beneath the short skirt of her tight red dress. Damn, she was sexy. She knew it, too, and was using it to her advantage with that flirtatious comment about selling her body.
Hell, if she was really selling, he might have been tempted to make an offer. She was that beautiful. But she was also that treacherous.
“I have never met you before,” he reminded her. “So I have had no part in ruining your life.”
Was that why she had betrayed her country? Out of spite over her arrest years ago?
“You’re such a suit,” she uttered the slang word for FBI agent with total disdain. “Even without the suit, I should have realized you were an FBI agent. I knew something wasn’t right with you.”
Her remark had his pride stinging. He was good at going undercover. Nobody else had ever suspected he wasn’t who he was pretending to be—even when he’d gone deep undercover with motorcycle gangs and militia groups. But maybe he had been more out of his element speed dating than he had ever been anywhere else.
“Actually, everything’s right with me,” he said. “You’re the one in the wrong.”
She shook her head, and her silky blond hair skimmed across her shoulders, which were bare but for thin red spaghetti straps. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I believe that’s what you said last time—”
“It was true last time, too,” she insisted.
“You hacked into a bank,” he reminded her since she seemed to have forgotten what she’d done. “And cleaned out someone’s account.”
She defensively crossed her arms over her chest. “I had my reasons.”
“Do you have reasons this time, too?” he asked. “Because the only one I can think of is greed.”
“You thought that was my reason last time, too,” she murmured with even more disdain—as if she thought him an idiot. “But I didn’t keep that money. I gave it all away to charity.”
“It wasn’t your money to give,” he pointed out. “And I didn’t have anything to do with your last arrest.” He hadn’t even been an agent then. He had probably still been a marine at that time. The Bureau had recruited him out of the service to become an agent. He had been surprised that either of them—the marines or the Bureau—had wanted him, given his background.
She sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes widened with fear again. When she’d regained consciousness, she had seemed genuinely afraid. Despite what she’d started with her online activity, she obviously hadn’t expected that she’d put herself in danger.
“Last arrest?” she repeated his words. “Is there going to be another arrest?”
Not unless he could find some more concrete evidence against her. It wasn’t enough that knowledge only she possessed had been offered for sale. She was smart enough now that the online auction couldn’t be traced directly back to her...except for that knowledge. He would have only been able to arrest her if he could have caught her in the act of selling the information. That was why he had come to the speed dating event, to pose as a buyer.
But somehow he must have spooked her before he had even been able to put in his bid. Then having to rescue her in the parking lot had completely blown his cover. Now it would be harder to find evidence against her. Now that she knew the FBI was on to her she was going to be even more careful. But maybe he could convince her to confess—if he could bluff enough that she thought the Bureau already had enough evidence for an arrest.
“You tell me if I should take you into custody,” he suggested. “Have you already sold it?”
“Sold what?” she asked, acting as confused as she had when he had mentioned her online auction earlier.
Claire Molenski was as good an actress as she was a hacker because he was almost starting to buy her act. But only almost. From going undercover himself, he knew how easy it was to assume a role. He usually had to assume one of guilt because he was acting like a criminal. She was assuming one of innocence because she was acting like a victim. As if she had been unjustly persecuted before and now.
But it was just an act. Just an act...
Someone’s phone rang. It wasn’t his; he always kept that on vibrate. So he reached for her purse and pulled out her ringing cell.
“Maybe this is your buyer.”
And maybe here was his evidence. If this caller made an offer for her information and arrangements for an exchange, Ash had her. Instead of triumph, though, he felt a flash of disappointment.
* * *
CLAIRE DIDN’T CARE that he had a gun. She grabbed for her phone anyway. She wasn’t worried about him intercepting a call from a buyer. She still had no idea what he thought she was trying to sell. She was actually worried that he might intercept a call from someone from the dating service she had joined.
She didn’t want a man answering her phone and scaring away a potential match. She had spent too much of her life alone; she wanted to share it with someone now.
But he ignored her attempt to grab for it and clicked on the talk button. “Hello.”
She groaned. She had only given out her number to a couple of promising prospects from the dating service—to guys that the service had matched her with for compatibility. She hadn’t needed five minutes or a dating service personality test to determine that she was totally incompatible with this man.
These potential matches wouldn’t be too promising either after Ash got through with them, especially when he continued speaking, “This is Special Agent Stryker...”
She swallowed another groan. Uttering it would do her no good—just as explaining her hacking nine years ago had done her no good, either. She had still been arrested. She’d been convicted. She’d been sentenced. While she hadn’t spent any time actually behind bars in the juvenile detention center with which she’d been threatened, she had been locked up—in a classroom studying to be an even better hacker. And then in a business that specialized in internet security.
“It’s your boss,” Stryker told her.
She’d worked for Peter Nowak for years, but the former CIA agent still intimidated the hell out of her. Her hand trembled slightly as she reached out for the phone, but Ash Stryker ignored her and continued to listen.
“Give it to me,” she insisted.
But he shook his head, still denying her access. To her phone or to the help she would be able to seek with it? She wasn’t sure how much help Peter would be, though, if he also suspected her of whatever the FBI did.
She could call a lawyer, though, like she should have last time. But she hadn’t wanted her father to go broke trying to pay her legal fees.
Ash replied to whatever her boss had said with “We’ll be right there.” Then he clicked off her cell phone and pocketed it.
“Why are you speaking for me?” she asked. “Am I in your custody?” Had she already been arrested but she had been too drugged to understand her rights? She really needed
