at Meg Bender’s Halloween party and finding her father getting it on with one of her girlfriends—her ire had gotten his attention. So had her scathing denunciation of him.
But not, as Annabelle’s horrified manager had assumed, because he was angry or offended.
No, what had set him back on his heels, what had tested his normally abundant patience as he’d been forced to go ahead with what had seemed like an interminable business luncheon, was the desolation he thought he’d glimpsed under Mallory’s anger. That, and the suspicion that her transformation from lighthearted nymphet to go-to-hell working girl meant somewhere along the line he’d made a major miscalculation.
He didn’t make miscalculations. Major or otherwise.
That wasn’t to say he considered himself infallible. It was just that from his youngest days, after his mother had died and he’d found himself in charge of a brood of eight at the ripe old age of fourteen, mistakes had been a luxury he couldn’t afford. That hadn’t changed during his years with the military’s Special Operations Command.
As for his current circumstances, he hadn’t gone from penniless stand-in parent to powerful millionaire businessman due to faulty judgment. No. All that he had, the success, the sterling reputation, the respect of his peers, had come from shrewd vision, meticulous planning, superior instincts and razor-sharp situational awareness.
Not that you’d know by today’s performance, he conceded as he finally pulled into Steele Security’s underground parking garage.
In his world, where outcome was everything, the fact that Mallory remained ensconced in her squalid little apartment suggested that his decision to chase her down before he’d fully vetted the situation wasn’t the smartest move he’d ever made.
Still, honesty forced him to admit that things hadn’t gone irredeemably to hell until she’d actually opened her door to him.
To say he’d been caught off guard was an understatement. It had felt more like he’d taken a shot between the eyes with a sledgehammer. Because dear God, the sight of her…
Wrapped in that flimsy siren-red robe, with her feet bare, that streaky brown-and-gold hair mussed and a faint flush tinting her petal-smooth cheeks, she’d looked as if she’d just tumbled out of some lucky man’s bed.
Lust had slammed him like a punch to the gut.
By itself, that shouldn’t have been a factor since he never allowed his libido to rule his head. But when moments later she’d made a valiant effort to control her trembling lower lip, something inside him had shifted.
What, he couldn’t say. But whatever it was, the combination of it and that blast of desire had taken him completely out of his game.
His jaw bunched at the reminder. Climbing out of his vehicle, he punched in the code for the security door and let himself in to the building core, choosing the stairs over the elevator. Once on the main level, he bore left, his long legs eating up the distance as he strode down the wide, airy corridor. He passed by his own spacious office in favor of his brother Cooper’s, glad to see the lights were still on.
He ducked his head in the open doorway. “Did you get that information I asked for?”
The younger Steele—number four in the nine-man birth order—glanced over from where he sat slouched in his tilted-back office chair. He was the picture of relaxation with his sneaker-clad feet propped on his desk, an illusion contradicted only by the rapid movement of his fingers over the computer keyboard propped on his lap.
“Do women swoon when I walk into a room?” he responded serenely. “The answer to both questions, big brother, is yes. Of course.”
“And?”
“And you’re giving me a crick in the neck standing over there. Why don’t you come in, take a load off, tell Uncle Cooper what’s put the stick up your ass.”
Gabe snorted inelegantly. “That’ll be the day.” Despite his words, he did walk farther into the room, although not to take Cooper up on his invitation. He was here to collect intel, not dispense it. “Well? You going to tell me what you found out or not?”
The younger man shrugged. “Nothing much has changed. The warrant for Cal Morgan’s arrest remains active, although my contact at the Feds says it’s currently not worth the paper it’s printed on. As long as Morgan stays in San Timoteo, they can’t touch him, much less a dime of all that stolen money. Which, FYI, my friend now puts at twenty million, meaning that you, once again, win the office pool.”
“Terrific.” He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it with more force than was necessary onto one of the navy suede chairs in front of the desk. “There’s nothing I like better than accurately predicting the extent of a disaster.”
“Not your responsibility,” Cooper said calmly. “You know damn well it would’ve been a whole lot worse if we hadn’t been brought in when we were.”
The hell of it was, Gabe did. And it wasn’t that he was the least bit sorry Steele Security had been the one to expose Caleb Morgan’s crooked dealings, he admitted, pacing restlessly toward the bank of windows at the far end of the room.
They’d done what they’d been hired to—check out Morgan Creek Investment. And they’d done it the way they did everything, thoroughly and completely.
It hadn’t mattered that it wasn’t their usual sort of job. Or that their client, a prospective Morgan Creek investor, had only expected them to give the company a quick once-over to placate his elderly mother, who swore that while on a recent trip overseas she’d been unable to locate the Taiwanese shopping mall featured in the company’s literature.
The son was now sending his mother flowers weekly, since she’d saved him a bundle when it turned out the mall really didn’t exist.
While Morgan, who’d fled the country the day after Steele had clued in the authorities, was most likely sipping mai tais on the veranda of his newly acquired tropical estate, living a life of luxury made possible by the pirated millions he’d socked away in untouchable offshore accounts.
No, if Gabe did have a regret, it was that they hadn’t brought the bastard down sooner. While it wouldn’t have changed what Morgan had done, it no doubt would have limited the extent of the ensuing damage. As it was, between unpaid taxes and first-position creditors, there hadn’t been much left but crumbs for his bilked clients to recover.
And then there was Mallory. Who, until five hours ago, Gabe had assumed was off in St. Croix or Monte Carlo or some other exotic locale, licking her wounds in luxurious seclusion. Not living all on her own in one of Denver’s worst neighborhoods, trying to scrape by on some minimum wage job.
And there it was, that unexpected, unacceptable miscalculation.
“What about Morgan’s daughter?” he asked abruptly, swiveling around to stare expectantly at his brother. “What did you find out about her?”
Cooper’s busy fingers stilled. “You mean, in addition to the fact that she gave you a shellacking at lunch today?”
“How the hell did you hear about that?”
Cooper rolled his eyes. “How do you think? Family grapevine, bro. Some woman Lilah went to school with saw what happened at Annabelle’s
