Sex & the Single Girl (10 page)

“So Brianne, don't keep me in suspense any longer. Tell me who is this handsome young man with you?” Pauline's eyes roamed over Aidan with genuine interest. “He reminds me of my own Stewart, so tall and dark.”

Brianne mustered a smile for the reference to her long-deceased father, the man Pauline had always compared all others against. Aidan was scoring high praise in her mother's book.

Apparently Mom hadn't made the connection that Aidan was only sitting on her loveseat in order to pry loose some more information about her ex-husband.

“Mom, this is Aidan Maddock. Maybe you remem
ber him as the investigating agent the last time Melvin was in trouble?”

Pauline extended her hand. “I can't say that I do. Of course that was a long time ago. It's a pleasure to meet you, Aidan.”

He nodded, shook her hand. Smiled in a way that charmed cigarette girls and society matrons alike. “Likewise. I appreciate you talking to us today.”

Pauline practically beamed. “I always enjoy visits from my daughter. She's lived far away from me for so many years that it's a pleasure to see her more often.” She reached for the silver tea service, her hostess manners coming to the fore. “Let me pour you a cup of tea while we talk and you can tell me all about how you and Brianne met.”

Aidan snagged a white-and-gold teacup off the cart and held it out to be filled. A definite protocol glitch, but one that just might speed them through this visit a little faster. “That's one of my favorite stories. But I think Brianne tells it better than I do.” He arched an expectant brow in her direction. “Don't you, honey?”

Ignoring him and the quick burst of heat his sexy smile ignited over her skin, she took the teapot from her mother's hands and filled three cups in efficient succession. She didn't have the time or the inclination to play tea party today. Not when she had the weight of Aidan's gaze on her and the memory of her recent string of phone hang-ups preying upon her mind. She couldn't bear to think about who those calls might be from. “Aidan is an FBI agent, not a personal friend, Mom. He needs to know if you've heard from Melvin lately.”

Pauline frowned. “You truly inherited your father's manners, Brianne. You're always in such a hurry.”

Could she help it if she didn't like to waste time? The possible explanations for her phone hang-ups made her want to run home and implement a few new protective measures. She wasn't about to spend the afternoon pretending Aidan was her beau just to amuse Pauline.

“Sorry Mom. Aidan and I both need to get to work soon.” She felt just a little twinge of guilt at the lie. But she devoted enough time to her mother since she'd returned to Florida between balancing Pauline's checkbook—a Herculean task in itself—and tackling her grocery shopping on a weekly basis so she'd at least have something mildly nutritious in the house besides Earl Grey and champagne. “Have you talked to Mel lately?”

Settling back on the settee with a sniff, Pauline maintained her perfect posture. “You know he hasn't called me since I married Ray. I think he took my fourth marriage rather badly, the poor man.”

After Brianne's father died, Pauline had married a white-collar crook, a control-freak business executive and a wealthy playboy in quick succession, but she'd never managed to recapture the love that she'd found with Brianne's father.

While Pauline's lack of judgment in men annoyed Brianne, it also unnerved her a little to think she might have inherited the quality.

Aidan gulped back his tea and replaced the cup on the cart with a clang. “Do you remember if Melvin
Baxter ever asked you to open a bank account for him, Pauline?”

Brianne wondered how her mother would react to such a blunt question, but she was much more tolerant of candor from men.

She flashed a conspiratorial smile at Brianne. “My husbands haven't typically let me anywhere near their banking affairs, Mr. Maddock. Ask my daughter what a failure I am at money matters.”

Aidan leaned forward, his weight shifting the seat cushion next to Brianne as his thigh grazed hers ever so slightly. She had a momentary vision of their limbs entwined and the hard heat of his thighs pressed against hers that night on top of her desk.

She edged closer to the other side of the loveseat to increase the distance between them, but the liquid heat remained in her legs.

“It's an important question, ma'am. Do you have any bank records dating from the years you were married to Baxter that you can consult? I have reason to believe that a financial connection remains between the two of you.”

Brianne sensed the tension in Aidan from the taut set of his muscles beside her. Though his voice held a note of pleasant charm and gentle coaxing, she didn't miss the telltale urgency threading through his tone.

She desperately wanted her mother to deny any lingering association between herself and Melvin, but at the same time, her gut told her Pauline had to be ignorant of an account with over a million dollars languishing in her name for so many years.

Her mother's eyes widened. “My daughter made me
turn over all my banking records to her last month when she insisted she balance my checkbook. Brianne, you are welcome to show this nice gentleman anything he wants to see in regard to my account information.”

Either her mom knew nothing about the account and her affiliation with a well-known criminal, or she was lying through her teeth.

Great. Just great.

While Pauline, hostess extraordinaire, deftly turned the conversation from her crook ex-husband to quiz Aidan about his favorite restaurants in town—a longtime staple question in her guest itinerary—Brianne brooded over the fact that her mother might be in a lot of trouble.

Of course, trouble was nothing new to Pauline who'd wiggled in and out of tight scrapes with her string of loser husbands for years. What upset Brianne more was realizing that not only was her mother in over her head with Mel, but that she herself wasn't much better off if her recent rash of phone hang-ups were originating with her ex-boyfriend.

Strange to think she had far more in common with her mother than she'd ever suspected. No matter how well organized Brianne kept her checkbook or how coolly sterile she made her own gadget-happy household, she would still share one undeniable trait with her mother.

A bad habit of choosing men who were all wrong for them—and also potentially dangerous.

Snitching a macaroon off the tiered cake stand full of candies on the teacart, Brianne gave a momentary ear to the conversation at hand and discovered Pauline
knee-deep in discussing politics with Aidan. That could keep them going for another fifteen minutes, and it might save Brianne from having to tell her mother all about the club's first week in business. She munched the macaroon and wondered idly how she and her mom could have gotten so mixed up with their choices in men.

Even if she discounted the creepy boyfriend in college who'd bummed money off her at every turn and finally made off with her ATM card for an unauthorized shopping spree, she still couldn't deny her involvement with Jimmy had been scary in the end.

She'd met him while he was playing in a blues café one night and had thought him incredibly sensitive and romantic. Too soon he'd turned oversensitive and prone to depression when he'd been certain she'd been out with other men any time she left her apartment.

When she'd tried to break off their relationship, he'd taken to following her—never hurting her, but the threat had been there. He'd creeped her out, turned her into a homebody when she'd always been outgoing. She'd jumped all over the chance to return to Florida and invest in Club Paradise.

What continued to haunt her about the whole Jimmy experience was that all the signs of possessiveness and dark moodiness had been there from the beginning, but Brianne had chosen to ignore them.

Brushing the crumbs from her macaroon off her mouth and on to a linen napkin, she had to ask herself why she still didn't know better than to involve herself with dangerous men.

Now she'd been in Florida for all of a month and
already she'd caved to Aidan Maddock's charm. Sure, he was a far cry from a stalker, but he wore his penchant for danger on his sleeve between his FBI job, his tendency to skate around the rules and his open admiration for loose-lipped cigarette girls like Daisy.

How could she let herself get mixed up with a guy like that? Time to put some serious distance between her and Aidan, starting today.

She didn't need a man in her life right now, but if she ever decided to venture into a relationship, she would definitely find some nice, upstanding guy who wouldn't drag her into his FBI cases.

Of course, there could be a downside to that scenario. A nice, upstanding guy might not be as apt to play strip search games guaranteed to drive her wild.

But that was a risk she was going to have to take.

A
IDAN TAPPED OUT A TUNE
on the steering wheel as he drove Brianne home through the tree-lined streets of ritzy Palm Beach. Restless energy consumed him, the simmering excitement that always came when he made solid progress on a case.

Pauline Wolcott-Baxter-Menendez-Simmons had been every bit as flighty and superficial as he'd remembered from his dealings with her the first time around—nothing like his own mother who possessed a tireless work ethic and never relied on anyone. He'd seen a new side of Brianne as she'd quietly collected Pauline's bills from a small desk on her way out of the house. How long had she been taking care of her mother? Moreover, he wondered if anyone had ever truly taken care of Brianne.

As he slowed for a jogger running with a tiny white poodle, Aidan turned his thoughts back to his new information. Pauline didn't know about the account in her name. He guessed Melvin had set it up without her knowledge to help funnel his money and hide his criminal maneuverings. Brianne had told him flat-out that her mother had no record of the account in question.

Although, come to think of it, that was the
last
thing she had told him.

And she'd said it way back when they were walking out of her mother's house.

“You okay?” he asked as he pulled into the driveway of her low-slung contemporary home on a more modest street. “You're awfully quiet.”

“I'm fine.” She removed the fake glasses that she seemed to have worn solely for her mother's benefit and tucked a pair of sunglasses on her nose. “Thanks for the lift.”

She was already shoving open the car door.

“Hey, wait a minute.” He clicked off the ignition and scrambled his way out of the car to head her off before she got to the house and slammed the door in his face. “What gives? Did I screw up the tea drinking or something?”

She slowed her determined steps but her spine remained ramrod-straight. Unyielding. “I have no quibbles with your tea drinking. But I do have other business to attend this afternoon, Aidan. I guess I considered our work together done for the day.”

“Damn it, Brianne, do you have to act so freaking frosty with me all the time?” It was no secret that when they got within five feet of one another they generated enough heat to melt polar ice caps.

Tilting her sunglasses downward, she peered at him over the rims. Her green eyes narrowed with cool assessment, but her cheeks flushed with just a little agitation.

Which was pretty damn gratifying to see for a change.

“I think some frost is in order between you and me, Aidan, if we don't want to end up crossing any more
personal boundaries. Excuse me if I choose to spend my free time somewhere else besides glued to your side.” She jammed the sunglasses back into place, but she didn't walk away.

Of course, she couldn't escape into her house since he blocked the front walkway.

He searched for a retort but got diverted in the image of her glued to his side.

Her disgruntled sigh saved him from the erotic torture of that particular picture. “Do you mind? I have a lot of things to do today.”

“So do I, damn it.” How could she rob him of the satisfaction he felt from making progress on his case so fast? “If you'd quit distracting me, I'd be able to ask you a few more questions and we could both move on.”

“
I'm
distracting you?” She crossed her arms, tilted her hip to one side. It was the pose of a skeptic, but the hip action in particular drew his eye.

“Hell yes, you're distracting me.” His hands itched to realign her, to guide her hip back into place where he wouldn't be so apt to stare at it, but he knew damn well once he touched her there'd be no stopping.

Unless, of course, she slugged him for such a brazen act. An outcome that was entirely possible.

He closed his eyes and willed his thoughts to focus.

“Aidan—”

Luckily, without the visual of Brianne to preoccupy him, he remembered what he wanted. He opened his eyes, stared her down through the barrier of her dark glasses. “Would you mind if I took your mother's
banking records and copied them? I can bring everything back to you in an hour.”

“You realize this is above and beyond on my part?”

“I'll be out of your way the rest of the day. You don't even have to let me in the front door.” In fact, far better that she didn't let him in the front door because if he got within ten feet of her design book full of sexy paintings and erotic statues, he'd never be able to keep his hands off her.

Her nod was clipped, forced. But it was a nod nevertheless.

Aidan counted that as a victory and stepped aside to allow her a clear path. Heaven knew after an encounter with her mother, she deserved a break today. Socialite Pauline Simmons seemed like a nice enough lady, but she probably had even less in common with her technically inclined daughter than he did.

And that was saying something.

He prepared to follow Brianne into the house—or rather, to the front steps—when he noticed she wasn't moving. She remained frozen on the sidewalk as she stared up at the front door.

And a huge arrangement of flowers lying on the welcome mat.

Who the hell had the nerve to send Brianne flowers when he'd been with her—intimately—just two nights ago?

Not that he would say as much. He had a little more couth than that. “Nice blooms. Are you breaking hearts again, Bri?”

When she didn't respond, he tore his eyes from the
obscenely large arrangement to look at her. She seemed unnaturally still.

“Bri?” He wished he could see behind those damn sunglasses of hers. Her cheeks looked pale but for two blotches of bright color in the middle.

Was she embarrassed? Somehow, that didn't fit with his image of her.

“It's nothing.” She waved away the moment with a jumpy swat of her hand. “I'll just go grab those banking records and you can be on your way.”

She hustled up the steps and sidestepped the flowers. No easy task considering their girth on the front mat. Dropping her keys once—make that twice—she finally managed to get the door open and disappeared inside.

And still she hadn't so much as glanced at the card on the gargantuan bouquet.

Obviously she knew exactly who had sent her the posies. Orchids, actually. Aidan recognized the assorted purple and white petals from his semifrequent trips to the florist during his short stint as a married man. Orchids had always been out of his price range, even when he'd spent seventy-two hours straight on the job and pissed off Natalie to the extreme.

This offering must have cost some guy an arm and a leg.

And just why should it bother him that Brianne had found a boyfriend with deep pockets? Good for her.

Ya-freaking-hoo.

He mentally scrambled for reasons why knowing who sent the damn flowers had any bearing on his case so he could feel justified in reading the card. Too bad he came up dry in an attack of principles.

Damn.

Brianne was back in a flash anyhow, shoving a manila envelope in his face, her dark sunglasses still barring her eyes from view. “Here you go. No need to bring them back today. I'll just pick up the package tomorrow when I see you at the club.”

“Why do I feel like I'm being dismissed?”

“Damn it, Aidan, I'm not into playing Miss Manners like my mother. I helped you today—repeatedly— and I'm not about to feel guilty because I've got other things I need to take care of.”

Like her high roller boyfriend.

Aidan felt a headache the size of Melvin Baxter's bankroll coming on. “Fine. I'm going to swing by the club this afternoon anyway to check things out. You want some help bringing the five-ton flower extravaganza inside before I go?”

She shook her head. Vehemently. “No thanks. I've got them.” She stretched her lips into something that might have resembled a smile had there been any warmth of feeling behind it. “Bye, Aidan.”

The door shut with a soft thud and a dull click of a lock on the other side.

Well, damn.

No denying it, he was a little miffed.

If Brianne had some other guy waiting in the wings, she shouldn't be playing out hot and sexy fantasies with him. And it was too damn late to tell himself to leave his emotions out of it.

Judging by how fast miffed turned into jealous as hell, Aidan couldn't deny his emotions were already too damn engaged.

But he wouldn't be helping his investigation if he went down that road. Sending Melvin Baxter to a federal penitentiary would offer him closure on his long-ago case from hell. He'd waited, kept silent about all the in-house cover-ups involved for too many years to botch up his chance for redemption now. He'd lift a blot from his name that had hovered around him no matter how much he'd kicked ass in every assignment since then.

Regardless of how enticing Brianne and her penchant for role-playing might be, his focus had to remain on his job.

 

B
RIANNE REFUSED TO
open the front door again until her hands stopped shaking. She watched, fixated, as her fingers trembled over the dead bolt.

The flowers still waited outside on the front step as Aidan's car rumbled out of the driveway.

Who'd have thought orchids wrapped in tissue paper and surrounded with exotic greenery could scare her to the roots of her hair?

They had to be from Jimmy. There hadn't been any other man in her life for over a year, except Aidan. And
he
obviously hadn't sent them.

When she'd first spied the bouquet on her doorstep, she'd wanted nothing more than to jump behind him and make him go read the card. His whole job was about protecting people—surely he could help her figure out how to shake one nightmare of an ex-boyfriend?

But then again, why dump on him after she'd already promised she would stay out of his way in this
investigation? She'd distracted him during his first case against Mel, why divert him from his cause all over again?

No, Aidan didn't need to hear about her problems. It was enough that he'd been there to walk her to the door and make sure no one jumped out from the bushes. She'd call the local cops in a minute.

Perfectly rational, right? Okay, maybe not super rational given that her stupid pride had also been driving her actions. What would he think of her if he discovered she was not only linked to a big-time swindler in Miami, but a potentially dangerous stalker in New York? She was obviously quite skilled at associating herself with scary guys.

Gulping a few extra breaths to settle her nerves, she worked herself halfway to hyperventilation. A totally useless state. She needed to develop a rational plan and then act on it.

First, she would read the card and confirm her worst fears. Then she'd call the cops and alert them to her situation. Last, she would work her tail off to update the security on her house and her car.

Standing in her foyer and quaking in her high heels served zero purpose.

She wrenched open the front door and hauled the flowers inside. No way would she read the card outdoors where she could have a coronary out in the open. She'd do her hyperventilating in the privacy of her own home, thank you very much.

After edging the heavy arrangement into the hall, she dropped it on the floor and felt around for the card. Snagging the crisp white envelope, she backed toward
the bench where Summer's fabric samples still lay. She clutched the burgundy velvet to her like a security blanket, as if she could wring some metaphysical connection with her new friend simply by holding on to the fabric.

And knowing Summer, she would probably say such a thing was possible.

Had Jimmy found her? Was he angry that she'd left New York and robbed him of his daily stalker routine? She yanked the card out of the envelope and read:

Thanks for covering for me. You're the best. Mel.

Melvin?

Her brain scurried to adjust her thinking. She was still safe. Jimmy wouldn't be skulking around Ocean Drive looking for her. Or at least, not yet.

Her relief that her ex-boyfriend wasn't on her trail was quickly overcome by anger that her crooked former stepfather would send her such a sentiment. He thought she was covering for him?

On what planet exactly did he see that happening?

Steam hissed through her, a welcome change after the fear that had gripped her moments before.

The rat bastard.

How dare he assume she'd aid and abet a criminal— even if she
had
called him daddy for a few years when she was still young and naïve? And what could he possibly have construed as covering for him when she'd been very forthcoming with Aidan from the start?

Hell's bells. She was going to have to show the note to Aidan.

And she couldn't put it off until tomorrow, not when
it could be important to his investigation. For all she knew, maybe he could track down how the flowers had been sent and find out something about Mel's location that way.

According to Aidan, they didn't give out those FBI badges to every Joe Blow on the street corner after all.

He'd said he was going to make a stop at the club today. He ought to be easy enough to find.

So even though she'd only just parted company with the man, she had no choice but to track him down again so she could spend more time with him on her only day off this week.

She'd never been a betting woman given her run-ins with Mel's swindler buddies as a youth. But she'd love to know what the odds were that she'd be able to walk away from the man twice in one day without touching him.

Gathering up her purse, she shoved the florist's card in a side compartment. Luckily, she also needed to make a quick stop at police headquarters and beef up her home security. Just in case.

There wouldn't be any time to contemplate Aidan's killer bod.

Or his sexy voice.

Or his willingness to play lovers' games with her.