Inevitable

There was the shadowy outline of a female’s naked back and buttocks to the side of the dust jacket. A male figure stood behind her, his hand curling around from behind to rest on the small of her spine. It was subtle, but there was no doubt this was supposed to be a sexy book.

Ryan couldn’t help but grin. “My goodness, Emma, you naughty girl. What are you reading these days?”

He turned it over to read the story blurb on the back cover. It was about a woman who worked for a paranormal investigation agency who experienced many explicit fantasies made flesh during her cases with her partner Bryan.

Bryan.

Ryan frowned and flipped through the book to find the bio of the author. There was a black-and-white picture, but it was mysteriously shot so it wasn’t obvious what she really looked like. Her back was to the camera, her face turned just a little so she was coyly glancing over her shoulder. Very enigmatic. Very sexy.

Very Emma.

He recognized her immediately and his mouth fell open in shock.

There was a card clipped to one of the book covers and he grabbed it.

Emma, congrats on the new release. Enjoy the extra copies! Please consider writing more for me. Let me know when you’re ready to talk more books!

—Marilyn

Emma wrote this book. She was E.M. Black. These were copies of her erotic novel.

Naughty, indeed.

He sat down heavily on the leather sofa and trained his gaze on the door, waiting for Emma to come bursting through at any moment to reclaim her tote bag and potion bottle.

She didn’t return.

Ryan left the party at just after eleven o’clock and grabbed a taxi to take him across the city to his hotel room. He hadn’t spoken to Franklin personally about who was supplying him with stolen supernatural merchandise. This was still vitally important to him—to clear his name once and for all—but he’d decided to put that on hold for just a couple days longer.

Tomorrow he’d rent a car and head to Mystic Ridge, a town he hadn’t stepped foot in since he’d been fired six months ago.

He had to see Emma again.

Tonight, however, he had some serious reading to do.

4

EMMA WAS ON THE BUS headed away from the station when she realized, with a sick, sinking feeling, that she’d left a couple of things behind.

The books she could live without. Since she’d left them in a library, maybe Xavier would think they were an anonymous donation. He certainly seemed the type to appreciate erotica. But the bottle—that was going to be a problem. It was, after all, the sole reason she’d been sent to see the billionaire in the first place.

Of course, that was before everything went to hell.

Her head still felt cloudy and she couldn’t believe what she’d done. She and Ryan had almost—

She banged her head gently against the window, feeling the vibrations of the bus’s movement.

It was as if her baser instincts had taken over. She’d jumped on the man she claimed to hate like a sex-starved frog on a tuxedo-wearing lily pad.

In her line of work, she’d come into contact with potions before, but she’d never been influenced by one. Not like this. It was just a good thing that she wouldn’t see Ryan again. Ever. She definitely didn’t want a repeat performance to mess her head up even more than it already was.

The window reflected a redhead who had sad, glossy eyes and flushed cheeks. Emma shook a finger at her. “Don’t get emotional over that jerk.”

The redhead just stared back at her bleakly.

“No,” she assured her reflection. “He’s bad news. Not worth another thought.”

The lust potion had brought back a big mess of issues, all of them involving her unrequited feelings for Ryan. The ones that would have to stay unrequited.

She didn’t trust him. He was a thief and a liar.

For a moment she thought he was going to try to tell her that he was innocent, that he’d been wrongfully fired from his job. He’d seemed surprised when she told him there’d been a witness to what he’d done, one Emma trusted more than anyone.

Herself.

Emma had seen Ryan leave the office with the stolen merchandise in hand late one night. She’d been in the parking lot. She’d seen him load the stolen items in the trunk of a black car and then take off without looking back.

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it. But she had. And she did. And the fact that she still had feelings for the man who’d broken her trust as well as her heart—well, that just pissed her off.

Thank God she’d stopped before they’d had sex. It had been so close. Way too close. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about how he’d felt, how he’d tasted, how he’d smelled. Very good. Very tempting. Very dangerous.

“Goodbye, Ryan,” she whispered. “For good this time.”

“OKAY, WELL PLEASE contact me if you find anything,” Emma said into the phone Thursday afternoon. She was finally back at her desk at the PARA head office. She’d taken the morning off since her bus hadn’t pulled into Mystic Ridge until after 2:00 a.m. “I really appreciate it.”

She slammed the receiver down and then swore at it.

Her friend, Charlotte Hayes, eyed her cautiously. “And what did that poor phone ever do to you?”

“They can’t find the potion bottle,” Emma explained. “That was one of the maids. They’re still cleaning up after the party last night. No bottle. No tote bag. Nothing.”

“That blows.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s not the end of the world. It happens. Jeez, Emma, old man Franklin hitting on you must have really messed up your head. You never forget stuff like this.”

Emma cringed. It was a pretty good excuse, she thought. She’d left the party after Xavier had groped her. That was all she’d told Charlotte. She hadn’t made one mention about seeing Ryan again. After all, it had been statuesque, blonde and beautiful Charlotte whom he’d dated before he was fired. And it had been Charlotte whom Emma had been painfully envious of for that very reason. However, Charlotte had gotten over Ryan’s betrayal much faster than Emma had.

The last thing she wanted Charlotte to know was that Emma had bumped into her former partner and had nearly screwed his brains out at a client’s home, thanks to a lust potion.

Talk about unprofessional. And embarrassing.

It was best she forget about it. She was still working on that.

It wasn’t as if she resented Charlotte for being tall and gorgeous. She liked her. A lot. In fact, they’d been roommates until only until a few months ago. Charlotte had worked for PARA a year now. She was only twentyfive. Her parents had money, a lot of it, but most of it had been lost in a bad economy and a Ponzi scheme, leaving Charlotte with no nest egg to speak of. She’d had to get a job to pay her bills instead of relying on Mom and Dad, so she’d jumped at the chance to make a living using her empathic ability.

The poor girl still didn’t know the value of a dollar. Emma had taken her under her wing and shown her the ropes of bargain hunting. Or she’d tried to, anyway. When you were born into money, it was difficult to make the transition to clipping coupons.