Claudia was happy that Baronessa existed, both for the opportunities it provided several family members and the wealth it generated. She wouldn’t be able to accomplish nearly so much if she were tied to a nine-to-five job. But the core of her unease lay in the fallout from the sabotage—fault lines within her family she hadn’t known existed, and still hadn’t identified clearly.
Her sister had survived the bout with amnesia and met a delicious man while recovering; Emily should be head-over-heels happy. Mostly she was, but something was eating at her, something from the night of the fire that she couldn’t remember. Then there was Derrick.
Claudia sighed. Sometimes she thought her brother was a changeling. In a family of overachievers, he consistently…missed. Not by much. His failures, like everything else about him, were unremarkable, more likely to irritate than command attention. Poor Derrick. He did try. Lately, though, his muddled efforts to push to the head of the line seemed to have acquired an edge.
Then there was her cousin Maria, who had turned weird overnight, running off to who-knew-where. Uncle Carlo and Aunt Moira were worried. That was so not like Maria.
Stacy broke into her brooding. “You can’t fix everything, ’Dia.”
Claudia’s chin came up. “I can try.”
A muffled ringing announced a phone call. Claudia muttered at herself as she conducted a quick hunt. She managed herself quite as ruthlessly as she did everyone else, and did not understand why this one quirk of hers refused to vanish on command. The phone was never where it was supposed to be.
This time it turned out to be in the pantry. “Hello?”
“Cute trick with the photo. I’ve decided to accept your deal.”
The voice wasn’t one she could forget. Not this quickly. Not when it set up such a delicious resonance inside her. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you this soon.”
“It seemed better to call and capitulate than to pout and drag things out. I have to be able to speak with Baronessa personnel to complete my investigation.”
“I see. A commendable attitude. Ah, I do want to make sure we’re talking about the same deal. This is not about me sleeping with you, correct?”
Stacy’s eyes went barn-owl wide.
“That’s no longer a requirement.”
“Good. About your client—”
“That’s not part of the deal, either.”
“How shall we begin our collaboration, then?”
“I’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow morning.”
“All right. I’ll be waiting downstairs—the parking is impossible here. I assume you have my address in that file of yours?”
He chuckled, agreed that he did, and told her to look for a nondescript gray Buick.
A dangerous man, Claudia thought as she disconnected. That deep, rumbly chuckle had vibrated right out of the phone and into her belly. She tapped the phone with one finger. “That was too easy. He turned belly-up in less than six hours.”
“So? You got what you wanted. Not that I’m surprised. Or are you disappointed that he wasn’t more of a challenge?”
“Of course not. I don’t want him to be difficult to handle. That would be counterproductive.” Claudia put the phone down, a frown tucking a small vee between her brows. She had gotten what she wanted. So where was the slick, greasy feel in her stomach coming from?
The pizza, obviously. And maybe she was a teensy bit worried about what Ethan Mallory might be cooking up…and how she’d react the next time she saw him. She sighed. “I think the challenge is still to come.”
Two
At nine o’clock the next morning, Claudia stood in front of her apartment building reading a grant application and making notes in the margins. Her fingers were freezing, but she hated fumbling with the pages through gloves. The rest of her was comfortable enough, though she did hope Mallory wouldn’t keep her waiting long.
She’d been up since six, but that was nothing unusual. She always got up at six. Claudia believed in the discipline of routine. Yoga first, then yogurt, cereal and coffee followed by her shower. She’d dressed, dried her hair, applied makeup, placed a sell order with her broker, answered e-mail and spoken with the manager of a women’s center.
The only chore that had presented a problem was dressing. What did one wear to go detecting?
She’d spent ten minutes trapped by indecision, pulling out one thing after another. Claudia hated indecision even more than she hated being dressed inappropriately, so in the end she’d opted for casual. Black blended in almost anywhere. Of course, her electric-blue leather coat didn’t exactly blend in, but unrelieved black was so boring. She’d pulled on her oldest pair of boots in case they went tramping around the burned-out plant.
The problem was, they might be going anywhere. She hadn’t asked. Claudia tapped her pen against her bottom lip, irritated. She’d allowed herself to be distracted by Ethan Mallory’s low, rumbly voice. Or possibly his chuckle. Or the memory of his shoulders.
A horn honked. Claudia woke from her reverie to see a dirty, gunmetal-gray, four-door sedan stopped in the traffic lane. She stuffed the grant proposal into her satchel and darted between the parked cars.
Mallory leaned across the bench seat to open the door for her and she slid in, her arrival trumpeted by the horn of the driver behind the Buick. Some people had no patience.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, eyeing his tie with fascination. It was blue with green squiggles and didn’t go with his suit, which was the same color as his car, but cleaner. About the best thing that could be said for the tailoring was that it had the proper number of sleeves and trouser legs. He’d tossed a khaki trench coat in the back seat that would look perfectly ghastly with the gray suit. “Where are we going first?”
“Huntington Avenue.” He accelerated smoothly.
“Baronessa headquarters, in other words.”
“Yep.”
Her heartbeat had no business speeding up. And her tummy was going to have to get over that lurch of anticipatory joy, because nothing was going to happen.
What was it with her, anyway? He wasn’t even good-looking—not the way Drake had been, at least. Or Charles, for that matter. His hair was a nondescript brown, his lips were too thin and his nose was crooked. Aside from the to-die-for body, he looked quite ordinary.
Ordinary, that is, for a tough guy. She’d bet he developed five o’clock shadow by 4:00 p.m. But his eyes didn’t fit the image. The irises were a cool dun color speckled with green that, at a distance, blended into hazel. Speckled eyes, set off by lashes too dark and long for either his hair or his gender. And…and she was staring, blast her, and he was smiling, blast him, an irritating little quirk of those thin lips announcing that he’d noticed her attention.
Claudia switched to a safer visual inquiry—the debris on the seat, the back seat and
