest? He had to be kidding. “Gerard!” she called. Her assistant must have put this guy up to it. “Get out of my bathroom,” she croaked at the intruder when there was no immediate response from Gerard. Leaning toward the partially open door, she shouted again, “Gerard! Are you out there? This isn’t funny. Get this policeman person out of my bathroom! The auditions are over!”
“FBI, ma’am,” the intruder said. His voice was quiet and calm in the face of her distress. “And I’m not going anywhere. You are. To jail.”
Swan couldn’t even stand to demand that he leave. She was sitting on the throne with her panties down and her skirt up. This had to be some crazy prank Gerard thought up with the help of his male model friends, although this guy didn’t seem to be one of them. He hadn’t been part of the crew. But now that she thought about it, she had seen him somewhere before.
“If you don’t leave instantly, I’m calling the law,” she warned. She grabbed a plastic plunger from its holder on the floor, as if to swing it at him.
“Ma’am, I am the law.” He flashed the badge again. “Rob Gaines, Special Agent, FBI. Now put that thing down and get up. Slowly.”
Swan peered at him for so long that it suddenly hit her where she’d seen him before. “I know you,” she gasped. “You’re not FBI, you’re that telephone repairman! Did you think you could fool me by changing costumes?”
“Trust me, Ms. McKenna, this is no costume. Now set the plunger down and put up your hands. Keep them where I can see them at all times.”
He wasn’t the sexy-as-sin telephone repairman who’d been invading her dreams for the past two days? He was a government agent? Boy, could she pick ’em. Swan wanted desperately to think that this was a dream, too, a very bad one, but as she scrutinized his dark hair and hot blue eyes, she realized something. It was him—and he wasn’t looking at her hands.
She followed his gaze to the length of thigh exposed by her hiked-up skirt. Apparently, FBI agents weren’t bashful about getting an eyeful. She dropped the plunger and tugged her skirt to her knees.
“Do you mind?” she said. “I’d like to finish up without an audience.”
“Sorry, ma’am, we can’t do that,” another voice said.
Swan looked around Gaines and saw a second man at the bathroom door. He was as tall as Gaines but possibly twenty pounds heavier, with short-cropped, sandy-blond hair that looked as if it might be prematurely graying.
“Joe Harris, FBI,” he said.
“Are you selling tickets out there or what?” she snapped. “I’d like some privacy, please.”
“Swan? Is everything all right?” Gerard was suddenly peering over the shoulder of Joe Harris. “Who are these men, Ducks?”
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “You don’t know them, either?”
Gaines had never taken his gaze from her person, and if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, he didn’t blink. Not once. The man had no reflexes—and his burning gaze had her heart thumping in that strange and unfamiliar way again. His jeans and work shirt were gone, replaced by a navy single-breasted suit that looked way too good on him. He could have been an old-fashioned G-man with his dark, sardonic eyebrows and his seen-it-all-and-then-some scowl.
He shot her a warning look that basically said, Don’t do anything to make me pull my gun and shoot you, and then he turned to his partner. “I can handle this, Joe.”
Joe didn’t seem to agree. “You may need a witness in case she claims you molested her or something.”
“I can handle it,” Gaines insisted. “Shut the door and take her friend with you.”
Harris backed Gerard out and once the two of them were gone, Gaines kicked the door shut with his foot. “Take care of business,” he ordered Swan, apparently referring to her nature call, “and make it snappy.”
“I’ll take care of business,” she said, yanking some tissue from the dispenser, “as soon as you look the other way.”
He turned sideways, clearly intending to watch her without staring right at her. It was all she was going to get, Swan realized, secretly furious at him for betraying her this way. How could he have let her think that he was some poor, defenseless, oversexed telephone repairman when all the time he was setting her up? A moment later she was bending down, wondering if she could get her panties and panty hose up all at once. She’d never been able to do it before, but she’d never been under surveillance in her own bathroom, either.
She arranged the slippery silk panties and the gossamer hose in her fingers and began easing both up her calves. Once she had them high enough, she would quickly stand and tug everything over her hips. At the same time her skirt would fall down, covering all the vital places. It could work, but it was a delicate operation.
Her calves were covered and she was inching the panty hose over her knees when he let out a sharp sigh of impatience. She began to hurry and the panties slipped from her fingers and balled up in the nylons. She kept going out of fear, but every tug made it worse. The nylons had curled into an airtight roll, sucking the panties in with them. They looked like link sausages. Damn! Now she would have to start all over.
“Time’s up,” he announced.
“Wait a minute!” Springing to her feet, Swan brushed her skirt down and gingerly coaxed the lingerie up at the same time. For a second she thought it was going to unfurl, but that glimmer of hope was her downfall. It made her hurry even more. She couldn’t see what she was doing because of the skirt’s ruffly hem, so she yanked the silly thing back up and stuffed a wad of it in her mouth, clenching her teeth to hold it while she worked. She felt like a Flamenco dancer with an entire bouquet of roses in her teeth.
Now the black silk material was rolling up, too! It had slipped in between her tummy and her underwear. She would soon be nothing but one big airtight wad, encased in nylon.
“Cuuduuupleeeeleeee!” she mumbled, asking him nicely to leave.
Her skirt was disappearing and her halter top would be next. Everything she owned had decided to tie itself into knots, including her tongue.
“Neeeeesummpriiisee.” She needed privacy. Couldn’t he see that?
Her struggles just twisted things tighter. And now her fingers were caught. Desperate, she released the skirt from her teeth and began to fumble inside her panty hose in earnest. She had to find her bikinis and separate the warring pieces of lingerie. Her hand was still buried inside her undies when he glanced her way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been taken hostage by her underwear.
“What are you doing?” Gaines asked.
“Concealing a weapon,” she said sarcastically.
Big mistake. Big.
Evidently, federal law enforcement officers didn’t appreciate a little harmless gun humor. Without warning, Gaines spun around to face her. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw her Houdini-like predicament. If someone had tossed her off a bridge, she would have drowned before she could get her hands free.
Swan tried to extricate herself, but she couldn’t. It was like being restrained with Saran Wrap. Somehow she had created a slipknot, perhaps out of an elastic leg hole, and it wasn’t about to let go of her fingers.
Gaines closed the distance between them in two easy strides. “What have you got in there?”
“Nothing! It’s just my underwear!”
“The hell you say. You’re trying to shove something into your panties.”
Swan gave him a look of utter exasperation. “I am not trying to shove anything into my panties. I’m trying to get something out of them. And it’s not working.”
Before she could explain, she felt herself being spun around like a toy top. The way he gripped her wrist and pulled, he didn’t seem to care whether or not he left her fingers behind. Fortunately it only took one firm tug to free her and then he yanked both of her hands behind her back.
“Hey, is that necessary?” she said as handcuffs locked down on her wrists.
“We’re going to clear this up and we’re going to clear it up now.”
Gaines turned her around and scrutinized her from head to toe. It was obvious from his perplexed expression that he had no idea how a woman could have been strait-jacketed by her own clothing in mere moments. And with no help from anyone else.
“You did this to yourself?” he asked.
Swan glanced down and let out a little moan of despair. A skirt that would normally have covered her legs to mid-calf now exposed her from her belly button downward. The link-sausage undies were an awful sight, but at least she wasn’t dealing with full-frontal nudity. She was too mortified to even consider what her backside must look like. From the way it felt, she was going to have to keep her rear to the wall at all times.
Swan wasn’t sure it was possible to be more humiliated.
Rob Gaines proved her wrong.
“I have to search you,” he said.
Swan shook her head so hard she nearly lost her balance. “I want a female officer to search me!”
His shrug said, Sure, whatever you want, lady. “Let’s go then.”
He pointed to the door, but she didn’t move. “Go where? I can’t even walk.”
“Headquarters. If you want a female, that’s where we’re going.”
If angry glares could burn, he would have been charcoal briquettes. “All right,” she sighed. “Get it over with then.”
“I should call in my partner,” he said.
“No! Search me, dammit. Frisk me, pat me down, probe my body cavities, whatever the hell you have to do, just do it and get it over with.”
“Thanks for all the options,” he said dryly. He placed his palms on her waist and began to frisk her in a way that was totally professional but not at all reassuring. He was thorough and patient as he slid his hands along the curves and swells of her body. He never touched her inappropriately. He never even spoke, but there was something about the feathery pressure of his fingers, or maybe it was his smoky aftershave or the heat of his breathing, that elicited what Swan could only call unwelcome sensations. Whew. He was everywhere with his velvet-soft hands, even inside her thighs.
Swan’s stomach took an express ride down, and her heart went the opposite direction. A weird tremble crept into her breathing, and she very nearly emitted an audible sigh of relief when he stopped. If her panties weren’t damp before, they certainly were now.
“Thanks,” she said, willing strength back into her legs.
Apparently satisfied that she was unarmed, he stepped back and studied her hopelessly snarled clothing. “Want me to fix that?”
It was either him or the bomb squad. “Sure.”
“Okay, but it may take surgical intervention.”
“Meaning you’re going to cut off my underwear?”
“Meaning I’ll try to untangle it, but if I can’t, this is Plan B.” He pulled a penknife from an inner pocket of his jacket and set it on the vanity table. “Either way, I’ll have to go in.”
“Go in where? Hey!” Swan gasped as he stretched her panty hose out like a slingshot and delved into her drawers. “Hey, stop that!”
His hand was much too large not to touch things it shouldn’t. So much for professionalism. Something brushed her pubic hair and she let out a squeal.
“What is this?” she cried, “some kind of macho payback for pulling your pants down?”
To his credit, he didn’t respond. He went about his business, feeling around some more, working the knots like a safecracker. He plucked and toggled and tugged, but nothing seemed to give way. When he went to pull his hand out, it didn’t give, either. He was stuck.
Swan let out a horrified gasp. This could not be happening.
“We seem to have a problem,” he said.
“No, we don’t,” she informed him in barely audible tones. “Just amputate your hand at the wrist and we’ll be fine.”
His expression told her he didn’t think much of her suggestion. In fact, if she’d been a zoo animal, and he’d had a tranquilizer gun, she would have been headed for a very long nap.
“I was thinking of something a little less drastic,” he intoned.
“Like what?” She didn’t trust any part of this. He wasn’t moving his hand, but she couldn’t help thinking that his eyes were unnaturally bright, and his breathing had deepened. It mortified her to think that he might have discovered the damp spot. Fiend. He was enjoying this.
“Like this wad of nylon must be ballistic,” he told her. “It could stop a bullet. I recommend Plan B.”
“These are my best black panties! And my last pair of Tanga panty hose!”
“Would you like us to be buried in them?” he inquired politely. “Because that’s how long it will take to get the damn things unsnarled.”
“Oh, use the scissors in the drawer,” she said crossly, gesturing to the vanity where he’d set the penknife.
Just moments later Swan’s panty hose were in shreds and so were her nerves. She told herself that going commando was preferable to having an FBI agent in her pants, but as Gaines snipped away at her underwear, she wondered how this entry would look in her journal. “Tonight I was handcuffed in my bathroom while an FBI agent surgically removed his hand from my panty hose, after which he hauled me to jail and threw me in a holding cell with hookers and drug addicts.”
A shudder started at the base of her heels and slithered up her spine.
“Hold still,” he said. “I’m almost there.”
She didn’t ask where. She just closed her eyes and held her breath until she felt the wad begin to give way. A moment later his fingers were no longer nestled against her private parts and the garrote that was strangling her stomach was gone! With a few more snips of the scissors, he had the lingerie free and he was gingerly peeling it off her. He even made sure her lower extremities were covered with her skirt. What a prince.
What was that he was humming? “Natural Woman?”
She opened her eyes and was surprised to find him standing there, studying her intently, his hands planted on his hips. She could hardly believe this was the same man who’d nearly achieved lift-off in her design center. He could have had the decency to look a little flustered, couldn’t he? Especially when she was breathing like a distance runner. All she could think about at that moment was the satisfaction of breaking through his reserve and making him squirm, too.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” he said, leveling a firm gaze at her. “But I don’t want any problems. Understand?”
He even waited for her to nod.
The moment her hands were free, Swan adjusted her blouse and skirt, as if that could restore her respectability. “This is outrageous,” she said in a trembling voice. “How dare you come in here and accuse me of— What am I accused of anyway?”
“You’re under arrest for several counts of bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy and forgery. Serious stuff.”
Swan gaped at him as he took a card from his coat pocket and began to Mirandize her. He was as nonchalant as if he’d never been messing around in her pants, as if he hadn’t made her tremble and gasp.
She heard the words about her rights, heard what he said about lawyers and about how anything she said could and would be used against her in a court of law. She heard every bit of it, but none of it truly registered. It felt as if she were not in her own skin anymore. Was she going into shock?
“Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
“Uh—”
“I need a yes or no.”
She gave him a defiant look, her spirit flooding back. “Yes, I understand my rights, and I also understand that I haven’t done anything wrong. You and your buddy out there have made a terrible mistake.”
“Have we?” he said. “It’s all on videotape.”
“Videotape of what?”
“Of you, forging a name on loan documents and walking out of the bank with an unauthorized bank draft for—”
“Unauthorized?” Until this very moment Swan had clung to the notion that this was a practical joke or some kind of mistake. Now, with a clarity that made her heart tumble, she understood what was happening. She didn’t know what he meant by “unauthorized check,” but she had signed Lynne’s name to the loan papers and somehow the Feds had found out. Those were serious charges.
But she could explain them!
She forced herself to breathe, even to smile. “It is a mistake. All you have to do is call Art Long at First National Heritage. He’ll explain everything.”
Art would probably lose his job over this, she realized, if he hadn’t already. She didn’t want that to happen, but she didn’t want to go to jail, either.
“Art Long has been taken into custody. He’s cooling his heels down at the federal building right now. And by the way, he cracked under pressure and told us everything.”
She stared at him in amazement. “You arrested Arthur? What did he do?”
“Conspired with you to rob First National Heritage.”
“No! That’s ridiculous. Lynne Carmichael and I got a loan from the bank. I did sign her name, yes, but I had her permission, and she’s my business partner.”
Gaines nodded, not particularly interested, apparently. “Long gave you some papers today and a book,” he said. “A gift, I believe. Where is that book now?”
Swan shook her head, confused. “The organizer?”
“Yes.”
“It’s right there.” She pointed to the floor between the commode and the vanity. In her haste to get her panties down, she had set it there.
Gaines took some rubber gloves from his coat pocket and tugged them onto his hands. He picked up the organizer, gave it a cursory once-over, and then opened the bathroom door a crack. “Hey, Joe, you want to witness this?”
From her vantage point, Swan could see Gerard as he sat on a chair in the far corner of the bedroom. He looked forlorn and frightened. Joe Harris stood over him, scribbling notes on a small pocket-size pad. Gerard glanced up and shrugged, obviously as much in the dark as she was herself. Harris said something to Gerard that she couldn’t hear. Gerard nodded weakly and stood up. He offered Swan a tiny smile and then left the room.
Special Agent Harris pulled on his own pair of gloves as he entered the bathroom. “Find it?” he asked.
Gaines casually waved the engraved book to prove he had it.
Swan’s stomach was in knots as both men focused on her. She felt like a lab specimen. “What does this have to do with the loan papers?” she asked.
Neither man replied. The silent treatment in full swing. Gaines plucked out the cashier’s check she’d picked up from Art Long yesterday. He handed it to Harris, who studied it for a moment and then slipped it into a clear plastic bag he’d taken from his pocket. As Harris was doing this, Gaines picked up the penknife that he’d planned to operate with and carefully cut a razor-fine slit down the inside of the book’s back cover. Swan was aghast. He’d ruined it! Wasn’t her underwear enough?
“What are you doing with my check?” she asked Harris. And then to Gaines, “Look what you’ve done to my organizer!”
“Evidence,” Harris said.
“Evidence,” Gaines said.
“Evidence of what? I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all a mistake. Lynn will tell you that!”
Gaines arched his brows. “This is a mistake?”
Swan watched in silence as he carefully removed a piece of paper that had obviously been hidden between the book cover and its back piece. He held it up for her to see. It was another cashier’s check of some sort. It was made out to Lynne Carmichael and the amount brought a gasp of disbelief.
Four million, nine-hundred-thousand dollars and no cents.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
Harris waved the plastic bag that contained her check. “Altogether, that’s five million in embezzled bank funds.”
Too much was happening too quickly. Too many questions were ricocheting inside her mind for her to grasp even one and examine it closely. Swan staggered back, lowered the lid on the commode and sat down. “Is there more?” she asked.
Harris frowned. “What? Money?”
Swan shook her head. She should be going crazy, but instead she was going numb. “No. Surprises. Are there any more surprises?”
Gaines gave both the book and the check to Harris, who was apparently in charge of submitting them as evidence. “I’ll tag and bag these,” Harris said as he stepped out of the bathroom. “It’ll take a few minutes. You got her?”
After Harris had left, Swan glanced pleadingly at Rob Gaines. “I really need you to explain what’s going on. This is all a mistake. I didn’t know anything about that check, the big one.”
For a long moment he simply stood there studying her as he slowly peeled the rubber gloves from his hands. She wondered if he was going to speak to her at all, when, finally, he leaned against the edge of the vanity.
“There’s no mistake, Ms. McKenna,” he said. “You and Lynne are up to your necks in this, however—”
He seemed to be deliberating again, but she sensed there was more on the man’s mind than bank robberies. Possibly a lot more. Possibly her.
“However what?” she asked.
“Well, there might be a way that we could work something out.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. She had a bad feeling about where he was going with this, but, at the same time, her vital signs were whipping themselves into a frenzy again. Her skin was feverish and her hairline was damp. He seemed to be able to do that to her under just about any damn circumstances.
“Just tell me what you want,” she implored.
That triggered a glance from him that nearly made her vital signs stop. It had all the smoldering intensity of an illicit touch and Swan was rocked back by it. But she’d barely had time to register the impact when she was wondering if the whole thing had been her imagination.
All at once he was the government agent again—standing tall, arms crossed with the authority of a hanging judge, and when he spoke, it was cool and professional.
“The FBI can count on your cooperation then?” he said. “We have a tough case on our hands, and you could be useful to us.”
She nodded. “Of course, I’ll cooperate. Tell me what’s going on.”
Gaines relaxed his stance and began. If he’d been harboring any prurient urges, they were well concealed. “Your friend, Art Long, is one of the best con men in the business,” he explained. “It’s taken us years, but we finally have him where we want him. Only there’s a problem. Long didn’t work this scam alone. Someone inside the bank helped him, someone highly placed. We want that person, too.”
“But how can I help? Lynne and I don’t work at the bank. Surely you must know that.”
“We do. But we also know that Ms. Carmichael and Art Long have been seeing each other socially. We know Long has visited this house and spent time with both you and Carmichael.”
“You’ve had us under surveillance?”
He ignored her and went on. “What we don’t know is whether you and your partner were duped by Long or whether you’re part of his scheme.”
“We were duped,” she assured him. “Lynn and I thought Art wanted to help us. And, I swear to you, Lynne doesn’t know any more about this than I do.”
“Speaking of Ms. Carmichael, where is she?”
“She’s with a designer. A big designer, who might be interested in sponsoring our line under his label. This could be the break of a lifetime.”
“That explains what she’s doing. Now, where is she doing it?”
Swan shifted and felt cool air swirling around inside her skirt. It was quite a draft. “I don’t know,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “They’re on a yacht somewhere on the high seas.”
“Ever hear of obstruction of justice?”
“I don’t know where she is!” Was her skirt still hiked up? Swan twisted around to look and nearly swooned as the blood rushed out of her head. God, wasn’t bladder urgency enough? Gaines caught her elbow to steady her. His grasp on her bare arm was firm, though not overly so. But his fingers were hot and strong, and she almost wished he would do something more with them. She didn’t want to think what exactly, but something.
“Take it easy,” he said.
Swan released a breath that helped clear her head a bit. “I’m fine,” she said, but it sounded as hollow as she felt. “Just tell me there’re no more surprises. I don’t think I can take any more tonight.”
She looked up at him, saw his expression and groaned inwardly.
“I’ve got one more,” he said, “and you aren’t going to like it.”
4
“MS. MCKENNA! Come back here!”
Rob Gaines belted out the command as Swan brushed past him and walked into the adjoining bedroom. She needed some space to clear her head and she needed it now. In less than twenty minutes he’d accused her of horrendous crimes and strip-searched her in a way that gave new meaning to the term.
What was next? Stop or I’ll shoot?
“That was not a request,” Gaines barked. “Stop or I’ll—”
Swan stopped. Oh, yes, she did. She stopped so suddenly she tilted forward like a ski jumper about to go off the ramp.
“I think we need to establish some ground rules,” he said. “First, turn around, and second, look deeply into my eyes and listen carefully to every word I say—as carefully as you’ve ever listened to anything in your life, because compared to this, none of that other BS matters.”
Swan wanted to tell him that his superior tone was not necessary but, of course, she didn’t. She turned, looked straight into his glacial-blue eyes, and felt as if her breath had been flash-frozen in her chest. If time travel were possible, this guy had been sent from the Ice Age. Even his impossibly long eyelashes did nothing to warm the chill.
“Rule number one,” he said, “since I’m the one with the badge and the gun, I’m in charge here. Rule number two, since you’re the one about to be wearing the handcuffs again, you’re not in charge. You’re the suspect. And rule number three, don’t ever walk away from the guy with the gun because he might think you’re trying to escape, and if he did think that, he would have to do everything in his power to stop you—and that would not be good.”
Not good for whom, she thought, mustering up some defiance. He’d probably love to pull out that big old six-shooter of his and blast away.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Rule number four, you’re in a shitload of trouble, Ms. McKenna. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that your very life is in my hands, so if I were you, I’d be very nice to my hands.”
Swan was drawn like a magnet to the body parts he mentioned, and they were exactly the kind of hands she loved on a man. Hard from use, brown from the sun, with strong, tapered fingers and a palm plenty wide enough to handle a football. Veins could be seen running down from his forearm, and the feathering of hair above his knuckles matched the sooty black of his lashes.
She was obsessing over the hands of a man who was a threat to her very existence. How normal was that? For that matter, how normal was anything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours? Maybe the threat he posed had something to do with it. He’d just told her that he held her life in his hands and the idea of being that vulnerable to a man, especially this man—
“Are we clear on the rules?” he asked.
“You’re the guy with the gun.” She gave him a tight nod. What else could she do? “And, by the way, what is this gun fixation of yours? You know what guns are, don’t you? Compensation for an inadequate penis.”
He shot a look at her that questioned her will to live. “Maybe we should talk about your penis fixation,” he said. “And while we’re at it, I don’t feel the slightest bit inadequate.”
That was no big surprise, but it brought a sting of awareness to her cheeks anyway. She also felt a thrust of something deeper, quicker and significantly hotter in her belly. She had to get a grip.
“Back to business,” he said. “I’m giving you a choice, which is more than most felony suspects get. Either you agree to help us catch Long’s accomplice or you and Art can have adjoining cells. Which is it going to be?”
Swan went icy cold. “That’s a choice? Everything Lynne and I have worked for is about to be destroyed, and you want me to pitch in and help so you and that other bully with a badge can use our show as a sting operation to catch someone you can’t catch yourself!”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
He actually seemed pleased with her assessment, and that was the last straw for Swan. She slumped down on the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. “This is not happening,” she whispered. If she kept her eyes closed long enough and said the words passionately enough, maybe this nightmare would go away. And it would take Rob Gaines with it.
Gaines sat down next to her. His voice took on an explanatory tone, along with a hint of compassion.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re going to be dragged into this mess whether you agree to help us or not. Now I know that stinks, but that’s just the way it is.”
Swan glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Art Long is smart. He’s been conning people for years but he’s not this smart. He didn’t put this plan into action by himself. Large amounts of money have been electronically transferred, and according to the bank examiners who tipped us, he doesn’t have the authority to do that on his own. Long hasn’t confessed to having an accomplice, but he had help from someone inside.”
“Inside the bank? How am I supposed to help you with that? Lynne and I don’t know anyone at the bank besides Art.”
“That’s what you claim, but someone opened an account under Lynne’s name and has been electronically transferring funds into that account. This same someone then issued a cashier’s check for those funds in the name of Lynne Carmichael—a check that you picked up after forging Lynne’s name. And now Lynne has conveniently disappeared.”
“Well, when you put it like that, of course we look guilty.” She pressed two fingers to her temple and hit exactly the spot where it was beginning to throb. “But Lynne hasn’t conveniently disappeared. She’s away on legitimate business, and I know nothing about any electronic transfers.” Frowning, she said, “What did you mean that I would be dragged into this whether I help you or not?”
Gaines rose and slipped his hands into the pockets of his charcoal slacks. She was reminded of the man in the gray flannel suit, except for one or two discrepancies—the rakish dark hair and disreputable blue eyes. There were con men in every profession, she reminded herself.
“You’re a marked woman, Ms. McKenna. You say you’re not in on this with Art Long, and if that’s true, then one thing is certain. Art did not intend for you to keep the five million. Someone was going to ‘relieve’ you of all that money—likely Art himself—and then split it with his accomplice.”
Swan didn’t like where this was going. “Are you suggesting that his accomplice might come after the money? Or after me because he believes I have the money?”
“You’re starting to get the picture,” he said. “If you work with us, we’ll provide you protection. When the accomplice makes his move, we can be there to make ours. You won’t be hurt, and we’ll have our coconspirator.”
Swan rose and walked to the double doors that led to a balcony above the gardens. White, lacy sheers covered the glass panes. She moved one aside and peered into darkness that was as opaque as an inkwell. The doors were closed, but she could hear the low roar of the ocean, and closer, the purr of traffic on a side street. The beach was always busy in the summer.
“When do you think this person might make a move?” she asked him. “Am I in danger now?” She needed the truth, no matter how bad it was.
Rob Gaines considered the value of lying to her and decided against it. There was nothing to be gained by giving her a false sense of security. Right now she was vulnerable enough to listen to what he had to say and frightened enough to accept it.
“You could be,” he told her, “which is why Joe and I are staying here tonight. I doubt anyone’s going to hit this place, though. They’ll wait for the confusion of the fashion shows. You’re being promoted as the designer of the line, which means you’ll be easy to find, and you’ll be distracted. Thieves love chaos.”
“Swell,” she said. “I’m being used as bait. I could be thumped on the head at any time, robbed and left for dead. And what happens when this accomplice discovers that I don’t have the five million dollars? I’m history, right?”
She shoved a handful of auburn hair away from her face and stared him down with an accusatory expression.
Not if I can help it, he thought. Her rising agitation gave off a scent that was part frightened woman and part French perfume. Both were totally alluring, and both were Swan McKenna. She could be hell in high heels one minute and visibly apprehensive the next, just as she was now. Rob preferred her vulnerable. She was much easier to handle. He was also aware that if she weren’t a suspect, he would have had a hard time keeping his distance. And the hell of it was, he wasn’t sure she would have stopped him.
“Relax,” he said, his voice softening. “Joe and I haven’t lost anyone yet. We’ll set up a security plan. If you do exactly as you’re told, you’ll be safe. We can protect you, but only if you cooperate.”
She hugged herself and he could see gooseflesh creeping up her arms.
“And what do I get out of this,” she asked, “besides a nervous breakdown?”
“Immunity from prosecution. You’ll probably have to testify against Art and his accomplice in court, but, otherwise, you’re off the hook.”
“What about Lynne?”
“That depends on Lynne. Partial immunity, possibly full, if she’s willing to testify.”
“Immunity from prosecution for something we didn’t do? You’ll excuse me if I don’t sound grateful.”
She swung her head and cast him a hard glance, her red hair dancing. Rob suspected she was about to slip on her high heels again and give him a hard time. But he didn’t have any more time to play.
“I need an answer,” he said. “Say yes, Ms. McKenna. It’s the only smart thing to do.”
Smart or not, Swan wasn’t sure she had a choice. There was no guarantee that Rob Gaines wouldn’t haul her off to jail if she refused to help. That would be disastrous for Brief Encounters, and the bad press could be enough to ruin them, even if her name was cleared. But bait for a sting operation?
On the other hand, it was also possible that whoever was helping Art Long had been frightened off and wouldn’t come after the money. That would make this whole exercise pointless. But there was no way to be sure of that, and five million dollars was a lot to walk away from.
“Did you say yes, Ms. McKenna?” Gaines intoned. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, Ms. McKenna.” She was giving up, but not happily. “You know,” she said, “if you and Joe are planning to go undercover, you could always be underwear models.”
She took some pleasure in watching his face go pale at the thought.
“I saw what you put those guys through tonight,” he muttered, “and I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those nut buckets.”
“Nut buckets?” Swan chuckled. First time she’d ever heard her thongs called that. It was also nice to know that she could still laugh.
“You’ll have people setting up the stage, doing the lights and the sound, that sort of thing?” he asked. Swan nodded. “Good, because Joe and I will blend in as a couple of workmen. We’ll do everything possible to stay out of your way. But you need to keep in mind that we’re conducting an investigation, and you’re still one of the suspects.”
“How could I forget? I’m getting tired of protesting my innocence, and you’re probably tired of hearing it, but someday you’re going to be damn embarrassed about the way you’re treating a woman who gives pennies back to store clerks when they make the wrong change.”
She expected some kind of wisecrack and when it didn’t come she stared at him hard. Maybe she was daring him. “Go ahead and say it,” she invited. “Tell me what an idiot I am for getting myself mixed up in this loan fiasco. But don’t tell me I’m a thief, because I’m not.”
He was suddenly very serious. The dark lashes lowered, masking his expression. “If you think I don’t want you cleared of these charges, you’re wrong. Nothing would make me happier. I mean it.”
The way he said I mean it made her stomach go weirdly light. This wasn’t butterflies or anything like it. It was as if the force of gravity had suddenly been lessened and everything might lift right off the ground.
“Nothing would make you happier? Why would you care what happens to me? You don’t even know me.”
He lifted his head. “I have my reasons.”
“Your quest to catch Art Long, right? And I’m your means to that end? Is that why you care?” She told herself to let it go, but she couldn’t. She wanted to grill him. She wanted to put him under bright lights in a darkened room and interrogate him until he surrendered them, one by one. Call it payback.
Maybe it was her imagination, or just wishful thinking, but she had the feeling he wouldn’t mind spending some time with her in a darkened room, either. He hadn’t smiled, hadn’t even looked as if he might, but there was an energy brewing in the cool blue irises hidden under those lashes, and it was sexual.
Her soul-searching came to an abrupt end as Joe Harris walked into the room.
“Everything is booked,” he said to Gaines, who simply nodded.
It took Swan a moment or two to figure out what he was talking about, and then it hit her that Rob had given Joe her loan check along with the other one. “I’m getting my money back, right?”
Harris looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “That’s evidence, Ms. McKenna. No way you’re getting that check.”
“You can’t mean that.” Swan’s voice went faint. “I need that money! Lynne and I have costs to cover for this tour. If I can’t come up with the money, it will ruin our relationship with the boutique chain. They may even cancel the tour, and I still have to pay for the launch party. I put that on a credit card!”
Harris and Gaines looked at one another. Apparently even tough FBI agents could be surprised.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Lynne and I went broke getting the line manufactured. Part of the loan from First National was to cover modeling fees, travel expenses and lodging. I won’t even go into the stack of delinquent bills I have on my desk. Without that money, there won’t be any shows.”
Gaines raised his hand for silence. After a moment’s reflection he spoke to his partner. “We could put in for an emergency requisition.”
“Worth a try,” Harris said. “All they can do is say no.”
Voices filtered up from below and Swan suddenly remembered her party, her guests. The fashion press was down there, along with the brass from La Bomba. She had no idea where Gerard was or what was going on downstairs. The last time she’d seen him, he was being ushered out of the room. He may have been taken in for questioning for all she knew. That would mean her guests were down there, fending for themselves. She had to go. Someone had to do damage control, and there was no one but her!
Without even thinking to ask permission, she breezed past the two agents and headed for the veranda. As she reached the doorway, she realized she’d just broken every one of Rob Gaines’s four rules and there was nothing she could do about it. Hell with it. Let him shoot her in the back. He might be doing her a favor.
IT WASN’T QUITE AS BAD as Swan had thought. Gerard hadn’t been hauled off in a squad car. He’d been holding down the fort until she got back, and her guests didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. That much she could be grateful for. They didn’t even notice that her outfit was a wrinkled mess.
She tried to think of some way to bring the evening to a close, but no one seemed in any particular hurry to leave, which, ironically, was the sign of a successful party. Something to celebrate, except in this case there were two government agents in her guest bedroom, and she did not want them mingling.
Too late. She caught sight of Joe Harris by the buffet table. He was helping himself to a healthy slice of Gouda cheese, but he was also watching her. Swan looked around for Gaines, but didn’t see him. She hoped it was because he was working on getting them some funds for the shows. That should keep him busy, and meanwhile his absence gave her another idea. There was something else she had to do tonight, and it would be far easier if she didn’t have to deal with Rob Gaines.
Gerard was heading her way with a small cluster of guests, hopefully to say good-night. She caught his eye and pretended to be adjusting her earrings. She was actually pointing toward Joe Harris. By now she and her assistant could read each other’s minds. She was asking Gerard to cover for her and he gave her a knowing nod. He excused himself and picked up a tray of canopies, hurrying over to where Harris was standing. In typical Gerard fashion, he had the agent engrossed in herb-stuffed mushrooms and conversation within seconds.
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Suzanne Forster
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: Swan McKenna′s racy men′s underwear company, Brief Encounters, is on the brink of incredible success…when she′s accused of stealing five million dollars!How can she launch her newest naughty designs with a federal agent watching her every move? Of course, once she gets a glimpse of Special Agent Rob Gaines, all she can think about is seeing his moves. With his government-issue good looks, he′d bring down the house modeling for her upcoming fashion show.And she desperately needs models…. But little does Swan expect Rob to help her out by reluctantly agreeing to strut his stuff. Nor does she realize that once she sees Rob in his underwear, she won′t be able to resist catching him out of it….