CHAPTER ONE AXEL
Emma Wright was becoming a problem. She was supposed to be a job. An easy job. Get close to her, find evidence that she was selling confidential data to a competitor. Get paid a ton of money. How hard could it be?
She was the head of Human Resources at a shipping company, not Mata Hari. This kind of thing was the bread and butter of Sinclair Security. I figured I’d take the meeting and pass the case to one of my guys.
Then I got a good look at Emma Wright.
Fiery red hair, creamy skin, abundant curves, and clear blue eyes with a wicked glint. She was irresistible. Luscious, soft, and more than a handful in all the right places. The moment I saw her picture, I knew I’d be handling her myself.
Fucking the suspect wasn’t usually my MO, but in this case, I was prepared to make an exception. Normally, my approach was to get the evidence, give it to the client, close the case, and cash the check. Not with Emma.
Getting her into bed wasn’t the hard part. Neither was pretending to be her lover. But Emma was tricky. She was smart. Funny. Gorgeous. And surprisingly kinky. Deliciously kinky. I’d never admit it, but it’s possible I was taking my time on the case just to have an excuse to keep fucking her.
That, and it was harder than I’d expected to find what I was looking for. I kept waiting for her to slip. Everyone did, eventually. But so far, nothing. I hadn’t caught her in even the tiniest lie. The client was getting restless, and I was starting to wonder if I was losing my touch.
I knew she was guilty. Most people were when it came down to it. I already knew what would happen in the end. Tears. Pleading. Excuses and justifications. None of that would matter to me.
I’d taken the contract, and I would do my job. In the back of my mind, I was hoping it would last just a little longer. I hadn’t yet had my fill of that lush body, and once I found the data Emma was smuggling out of Harper Shipping, she’d go to jail and our affair would be over.
Tonight, my plan was to push her off balance, enough so she might make a mistake. Until now, I’d worked it out so that most of our dates were dinner at her house. More intimate and easier to search her place.
When I did take her out somewhere, I chose places that were upscale, expensive, and not my usual style. I didn’t need to be recognized as Axel Sinclair when I was pretending to be Adam Stewart. But tonight, I’d picked a quiet, low-key Italian place around the corner from Emma’s.
I’d expected her to pout or act annoyed that I wasn’t spending a few hundred dollars on her dinner. I should have known better.
Emma was relaxed, drinking her wine and digging into her fettuccine Alfredo. Watching the woman eat pasta was a torturous form of foreplay. When the creamy sauce hit her tongue, she sucked a stray noodle into her mouth with pursed lips, her eyes closed in rapture.
I couldn’t help but imagine her sucking me off with that same expression on her face.
She couldn’t have cared less if she was in an exclusive restaurant surrounded by the best of Vegas society or a place like this one with paper napkins and a chalkboard menu on the wall. Emma enjoyed life however it came at her. I wondered if that would serve her well when she went to prison.
There was a chance she could avoid going to jail. Either way, I had to remind myself it wasn’t my problem. My job was to find proof she was stealing and give that proof to her boss. What happened to her after that was between them.
Most of the time the client didn’t press charges. That kind of publicity was worse for business than the crime itself. But the owner and CEO of Harper Shipping had made his intentions clear. As soon as he could prove what she’d done, he was calling the police.
Knowing Emma, she’d get off with probation.
She was smart enough to hire a good lawyer, and she’d be able to afford decent counsel.
She’d managed to hide the money she was getting for the data she’d stolen.
If my hackers couldn’t find it, neither would the police.
Somewhere out there, Emma had a tidy little nest egg, ready to cushion her when she fell.
Watching her wind pasta around her fork as she laughed over a story a friend had told her, I found it hard to reconcile the woman before me with the liar I knew she was.
I’d been in this game long enough to know that anyone could be a criminal, no matter how innocent they appeared on the surface. But Emma just didn’t give me the guilty vibe.
If I hadn’t seen surveillance video of her rifling through secured files and copying them, then later handing them off to a competitor in a dark parking lot late at night, I would have sworn she wasn’t the one they were looking for.
But I had seen it, seen her face clearly. Even had one of my guys check it. Video could be manufactured. This was real.
On top of that, she treated her briefcase like it held the keys to Fort Knox. And she got jumpy whenever I brought up her job. In fact, it was the only time she acted oddly. Not guilty. Not exactly. But not her usual fun-loving self.
All of it added together was more than enough to convince me. Emma was guilty, and I would bring her down. A voice in the back of my head told me to find the evidence and close the case before I got in any deeper.
Sitting across from her, my eyes glued to her lips as she sipped her wine, I knew it was already too late. I was in deep with Emma. And part of me, a part I’d thought long dead, hoped that somehow I’d find a way to prove her innocent.