Cavanaugh Undercover. Marie Ferrarella
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of her. Stubbing the toe of her shoe on it, she tripped.
Instinct had Brennan reacting to the faint, telltale noises. He turned around just in time to catch her and keep the supple handful from making direct contact with the ground.
It all happened very fast, less than two beats of an old-fashioned clock, but even so, he was exceptionally aware of the softness of her body as it made contact with his.
As was she. He could tell by the very startled look in her eyes—which had flown wide-open.
“You make more headway if you keep your eyes open,” he told her, amused.
“So they tell me,” Tiana snapped, brushing herself off.
Since he’d caught her before she’d actually had a chance to hit the ground, he could only guess that she was attempting to symbolically brush away any trace of contact with him.
Was the lady protesting too much? he wondered. Or did she find him as compelling and intriguing as he found her?
“Car’s right here,” he pointed out.
Raising his hand, he pressed the security release on his car key. The silver BMW that had been recruited especially for this part he was undertaking softly whispered that its doors were now unlocked.
He waited until she opened the passenger-side door and got in before he followed suit himself on the driver’s side.
She slid onto a seat that would have made butter seem unusually hard and brittle. Without thinking, she feathered her fingertips along the side of the seat appreciatively. “Business is good for you, too, I see.”
The implication wasn’t wasted on him. She was telling him that she was doing well in her chosen field.
“Can’t complain,” he said. He started the car with another press of a button.
“A person can always complain,” she countered.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But nobody likes to hear complaints. Makes them unreceptive to the person. Me, I always believed in counting my blessings.”
She looked at him in disbelief. Was this man for real? She couldn’t decide one way or another. Her immediate gut feeling would have been to say no, but there was something about his tone of voice that told her she was being made privy to the truth, strange as it might sound.
“An optimistic pimp,” she marveled as they left the parking lot behind them. “I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one before.”
“Then you need to broaden your social circles,” he quipped.
Tiana pretended to think it over before she inclined her head. “Maybe,” she allowed.
“And for the record,” he told her matter-of-factly, “I’m not a pimp.”
“A procurer?” she suggested. When he made no answer, she said, “Okay, what would you call yourself if you were filling out a résumé?” she asked loftily. “A matchmaker?” She laughed.
“A businessman,” he corrected in all seriousness. “A pimp is someone who deals with the dregs of society, pushing them into the arms of their destruction for a hefty cut of their earnings.”
She’d never heard it described that way. “You really are into philosophy, aren’t you?” she marveled. “Either that, or you’ve learned just the right way to appease your conscience.”
“Conscience has nothing to do with it,” he assured her. Then, out of the blue, he asked her, “How about you?” When she looked at him quizzically, he elaborated on his question. “How did you get into this line of...work?” he finally said when the right word seemed to be eluding him.
“Quite by accident, actually,” she answered.
“Explain,” he urged.
“It’s a long story for another day,” she told him. When I can come up with the story. Out loud, she said, “When I know you better.”
“We can take care of that little detail any time you say so,” he assured her, his meaning made crystal clear by the smile on his face.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she answered. And I’ll keep you at a distance. It’ll be much safer that way, she added silently, although she had a feeling that “safe,” much less “safer,” was not going to be something she would feel until she and Janie were as far away from here as possible.
And as far away from this man as possible, she added as an afterthought.
Chapter 4
The Aries Hotel with its understated opulence and its refined ambience was the complete opposite of the dingy motel where she’d tracked down Wayne. Tiana was confident that the average price of one room in the hotel was more than the combined sum gathered from all the rooms at the motel.
“What are we doing here?” Tiana asked, addressing the question to the back of “Bruce Wayne’s” head as she followed him through the hotel’s revolving door.
“You said you wanted to meet the man I’ve been dealing with,” Brennan reminded her as he waited for her to join him.
“He’s staying here?” she asked, scanning the immediate vicinity.
Realizing that the man who was essentially her guide for the moment had kept on walking, she hurried to catch up with him.
She managed to reach him just as “Wayne” reached a bank of elevators located at the far end of the floor, a few feet beyond the registration desk.
Brennan nodded. “He has a suite near the top floor.”
“And you?” she asked, not really sure what had prompted her to ask, other than she was attempting to live up to the image of a madam she was creating. “What do you have?”
An elevator car’s door slid soundlessly open in front of them.
Brennan looked at her pointedly as they walked into the empty elevator car. He pressed number 30. “An itch I can’t scratch—yet.”
Was he actually putting her on notice, she wondered, stunned. “Saving yourself for Miss Right?” Tiana deadpanned.
The spontaneous laugh was deep and rich and all-encompassing within the small space. And, if she allowed it, it was also hypnotic in its own compelling way. Tiana did what she could to block the effects. Beyond his being good-looking, she knew nothing about the man. He could be a homicidal maniac for all she knew, even though her gut told her that he most likely wasn’t.
“There’s no such thing as ‘Miss Right,’” Brennan told her.
“How do you know?” she asked, deciding to give him a hard time. “Just because you haven’t encountered her yet doesn’t mean she’s not just around the next corner.” As far as she was concerned, there were a great many “Miss Rights” out there. The main problem was that there were no “Mr. Rights” to receive them.
Numbers flashed by as they passed each floor. Brennan stared at his companion as if she’d lost her mind. “Never met a madam who was into fairy tales. How long did you say you were in this business?”
“It feels like all my life,” she responded, infusing just the right amount of weariness into her voice.
They got out and he led the way down a winding hallway to a recessed door that appeared to be removed from the other rooms. This was clearly a suite among suites. Whoever this man was, Tiana thought, he certainly knew how to enjoy the fruits of his labors.
“Any word of advice?” she heard herself asking the tall man beside her.
She had to be crazy, but there was just the tiniest part of her that trusted this man—which on the face of it was nothing if not a foolhardy move on her part. Other than not really knowing this man from Adam, she realized again that she