and that in itself made for powerful information.
“Basically, it’s fourth quarter and you’re asking me to take a knee while the clock runs out.” Her hand slid away from his arm and back into her pocket. The crowd around the guitar players burst into applause at the end of the song.
“Is that a problem when you’re already ahead in the game and victory is imminent?” He suspected from her suddenly rigid spine that she wasn’t liking the idea.
“You forget we’re playing for different teams. I don’t have the luxury of working for myself and making my own calls on handling cases. I’m responsible to my department. To taxpayers.”
Frustration pounded in his head as he began to see the many ways his operation could blow up in his face if the cops started crawling all over things.
“You don’t understand how close I am to smoking out these bastards.” No reasonable person would deny him this opportunity after all the years he’d put into cultivating inside contacts. “I’ve got a girl ready to sell out the filmmakers and put the last nail in the coffin for me.”
If she didn’t change her mind. Sometimes it was tough to tell with connections you’d made online.
“Sean, I appreciate that this case is personal for you, but you can’t ask me to just pretend it doesn’t exist when it comes under my jurisdiction. Half my precinct thinks I’m crooked anyway for reasons I’m sure you can appreciate.”
He knew it had to be tough to cross over into the police world after she’d seen prison bars—if only briefly—from the inside. Still, it said a lot for Donata’s character that she’d managed to wrangle her way into the NYPD at all.
Rising to his feet, Sean tossed the money in the open guitar box at the players’ feet and turned back to her.
“All the more reason to steer clear of this investigation, Donata. The brains and the wallet behind the operation might belong to someone you know well.” He dealt his best card to send her off the case for good. “My sources show your old pal Sergio Alteri is running his business as usual from a prison cell.”
3
LATER THAT NIGHT, Donata didn’t remember the details of how she’d got through the rest of the day.
Hearing her former lover’s name cast into conversation like a gauntlet had scrambled her thoughts, feelings and kick-ass veneer until she’d had no choice but to make lame excuses to get away from Sean long enough to regroup. Reassess. And find out for herself how the hell her old boyfriend—the man who’d been the center of her world when she was a teenager, the man who saved her from an emotional breakdown when her father died—could have possibly orchestrated crimes from behind bars.
At home in her apartment on the Upper East Side, Donata stroked her tabby cat’s head and clicked through her personal files on Sergio. Her first instinct had been to ignore Sean’s suggestion that her ex could continue to exert power from a federal prison. But how naive would that be, especially when she’d seen organized crime up close and personal during her years with Alteri?
The buzzing of her apartment’s intercom system had her cat jumping off her lap a moment later and Donata rose to see who would be downstairs at 8:00 p.m. Neighbors knew better than to buzz her when they locked themselves out since she was super cautious about security.
“Yes?” Her building was an old brownstone between York and East End Avenue. Normally she appreciated the privacy of her homey little building with no doorman, but on nights like this when she was already jumpy she wondered if she’d be better off somewhere else.
Somewhere that Sergio would never find her if he decided to take revenge for all she’d done.
“Donata, it’s me. Sean.”
Relief washed over her for a moment before her heart stuttered and she found herself smoothing her fingers over her clothes, flattening wrinkles and assessing her appeal at this hour when her work clothes were in the hamper. Not that her appearance should matter, damn it.
But the idea of having him here, at her apartment, unsettled her. She liked to face professional acquaintances when properly armed in her I-mean-business suits, whereas at home she liked to remind herself of the femininity she stomped down all day.
“Can we talk about your investigation tomorrow?” Not having the man-woman skills needed to dance around this kind of sexual tension, Donata figured avoidance would be a good policy until she had Mick around as a buffer.
She’d used up all her steely reserve at work today. At home she took comfort in falling into more relaxed—less contentious—surroundings. She found herself wishing she had her cat to snuggle, but Duchess was hiding under a chair.
“No. You told me earlier today that we could talk later, remember?” Impatience laced his voice. “Would you just open the door so I can at least come inside? It’s freezing out here.”
Seeing no graceful way around it, she hit the button to admit him downstairs and prayed hard for a clear mind to at least muddle her way through a conversation. Mick had called her earlier, sounding as weary as she felt, to let her know his daughter had been at a friend’s house but that he had some issues he needed to square away with Katie and was taking a personal day tomorrow. Not a problem for Donata, but it left her to contend with Sean—and the pressure to drop the case—on her own.
Something she damn well refused to be afraid of.
Still, it rattled her to realize she was raking her fingers through her hair while she waited for him to arrive at her third-floor apartment. In defiance of her stupid female primping, she purposely scrubbed her locks into disarray again. What did she care what she looked like to talk to a pit bull P.I.?
By the time the knock arrived on her door and she peered through the peephole, Donata’s nerves were already stretched taut. Yanking open the door, she couldn’t help but resent that he’d blasted right through the boundaries she worked hard to keep in place at the police station.
“I’m off duty, Beringer.” She heard the bitchy tone in her voice but was powerless to call back the words.
“Didn’t anyone warn you there’s no such thing as off duty when you’re a New York cop?” He seemed oblivious to her bad mood or else he was very good at ignoring people’s boundaries. “And call me Sean. I think we’ve been through enough together to warrant a first-name basis, don’t you?”
Ignoring the reminder of a most unpleasant evening spent in jail, she took a deep breath while she closed the door and bolted the lock, hoping to steady herself and instead inhaling the vaguest hint of aftershave.
She’d forgotten what it was like to be inside a man’s personal space. She’d hardened her heart to Sergio long before she’d sold him out. Her need to punish him for breaking the law and his promise of faithfulness to her had helped her ignore the old tug of attraction she’d once felt. But she hadn’t learned how to defuse the heat between her and the man now in her apartment. It would singe her if she wasn’t careful.
“Fine, Sean. I knew what I was signing up for to be on the force.” She backed away from him, retreating deeper into the safe haven of her home. “I’m just not used to tripping over pushy P.I.s at every turn on an investigation.”
“Good cops cultivate their
