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The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal
Abby Gaines


Enjoy the dreams, explore the emotions, experience the relationships.Innocent assistant Holly Stephens has had a bad week.She’s been wrongly accused of fraud and barred from her home and her office. From owning her own company, she’s been forced to take a job with sexy businessman Jared Harding. Bad-boy boss Jared doesn’t care what his prim new assistant thinks of him, until their fiery office relationship turns into combustible chemistry.Jared makes his beautiful partner an outrageous offer – but prim and proper Holly has a surprise of her own for the ruthless tycoon!







He fumed as he watched Holly drive away.

Time to show Ms Stephens who’s the boss.

On impulse, Jared decided to drive by Holly’s condo. He told himself it was only a slight detour, worth it to see where the accountant-from-hell lived.

He’d memorised both her addresses from her cv: the neatly typed home address and the handwritten address of the place she was staying right now. But even if he hadn’t got it quite right, the yellow crime-scene tape across the front door and downstairs windows of the condo, incongruous in the upscale street, was a dead giveaway. There was no guard on the door, no one watching the property as far as he could tell. Looking at the darkened windows, Jared suddenly knew just how to annoy the hell out of Holly and at the same time solve her problem.

Just as she’d asked – no, ordered – him not to.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel – and had her first taste of rejection – in her teens. It took some years before she got up the courage to try again. By then, thankfully, the PC and Microsoft Word had been invented, and getting rejected was a whole lot easier. Like all good romances, Abby’s story had a happy ending, and a new beginning, with the publication of this, her first novel.

Abby lives with her husband and children in an olive grove. She says olive trees are the perfect outlook to inspire the funny, tender romances she loves to write. Visit her at www.abbygaines. com.



Dear Reader,

Have you ever been one hundred percent certain you know someone and then discovered you were wrong? In The Rebel Tycoon’s OutrageousProposal, Holly Stephens knows exactly what kind of guy Jared Harding is: a rule-breaking bad boy. But when Jared’s the only person who can help her, she’s forced to put her trust in him – and to get to know him better than she ever wanted. Is it possible to be both right and wrong about someone? And to love them anyway?

I’m always happy to hear from readers. Please e-mail me at abby@abbygaines.com and tell me if you enjoyed this story.

Abby Gaines

www.abbygaines.com




The Rebel Tycoon’s Outrageous Proposal


ABBY GAINES




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


With love and thanks to Mum and Dad,

who always knew I could. Thank you for

teaching me what matters most.

Thanks to the FBI’s Seattle field office for the

patient responses to my many questions.


CHAPTER ONE

HOLLY STEPHENS had decided to be late for work, so late she would be. The later the better. She steadfastly refused to glance at her watch as she sat in Seattle’s rush-hour traffic, a chaos she usually avoided by starting early. Her old, uptight, anal-retentive self might want to know exactly how late she was, but the new, easygoing Holly Stephens didn’t care.

She might even throw her watch in the trash when she got to the office. Or at least put it in a drawer for a couple of days.

Some folks might think being late for work didn’t count when you were co-owner of the company. But anyone who made punctuality an art form, as Holly did, would know just how much it had cost her to lie in bed for an extra half hour. Dawdling as she got ready, making herself a proper breakfast, taking a longer route to work… Sheer agony.

But nowhere near as painful as being labeled Control Freak of the Year in a highly respected business magazine last week.

Even now, pain stabbed behind her ribs at the reporter’s hatchet job. It was supposed to have been one of those glowing profiles—Holly had recently been named Washington Businesswoman of the Year, an incredible accolade for a twenty-six-yearold accountant. And to be fair, the journalist hadn’t stinted on reporting her accomplishments. But his sidebar—A Day in the Life of a Control Freak—had detailed just how uptight, how controlling she was. Colleagues who called to congratulate her on the award studiously avoided all mention of the control-freak piece. But sooner or later each conversation reached an awkward silence, followed by a rush to get off the line.

She didn’t blame them.

Because every word of that article was true. And now that she was forced to think about it, Holly didn’t like what she’d become.

Over the weekend, she’d decided to let go of some of the behaviors that had served her so well in the battle to build her business in a competitive, male-dominated field. She would reinvent herself into a more relaxed, sympathetic person, one other people liked. One she liked.

Being late for work was a symbolic gesture of her resolve.

To her chagrin, relief fluttered inside her as she turned into the parking lot of the inappropriately named Greenglades Office Park. The flutter became a flapping of alarm when she saw the knot of people around the open doorway of the offices of Fletcher & Stephens, Certified Public Accountants. Surely her being late for work didn’t warrant this much attention?

As she eased her Toyota into her parking space, Holly began sifting through potential explanations for the crowd’s evident fascination.

The most palatable was that her assistant, Linda’s, overly romantic boyfriend had once again filled the office from floor to ceiling with balloons. Holly shuddered. It could take days for three hundred heart-shaped balloons to pop. Any suggestion of a mercy killing—attacking them all at once with a very large needle—would be interpreted by Linda as a personal insult. And assistants who worked to Holly’s level of detail were hard to find.…

Holly flipped her visor down to check her makeup in the little mirror. Then she remembered she didn’t worry about that kind of thing anymore and flipped it back up. As she climbed out, she directed her most carefree smile at the people milling around. No one smiled back.

She was headed across the narrow strip of concrete when a flash of insight hit her.

A fire alarm.

That would explain why everyone was out on the sidewalk. But why the ominous air? Unless it wasn’t just a false alarm—could her office have truly been on fire?

Even more reassuring than the absence of fire trucks was her distinct memory of following her “old Holly” routine before she left the office late last night. She had turned the printer, the copier and everything else electrical off at the wall, and then stood on her chair and pressed the test button on the smoke alarm. These precautions made her business partner laugh, on the occasions Dave stayed late enough to witness them, but no way would Holly allow her office to burn down through inattention.

By the time she’d discounted the fire theory, she’d reached the sidewalk, and the crowd parted to let her through, their muted “good mornings” almost a sigh.

Holly had barely put one black pump over the threshold when a burly man with thinning, sandy hair materialized from the dimness of the office and barred her way. “You can’t come in here, ma’am.”

“This is my office,” she said. “Let me through.” Okay, that did sound just the tiniest bit controlling. “Please.” She tacked on a smile of apology as she peered past the man to count at least five more of his ilk swarming the cream-and-gray interior.

“Are you Holly Stephens?”

“That’s right.”

“Special Agent Crook, FBI.”

For a second Holly thought this was a prank—an FBI agent named Crook? Indeed, a snicker escaped her before she realized the badge he held in her face and his expression were both extremely serious.

This couldn’t be about her being late for work. And as far as she knew, being the world’s biggest control freak wasn’t illegal. “Have we been robbed? I know I set the alarm yesterday, I always—”

“Ms. Stephens—” The interruption was barely civil and his tone snapped her attention back to him “—we’re here to investigate a fraud. We have a warrant to search these premises.”

Once again, the unfamiliar pieces of the morning’s picture rearranged themselves, kaleidoscope-like. Holly struggled to make sense of them. She’d gone from balloons to fire to robbery to…fraud? Swiftly, she ran an inventory of the firm’s clients. Which one had been stupid enough to try something illegal? And why hadn’t she spotted it?

She drew a blank. “I’m sorry,” she said to the FBI agent, “you’re going to have to fill me in. Who exactly are you investigating?”

Special Agent Crook exhaled heavily. “You, Ms. Stephens. We’re investigating you.”

“MISSING?” AnnaMae Trimble leaned back in her chair and rubbed her chin. “The trust account that normally holds millions of dollars of your clients’ money has been cleaned out, and you say Dave Fletcher is missing?”

Holly closed her eyes and pressed her slim frame farther into her friend’s corduroy couch. “Of course he’s missing. What would you have me think?” she demanded. “That he’s run off with the money?”

“That sounds about right.” AnnaMae must have noticed the rising pitch of Holly’s voice because she softened her next words. “It’s the most likely possibility. I don’t want to believe it any more than you do.”

“Liar.” Holly opened her eyes. “You’ve never liked Dave.”

AnnaMae dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “All the more reason why I don’t want you going to prison for him.”

“Dave’s on vacation in Mexico,” Holly said with exaggerated patience. “He flew out Friday night—the airline confirmed that to the FBI. Just because he’s not at the hotel he said he’d be staying in, it doesn’t mean he’s a thief. He’s due home in four weeks. He’ll be back, you’ll see.”

AnnaMae met her gaze steadily, but said nothing.

“The investigation will prove I’m innocent.” Holly twisted her fingers in her lap. “No one’s going to lock me away.”

“No jury will convict you, I grant you—not with that impossibly honest face.” AnnaMae’s lips twitched as she scanned the sedate navy business suit Holly wore with a peach silk top. “One look at Miss Goody Two-shoes and the FBI will be laughed out of the courtroom.”

“It won’t go to court,” Holly insisted. “It’s a mistake, that’s all. The main problem right now is the inconvenience I have to suffer while they figure it out.”

Inconvenience. That was putting it mildly. Holly had spent the whole day answering pointed questions from Agent Crook and his cronies. She could have howled when they told her she wouldn’t be allowed back into her condo, not even to collect some clothes. They claimed to have been tipped off that she was hiding evidence at home. So the condo had been secured and would be searched whenever they got around to it.

She sat in AnnaMae’s cozy cottage in the suburbs with a hundred dollars in her purse and her bank accounts frozen. AnnaMae was the only person who’d been sympathetic about last week’s magazine article. She’d even called the journalist a lying creep, when both of them knew the truth. Now she had offered Holly a bed for as long as she needed it. But even if Holly could ignore the clutter her friend lived in—and she was trying very hard to do that—there was more to life than sleeping. She couldn’t contact any of her clients while the investigation was underway, and no one would employ her in her present circumstances. No home, no clothes, no business, no money…

“I’m late for work just one lousy day,” she said through gritted teeth, “and this is what happens.”

AnnaMae’s hoot of laughter drew a reluctant smile from Holly. Which was wiped off in an instant as a fresh thought assailed her. “The twins’ college fees are due at the end of the month. The money’s sitting in my bank account—there’s no way I’ll have access to it in time. What am I going to do?”

“How about you let your siblings pay their own way?” AnnaMae said, eyes wide, as if she hadn’t suggested it a hundred times before.

Holly didn’t intend to have that tired old argument with her friend again. They both knew she would dance naked down Columbia Street in rush hour before she would let the twins slide back into the mire of poverty in which they’d been raised. “Maybe I can get some work reviewing audits,” she said. “Something backroom. Surely someone will accept me as innocent until proven guilty?”

“It’s possible,” AnnaMae said doubtfully. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Every so often, AnnaMae tutted.

The solution hit Holly with knock-out force. “Jared Harding!”

“Are you kidding? The man’s a hood.”

“You don’t know he’s done anything illegal,” Holly said, though just last week she’d have said exactly the same. But she was no longer the kind of person who tried to force others into her own mold.

Besides, she was desperate.

“I know Harding sails close to the wind,” she said. “And maybe he does stretch the law to its limits.”

“He delights in bending the rules and making a mockery of people who play by the book. People like you,” AnnaMae said.

“Some people would say that’s just good accounting.” It pained Holly to articulate an attitude she’d always despised. As far as she was concerned, there was right and there was wrong. You chose one or the other—you didn’t mess around trying to prove that wrong could be right and vice versa. That certainty was the only thing she’d inherited from her mother.

“Why are you playing devil’s advocate? Your clients don’t have to go to court to prove the legality of their dealings. Jared Harding practically keeps the courts in business with the hearings his company has to attend.”

“And he wins every single one,” Holly pointed out. “You’re right, he does push the envelope. But I happen to know that right now he needs someone who plays strictly by the rules. He’s involved in a couple of sensitive acquisitions—he doesn’t want even a sniff of complaint attached to them.”

“Then he’s hardly going to employ an accountant who’s under investigation for fraud,” AnnaMae said dryly.

“I could work out the deal and all the accounting implications to my usual standards, and Harding’s people could present it to investors.” She suspected the doubt chasing through AnnaMae’s eyes was reflected in her own, but she persevered. “Jared Harding might not be my employer of choice, but this job is one hundred percent legit. And I’ll bet I can name my price.”

AnnaMae raised an eyebrow. “Just who are you trying to convince?”

“You know I’ve decided not to be so judgmental. To broaden my views.”

“There’s broadening your views, and there’s sleeping with the enemy.”

Holly recoiled. “I’m not talking about sleeping with him.”

AnnaMae just shook her head.

“I’ll be busy with the FBI tomorrow.” Holly picked up the phone from the coffee table in front of her. “I’ll ask Jared if we can meet Thursday.”

AnnaMae raised her hands in surrender. “It’s your funeral. But I’m not staying around to watch it.”

After her friend left the room, Holly faltered. Working for Harding would test her resolution to its limits. She wouldn’t contemplate it if she wasn’t desperate. Besides, he would have every right to refuse to employ her. Not because of the FBI investigation, but because of what she’d said when he’d called her last month.

She’d never met the man—knew him only by reputation—and his call had come out of the blue. Holly couldn’t imagine why he’d been so adamant that he needed an accountant with a reputation for scrupulous honesty. She’d turned him down.

But not before telling him that his questionable business values were incompatible with her client portfolio.

Which was nothing less than the truth—though she cringed at the recollection.

Jared had thanked her for her time and wished her all the best. Not the reaction she’d expected from the famously rough-and-ready Mr. Harding.

“Maybe he’s not holding it against me,” she said out loud.

Some hope. Behind Jared’s smooth-as-silk words, Holly had detected a confusing mix of subtle mockery and cold steel. Would a man like him put himself in a position where she might reject him again?

But that didn’t matter a damn now. She would call his personal assistant and get some time in Jared’s diary, even if she had to beg.

Because if anyone in this city would hire an accountant who was under investigation for fraud, it was Jared Harding.

Holly consoled herself with the thought that working for him, without judging him and without compromising her own principles, would be a big step on her journey toward becoming a better person.


CHAPTER TWO

JARED STRETCHED elaborately, leaned back in his chair and swung both feet up to rest on the pale beech surface of his desk—and took pleasure in the shadow of disapproval that flitted across Holly Stephens’s face.

Childish behavior, he knew, but the second she’d walked into his office, shoulders squared, chin high, lips pressed in a firm line as if she were here to perform some particularly distasteful task—namely, talk to him—he’d picked her as the type who would think worse of a guy just because he liked to rest his feet on a desk.

Her reaction proved him right. Score one for Jared.

His own satisfaction in this trivial matter needled him. He didn’t need to get one up on a prissy accountant to feel good about himself. But somehow, the look of her had taken him back to the days when just about everyone looked at him like that—the days when he’d exulted in proving them right but winning anyway.

He hadn’t known what to expect of Holly—but given her stellar reputation and the way she’d lambasted him the one time they’d spoken on the phone, it wasn’t this woman whose navy suit bordered on frumpy, whose hair of indeterminate color was pulled severely back off her wan face. Nor had he expected when he shook her slim hand to feel a charged awareness that simply didn’t make sense.

The confusion sparked by his physical reaction had provoked him to the kind of juvenile discourtesy he’d abandoned years before.

“So, Holly,” he said, “what’s changed?”

“I, uh, excuse me?” Holly cleared her throat, still trying to regroup the thoughts scattered by the searching intensity of his dark blue gaze. The moment she met him, she’d dived back into her familiar control-freak armor. At least that way she knew who she was, knew what she thought of him.

Because Jared wasn’t at all what she expected. She’d seen his picture in the Seattle Post-Intelli-gencer many times. She’d acknowledged he was good-looking, even as she disdained the smile she deemed cocky and the arrogant tilt of his head. But the reality was altogether bigger, more forceful, more…male than any photo could convey.

It’s his height, she told herself. He would easily be six-two, which made his broad shoulders seem just right, instead of hulking. She’d been right about the cocky smile and the arrogance, though—she eyed the black loafer-clad feet on the desk in front of her with disfavor. How could he expect her to take him seriously?

Yet she did.

“Could it be that my questionable business values are no longer incompatible with your client portfolio?” He quoted her earlier response to him.

Holly resisted an anxious urge to gnaw her lower lip. She looked him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said that, and I apologize.”

His smile said he didn’t believe her. “But you still feel that way.”

“I—” She stopped, helpless. She wouldn’t lie to him to get the job. “This isn’t about my feelings. I need a job, you need an accountant.”

“So you’ll put aside your scruples?” He sounded almost disappointed.

“I’ll do what I should have done earlier and reserve judgment.” She thought she saw a flash of approval in his eyes.

“Why now?”

If their conversation had been difficult so far, it was about to get a whole lot harder. Holly kept her voice steady. “Before you offer me a job, I should tell you about my…less desirable attributes.”

“Sounds intriguing.” He brought his feet down to the floor, and leaned forward to scrutinize her. “Is that a mustache on your upper lip?”

“No, it’s not,” she snapped, her hand involuntarily testing the smooth and definitely hairless skin between her mouth and her nose. “Perhaps I’m the one who should be asking about your undesirable attributes.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours,” he wheedled. Despite herself, Holly smiled.

Jared blinked. Holly’s lips, no longer tight with disapproval, emerged as full and perfectly shaped. The somber eyes he’d dismissed as unremarkable gray proved to have hints of forget-me-not blue when humor lit them. Which just went to show his male instincts—the ones that had been shocked at that handshake—were in full working order.

“You need to know,” she said, “that as of last Monday I’m under investigation by the FBI for theft and fraud.”

His shout of laughter was the last reaction Holly expected. Still, Harding was notoriously unpredictable. “You think it’s funny?”

“Look at you.” With a wave of his large hand he indicated her face, hair, clothes, demeanor. “You’re the picture of innocence. You’re even blushing, for Pete’s sake. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain there’s not a dishonest bone in your body.”

He made it an insult.

“What about Babyface Malone?” she demanded, stung.

“Who?”

“Malone was one of the most heinous mobsters around, and he looked every bit as innocent as I do.”

Jared snorted. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re with the Mob I’m not buying it. You’re nothing but an honest accountant who’s been wrongly accused.” To his evident horror, tears sprang to her eyes. “Now what?”

“I…appreciate your judgment of me,” Holly said, and added scrupulously, “however underin-formed it may be.” She meant it. News of her troubles had traveled fast within Seattle’s accounting community, and two of the peers she’d phoned for advice before she turned to AnnaMae had made it clear they were assuming the worst. “You’re right, I am innocent. So if you want to tell me about this job…”

He grinned. “I can think of nothing I’d like more than having the FBI’s latest target handle the fine print on this deal.”

Holly hated his smart-aleck attitude, but right now she couldn’t argue. And this could be worse. Despite Jared’s casual clothes, his office didn’t appear to be a den of iniquity. The spacious corner suite wasn’t as tidy as she’d have liked, but its high-tech equipment and minimalist furnishings exuded professionalism. Give him the benefit ofthe doubt. Besides, she had to admire his business acumen as he told her the bare bones of the acquisitions he planned to make with her help. It was a complex deal, involving asset swaps, share swaps and meaty taxation issues.

Fascinating, professionally speaking.

“So,” he concluded, “do you want the job?”

Jared could hardly believe he was holding his breath as he waited for her reply. But accountants of Holly’s ability, her creativity, weren’t that common. The only reason her business wasn’t ten times its size was that many chief executives were too fuddy-duddy to accept that a woman her age could be the best in her field. And most of the rest couldn’t afford her. But Jared fit neither of those categories. He trusted her ability, and he could pay whatever she demanded.

He needed the integrity Holly brought to her work, the gold standard against which she would measure this deal. So what if she was under investigation for fraud—everyone who mattered knew she could spot a flaky contract a mile off and wouldn’t allow anything remotely marginal in the eyes of the law.

Unlike her, Jared had been known to push the boundaries of legality. He hadn’t overstepped them, but he’d done things others would consider unethical, if not illegal.

Because sometimes the end justified the means.

“I won’t do anything illegal,” she said. “And by that I mean anything that I personally consider to breach the spirit or the letter of the law.”

He couldn’t help smiling at the irony, given her current circumstances. “What you say goes,” he assured her.

He couldn’t afford to have it any other way. This was his chance to avenge the wrong done to his family, and it had been twenty years coming. This deal was big enough to attract the scrutiny of the IRS, the stock market and his competitors. And one person in particular would be watching closely. It had to look squeaky clean.

“I charge plenty, and I need a partial payment next week.” Holly named a sum that startled Jared. He suppressed a grin—not many people would have the effrontery to demand that kind of fee when they were desperate—and agreed to pay.

But he wouldn’t let her think she could walk all over him. So he said, “I still have one concern about you.”

She bristled. “You said the investigation didn’t bother you.”

“Not that. I read an article about you last week.”

For the first time since she’d stalked into his office Holly looked less than one hundred percent sure of herself. “I—You can’t believe everything you read.”

“So the glowing account of your illustrious career wasn’t true?”

“Of course it was.”

“But the other stuff—the control freak part—wasn’t? I have to tell you, Holly, I don’t work well with control freaks.”

“I’m not—well, I guess I am a bit. That article was all my fault,” she said in a rush.

Jared quirked an eyebrow.

“I should never have let that journalist trail me around. It was one of those days when nothing went right and I had to…well…take control of my staff and my clients more than usual. I got off on the wrong foot with the guy. Right at the start he asked how I’d achieved so much in just a few years.”

“And you said?” Jared had a feeling he would enjoy her answer.

“I said…” Holly squared her shoulders and looked Jared in the eye. “I told him first impressions are important. That early in my career I could never have gotten away with dressing like he did, with his shoes all scuffed, his hair too long and his shirt hanging out. That no matter how good you are at your job, people will always judge you by appearance.”

Jared made a point of inspecting his own shoes. They passed muster, by his standards at least. Who knew what level of shine Holly expected? “My shirt is hanging out,” he said.

“Yours appears designed that way,” Holly said stiffly. “In hindsight, it wasn’t a clever thing to say, but he did ask. I gave him an honest answer.”

“And you think he took such offence that he went back to his office and labeled you a control freak?”

“No-o,” she said slowly. “I think he did that because I suggested he could write faster if he held his pen with the proper grip—I was only trying to help. And when it became clear the interview wasn’t going well, I asked to see his copy before it went to press and threatened to sue if he wrote anything I didn’t like. Which, of course, I have no grounds to do, as there was nothing factually incorrect in his article.”

“You don’t pull your punches,” Jared observed, his voice bland.

“I got what I deserved.”

Somehow the blue steel in his eyes—hard but not altogether unforgiving—strengthened Holly’s backbone and impelled her to an openness she hadn’t intended. “That article was a wake-up call for me. I’ve decided to be more tolerant of others.”

His lips twisted, she suspected in cynicism rather than appreciation of her resolution. “So that’s why you’re here. I’m the lucky beneficiary of your newfound tolerance.”

She nodded.

“That’s good. Because I don’t think I could work with the woman described in that article.”

Holly gulped.

“So,” he said silkily, “if you ever feel compelled to comment on the length of my hair or the state of my shoes, the way I hold my pen or the cleanliness of my desk—” Holly was certain he would discern from the guilt in her eyes that she’d already evaluated them all “—I suggest you run to the bathroom and tell it all to your reflection. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” she said.

Jared stood and walked over to his filing cabinet. “I’ll give you a copy of my standard employment contract. Amend the terms to suit yourself, and if I’m happy with it, I’ll sign it.”

He opened the top drawer and began to rummage through it. To stop herself from noticing how the drawer was stuffed higgledy-piggledy with papers, Holly picked up the cup of coffee Jared’s PA had brought in. She took a sip of the now-cold liquid. As she put the cup back on the desk, a splash of coffee slopped over the side onto the polished beech surface.

On automatic pilot, Holly whipped a tissue out of her purse and mopped the puddle. Then she noticed a smear of dust all along that edge of the desk and ran the tissue over it.

“What are you doing?” Jared thundered.

Holly jumped. “I spilled coffee,” she said. “I was just—”

“You were dusting my desk,” he accused.

“No! Well, maybe a little. I happened to notice—” She stuffed the dusty, coffee-soaked tissue back into her purse.

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. In addition to the other things I mentioned, you are not to do any tidying or cleaning anywhere near me.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?” He advanced toward her and Holly instinctively shrank back in her seat, even as she reached to take the contract from him. “Are you sure?”

He picked up her three-quarters full cup of coffee and slowly, deliberately, poured its contents over the surface of his desk.

Holly squawked and leaped to her feet, looking wildly around for a cloth, napkins—anything. Finding none, she dredged the sodden tissue back out of her purse…

And stopped. Jared was standing immobile, watching her, impervious to the liquid spreading over his desk toward his laptop and the papers he had stacked on one end of his desk.

Holly swallowed. She dropped her tissue into the wastepaper basket, and forced her gaze away from the desk. “So,” she said briskly. “When do I start?”

Jared almost applauded. Ignoring that mess was the exercise of an iron will—he was struggling himself. “I’ll brief you over dinner tonight.”

ONE PROBLEM DOWN, two thousand to go.

Holly peered in the mirror on her visor, stifling the memory of the last time she’d done that—had it only been Tuesday?—and then found herself barred from her office. It was unlikely she’d be refused admittance to the Green Room, Seattle’s swankiest restaurant, if only because Jared wouldn’t let it happen.

She knew that much, though she knew little else about the man. She’d spent the past couple of days surfing the Internet at AnnaMae’s house, searching for information about her new employer. For someone who was never out of the headlines, the search yielded surprisingly insubstantial results.

Harding Corporation had succeeded where so many dotcoms had failed, creating a series of viable Internet businesses. The press had reported with a mix of admiration, envy and resentment the deals Jared had signed with companies and people no one else would touch. He’d cleaned some of them up and stripped some of them down for their dubious assets. He’d bought businesses for their possibly illegally inflated tax losses and offset them against his more profitable operations.

And rumor had it Jared hadn’t paid a penny in personal or company taxes in five years.

It might be true. But Holly doubted it could be both true and legitimate. So he’d better have meant it when he’d said she could do as she wanted with this deal.

She walked the block from her car to the restaurant and pushed open the heavy wooden door with the brass handle. The maître d’ made a dignified rush to meet her.

Holly followed him across the intimate space of the dining room. Jared rose to greet her and she slid into the booth-style seat that wrapped around two sides of the corner table.

Jared had changed his clothes. This morning he’d worn a casual gray shirt, which, as he’d pointed out, hadn’t been tucked in to his dark pants. Tonight, a black polo and a zip-fronted jacket made him look too cool for words. Holly was still wearing this morning’s suit.

“I would have changed, but I don’t have any more clothes,” she said, then clamped her mouth shut.

“I’d no idea things were so tough in the accounting trade.”

“I wasn’t allowed back into my home after the FBI searched it yesterday,” she said. “And they froze my bank accounts, so I couldn’t get any cash. And when the bank realized that, they canceled my credit card.”

Her voice quivered. Holly bit her lower lip. She’d explained the situation to AnnaMae without shedding a single tear. Even lying awake in AnnaMae’s spare bed the past two nights, she’d been shocked, but dry-eyed.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“Not in front of you,” she said stiffly.

With overt relief he handed her a leather-bound menu. Thankfully she wasn’t someone who lost her appetite under stress.

When they’d ordered, he said, “Since you’re going to work for me, you’d better tell me about this investigation. Just the facts.”

He was entitled to that much, Holly conceded. “David Fletcher and I went into business together two years ago, after we met at a conference. We were both unhappy with our jobs, and our different skills meshed well—he’s good at client relationships.”

“The schmoozing, you mean.” Jared looked her up and down with that faintly insulting scrutiny. “I can see you’re not a schmoozer.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She sat back in her seat while the waiter set her appetizer in front of her—a salmon kebab in a coconut curry sauce. It smelled divine, and she took a moment to inhale its spicy perfume, eyes closed.

That sensual gesture took Jared by surprise. Holly had ordered her food in a no-nonsense series of instructions—the waiter had practically saluted when she’d finished. Now she acted as if she’d dreamed of a meal like this her whole life.

Jared hadn’t planned on wine with their meal. But if Holly really wanted to appreciate her salmon, he knew just the Sonoma Chardonnay to go with it. She didn’t look worried when he ordered a bottle—just sent him an appreciative glance from beneath lowered lids, in a way he found curiously appealing. He shook his head. Holly Stephens was not his type.

For a few minutes, they ate in silence.

“How’s your salmon?” he asked eventually.

“Superb. And this wine is great with it. How’s your tuna carpaccio?” she asked.

“Excellent.” Belatedly, he realized she was eyeing the wafer-thin slices of raw tuna with the anticipatory delight of a tax inspector scenting a scam. “Would you like to try it?”

“Yes, please.” She pushed her side plate across the table toward him.

“What’s that for?”

“Put it on there—the tuna.” It was the same tone she’d used to give orders to the waiter earlier.

He forked a piece of tuna and held it across the table an inch from her lips. “Here.”

She frowned. “Just put it on the—oomph!”

Jared had taken advantage of her mouth being open and pushed the fork right in. Involuntarily, Holly detached the tuna before she pushed the fork away. He was right, it was excellent. But that wasn’t the point.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped. “No, don’t answer that. Just quit playing games.”

“You’re the boss.” Sarcasm edged his voice, and he said no more until he’d demolished the rest of the tuna without offering her another taste. With a satisfied sigh, he resumed the conversation.

“How do you think Fletcher got away with his crime, given you’re so eagle-eyed?”

“You don’t know Dave is to blame. He may be on vacation just as he said. The Mexican authorities have confirmed that he flew into the country last Saturday.”

“Who else could it be—if it’s not you?”

“It’s not,” she said sharply. “The FBI suspects me because my PIN was used to transfer client funds.”

“Who else knew your PIN?”

“No one.” Holly grimaced. “As I repeatedly told Agent Crook before he revealed that my number was used.”

Jared frowned. “You should have a lawyer with you to talk to the Feds.”

“I didn’t think I needed one. I didn’t think there could be any evidence to link me to the crime.”

Jared looked as if he might argue with her logic. Then he gave a small shrug. “So somehow Fletcher found your PIN?”

“I don’t keep it written down,” she said. “The only way he—whoever did this—could have found it would be with one of those security-cracking computer programs that reads your PIN when you enter it online, and e-mails it to the thief.”

Jared nodded. He’d been offered those programs several times over the years—and had resisted the temptation, even when he would have dearly loved an inside track on the machinations of the man he planned to ruin.

“If Fletcher did do it,” he said, “how come you never figured out what was going on?”

Holly’s gaze centered somewhere above Jared’s head. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically diffident. “Dave and I became more than business partners over the past year.”

Jared gave a low whistle. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to mix business and pleasure?”

She scowled, and he figured that despite her intention of being more tolerant, Holly was mortified that Jared, a man she considered her moral inferior, was in a position to take the high ground.

“We got to be friends, that’s all. But recently Dave said he wanted to take things further. I wasn’t keen, so I avoided him, tried not to stay late at the office if he was there. I was less likely to notice if he was doing anything unusual.”

“So you weren’t sleeping partners?”

“Of course not.” Her eyes widened as if the possibility had never occurred to her. “We worked well together, we enjoyed each other’s company, we liked the same books and videos, but—”

Jared yawned conspicuously. “Give me a woman who doesn’t understand me anytime. Did it occur to you Dave might have died of boredom—his body might be waiting to be found?”

“It did occur to me he might be dead.” Holly’s seriousness provoked an unwelcome twinge of guilt in Jared. “Leaving your ridiculous conjecture aside, I did wonder if someone blackmailed Dave, then killed him.”

For an accountant, she had a good imagination. There was even a chance she could be right. But with the FBI tipped off that Holly was the thief, it seemed more likely Fletcher had done a runner and was trying to distract the Feds.

“Imagine for a minute you’re wrong, and Fletcher did steal the money just because he wanted to.” Jared grinned at Holly’s frown. Imagining she was wrong obviously didn’t sit well with her. “Where would Fletcher go? Does he have family?”

Holly’s brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. “He has a sister in upstate New York. His parents are dead. His mother was from New Zealand—he may have family there.”

“Did you tell the FBI that?”

“I didn’t remember until you asked me. Anyway, I don’t believe Dave stole the money, so it’s not relevant.”

Jared slapped his forehead. “Why are you so reluctant to admit you made a bad call going into business with him? Your clients’ money is missing, your partner has vanished—” she opened her mouth to correct him “—and don’t give me that crock about him being on vacation. Face it, two and two add up to four.”

She sat still for maybe half a minute, absorbing his words. Then she said, “I went into business with Dave because I trusted him. The FBI thinks the evidence points to my guilt, but I know their two and two doesn’t add up to four. So I have to give Dave the benefit of the doubt, too. This is about truth and…and justice and… and the American way.”

“You’re relying on Superman to get you out of this?”

She pinkened. “It’s about playing fair.”

Didn’t she know life wasn’t fair, that applying her high-and-mighty ethics to the situation wouldn’t change anything? He’d learned the hard way that unless you fought against it, injustice would prevail. “If you want to find Dave, to set your mind at ease, I know someone who could help.” But he was wasting his breath.

“Leave it, Jared,” she said. “I don’t need your help, or your private detectives, or your theories about the missing money. I’ll fight my own battles, my way.”

The woman was pigheaded to the point of impossibility, and bossy. Jared had never liked bossy women.

Given the way he planned to use her, it was better to dislike her. Better not to feel a thrill of challenge when she gave back as good as she got.

He switched the conversation to business. “You understand my own accountants will present whatever deal you work out to the market.”

“Of course.”

However much Holly got on his nerves, as they talked through some of the projects she’d handled, Jared could see why her clients loved her. Animation lit her face, adding to her feminine appeal. Had Fletcher really been attracted to her, before greed overtook him? Or had he been fooling her from the start, setting her up to take the fall? Jared may not be pure as the driven snow, but he was no Dave Fletcher.

Holly struggled to keep her mind on what Jared was saying, but his insinuations about Dave ate at her. She wanted to trust Dave. It galled her that she could have been wrong about him, when every day she relied on her instincts to steer her. Those same instincts warned her now to be wary of Jared. Yet here she was, working for him, confiding in him. Holly sighed as she licked the last of her roasted strawberry crème brûlée off her spoon.

“Coffee?” Jared asked.

She shook her head. “I have to get back to my friend’s place and wash my blouse for tomorrow.” She wished AnnaMae wasn’t a petite size two. It would be so much easier if Holly could just borrow her clothes.

He gave her a pained look. “You mean, you’re going to wear this outfit every day?”

“It’s practical.” She glared at him. “I don’t dress to vamp up the office.”

“Obviously.”

“Do you want to give me an advance on my fee,” she said, “so I can buy some clothes?” She could pop into Nordstrom for a new blouse and some underwear, at least. Beyond that, she’d need every penny she earned for those college fees.

He snickered. “Are you saying this is a cash job?”

“I will, of course, declare any cash advance for tax purposes,” she said stiffly.

Jared got to his feet and waited for her to do the same. “I never doubted it.” As they left the restaurant another idea struck him. “The FBI might let you collect a few things from your condo if a lawyer asks them. I could get my attorney to—”

“I’m in enough trouble as it is.” Holly stepped away from him as if he’d just offered to deal drugs with her right there on the sidewalk. “Any lawyer who works for you probably brings up a red flag on the FBI’s system.”

Jared had taken plenty of insults in his life and never given a damn. So he couldn’t explain why Holly’s rock-bottom assessment of his character should leave him feeling sucker-punched. Not only was she rude, she was a hypocrite. She’d said she wanted to be more tolerant, then proceeded to label him little more than a criminal, right after eating an expensive meal that he’d paid for.

He fumed as he watched Holly drive away. Time to show Ms. Stephens who’s the boss.

On impulse, he decided to drive by Holly’s condo on Queen Anne. He told himself it was only a slight detour, worth it to see where the Accountant From Hell lived.

He’d memorized both her addresses from her résumé: the neatly typed home address and the hand-written address of the place she was staying right now. But even if he hadn’t got it quite right, the yellow crime scene tape across the front door and downstairs windows of the condo, incongruous in the upscale street, were a dead giveaway. There was no guard on the door, no one watching the property as far as he could tell. Looking at the darkened windows, Jared suddenly knew just how to annoy the hell out of Holly and at the same time solve her problem.

Just as she’d asked—no—ordered him not to.


CHAPTER THREE

JARED COMMITTED to his plan without taking even a moment to weigh it up. Weren’t his best initiatives the product of pure gut instinct?

He parked around the corner on a quiet side street. Within seconds he was heading for the wrought-iron gate of the communal garden typical of these fancy complexes.

He tugged at the gate—locked. A card swipe mechanism on the brick wall blinked a red light, telling him he wasn’t welcome. Jared took a closer look at the wall. It really wouldn’t be too difficult to scale. He threw his jacket over—the need to retrieve it would be added incentive for success—and hoisted himself up. He went right on over the other side before any of Holly’s neighbors could look out a window and alert the police to an intruder.

To his disgust, each condo had a small, private backyard, also walled. Holly must be raking it in to afford this. Unless, of course, she really had stolen her clients’ money. No doubt the thought had crossed the Feds’ minds.

As he judged the height of this second barrier, Jared considered the wisdom of what he was about to do. This wasn’t just a wall he was about to breach. It was the boundary between his strictly business relationship with Holly and something…irregular. A degree of involvement in her problems that he didn’t want. He dismissed the thought. No way was he chickening out.

He hauled himself over the smaller wall and started across her immaculate patch of lawn. He’d bet the Feds hadn’t set the condo’s alarm, so their people could come and go easily. But the back door and downstairs windows had more yellow tape across them. Best not to disturb it.

Jared climbed the fire escape to reach the largest upstairs window, which he guessed was Holly’s bedroom. He draped his jacket over his elbow and smashed the glass. Too late, it occurred to him she was the sort of woman who would have dead bolts on her windows. He fumbled in the darkness to find the window catch. Yep, a dead bolt.

With the key in it. Suppressing an exclamation of triumph, he unlocked the window and slid it open. He stepped gingerly into the room, partly to avoid the broken glass, partly out of the crazy notion that the more carefully he moved the less likely he would be to trigger an alarm.

When he was sure the only sound he could hear was the thudding of his heart—surely breaking and entering hadn’t been this stressful the last time he tried it?—he pulled the heavy draperies shut behind him and snapped on the bedside lamp.

Holly’s bedroom was as neat as he would have expected. If the FBI had searched it, they’d done a good job of tidying up afterward. The white damask counterpane on the double bed was unwrinkled, with two square pillows propped carefully on single points against the light-colored wood of the headboard.

Twin matching nightstands flanked the bed, both surfaces clear of clutter. Next to the tallboy dresser, a small armchair was upholstered in a light-blue check. The walls, he guessed in the dim lamplight, were cream or off-white.

It could have been sterile. But it felt simply… honest.

On the wall opposite the bed hung framed photographs of two teenagers, a boy and a girl.

On the other wall, directly above the bed, hung something so out of place it had to be important.

An oil painting, unframed, in bold oranges and reds, measuring about a foot square. Behind all that color was a green-blue swirl of background, cold where the rest was warm.

With difficulty, Jared tore his gaze from it. He wrapped his jacket around his right hand so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints.

Ten minutes later he was done. He switched off the bedside lamp and opened the draperies. Light from the three-quarter moon provided almost as much illumination as the lamp had. As he prepared to exit through the window, a scratching sound froze him in place. Was it inside? A cat, maybe? After a moment he heard it again. He stepped out of the bedroom into the hallway, then moved to the top of the stairs.

The sudden wail of a burglar alarm almost sent him into cardiac arrest.

“Damn.” Jared raced back into the bedroom, picked up his load and headed out the window. Clambering down the fire escape was much faster than his ascent—every second he expected to be confronted by an angry neighbor or an unusually vigilant security company, the kind a woman like Holly would hire.

Holly’s back gate wasn’t locked from the inside, thank goodness. He sprinted across the communal area, praying all the way that the gate to the road would have a release button, rather than another card swipe. It did.

He threw the bundle into the car, hurled himself in after it and drove off, remembering to slow down as he hit the arterial road. Two hundred yards later, a security company vehicle passed him going the other way. A half mile farther on, a police car passed, lights flashing but siren off out of respect for the quality neighborhood.

The blood pounding in his ears, Jared drove all the way home right on the speed limit. He must be getting old.

BECAUSE SHE’D BEEN wide-awake since before six o’clock, contemplating her first day at Harding Corp with mingled dread and anticipation, Holly was first to the front door when the pounding started at six forty-five.

“Quiet,” she muttered as she scrambled for the dead bolt key that, to AnnaMae’s amusement, she’d hidden under the clay pot that held her friend’s umbrellas. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

She glared at the man on the doorstep. “Special Agent Crook. How are you this morning?” A thought struck her. “Is it Dave? Have you found him?”

He gave her a peculiar look, as if he didn’t believe Dave actually existed. “Can I come in?”

That being a purely rhetorical question, Holly stepped back and tugged AnnaMae’s tight spare robe, a satin concoction with a delicate floral pattern, closer around her. She followed Crook into the living room.

“Where were you at eleven o’clock last night?” he asked, accepting her offer of a seat.

“Right here, listening to a David Gray CD and having a cup of coffee with my roommate while my…blouse soaked in the tub,” she said with careful precision that nonetheless omitted to mention she’d also washed her underwear.

“I’ll need to confirm that with your roommate.”

“I can vouch for her,” AnnaMae said from the doorway. “She came in at ten-thirty, which I know because I asked her to wait a moment while my TV show finished. Then we had coffee, as Holly said. We both went to bed at eleven-thirty.”

“Where were you before you came home?” he asked.

“I had dinner at the Green Room with a client,” Holly said. “Is this about Dave? Is he all right?”

“Someone broke into your condo last night.” Crook rolled his eyes when she gasped. “Your alarm went off at eleven. The security company got there five minutes later, but whoever did it was long gone. It doesn’t appear anything was taken—TV, DVD and so on. I need to know if you had any valuables.”

She shook her head. “Nothing, since you confiscated my laptop. Is there any damage?”

He ignored the question. “Did you keep any work files at home that someone might have tried to retrieve for you?”

“You think I organized someone to break into my own home?” Appalled, she stared at him. “I thought you already searched the place.”

“We did. We cleaned out your home office.”

She winced.

“But maybe there’s a safe we didn’t find.” He scowled at her. “We will find it, so you might as well tell me now.”

“There’s no safe.” Holly was still trying to absorb the news. “It must have been kids fooling around. How did they get in?”

“They broke an upstairs window, managed to get it open.”

“I always lock my windows and hide the key.”

Crook had the grace to look shamefaced. “One of our guys left the key in the lock.”

“I’ll expect you to compensate me for any loss or damage,” Holly said, outrage overriding her instinctive respect for an officer of the law.

Crook grunted, a sound that could have meant either yes or no. Or more likely, Get off my back, lady. He hauled himself up off the sofa. “Call me if you think of anything else that might be relevant. We’ll dust for fingerprints this morning.” He looked her in the eye. “We don’t think this was kids, Ms. Stephens. We think this is about whatever you’re mixed up in.”

When he’d gone, Holly sank into the spot he’d vacated on the couch. “Can things get any worse?”

“You need coffee.” Her friend bustled out of the room.

Holly shut her eyes, clamped a hand to her forehead to ward off an incipient headache. She breathed deeply—in, out, in, out. A tap-tapping at the window jolted her out of her attempted trance. She screamed, and AnnaMae came running.

“What is it?”

Holly pointed a trembling finger at the window where a stick topped with a white lace-and-chiffon bra tapped on the pane.

A minute later she snatched her bra off the end of the stick that Jared proffered from the living room doorway.

“Where did you get this?” She clutched the bra to her chest, then realized how suggestive that looked. She whipped it behind her back. “That’s my bag.”

“Nothing wrong with your eyesight.” He advanced into the room and dropped the canvas overnight bag. “You’ll find a few of your things in there.”

“It was you! You broke into my home last night—for a panty raid?” She heard the beginnings of a shriek in her voice and clenched her teeth.

Uninvited, Jared sat on the couch. AnnaMae, agog with curiosity, propelled Holly to an armchair. She was about to take the space next to Jared herself, but Holly’s glare deterred her. With visible reluctance, she left the room.

“You needed some clothes. I got them,” he said.

She’d have to be stupid to believe he’d done it to help her.

“No need to thank me. The look on your face when I knocked on the window was all the reward I need.”

That was the real reason. He’d derived puerile pleasure from her embarrassment. “How dare you break in—that place is a crime scene.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you had me convinced you’re innocent.”

“You know what I mean. The FBI taped it off. And how did you get into my complex? The gate’s always locked.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. I’d probably feel compelled to report it to Special Agent Crook.”

He snorted. “You can take law-abiding too far, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. This is exactly what I’ve never liked about you—”

“You’ve never liked about me?” His voice had gone dangerously quiet. “You hadn’t met me before yesterday, but you never liked me?”

When he put it like that, it sounded unreasonable. “You’re twisting my words. I said I never liked one thing about you, that you’re known to deal on the fringes of the law.”

“So much for your promise to suspend judgment,” he snapped. “Since we’re clearing the air, is there anything else you’ve ‘never liked’ about me?”

Well, he’d asked for honesty, her personal strength. “I don’t like the deals you make that infringe on the rights of small shareholders. I don’t like the way you mislead the market, distracting people from your shadier deals by feigning an interest in a legitimate one. I don’t like the way you leak confidential information to the press when it suits you.”

Jared’s admiration for Holly grew. She was smart enough to sift through the business gossip, the newspaper articles extolling his successes, and figure out exactly what he was up to. Panic momentarily suffused him. Would she realize the role he’d set her up to play in this current deal?

With that extraordinary perception she seemed to have where he was concerned, she said, “In light of all that, I want you to promise me one thing.”

“You’re in no position to make demands,” he reminded her.

“Promise you will give me an honest answer to any question. I won’t work with you otherwise.”

He briefly considered agreeing, then lying to her when he had to. But contrary to the low opinion Holly had of his personal integrity, he didn’t break his promises. And he only lied when really necessary, which was seldom. “If I answer a question, you’ll know it’s the truth,” he said. “But I reserve the right not to answer every question.”

Because why he wanted this deal so badly was none of her business.

Holly nodded. “Now,” she said briskly, “is there anything you don’t like about me?”

For an incredulous moment he stared at her. Anxious to play fair, she was giving him a chance to insult her the way she’d just done him. He laughed loud and long.

“I mean it.” Pink tinged her cheeks. “It’s only fair.”

Her steady gaze held his, but her tongue moistened those full lips—how could he ever have thought her plain?—in an anxious gesture.

“You’re uptight.”

“I know.” She looked relieved that he’d stated the obvious.

He thought back over what he’d heard people say about her. It was human nature not to give unqualified praise, so those who admired her creativity, her technical precision, her intelligence, usually found something bad to say, as well. “You’re stubborn and inflexible.”

She was actually nodding, as if these were compliments. He had to play hardball. “You’re condescending to those you consider your intellectual inferiors.”

“I am not!”

Now he had her. Though the hurt in her gray-blue eyes made him feel like a heel.

“I admit I’m not a great people person,” she said, “but I would never—”

“Hey.” Jared cut her off. “You asked. You don’t have to justify yourself to me. If it’s any consolation, I’ve discovered one thing I really like about you.”

“What’s that?” she said suspiciously.

“Your taste in lingerie.” He gestured to the bag between them. “For a lady who likes to dress so shapeless and dull, you’ve got some pretty hot stuff in there.”

Holly felt her face flame. To hide her embarrassment, she leaned forward and pulled the bag toward her. She unzipped it and looked through what he’d brought. Most of her lingerie, and beneath it some clothes.

But not her clothes.

“I don’t believe it.” She rummaged through the bag again. “These are my sister’s things—none of these clothes are mine.” He’d obviously gone into the bottom drawer of her tallboy, where the overflow from the spare bedroom found a home. “I have a whole wardrobe full of suits and blouses. Why didn’t you bring those?”

“I only chose stuff I liked,” Jared said airily. “None of the rest came close. Besides, my office is casual.”

“But I don’t—” Holly counted to five. There would be plenty else to stress about in the weeks to come. At least she had fresh underwear and no need to spend a fortune on new clothes, assuming she was still around the same size as her sister.

“There’s more,” he said. “In the zip pocket on the end.”

She felt the outline of something hard through the bag and opened the pocket. “Oh.” Carefully, she pulled the painting out. Its bright colors shone in the dull of the living room. She blinked back tears. “I… How did you…?” She swallowed. “Thank you.”

He dismissed her thanks with a wave of his hand. “It looked like it might be important.”

“It is.” She clasped it to her chest. “It’s my father.”

“You mean, he painted it?”

“My mother did. It’s a portrait of my father.” Holly’s shaky laugh held equal measures of frustration and puzzlement. “I have no idea what Mom meant by it, but it’s all I have left of him.”

Jared narrowed his eyes. Could Holly not guess the meaning of a painting under whose warm, colorful surface lurked a cold, blue heart? Chances were, she couldn’t. Abstract representations would be beyond this woman who lived her life in black and white.

Holly had no idea how many shades of gray there were in this world.

“Did your father die?” Dammit, he didn’t want to get personal with her. He’d never have asked the question if he hadn’t been in this bizarre situation, sitting opposite a woman whose underwear drawer he’d enjoyed riffling through far too much. Now she sat in front of him in the thinnest of satin robes, showing a tantalizing hint of creamy cleavage where the lapels met. He dropped his gaze to her bare feet, only to find they were—with their pale pink-tipped toes—troublingly, innocently erotic. Jared dragged his eyes back up to her face, which was no hardship.

Thankfully she didn’t want to get personal, either. Her expression cooled as she laid the painting on the table. “No,” she said briefly.

Fine by him. He got to his feet. “No need to thank me for getting your clothes.” He grinned. Nothing was as much fun as pushing Holly off the moral high ground. “I’ll see you at work. You’d better get moving, if you want to be on time.”

He sauntered from the room, savoring the way she ground her teeth at his implication she might be late.


CHAPTER FOUR

HOLLY SQUIRMED in her seat. She just couldn’t get comfortable wearing casual clothes to work. No matter that everybody else in Jared’s company was dressed equally informally.

She could see right through the heavy glass tabletop in the Harding Corporation boardroom to her sister’s ultra-tight jeans. And the jeans reminded her of the appreciative and comprehensive look Jared had cast over them when she arrived at the office. At least the white cotton shirt she’d teamed with the pants was almost respectable.

But how she ached for a return to the ordered, peaceful life symbolized by her conservative wardrobe. Would she ever find her way back? She buried her head in her hands, blotting out the sight of the jeans, blotting out these surroundings she didn’t want to be in, blotting out the man she didn’t want to work for.

“Are you okay?” Impatience rather than sympathy edged Jared’s words.

She took a breath that was unfortunately shuddery. “Tell me more about these deals I’m working on.”

Jared paused a moment, presumably to see if she was about to dissolve into inconvenient tears. He stretched and clasped his hands behind his head, a movement that emphasized the lean length of his torso beneath his black knit shirt. Holly dropped her gaze back down to the papers in front of her.

“Two companies are involved,” he said. “I want to buy Wireless World and merge it with one of my subsidiaries that isn’t doing so well.”

Holly nodded, his no-nonsense tone flipping her out of her black mood and into work. It wasn’t unusual to put a highly profitable business like Wireless World together with one that was performing badly for the sake of tax benefits. In the up-and-down Seattle software industry, it happened all the time. “Any anticipated problems?” she asked, and was pleased that came out steady.

“One of the family stockholders has agreed to sell me his shares. I’ll have a big enough holding that I can make life difficult for the rest of them if they don’t sell me theirs.”

“A hostile takeover.” She couldn’t blame the owners, a well-known family from Atlanta, for their reluctance to be bought out by Jared Harding. It would be like the three little pigs opening the door to the big bad wolf.

He grinned, as if he’d read her thoughts. “They’ll come around.”

“And if they don’t?”

He blinked, and the humor was gone. “Too bad.”

Holly gritted her teeth. “What’s the other company we’re looking at?” Did she imagine his hesitation?

“EC Solutions. It’s a small software company, but it’s made some significant overseas sales.”

She leaned forward. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure you get it.”

Jared had a few ideas as to how she could satisfy him—and they didn’t involve balance sheets or calculators. When Holly had turned up in those skintight jeans this morning, he’d had the first inkling that choosing to liberate the least dull clothes in her condo might have been a bad idea. And though now she’d pulled her hair back into its usual unflattering style, in his mind’s eye he saw it loose as it had been earlier. He’d realized then that what he’d taken to be no particular color was in fact a rich brown that, depending on the light, glinted red or gold.

“What do you want, Jared?” She pressed him, in the politest of tones.

He preferred women who didn’t ask any question more difficult than “Can I get you a beer?” Holly would ask so many questions, he’d be forced to start thinking about the answers.

What did he personally want from this deal?

Revenge.

“I want,” he said, “to win Wireless World without being plastered all over the newspapers as a predator and without doubts about the legality of the subsequent merger.”

He didn’t tell her what he really wanted—a deal so tight it would frustrate the hell out of anyone who wanted to outdo him. Would make them careless, ready to rush headlong into the next opportunity to beat him.

“And EC Solutions?” she asked.

“I’m not a hundred percent committed to that business.” It was a form of the truth, at least. “Start the process and see how we go. It might get too competitive. There’ll be other interested parties.” One other interested party.

“I’ll need a couple of days to familiarize myself with the companies and their accounts,” she said.

“The bulk of your time should be spent on Wireless World.” He was taking a risk getting her involved in EC Solutions at all. A necessary risk. If Holly couldn’t unravel the web he’d set up, no one could. She was the ultimate test.

“There’s one more thing,” he said.

She lifted her gray gaze from the accounts she was studying.

“This deal is confidential.”

Holly bristled. “I would never betray a client confidence.”

He waved her protest away. “I don’t mean that. I don’t want anyone here knowing what’s going on, either.”

“You don’t trust your own staff?”

“There have been a couple of leaks to the press.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Leaks that didn’t come from me,” he added. “This time.”

“I won’t gossip to your staff.”

He moved on to the difficult part. “I don’t want anyone here even knowing you’re involved.” She looked hurt, and he was annoyed to find himself reassuring her. “This has nothing to do with the FBI. It’s a matter of internal security.”

She frowned. “But I don’t have an office, and all the resources I’ll need are here.”

“Come with me. Bring your stuff.” He rose, waited the briefest possible time for her to pack up her briefcase and follow him.

They headed to the elevator. Instead of going down to the main office floors, Jared used his security card to allow access to the floor immediately above, the top floor of the building.

Holly stepped out. There were no offices here, only two numbered doors. Jared used his security card again to open Number Two and motioned her into a penthouse apartment—spacious, with fabulous views over Elliott Bay visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. Despite its luxurious furnishings, the apartment felt unlived-in.

“If anyone on my staff asks why you were in the office, I’ll tell them you were looking for work but I turned you down.” He ignored her indignant gasp. “You’ll work here.” He pointed to an office area in the corner of the living room. “This place is wired into the company network. I suggest you live here, too.”

“Why would I—?” Her voice rose.

“It’s a long commute from your friend’s place to the city. And the amount I’m paying you, I want you working day and night.”

Holly hesitated, and he tsked. “The sooner you get the job done, the sooner you get your money. Since I live right next door, it’ll be convenient for us to work together in the evenings.”

“You live here?”

“In Number One.”

Holly bit her lip. She wanted to keep as far away from Jared as she could. But it was a big job on a tight time frame. And no matter how welcoming AnnaMae had been, Holly did like her own space.

“I promise I’m a good neighbor. No loud parties, no drugs.”

“I don’t like feeling I’m a prisoner,” Holly said shortly.

“No one’s saying you can’t leave the building. If anyone sees you in the elevator, they’ll assume you’re working for one of the other firms with offices here. I just don’t want you wandering around Harding Corporation. It’s bound to trigger speculation.”

Before she could argue, her cell phone started playing “America the Beautiful.” “I’d better take this,” she said. “It might be the FBI.”

While she took the call, Jared walked over to the window that wrapped around the northwest corner of the building. Out one side he glimpsed the Space Needle, out the other the expanse of Elliott Bay. The Bainbridge Island ferry broke the surface of the blue water, and above the bay, traffic crawled across the West Seattle Bridge. Beyond the downtown office buildings and department stores stretched a clear blue sky. And beyond that, space. Cyberspace. When Jared had started his business, cyberspace had been the Wild West of the corporate world. He and others had tamed it to some extent, but its boundaries were still enticingly vague.

He imagined Holly would hate to operate in the virtual world he inhabited. She was bound by facts, realities. She thrived on—what had she said at The American The American way. Play by the rules and it’ll be okay. The woman’s cell phone played a patriotic tune, for goodness’ sake.

For Jared the American way meant freedom. Freedom to pursue vengeance to the ends of the earth.

Holly was arguing with whomever she was talking to, employing the superior tone that often sneaked into her conversations with Jared. The tone that drove a man to do things like break in to steal her underwear.

“You can’t do that,” she said. “I’m innocent, and I will prove—” She listened for another half a minute. When she spoke again, the assertiveness had disappeared from her voice.

“Just wait,” she begged. “Please don’t do this now.”

When she ended the call, she turned to Jared white and stricken.

“What is it?” he asked. All the times they’d discussed the fraud inquiry he hadn’t seen her look this shattered.

“That was the chairman of the Northwest CPA Association. They’ve revoked my membership.”

For a second Jared thought he must have misunderstood. But she didn’t say anything else, merely waited for his reaction. “That bunch of gray-haired, fat-bellied—” he grasped for a polite noun “—number-crunchers. Who gives a damn what they think? I thought someone must have died the way you—”

“This is a kind of death,” she blurted out. “You may not have much respect for my profession, but it’s…it’s my life. If I’m not acceptable to the association, I’m not going to be acceptable to any client with ethics higher than pond scum. This will be the end of me.”

Holly could have guessed Jared wasn’t the sort to offer kind reassurances. But the anger that hardened his blue eyes took her by surprise.

“Don’t you dare reduce your life to nothing more than your work,” he snarled. “Damn well pull yourself together and get on with the job you’re here to do. You can deal with those jerks at the association when this mess is over. In the meantime, stop your whining.”

Holly’s jaw dropped and she stared at him.

Jared unclenched his fists and said more calmly, “This thing with the CPA crowd won’t affect your work for me, since you won’t be the one signing off on the accounts. Now, are you going to live here or not?”

She nodded, the fight momentarily sucked out of her. She was still trying to figure out if she should feel shamed or enraged. And people said she was insensitive.

Before she could tell Jared what she thought of his people skills, the phone in her hand rang again, startling her. She read the display: Summer.

“It’s my sister.” She pinned a smile to her lips so she would sound cheery when she said, “Hi, there.”

“What’s with the fake happy voice?” Summer demanded.

So much for that idea. “Nothing,” she said.

“Holly, tell me.”

“Just a silly mistake. The FBI think I stole some money and I have to…deal with stuff.”

“That’s terrible!” Summer sounded even more shocked than Holly had been. “I’m coming back,” she said instantly.

“No.” Holly managed to inject her usual authority into the word. “I want you to stay where you are. You need that job.”

“But I want to help,” her sister protested.

“I know, and it’s sweet of you. But there’s nothing you can do. I just have to work through this. It’ll be fine.”

By the time she managed to convince Summer to stay in Portland, Jared was looking at his watch. Too bad. She wasn’t about to apologize for talking to her sister.

“I have to get to work. Let’s meet tonight and discuss progress,” he said.

Holly seized the chance to wrest back some control. “I’ll need more time to get up to speed.”

“Tomorrow morning, then.”

“Sunday night,” she said firmly. “I’ll spend the weekend thinking about your options.”

“Are you charging me your exorbitant hourly rate for the time you spend thinking?”

“It’s the most valuable time you’ll get out of me,” she said with no false modesty. “If you don’t want to pay for it, I won’t think about your deals and we’ll go ahead with whatever any other accountant would recommend.” She held the door of her apartment open. “In which case, yes, we can meet tonight and this job should be all over in a week.”

Jared didn’t budge for maybe half a minute. “Sunday, then.” He handed her the key card. “This will get you in and out. I’ll have Janine, my PA, collect your stuff from your friend’s house and drop it here.”

“I thought you said I could go out.”

“If people see you arriving with your baggage, they might guess what’s going on.”

She scowled. “If you had this all worked out, why did you take my clothes to AnnaMae’s in the first place? You could have brought them straight here.”

“I couldn’t bear to see you in that navy suit again.” He grinned, dispelling the tension of a minute earlier. “And I wanted to see your face when your underwear showed up at the window.”

“Great,” Holly said wearily. “A client with the mental age of a twelve-year-old.”

And, damn him, he threw back his head and laughed.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK that night, Jared tapped on her door with what he considered admirable restraint. She’d had ten hours. Surely she had something to show for them, no matter what she’d said this morning. He was curious to see how she’d got on—and warmed by the thought of exchanging more of the banter that both frustrated and elated him. He was certain Holly enjoyed it as much as he did.

He knocked again, tapping his foot as he waited, but again he got no response. He frowned. She wouldn’t have gone out. She had all she needed for her work, and Janine had stocked the refrigerator. Maybe Holly was in the bathroom. He waited another minute before he struck the door with the heel of his hand.

When she still didn’t appear, an unexpected wave of terror flooded him.

She wouldn’t.

“This will be the end of me,” she’d said about the call from the CPA association. She didn’t mean it like that. Holly was strong. A survivor. But hadn’t Jared thought the same about his brother?

The roar in Jared’s head reached a crescendo and he pounded on the door. “Holly? Let me in or I’ll break this door down,” he yelled, loud enough for his words—and his fear—to penetrate the thick wood and the soundproofed walls.

Just as he was about to make good on his threat, he heard the scrape of the chain. Another second and the door opened. Holly stood there, alive and well, blinking.

“Where the hell were you?” He pushed past her into the room, where a quick glance told him nothing sinister had happened. His fear dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by a surge of adrenaline, or relief, or just plain anger. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trembling with the effort not to shake her.

Holly had no idea why Jared was so mad. But the tremor in his powerful fingers told her he was struggling not to take it out on her in some physical way.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, injecting the words with cold fury, “scare me like that again.” Then he hauled her close and lowered his mouth to hers.

If this was a kiss, a small part of Holly’s brain registered, it wasn’t like any she’d had before. The rest of her brain struggled to deal with the instant response of every nerve ending to Jared’s touch. But when she realized she’d already parted her lips to the invasion of his tongue, that now her hands had wound around his neck and into his thick, dark hair, Holly dismissed her brain and instead surrendered to the incredible experience that was Jared’s kiss.

He devoured her with a hunger that should have horrified her. Instead she explored his mouth with a greed that equaled his, moved eagerly under his insistent hands, which pulled her against his hard length.

Then, as if sanity returned to both of them in the same instant, they sprang apart, Holly stumbling. Unable to meet Jared’s eyes, she busied her hands tucking in her shirt, which had made its way out of her jeans, embarrassed to find she was breathing heavily. The only consolation was that Jared looked equally discomfited, tugging at the collar of his shirt, running a hand through the hair she’d mussed.

Now Holly noticed the pallor of his face, which emphasized the darkness of his eyes. But she could see he was more than furious; he looked positively spooked. So instead of castigating him for kissing her—and in all fairness, how could she when her response had suggested she was desperate for his touch?—she said in the mildest of tones, “What do you mean, scare you?”

Jared shut his eyes. When he opened them, the anger was gone, his voice was calm. But she sensed the huge effort that it cost him. “When you didn’t answer the door I thought maybe you’d overreacted to this FBI thing and…done something stupid.”

It wasn’t like Jared to employ a euphemism when plain language was available. “You thought I’d killed myself.”

He flinched. “You were upset this morning.”

“You’re right, killing myself would be stupid.” Her acerbic tone seemed to reassure him, and he let out a breath. “I’m innocent and the investigation will prove it. So throwing myself out a penthouse window would achieve very little.”

“Only a sore head,” he agreed, sounding almost his normal self. “They don’t open and the glass is extra tough.”

She grinned at the release of tension. Jared smiled back. His relief added warmth to the smile, setting off a fluttering somewhere around Holly’s midriff.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded before his charm overcame her resistance. “I told you I didn’t want to see you before Sunday night.”

“I’m ordering Chinese takeout. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks. I’ll cook something here.” There was an awkward pause. Holly figured Jared really wanted to know how her work was going, but she’d told him she wouldn’t be ready to report back until Sunday, and she meant it.

“Why didn’t you answer the door earlier?” he asked suddenly.

“I was concentrating. It can take a while to get through to me when I’m engrossed in my work.”

Jared nodded.

“Why would you think I would kill myself? It seems…somewhat extreme.”

In an instant, his expression shuttered. “I’ll leave you to it.” He made the distance in his tone a physical reality by heading for the door he’d so recently threatened to break down. As if the sight of it had triggered his memory, he turned on his way out. “By the way,” he said carelessly, “that kiss—it won’t happen again.”


CHAPTER FIVE

WHO WOULD HAVE guessed that the mother of prosperous accountant Holly Stephens would reside in a second-rate trailer park?

Certainly not Special Agent Simon Crook, if he hadn’t known her record. But the local cops had been bitter about their past encounters with Mrs. Stephens, so Simon had a good idea whom hewas about to meet. And he was pretty sure he would find the answer to Holly Stephens’s guilt or innocence right here. Like mother, like daughter.

The Stephenses’ family home was no better and noworse than the other trailers surrounding it, with a couple of rooms tacked on the front. Venetian blinds obscured any viewof the interior, andwould have made the place look abandoned if not for the plants that flourished in the tiny front yard.

Special Agent Andy Slater dismissed the inhabitants of the trailer park an hour east of Portland in two words: white trash.

Simon frowned. Andy was a good agent, but he had trouble shaking off his Southern attitudes. “Some of these people work hard for a living,” he said.

“This one doesn’t.” Andy gestured toward Mrs. Stephens’s door. “Leastways, not so’s we know.”

He had a point. Crook knocked on the door, which shook in its flimsy frame, and waited. No answer. What a surprise. In his experience trailer-park dwellers were universally hard of hearing when the law came calling.

But they knew Margaret Stephens was at home. They’d stopped at the euphemistically titled Management Office on their way in, and the old guy there had confirmed it. “Don’t often go out, that one. No car.”

Crook knocked harder. “Mrs. Stephens,” he called. “FBI. Open up.” Silence.

“Break it down,” Andy said laconically.

Simon assumed—hoped—Andy was joking, given they didn’t have a warrant. Still, he was mentally judging where he would best apply his shoulder to the door if they did have one, when it opened.

“What do you want?”

For a second, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he was here. But Margaret Stephens’s truculent greeting and the startling contrast between the hostile words and her husky voice weren’t to blame for his momentary amnesia. No, it was Mrs. Stephens herself.

He’d expected a woman as scrawny as her daughter, but from poverty rather than fashion. Someone plain, like Holly, but made even mousier by her circumstances.

There was nothing scrawny and nothing plain about Holly’s mother. Wild waves of thick, chestnut hair framed a face dominated by eyes as green as envy and a wide, full mouth that was positively sinful. He knew her to be forty-nine years old, but she was the most stunning woman he’d seen since…

Okay, so the woman was…voluptuous. But she was also a druggie and goodness knew what else.

“Mrs. Margaret Stephens? Can we come in? It’s about your daughter.”

She regarded them with suspicion. “Summer’s working in Portland during her vacation.”

“I’m talking about Holly.”

“Holly?” Shock provoked her to take an instinctive step backward, and the two agents took advantage of it, stepping inside. “Is my baby hurt? Dead?”

“She’s okay,” Simon said quickly. “We just need to ask you a few questions.”

The inside of the trailer was at first glance no more promising than the outside. Shabby furnishings—a couch that looked as if ninety percent of its stuffing had disappeared years ago, a threadbare rug, a Formica dining table with matching chairs so old-fashioned they were trendy again—all spoke of a woman struggling to survive.

If Margaret Stephens had made any money out of drugs, she must have blown it all.

Crook shifted his scrutiny from the furnishings—and did a double take.

“What the hell—?” Andy was also looking at the walls.

Not that a lot of wall was visible. Paintings, all sizes, covered just about every square inch. Crook surmised they were intended as art, given they were executed on canvas. But there any resemblance to the impressionist and modern masters he’d studied in high-school art class ended.

Some of the canvases bore swirling swathes of color, others seemingly random splashes and splotches. A few comprised collections of tiny dots.

“My three-year-old paints better than this crap,” Andy muttered, not quite under his breath.

Simon saw Mrs. Stephens’s face redden. What did Andy think he was doing, antagonizing her before they had any answers to their questions? Not to mention being downright rude on a subject he probably knew less about than Simon.

“Shut up, Andy,” he said. “Show some respect.” He sensed rather than saw the woman’s surprise, and took immediate advantage of it. “Mrs. Stephens, we need to—”

“It’s Maggie,” she interrupted him with quiet force. “I don’t use Stephens much these days. Should’ve dumped the name when its owner dumped me.”

The local cops had no record of Mr. Stephens ever getting into trouble. Maybe he’d had enough of his wife’s shenanigans and gotten out of here, like any decent guy would.

“Like I said, ma’am—” he couldn’t bring himself to use her first name “—we need to ask you—”

“What did you say your name was, Officer?”

Crook felt heat at the back of his neck. He hadn’t introduced himself, a clear breach of protocol. “Special Agent Crook.”

“I suppose your first name is Small-time?”

Beside him Andy sniggered, and Simon felt the heat intensify. “This here’s Special Agent Slater,” he persisted. “Mrs.—uh—ma’am, if you want to help your daughter, you’ll answer our questions.”

He’d hit upon the magic words. Maggie Stephens sat on the worn-out sofa and gave them her full attention. She didn’t invite them to sit, but Crook pulled a couple of dining chairs out and passed one to Andy.

In as few words as possible he outlined the theft Holly’s clients had suffered and made it clear Holly was a suspect.

“Holly would never do that,” her mother said. “She’s honest, like me.”

He frowned. He couldn’t resist pointing out the flaw in her logic. “Ma’am, I understand you have several criminal convictions. Claiming Holly takes after you may not help her cause.”

Maggie’s remarkable green gaze didn’t waver. “Holly is a woman of strong principles,” she said. “She wouldn’t betray those for money.”

She said “money” with a genuine contempt that Simon envied. But with retirement looming he couldn’t be complacent. And he wouldn’t want to live in a trailer park.…

“When did you last speak to your daughter?” He didn’t imagine they were best buddies. Young Ms. Stephens looked as if she’d gone all out to get as far away—philosophically, if not geographically—from her upbringing as possible.

So he wasn’t surprised when the mother said, “Maybe three or four months.” Which probably meant six months.

“Does she ever talk to you about her business partner, David Fletcher?”

Maggie Stephens shook her head. “She mentioned him when they first set up the business, but not lately.”

“What did she tell you about Fletcher back then?”

“Is your first name Murray?”

The unexpected question threw him off track. “What? No. No, it’s not.”

“It’s just you look like a Murray.”

What was that supposed to mean? Most likely itmeans this woman’s a fruitcake. “We were talking about Dave Fletcher,” he prompted her again.

“Holly said he wasn’t particularly bright, but he was reliable and good on detail.”

“You’ve got a good memory. She said that—what, two years ago?” Andy sounded plain skeptical.

“My daughter and I don’t talk much.” She addressed Crook as if Slater wasn’t there. “So when we do, I hold on to that conversation for a long time.”

“Then you should remember what you talked about last time you spoke,” he said.

Maggie Stephens shrugged. “Is your name Horace?”

“No.” Even as he willed himself not to respond to her provocation, he was faintly stung she would even suggest it.

“Wayne?”

An improvement on Horace, at least. Crook shook his head. He was more than familiar with delaying tactics. If he told her, she’d just think up some other way to bug him. “What did you and Holly talk about last time you spoke?” he repeated coldly.

She shrugged again. “She told me her business was going well, and the twins were doing okay at college, far as she knew.”

“The twins?”

“Summer and River. They’re nineteen. Holly is paying to put them through college.” Her voice was devoid of expression where Crook might have expected pride or gratitude. He left aside the subject of why Maggie might not be pleased her kids were going to college, and focused instead on the potential motive for fraud she had just presented.

“That’s a big financial commitment for Holly,” he said conversationally.

She saw right through that. “Holly is very generous with her money. Sensible, too. She doesn’t spend what she doesn’t have. And the only money she has is what she’s worked for.”

The questioning went around in circles for another fifteen minutes. While Crook didn’t think she was lying, Maggie had been interrogated by authorities often enough that she knew how to annoy a federal agent, and how to say nothing that was of any use. Every so often she’d ask, “Is your name Kevin?” Or Peter, or John or whatever. Crook was pleased with the way he kept his cool, especially in the face of Slater’s growing and ill-concealed amusement.

At last he figured he wasn’t going to get any more out of her. He rose to leave, looking forward to getting out of the trailer, away from its shabby furnishings, its art-cluttered walls and the dominating presence of Maggie Stephens. With luck, he wouldn’t have to speak to her again.

“Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am,” he said, his politeness edged with sarcasm.

The glint of mischief in her green eyes told him she knew just how he felt. “My pleasure, Officer,” she said.

And as he headed down the path behind Andy, she called, “Lucas?”

Crook stopped. She really thought he looked like a Lucas? The only Lucas he’d known had been the coolest kid in high school. Unable to help himself, he grinned at her. “Nope.”

She stood in the doorway with her arms folded, a defensive stance. Her next words were diffident, almost shy. “You told your colleague to show some respect for my work. Does that mean you like it?”

He could have said yes, in the hope it would make the woman more inclined to help him. But generally he didn’t lie, even to suspects. He had a hunch that a couple of small lies would put him on a road he didn’t want to go down, and he might not find the way back again.

“No, I didn’t exactly like them,” he said. “Mind you, I didn’t dislike them, either. I just…didn’t get them.”

He wasn’t sure if her brusque nod indicated she’d taken offence or not. Not his problem. He raised a hand in farewell. By the time he and Slater were in the car, she’d disappeared inside.

“That woman is nuts.” Slater didn’t hold back his contempt.

Crook, who ordinarily had no problem ascribing varying degrees of lunacy to the people he met through his work, merely said, “She didn’t give us much to go on.”

That he hadn’t given the ready agreement Slater was looking for irritated Crook. Maggie may not be nuts, but she was a criminal who in all likelihood had raised her daughter to be an even bigger criminal. He shouldn’t defend her.

He flicked his turn signal as they pulled out of the trailer park onto the highway.

“So, Slater, is Holly Stephens innocent? What does your gut tell you?” It was a question Crook liked to ask his colleagues. Some agents made their best decisions on the promptings of their instincts. Others, like Crook, did everything by the book, followed due process, to figure out answers.

It hadn’t always been that way. At one time, he’d employed what he considered to be an inspired blend of instinct and logic. But in recent years he’d become a process man. The process worked, but just sometimes he liked to hear what other agents’ guts told them.

Slater shook his head. “Too soon to call.”

For the briefest moment, Crook had a sense this case wasn’t going to be as straightforward as it looked. Could it be his long-dormant instinct stirring at last? He dismissed the thought. The only thing his visit with Maggie Stephens had stirred was his hormones.

MAGGIE PACED THE CONFINES of her living room, unsettled by the intrusion of the two FBI agents. By one of them, at least.

How could she be thinking about a man when her daughter was in trouble? Even if that daughter believed Maggie had forfeited the right to worry about her long ago. What kind of a mother was she?

She knew the answer to that one. The kind of mother who always put her causes ahead of her family, and who’d probably do it all again, given the chance. With the possible exception of marrying Andrew Stephens.

After Andrew had left, she’d been thankful never to experience that powerful pull toward a man again. Until today. She couldn’t explain—couldn’t believe—the attraction she’d felt for the FBI agent.

And for no obvious reason. He wasn’t good-looking—entirely average—and he was the sort of man who would despise everything she stood for. Life had taught Maggie long ago that respect was a scarce commodity. She sure wasn’t going to find it in a man like Crook.

Though he’d surprised her as he left. Instead of lying to her and saying he liked the paintings, he’d given her an honest answer.

Maggie shook off the distraction posed by the man she’d met today. She couldn’t be attracted to him after those accusations he’d made against Holly. Holly. The oldest of Maggie’s children, but the one she always thought of as her baby, would be devastated to have her integrity questioned. She wouldn’t welcome the phone call Maggie was determined to make. Maggie was under no illusion that she could comfort Holly, or help her. But she had to try.

She braced herself for the sneer of the park manager, who considered his tenants several rungs below him, and headed to the office to use the phone.

JARED FOUND HIMSELF unreasonably excited about his meeting with Holly on Sunday night. It was because the goal he’d worked toward for nearly twenty years was so close, he told himself.

It had nothing to do with Holly’s razor-sharp analytical mind, which presented such an intriguing contrast to the sensuous, almost mysterious curve of her mouth. And definitely nothing to do with the hottest kiss in history, the one they’d shared Friday night.

They both knew he wouldn’t do it again.

Tonight Holly opened the door promptly in response to his knock.

“Had a good day?” After an initial nanosecond scan of her person, Jared kept his gaze firmly on her face. The red leather miniskirt revealed gorgeous legs that Friday’s jeans had only hinted at. Teamed with a white cotton blouse with off-the-shoulder sleeves, the overall look was one of sultry innocence. Very sexy.

But he knew she wouldn’t appreciate his appreciation. And after his performance the other night, the last thing he needed was to get their first evening together—working together—off to an unpropitious start.

“A long day.” She stifled a yawn—hardly the usual reaction Jared encountered when he arrived at a woman’s home—as she led the way into the apartment.

Jared crossed to the office area. Apart from a small pile of papers on the desk, there was no evidence of three days spent on his deals. Could it be that Holly wasn’t as thorough as everyone said?

He soon found it was more a matter of her being meticulously tidy. She’d gone over a ton of information since he’d last seen her, and she ran through his options with a thoroughness that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.

Was there any hope at all that she might not figure out what he was up to?

“Jared?”

His eyes traveled over her slightly parted lips. Lips whose sweet, heated response he could recall without effort.

“What did you say?” he asked, annoyance seeping into his tone.

She bridled. “I asked if you want to hear my thoughts on pricing. But if you don’t want to…”

“Go ahead.” He got up and walked to the window, looked out at Elliott Bay instead of at Holly.

When she told him her conclusions, Jared was startled at how similar the numbers were to those he’d come up with, though her rationale was quite different. She knew her stuff inside-out—her only fault was that she explained things in such detail, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise to compliment her.

They were so engrossed in their discussion that he didn’t check his watch until hunger pangs reminded him they hadn’t eaten.

“It’s nine o’clock,” he told Holly. “I’m starving. Let’s get a pizza and keep working.”

She wrinkled her nose, as if pizza didn’t suit her, but agreed, so he went ahead and ordered. He poured two glasses of wine from a bottle he found in the refrigerator. When he looked up at Holly, she was rubbing the back of her neck with both hands. The movement lifted her breasts beneath the thin cotton of her blouse, drawing his eyes down to the high, rounded curves. He wondered which of those sexy bras she had on underneath. Maybe the transparent, gauzy white underwire with the front opening clasp. Or the—what was it, ivory?—with the imagination-stirring gold buckles on the straps.




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