was bad. When she reached her limits, Emma always came out swinging and God help her target. The fight wouldn’t end until she was the only one left standing.
He should know. He was still recovering from the last time he’d backed her into a corner.
As she blinked away the haze, Anthony regrouped. “Emma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I need your attention.”
“Mission accomplished,” she said, shaking off his hands to swoop down for his shirt, then slam it against his chest.
Anthony grunted at the impact and while he hurried back into the garment, she said, “I understand this is serious, and I can only imagine how you ended up with an X on your back. Finally messed with the wrong person, did you?”
“Is that your version of ‘I told you so’?”
“That’s beneath my level, Bracco. I’ll cooperate with the FBI, but if you set foot in my store again, I swear to God I’ll—”
“Hold it,” Anthony interrupted. “If you’d stop ranting for three seconds I’ll explain why I came here alone.”
Emma’s haughty, expectant expression made him want to howl. Letting the sarcasm flow, he said, “In case you weren’t aware, you have a tendency to fly off the handle, and the people trying to catch this guy don’t deserve the wrath of Emma. They’re stretched so thin they can barely cover me, let alone produce a second team for you. So that means you’re stuck with me, and there’s something I want to say before this gets any worse.”
Hands on hips now, Emma inquired, “What?”
Against his wishes, his body recognized that parts of her were still as lushly feminine as he remembered. The pose stretched silk across her breasts, highlighting a wispy lace bra barely containing the objects of many an unwanted erotic dream over the last two years.
Oh God. Total disaster. Why had he let himself panic like this? The FBI would protect her. He didn’t have to, and she wouldn’t let him anyhow.
But making sure she was safe wasn’t the only reason he’d come. The agents didn’t need her attitude, so he had some work to do before they got here. After a deep breath, he said, “I apologize.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Why?” he asked, praying his reaction to her wasn’t visible.
“I figured you must be gravely ill if you’re apologizing. Or is that scar finally showing you the error of your ways?”
He couldn’t help it. “And I suppose you consider your own actions completely justified.”
“Let’s compare, shall we? You tried to seduce me out of my store. I simply allowed you to tie your own noose. I’d say I was completely justified.”
“You would say that. All I wanted was the businesses, Emma. Nothing personal.”
He watched as a red taint bled up her neck into her face. “You made it personal.”
“All right, let’s stop this,” Anthony said. “If it makes you feel better, I admit what I did was unforgivable. I was an ass, and believe it or not, I am truly sorry. Are we understood?”
“Yes. I get what you’re saying. Now that you need something, you’re trying to kiss up.”
“Fine. If that’s the way you want it to be, so be it. But I refuse to spend this entire investigation sniping with you, so either we agree to act like adults or we don’t speak at all.”
“Can I have that in writing?”
Anthony squeezed his eyes shut and visualized throttling that long, skinny neck. Ten minutes. That’s all it took Emma to drive him nuts.
How was he supposed to survive this? First some psycho calling himself the Doppelgänger had sworn vengeance for the companies Anthony had chopped up. And now he was face-to-face with the biggest wrong he’d ever committed.
All he wanted to do was find the nearest corner and die quietly of guilt. But no. Dop meant to punish him, and making him deal with Emma again definitely took the cruel and unusual prize.
And he’d just made it harder on himself by lying straight to her face.
Coward. She’d find out how he knew about those e-mails and tear him apart with her bare hands. And considering this newest nightmare she’d been sucked into, he wouldn’t blame her one bit.
Watching Emma stare at him with one eyebrow raised, Anthony marveled at his own stupidity. God help him. Lies told in the heat of the moment were the least of his worries. There were other lies she could uncover. Like what had really happened two years ago.
He had to tell her. He owed her that much. But how did you tell someone they’d been nothing more than a convenient pawn, a casualty in the cold war between you and your father?
Still not the worst of it. If she found out what he’d done more recently, he was a dead man. Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone?
Footsteps sounded in the hall, preempting self-recrimination hour. He knew who was outside the door: a group of seriously unhappy FBI agents who were about to encounter one of the bigger challenges of their careers.
They didn’t even knock. Jim DeBerg came in first, followed by Layne Crawford and Walter Hornsby. The three of them looked at Anthony accusingly, while Emma’s angry expression shifted to tolerance.
Stepping forward, she seized control. Huge surprise. “Good morning. I’m Emma Toliver. You must be the FBI.”
She shook hands with Jim first, Anthony’s best friend and a man very young to be where he was in the bureau. Thirty years old, and already in the Behavioral Sciences Unit.
Jim introduced himself. “Special Agent Jim DeBerg. I don’t know how much Anthony told you, but we’ve certainly got a mess on our hands, Miss Toliver.”
“So I hear,” she acknowledged, turning to Layne Crawford.
Layne scared Anthony to death. She was a tiny little thing, sixtyish, with brilliant blue eyes that never stopped watching. Jim had summoned her a week ago and Anthony still knew nothing about her. He didn’t even know what position she held in the Bureau, if she even held one. All he knew was that she loved to make people talk.
Not a big fan of talking himself, Anthony avoided her at all costs.
He waited for Layne to introduce herself by title, but she gave only her name and stepped back in deference to Walter Hornsby. A giant in his mid-thirties, his job was to coordinate the practical aspects of the investigation—security and communication with the police.
Hornsby gave his usual muttered greeting while Anthony watched Emma. She was an expert at reading people, but this time he could see her struggling. Good luck. He would enjoy watching her realize these three lived to annoy.
Jim began. “Do I need a warrant to look at your computer?”
“Not necessary,” Emma responded. “Be my guest.”
While
