15. No More Late Nights on a Lounge Chair
15
NO MORE LATE NIGHTS ON A LOUNGE CHAIR
Jake
I had a plan. It was crazy, but we might pull it off together. I vastly preferred to work solo, especially after the Rosalinda fiasco. But I had a hunch that feisty, fiery Ruby wasn’t going to step out of the way. If we didn’t team up, I’d keep running into her and we’d keep butting heads. And because of who she was, she could be my best weapon in this case. Better to work with her than against her.
I just needed her to see the benefits.
“Teaming up makes sense for us both,” I said. She sat back down, and I took the chance to make my pitch. “You need me and I need you. You know everyone on this island, which is great. But it also means that people recognize you. But me? No one knows me. I could be anyone, go places you can’t go unnoticed. You have inside access, but I can walk around unseen.”
She crossed her arms. She hadn’t said yes yet. “Show me this evidence,” she said.
That was kind of hot. Her take-no-prisoners attitude. She didn’t simply go along with anything. She challenged me every step of the way. Which made me want to throw her onto the bed tonight and make her lose control as I fucked her.
And…that was what I needed to stop thinking about.
I focused on the mission. The goddamn job. I held out my phone and showed her the email, giving her time to read it, then walked her through the details, pointing out how the dates in the email lined up with withdrawals and transfers, letting her take in the full scope of the crime.
Her face tightened as if she’d just eaten something sour, and when she was done reading, she blinked. “Isn’t this kind of circumstantial?”
There was a hint of desperate hope in her tone, and it pained me to see her final illusions about her stepfather shattered. But I had to think like a mercenary. I had to think about her as a mercenary.
“It is circumstantial, but it’s also convincing. It convinced Andrew. It convinced my sister. It convinced me enough to come down here and devote my time and risk my neck to get it back. My job is to get this ten million and return it to the rightful owners. You want to know about the money for your mom’s sake,” I said, pressing on, since I was close. I sensed it. She was seeing the benefits, I knew it. “We both have our reasons, and we both bring something to the table.”
She huffed, her vulnerability gone for a moment, or at least hidden. “Fine. But I’m the one with the invitation to Eli’s house on Thursday night, and I’ll have free roam of the house.”
“Of course,” I said, deadpan. “You can just grab a handful of the diamonds he keeps in a bowl on his desk.”
She shot me a side-eye. “What I meant was I can scope out likely places to hide diamonds in a house. You know…recon. From a woman on the inside,” she said, squaring her shoulders, like she was showing me how tough she was. I thought she was stunning when I met her last night, but I sure liked this side of her a whole helluva lot, full of bravado, her eyes shining with possibilities. “Maybe there’s a loose floorboard somewhere. Or a piece of art hiding a safe behind it.”
“When you find this floorboard, will you just yank it up with the hammer you keep in your back pocket?” I asked, teasing. “Or would you like my help?”
Lowering her voice, she said, “Maybe I do keep a hammer in my back pocket. It’s not as if I’m incapable.”
“I don’t think you’re incapable at all. I’m simply offering to assist.”
“Because you keep a hammer in your back pocket?”
“No. But because I know how to do things. This is what I do—track down and retrieve stolen items.”
“In other words, a retrieval expert.”
I hid a smile as she fitted the pieces together. “Six years in intelligence gave me a lot of insight into how people think and how to solve problems. And I’ve been in this line of work long enough to develop some key skills, including, but not limited to, picking locks, opening safes, removing floorboards quietly, climbing through windows silently, and jumping out of windows without a sound. Running across the roof, shimmying down the trellis, then darting through the bushes, and doing it all without being seen.”
“My, my,” she said, arms folded. I couldn’t tell if she was secretly impressed or still annoyed. “Aren’t you a jack-of-all-trades?”
“I sure am,” I said, ignoring her mocking tone.
“So you want me to do the legwork, sniffing out information, so you can be Captain Adventure?”
When she put it like that, hell yes. “I think that’s a perfect partnership. One that maximizes what we both bring to the table. Or think of it like this—you’re the sniper; I’m the gun.”
“But what if I don’t need a gun, Jake? What if all I need are my eyes?” She pointed to her blue eyes. Her gorgeous, pretty-as-a-picture blue eyes that were sweet and sexy, just like the tone she was using now. This woman could work me over if I wasn’t careful. I had to stay on my guard.
“Tell you what, Ruby,” I said, in a let’s-make-a-deal voice. “Go to Eli’s on Thursday night. If he does have the diamonds lying around the house somewhere, stuff those beauties in your pocket and run back to Miami with them. I’ll call Andrew and say I failed at my mission. And you’d win.”
She didn’t answer right away. She simply watched me, studying me. “Hypothetically, if we’re partners and I went to his house to scope out the scene, would you wait quietly in a bush or behind a trellis for me? You know, in case there are dangerous guard dogs you need to rescue me from?”
“I doubt you’d need rescuing from anything. But yes, I could do that. And by the way, I know there aren’t trellises on your stepfather’s property.” I picked up one of the dessert forks, keeping my voice cool and casual.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s my job to know that. And to know that his house is on the water. He has palm trees, an orchid tree, a rose bush, an infinity pool, and a boat in a private dock. He lives in a two-story stone house with a stucco roof, purchased a year ago in a condo development called Corey’s Landing.”
“I haven’t actually been yet,” she said, chagrined, “but that all tracks with the kind of life Eli likes to lead. You do your homework.”
“Maybe I’m not just muscle. Maybe I have the brains too,” I said, tapping my temple. “So what do you say? Are you in? If we find the diamonds, we return them to their rightful owners, the Eli Fund.”
Then, I zeroed in on her soft spot, which was mine as well—looking out for others. “Look, let’s say he didn’t do it. Let’s pretend someone else did. What if you dig into this and run into that person?” I was convinced Eli was guilty, but I couldn’t rule out him having accomplices. “What if you find someone else is involved? Someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. I’ll be your backup.”
“Like a bodyguard?”
“I give good backup, Ruby,” I said, and she managed a small smile. “And good protection.”
“That sounds kind of dirty.”
“I know. But I mean it too. What do you say? You won’t rat me out and I won’t rat you out, and we help each other find where the missing money went.” I picked up the other fork and handed it to her, holding my breath as I waited for her yes. This job would be finished a hell of a lot faster with an inside woman.
Ruby took the fork but didn’t dig in. The fork hovered over the cake. “The diamonds might be in his nightclub,” she said, like she was hot on the trail of them already. “Eli invited me to go tonight. He won’t be there.” She paused meaningfully. “But, then, they might be in a bank. In which case, I doubt your hammer or lock-picking tricks would do much good.”
I smiled since she was spot on with that last assessment. “True. Even I have limits.”
She laughed as she shook her head, bemused. Her eyes roamed over my face, my chest, my arms, but her gaze wasn’t sexual. It was…assessing. She was weighing my offer.
I had to be patient, though I wanted her to accept it. The last time I’d worked with a woman, I’d been burned, nearly lost everything. The difference was, this time, I had no plan to let Ruby into my heart. This was strictly business.
“All right,” she finally said, and bam. There it was. That tone of voice that said she was working with me, not against me. “I admit you have traits that would come in handy.”
“I come in very, very handy,” I said dryly.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m agreeing with you, Captain Adventure. You could wander around town, ask questions here and there, act like a tourist, and no one would think anything of it. That could be helpful to me.”
I leaned forward onto my elbows and took a conspiratorial tone. “Does this mean we’re working together, Ariel ?”
She nodded, then lowered her voice to a whispered warning. “We are,” she said, a smile sneaking onto her face.
I wanted to kiss it off. She’d made me work for this one all right, and hell, if that didn’t make her more attractive. But I knew kissing would lead to trouble. I didn’t need any trouble. Seemed she didn’t either, since she said, “But just work. No more late nights on a lounge chair.”
I already missed those late nights we wouldn’t be having. But I agreed. “Business. Only business,” I said.
I didn’t fool myself that it would be easy to ignore the desire I felt for her. Still, for this to work, our affair had to end. I set down my fork and offered a hand for her to shake. “Partners.”
“Platonic partners,” she added.
“Platonic partners,” I repeated as we shook across the cake. I could do this. I could absolutely keep my hands off her—no problem.
But as she licked that cake and ice cream off the fork, I couldn’t help but be jealous of a utensil.