High-heeled Wonder (A Killer Style Novel) (Entangled Ignite) (6 page)

Chapter Eight

“Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.”

—Jean Cocteau

Pulling into his driveway on the leafy suburban street where he’d grown up, Tony glanced around for the relatives who always seemed to show up the moment he put his car in park. For once the coast was clear.

“Are you sure about this?”

“You bet. Nowhere safer in the world.” Tony got out of the Charger.

A screen door slammed open and a three-foot-high blur burst out of the single-story ranch house. Before Tony could warn Sylvie of the coming onslaught, or even close his car door, a face sticky with peanut butter pressed hard into his leg and a chubby five-year-old’s arms locked around his knees.

“Kermit is coming.” Wild brown eyes stared up at him. “Save me, Uncle Tony!”

Tony hooked his hands under his nephew Joey’s armpits and swung him high onto his shoulders. The boy’s hands clapped across his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Of course, he didn’t need sight to identify his next attacker. The cold, wet nose buried in his crotch announced Kermit’s arrival as effectively as a business card, though the huge shaggy paw crushing Tony’s right foot was doing a fine job of that.

“Ryder, call off your beast,” Tony hollered, knowing full well that his sister would be near. She was the only other human being Kermit loved more than Joey.

A sharp whistle split the air. The pressure disappeared from Tony’s foot and he wiggled his toes experimentally, making sure none were broken. They hurt, but at least they moved.

Joey removed his hands from his face, leaving a sticky trail behind, and proceeded to suck the leftover peanut butter from his fingers.

“I warned Joey to stop sneaking peanut butter. It’s Kermit’s crack.” Ryder stood on the porch with her hands on her hips and a smirk curling one side of her mouth. The one-hundred-and-fifty-pound Newfoundland sat by her side, his fat tongue lolling out of his mouth as he gazed adoringly up at her.

“Alessandra must have been desperate to leave you in charge. What happened?”

“Very funny.” She made a face at him. “Parent-teacher conference for the Tasmanian Devil, here.” Suddenly, she caught sight of Sylvie. “Is that who I think it is?”

Tony turned to Sylvie. Her eyes had gone wide and she was plucking at her purse strap. “Sylvie Bissette, meet my sister, Allegra Falcon.”

“Really, do you still have to do that?” His sister strode over and punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “Call me Ryder, everyone does.”

“Except mom,” he said.

“Anthony, Allegra, and Alessandra. I’m sensing a pattern.” Sylvie stuck out her hand.

“Yes, our mother, Annabelle—who married Anthony senior—loves the letter A.” Ryder laughed. “God help us.”

Sylvie shook hands with his sister. Their difference struck him. Where Ryder was tall, lithe, and dressed in head-to-toe black, Sylvie stood at least half a foot shorter and wore a bright pink lace skirt that hugged her mind-boggling ass, and a cream sweater that showed off even more curves, tempting him for all the wrong reasons. And just now he was having a hard time remembering the right reasons not to be.

He doubted any of Sylvie’s friends—or enemies—had ever crossed the suspension bridge and set foot in Waterberg. Over here, four-wheel-drive trucks and minivans sat parked in the driveways. Tire swings swayed in the breeze. Fences needed to be repainted, garden flags declared “Welcome Spring!” in browning gardens, and cracks traveled up the length of the sidewalks. His neighborhood couldn’t be any further from Harbor City’s rich enclaves of glass and steel than if it had been on the moon.

Kermit padded over to Sylvie, his nose twitching. As he was about to go in for his favorite greeting, she scratched behind one of the Newfie’s furry ears and squatted down to his level. “Aren’t you just the softest thing ever?”

Instantly in love, Kermit leaned into her hand and nudged closer until he was near enough to give her a big doggie kiss. She giggled, and the breeze scattered strands of her honey-brown hair, which glimmered in the afternoon light. She buried her face in the dog’s fluffy neck and he sighed in contentment.

Tony’s body hardened. What he wouldn’t give—

Shit, he was jealous of a slobbering, overgrown dog.

Rich, pampered Sylvie Bissette should have looked out of place on the block where he’d grown up and bought a small house of his own. But she didn’t. She looked…perfect.

He didn’t have to pretend to be her boyfriend out here in the suburbs, way beyond Harbor City’s fashion district, but try as he might, he couldn’t shake the role.

Stop mentally moving her into your bedroom and get your head in the game, Falcon. Too much is riding on this for you to fuck it all up. Again
.

Ryder nodded toward his Cape Cod house next door. “You working or can I sweet talk you into taking the peanut butter bandit home with you?”

“No way. The last time that happened he built skyscrapers with my coffee mugs and proceeded to play Godzilla.”

“I had to ask.” Ryder stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. “So how goes the case?”

“We’re moving base to my place. I’ll update you and the rest of the team after I get Sylvie settled.”

He opened the Charger’s trunk and grabbed Sylvie’s orange leather overnight bag and one of his black duffel bags. The other go-bag stayed in its spot, hiding the latch to the trunk’s false bottom. He slammed the trunk closed and the dog took off running toward Joey on the front lawn.

Ryder nodded toward their nephew. “You know he’s going to spill everything about you having a guest to Alessandra. Who will tell mom. Who will be scandalized and, at the same time, oh, so hopeful that her boy has finally found someone good enough to bring home to Mama.”

Tony glanced at Joey, who was lying in the middle of the front yard eating his boogers while Kermit licked away the last vestiges of peanut butter from the boy’s cheeks. Ryder was right. His nephew would rat him out in a heartbeat, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatcha gonna do?”

It hit Sylvie the moment she walked into the bedroom. Man smell. Not locker room man smell, thank God, but warm-blooded, all-American testosterone mixed with sandalwood and soap. Closing her eyes, she took in a double lungful and her thighs actually quivered.

“You okay?”

Heat blasted her cheeks and her eyes snapped open at Tony’s voice. “Yeah, fine.”

The stubborn hardwood floor refused to open up under her feet. She had some sort of Pavlovian response to the kind of hotness Tony exuded. The whole situation sucked. Why couldn’t he be a troll who smelled like rotting funk instead of a hottie who turned her into some kind of hormonal teen with a smelling fetish?

At this point, fate was just fucking with her. A stalker with physical damage on his agenda. A burglar who left diamonds but took old laptops. A hot guy who said he didn’t want her but looked at her like she was a supermodel. It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. But it was her life. No wonder her time-to-freak-out alert had gone haywire.

“I turned the guest room into an office. I’ll stay on the pull-out couch in there.” He swiped a pair of jeans from a leather chair and shoved a dresser drawer shut with his foot.

“I can’t kick you out of your room.” And sleep in his bed, where she’d probably spend the night sniffing his pillow.

“You’re not kicking. I’m offering some Waterberg hospitality.”

Sylvie flipped through possible excuses but couldn’t come up with a thing that didn’t sound churlish or pathetic and force her to tell the truth. No way was she going with “I’m afraid I’ll do indecent things with your pillow.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her continued silence.

Time to suck it up, princess.
“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

“Great. Why don’t you hang out in the living room and call your dads while I get this mess cleaned up?”

Chicken that she was, she wanted to hug him for giving her an out to escape his bedroom. Instead, she skedaddled away from the temptations he offered—it took a little effort, but she did it—and strode into the front room, which was dominated by a huge TV and a well-worn couch. She whipped out her cell phone and punched in the number she knew by heart.

“How’s my favorite bulldog doing today?” Henry’s voice immediately calmed her riled nerves.

She sank down into the dark blue couch. “If I tell you the truth, do you promise to sit on Anton until he calms down?”

“You know I’d be sitting on him until Betsy Ross mop caps came back into vogue before that happened. You better just spill it.”

For a second she considered lying to protect her fathers from the mess her life had dissolved into. They’d done so much for her, and she’d spent every day since her adoption day trying not to disappoint them or be the center of any kind of drama. She owed them that much. But she had to face it, her life of staying safely out of the spotlight was over.

“Someone broke into my apartment,” she confessed.

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Tony and I were at The Darling House when it happened. They only took my computer, everything else is still there.”

His voice lowered back to its normal octave. “Thank God. Please tell me you’re not calling from your apartment.”

“No way. We relocated to Tony’s in Waterberg.”

“Why not come here? You can stay in your old room. We’ll make s’mores and watch
Casablanca
.”

Her throat closed up and the cell slipped in her clammy hands. Hurting her fathers was the last thing she wanted to do, but she couldn’t chicken out of telling them the worst part. Tightening her grip on the phone, she braced herself.

“Whoever is behind all this wants to hurt me—not the High-Heeled Wonder, but me. They know who I am, and are probably going to lash out at everyone I love. The best way to keep you safe until we figure it out is for me to stay away. I’m so sorry. I took the High-Heeled Wonder moniker so whatever I did on the blog wouldn’t reflect badly on you. I didn’t ever want to cause trouble for you, not after all you’ve done for me and Anya.”

“Do you think I care about that? Do you think Anton does?”

Sylvie fumbled for words when the only thought in her head was
yes
.

“Well, we don’t, Sylvie Anne Bissette. You’re our daughter. We love you. Unconditionally.” He sighed into the phone and she knew from experience he was pinching the bridge of his generous nose. “We’re proud of you. We always have been. Go tell the world that you’re the High-Heeled Wonder. As long as you’re safe, we don’t give a damn.”

Biting her lip, Sylvie stared at the ceiling in Tony’s living room and sniffed back relieved tears. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Any time, bulldog. Now, how about coming here for those s’mores?”

“I’ll think about it, but at least for tonight I’m already settled in at Tony’s.”

Tony smoothed a hand over the fresh sheets before tossing a thick comforter on top of them. He would
not
think about Sylvie sleeping in his bed. Her hair spread out on the pillows. Covers twisted around her long, bare legs. The way the streetlamp filtering through the window would caress her skin.

His cock twitched. Yeah, he wasn’t thinking about it, but his dick sure was.

He tried to shake the vision out of his head, but it refused to vanish. Stubborn, just like the woman herself.

“Can I borrow your laptop?”

On instinct, he jammed a pillow in front of himself, blocking Sylvie’s view of his arousal. “My laptop?”

“Yeah, I need to change the password for my blog.”

It took a second, but his brain finally caught up.
Stalker. Robbery. Missing laptop
. “Sure. It’s in the office.”

“Thanks.” She spun on a toe and disappeared down the hall.

Client. Daughter of murder suspects. Woman who would hate him if she ever found out what he’d done to her
. Forcibly reminding himself of the facts did little to ease the throb behind his zipper. He swore his cock was laughing at him. Refusing to think only with the small head any longer, he tossed the pillow on the bed and grabbed his phone, punching the numbers harder than necessary.

His sister answered on the third ring. “Ryder.”

“I’m putting you on three-way conference call with Cam. Hold on.”

Cam answered on the first ring, but a woman’s soft laugh echoed in the background. Tony’s first instinct was to remind his number two that he was on duty, but considering the direction of his own thoughts lately he was the last person who should tell someone to keep it in their pants.

“Someone broke into Sylvie’s apartment, stole her laptop, and left everything else. We’ve moved base to my house until further notice. Tell me you’ve got good news.”

Cam let out a soft whistle. “Why your place?”

“You kidding? I’m related to half the neighborhood. A stranger on this block is going to stick out like sushi at Nonni’s Sunday dinner. Plus, I’ve got access to more firepower here.”

“Smart plan. Carlos hacked into Sylvie’s blog and has traced several of the noninitial threats to the same IP address,” Ryder said.

“Name?”

“He’s working on it.”

“Tell him we needed that info yesterday.”

Cam asked, “How did the chat with that other blogger go?”

“Rhodes admitted she spilled Sylvie’s identity to a bunch of people, but the two at the top of the suspect list are Anders Bloom and Pippa Worthington. Based on the photos Sylvie shared, Bloom is a designer who makes some of the ugliest shit I have ever seen on a woman. Sylvie mocked him pretty hard on her blog. His sales have tanked. Worthington is a big-shot fashion editor who is in a world of shit at work, a fact that Sylvie shared with the entire Internet.”