again, her face paled, and her voice went soft with husky concern that turned Campbell to mush.
Destroy her. Unnerve her.
Campbell fumbled awkwardly with the disclosure sheets of the sales contract. Then he rustled through his list of questions he’d deliberately structured to entrap her.
Somehow he had to get this smooth-talking actress to admit that she’d known all along about the mold and hadn’t disclosed it. Her shaky voice and hands meant she was highly agitated. Maybe if he got her really mad, she’d snap. He was famous for his Perry Mason moments.
“Back to this mold situation at the O’Connors’,” he murmured in a tight, low tone. “It was an old house on the water—”
“There was no mold.” She glanced at her watch and out the window again. “The Tylers were diligent about maintaining their home. They repaired leaks, cleaned air-conditioning ducts. Besides, we had it tested for mold.”
“By an unreliable agent.”
“Just because your man, whom you no doubt paid to lie…three months later—”
Tom wagged a warning finger at his client, but she was too flushed with excitement to heed him.
Campbell almost grinned when she attacked her own attorney.
“Mr. Davis, I thought you were my lawyer.”
Campbell noted that there wasn’t a hint of that lazy drawl now. Just for a second he caught a couple of syllables that sounded crisp and elite…almost foreign. East Coast? No, that cut-glass accent wasn’t American.
“How can you defend this…this pirate?” she was saying.
“Please, Hannah…”
“It’s all right, Davis. I’ve been called worse.” Campbell faked a scowl.
“A pirate…who…who cunningly plasters his handsome, ruthless face on every billboard and phone book cover his money can buy?”
Handsome? Campbell’s perverse mind got stuck on the word.
“He’s a fake, pretending he’s some Robin Hood defending the poor. How can you defend such a rude, crude ambulance chaser?”
Ambulance chaser? The day of any accident, the insurance lawyers are there, lady! But do you criticize them?
“Mr. Campbell has repeatedly called me and threatened—”
“I was merely trying to set up an appointment for this deposition,” Campbell said in the same reasonable, sympathetic tone he used to persuade juries.
“Don’t talk down to me! You have no right to sue me.”
“This is America, Mrs. Smith. Texas, America. The Wild West. Anybody can sue anybody.”
“There was no mold when I sold the O’Connors that house.”
Campbell leaned toward her, automatically straightening his bold tie. “My clients say there was.”
She sank lower in her chair and gasped in a breath.
“Slimy. Greenish.” Campbell warmed to his subject as if she were a juror. “Black. Fungus. Toxic mold. Aspergillus, to be exact. Mr. O’Connor is a very sick man. Take a look at those photographs.”
“I’m sorry if he’s sick, but Mr. O’Connor doesn’t have anything that a green poultice won’t fix,” she said softly.
“That’s an old joke. I won’t sit here while you disparage innocent—” Deliberately Campbell leaned back in his chair.
“Innocent? They’re not innocent! I am! I told you there are such things as evil homeowners who…who…”
“Who what?” Campbell sprang forward again. “Who don’t want to be taken advantage of by Realtors like you?”
She opened her mouth wide and strained to get a breath. “Homeowners, who…who get up on the roofs with hoses and pour gallons of water into cracks between the walls!”
Her words hit him like a swift punch in the gut. To cover his fear that his clients had lied and he was on the wrong side again, he sprang to his feet. “I’m more interested in evil Realtors, Mrs. Smith, who misrepresent properties to make a quick sale.”
She stood up, too. “Don’t accuse me of your dirty games—”
Campbell smiled. “And what kind of dirty games do you play, Mrs. Smith?” His sensual gaze swept her from head to toe.
What the hell did she look like naked?
A hot crimson flush stained her cheeks. With a startled gasp, she sank back down in her chair.
Buying time, he stalked around to his desk and sat down, too.
“I think you’re vile,” she whispered.
“Who, me?” he murmured. “Vile?”
“Tom told me to save these for later,” she rasped. “But I’m too furious.”
She plunged her hand into her shapeless beige purse again and shook out three lipsticks, the gold mirror, wadded bits of paper and a photograph, which she slapped onto his desk.
“You’re not the only one with a camera! That’s your Mr. O’Connor on the roof.”
All Campbell saw were thighs to die for and masses of long golden hair.
“Wow!” he whispered, finally recognizing her. “You look much better naked than I imagined—well, half-naked.”
“Naked?” When she saw the snapshot, her cheeks caught fire. “Give me that!”
“Are you trying to distract me with sex, Mrs. Smith?”
“You low-down—”
Campbell laughed appreciatively. When she tried to snatch the picture back, he held it away from her.
The subjects in the photograph were a gorgeous blonde in a thong bikini and a blond little girl in a pink playsuit. The kid was about four. But the woman—
Wow. Bombshell. Wet dream.
Incredible breasts bulged out of slippery red material, and yes, she most definitely had thighs to die for. Mother and child were patting turrets of a sand-castle. There was a big house on a tall cliff in the background. The woman was staring at the little girl with a look of utter adoration.
He looked up at Mrs. Smith and grinned like a cat that had just munched a turtledove and found the repast delicious.
Well, now I can guess what you look like naked.
“I like you better blond.…And the less you wear, the better you look!”
With a wild guttural cry of sheer rage, she lunged
