style="font-size:15px;"> So technically, she had a man in her bedroom after a long, long time. A shiver accompanied the thought as her gaze lingered on the foldout sofa where she slept.
“Not quite as grand as my Long Island digs, but at least it’s all paid for honestly.” She’d inherited a house in the Hamptons from her father when she was eighteen and she’d used the proceeds from the sale to set herself up in this apartment with a nice savings account for a rainy day. Everything that Sergio had ever given her she’d donated to charity after the split.
She hated what it said about her that she’d been involved with a crook. The police background check may have forgiven the transgression, but forgiving herself was far more difficult.
“I knew four years ago that you weren’t guilty of anything but poor judgment, Donata. I only made the big show of putting you under arrest in the hope you might spill something about Sergio’s connections in the filmmaking industry.” He took off his coat and tossed it on her couch, making himself at home before she’d invited him to stay.
The intimacy of the act suggested an ease around her that men didn’t usually feel with a woman accustomed to being labeled “cold.” One of the police cadets she’d gone through training with had gone so far as to suggest she could wither a man’s sexual interest at twenty paces with just one glare. Not exactly flattering, but a helpful kind of superpower for a female who was scared spitless of dominating men.
And yet Sean remained immune to the glare.
“I knew you didn’t have any evidence,” she admitted, figuring she might as well come clean if they were going to work together. “And I could have called in my FBI connections to set things straight, but I figured the threat of me being busted would buy me street cred with Sergio. He was starting to get suspicious of me. The big bust happened just a few weeks later.”
“So all that surly silent treatment was an act?” He strolled around her living room, checking the titles of the books on her shelves, the DVDs next to the TV and the wine bottles on the rack near the kitchen.
The attention to his surroundings was typical of a good cop and she wondered why he’d felt the police department couldn’t bring his sister’s molester to justice. The department always needed good investigators and she had the feeling his leaving was a loss for the city.
“I honestly didn’t know of any connection Sergio might have had to the film industry. But as for the tough-girl behavior, I did a lot of acting those last few months with him.” What scared her more were the hours where she’d forgotten it was an act, the dates they went on that had seemed like old times and had made her forget for a little while that she was staying with him only to bust him.
It had all felt so unclean. So dishonest.
“What about the harassment charges?” Sean turned on his heel to stalk straight toward her now, all pretense of interest in her apartment gone as he focused on her. “Was that an act to buy points with your boyfriend, too?”
“No.” She stifled the impulse to step backward, away from him. “But I realized afterward that I was just scared and…acting out…to even the odds between us. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”
She’d rescinded her verbal accusation and refused to formalize it in writing after her head had cleared from the sensual haze that enveloped the room when she and Sean had been together.
“Luckily, I was already making plans to leave the department by then so it wasn’t as big of a deal as it might have been.” He stopped a foot from her, his sleekly muscular body making its presence felt even though he didn’t touch her.
Four years ago she’d thought the resulting shaky feeling inside had been from harassment. Now she recognized it for what it had been all along.
She had the hots for Sean Beringer.
EVEN AS SEAN BEGAN to realize it had been a mistake to seek out Donata after hours, he still couldn’t make himself back away from her.
He’d seen hints of the old over-the-top sexiness at the precinct today in the pure silk blouse she’d worn beneath her navy suit. The fire-engine-red lips had been another clue, even if the rest of her face hadn’t been made-up.
But in the safety of her own apartment, she obviously gave her diva leanings more room to play. Her blue-and-yellow lace camisole blouse outlined spectacular cleavage while a fuzzy blue sweater was tied closed with a satin ribbon around her waist. The crocheted sweater was full of so many holes a man could see everything through it, from the spaghetti straps of the blouse to the hummingbird tattoo on her lower back that showed between her low-rise jeans and the camisole.
What man could see a tattoo like that and not fantasize about tasting it?
Exotic perfume clung to her clothes and her skin, a scent that hadn’t been present during her workday. Most women came home and stripped away the material trappings of beauty but apparently Donata cloaked herself in sexy feminine decor the minute she left the police department behind. The thought of her switching roles like that turned him on at a primal level.
“What did you want to discuss?” Her throaty words floated through his consciousness to distract him when all he really wanted to do was close the space between them and see if she felt as good as she looked.
From the satiny blouse and the fuzzy sweater to the sleek silken swish of her hair, everything about Donata was a tactile temptation, begging to be touched.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t in any position to cop a feel.
“I need to know where you’re going with this investigation since our conversation ended prematurely today. You seemed freaked out about Alteri’s possible involvement in the filmmaking scheme, and I’m here to ask you nicely to back off if you think you can’t separate feelings for your ex from the job.”
“How dare you insinuate I can’t keep my personal feelings out of my work?” She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper even though there was no one around to overhear them. “It’s because of me that Alteri is behind bars in the first place.”
“Hey, I couldn’t keep my personal life out of my work, which was why I left the force.” Frustration replaced some of the heat between them and he was grateful for the impetus to back away. He didn’t need attraction to Donata screwing him over now that he was close to finally busting the sleazy video outfit. He needed to know more about the Sara Chapman case to see if her situation coincided with some of the other girls’ experiences of having their video images posted online.
Donata seemed to think over what he said, her arms folded tight while she stared up at a framed photo of herself as a flamboyantly dressed teenager with her arm wrapped around a skinny old guy wearing a Doors T-shirt and a poorly fitting dinner jacket.
Had she started dating ancient men that young?
Alteri had to have been twenty years her senior and this guy looked closer to thirty.
“I respect your need to go after somebody who hurt your sister.” Slowly, Donata turned on him, her eyes wearier and wiser than he remembered. “In turn, you have to respect that I’m going to be all over this investigation. Not just because it’s my job, but because I have a particular axe to grind with men who try to take advantage of innocents. That doesn’t make me sloppy. That makes me driven.”
He
