Hot & Bothered

“For heaven’s sake, DeeDee, if you’ve spent any time with him at all, you must know he hasn’t got a violent bone in his body.”

“Yeah? So how the hell would you know? Except for the odd holiday or flying visit, it’s not like you’ve been around much during the two years I’ve been here.”

“You’re right, I haven’t. And I have to live with the fact that I left him to Father’s less-than-tender mercies. But that doesn’t keep me from knowing that a person’s basic nature doesn’t change. And Jared wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

“Maybe not.” DeeDee shrugged once again. “But who else had any reason to kill Ford?”

“My God, are you serious?” The laugh that escaped Victoria went a little wild, and ruthlessly she slammed a lid on the urge to give in to unchecked hysteria. “Considering Father’s personality, and the fact that he was killed in the middle of a dinner party he was giving to rub salt in the wound of a CEO whose company he’d just acquired in a hostile takeover, I’d have to say darn near everyone.”

She turned to include Rocket. “I realize it’s unkind to speak ill of the dead, but you might as well know up front that my father wasn’t a nice man. He liked nothing more than to toy with people, and from what I’ve gathered, none of the guests attending his little soiree the night he was killed had a clue if they’d still have a job come Monday morning. I’m not just talking about the employees of the company he’d taken over, either. No one could afford to relax around him. He was just as apt to can his own people as the ones from his new acquisition, if for no other reason than to provide himself a moment’s entertainment.”

“And here I thought my old man was the daddy of dys-function.” John had been watching the interaction between the two women with fascination, knowing they had no idea how revealing it was. But it was time for a more straightforward approach. He needed to start directing the conversation to where he wanted it to go.

It was clear the women weren’t overly fond of each other, and turning to DeeDee, he decided she couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Victoria—who, if he remembered correctly, would be about thirty-one now. As Victoria’s new stepmama, that had to make for some friction. He’d bet the main source of dissension, though, was the fact that you’d have to search hard to find two more dissimilar women. Even way back when, he’d understood that Tori wasn’t one of the party girls he was accustomed to picking up in bars. So when she’d allowed him to do exactly that, he’d noted her relative inexperience, then simply felt grateful to whatever karma had thrown him in her path at the exact moment she’d decided to cut loose.

DeeDee, on the other hand, had the look of a woman who knew her way around a wet T-shirt contest. Not that you could always go by appearances, he admitted, remembering when his friend Zach had first met the woman who’d become his wife. Still, there was an indefinable aura about DeeDee that said she knew the score, and at the very least, she struck him as the quintessential trophy wife.

He favored her with his most charming grin. “You have a point,” he said. “A homicide detective will always look first within the family for his suspect. Hell, any cop will be happy to tell you that nine times out of ten the victim is killed by someone he knew.”

Something about the smug look she shot Victoria rubbed him the wrong way, but he wasn’t stepping into the middle of that brouhaha. As a man, he knew better than to get between two women with opposing points of view. As a professional, he didn’t get involved in his clients’ lives, period, or anyone else’s who might be connected to a case. As far as he was concerned, in fact, the two of them could dive right into a knockdown drag-out fight, and he’d simply pull up a chair and enjoy the show. Especially if the ripping of clothing was involved.

He glanced at Tori’s svelte little sheath, then at her patrician nose poking ceiling-ward, and swallowed a snort. Sure, Ace, that’s likely to happen. Turning his attention back to DeeDee, he added, “Of course they generally look at the spouse first, since that’s who most often inherits the lion’s share of money.”

She curled her lip at him. “Lets me out, then. I signed a prenup that said if Ford divorced me or died for any reason during the first three years, I’d get bupkis—or next to it, at any rate. He was my golden goose, pal—it was in my best interests to keep him healthy.”

John glanced at Tori, who nodded. “He had all his wives sign the same prenuptial agreement, and it was set up in such a way that they only received a truly generous bequest if they lasted ten years.” She shrugged. “The only one who ever came close to lasting that long was my mother, but she died just before my eighth birthday.”

A shaft of light found its way through the shutters and shone directly in her eyes. It highlighted the gold flecks around her pupils, and he was irritated that seeing them gave him the urge to cut her a little slack and not pursue the next logical line of questioning. He gave her a flat stare to compensate. “So I’m guessing you and your brother inherited the bulk of Daddy’s fortune then.”

When she narrowed her eyes, he had a feeling it wasn’t against the light. But she said without inflection, “Yes. And before you ask, I was living in London when he died, and I’ve already told you that Jared couldn’t have done it.”

Hit men could be hired as easily from London as anywhere else, and John never trusted in the goodness of young men he hadn’t met. Since he had a hankering for this case, however, he knew better than to say so. He might be one of the best at locating missing teens, but he was by no means the only investigator qualified for the job, and his prior relationship with Tori was more likely a strike against him than anything that would work to his benefit.

But what the hell—when in doubt, project confidence, he always said. Besides, it wasn’t as if he actually believed she’d put a contract out on her old man. No, the woman he’d met this afternoon was more likely to freeze a man to death.

Seeing DeeDee watching the two of them as if this were improvisational theater, he leveled a look on her. “Would you excuse us, Mrs. Hamilton? My client’s paying by the hour and I’d like to get down to business with her.”

“I just bet you would,” she murmured, but then spun on her stiletto heels and sashayed out as blithely as she’d entered.

The moment the door shut behind her, he pinned his best no-nonsense look on Victoria. “Okay, look, I plan to look for your brother regardless, but I’d still like to know why you believe he’s incapable of violence. There’s probably not a person in the world who doesn’t have the capacity for it, given the right circumstances.”

“I simply can’t visualize what those circumstances would ever be in Jared’s case,” she said. “He’s scared to death of spiders, for heaven’s sake, yet he’s still the type of guy who’d perform a catch and release if one got in the house. Now, me, I’d rather see the damn thing dead.”

He remembered. She’d climbed up his back once, screaming Kill it! Kill it! in his ear when a hapless daddy longlegs had shown the poor judgement to venture across their bedroom floor in Pensacola. Irritably shoving the memory away, he focused on the facts. “Yet he’s been in quite a bit of trouble, if I understand correctly.”

“It’s true he’s been expelled from several schools. But always for things like drinking, or smoking or not knowing when to stow his attitude.” She leaned forward in her chair as if she could compel his understanding through sheer physical intensity. “When he was little, he was always running up to Father saying ‘Watch this! Watch this!’ All he ever wanted was the tiniest bit of his daddy’s attention, and his expulsions were just a continuation of the same. They were a way to get Father to pay him a little regard, if only in a negative way.”

“Tell me who his friends are.”

Victoria sat back. “That’s one of those good news/bad news things,” she said. “He has a habit of falling in with the malcontents, which as you can probably imagine contributes considerably to his problems. The good news is, he didn’t do that this time. Since there were only a few months remaining in the semester when he was bounced from his last school, Father decided to enroll him locally to finish out the year. Jared joined a baseball team, discovered he really liked the sport, and actually met a couple of nice kids on the team. The bad news, though, is that whenever he told me anything about them, he only referred to them as Dan and Dave.”

“That’s okay, just give me the name of the school.” He’d contact the coach and go from there.

She told him, and he was keying the information into her file when the office door opened once again. Brows furrowing, he glanced up. Now what?

A little girl with a long, wild, tangle of baby-fine brown hair that was held off her face by sparkling butterfly barrettes stood in the doorway. Casting him an intrigued glance, she ran over to Victoria. “Hullo, Mummy,” she said in a clear British accent, leaning into her. “Nanny Helen told me a ’tective was here to find Uncle Jared.”

Mummy? John felt his jaw drop as he watched Victoria wrap an arm around the little girl and hug her close. She was a mother?

“Yes, that’s true,” Victoria said. “So you really should run along, sweetie, and I’ll come see you just as soon as we’re finished.”

That “something” he’d heard earlier was back in her voice and he narrowed his eyes on Victoria. What the hell was it? Alarm? Wariness? He couldn’t quite pin it down.

“But, Mummy, I want to say hello.”

There was an instant of dead silence. Then Victoria succumbed to her manners. “Very well. Sweetheart, this is Mr. Miglionni. He’s the private detective Nanny Helen was telling you about. John, this is my daughter, Esme.”

His experience with little girls—or any kids her age, for that matter—was nil. But what the hell, a female was a female and John bestowed his warmest smile upon the little girl. “Nice to meet you, Esme. Love your butterflies.”

Her little hand went up to touch one of her barrettes in an ageless feminine gesture. “Thank you. My mummy bought them at Harrods.” A pleased smile curved her rosebud mouth and she stared at him with big eyes as dark as his own.

His stomach began to churn as a sudden suspicion splintered through him. Holy shit. Oh, holy, fuckin’ shit. It couldn’t be. Could it?

Hell, no. They’d used protection.

Which any fool knows is never one hundred percent fail-safe. He took a deep breath and got an iron grip on his emotions. “Harrods, huh? That’s a department store in London, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You look like you’re nearly grown up. Got your driver’s license yet?”

She giggled. “No, silly. I’m only five and a quarter years old.”

“Ah. I guess that is a little young.” The hot roil in his gut had turned to ice. He might not be the world’s greatest mathematician, but he could sure as hell add two plus two and arrive at the right answer. Especially when you factored in the kid’s eyes. Although it took every ounce of his self-control, he managed to keep the easy smile plastered on his kisser until the little girl skipped out of the room. But it dropped the instant the door closed behind her, and he swung to pin Victoria in place with furious eyes.

“You’ve got some explaining to do, lady.”

CHAPTER THREE

DAMN! VICTORIA’S HEART pounded in her chest, and to her disgust every last drop of moisture in her mouth had turned to dust. Damn, damn, damn! She’d feared this exact situation ever since discovering her private investigator’s identity, and for a moment all she could do was stare at Rocket while a pool of churning acid tried to eat a hole in her stomach. But drawing on a lifetime of displaying composure even when it was the last thing she felt, she sucked in a quiet breath and leveled a gaze on him. “For what exactly do you believe I owe you an explanation?”

“Don’t pull that ice princess crap on me, Tori. You know damn well what this is about.” He took a step that left him towering over her and Victoria swallowed dryly at the banked rage she saw burning in his eyes. “Esme. I want to know who that little girl belongs to and I want to know now.”

“Me.” A healthy surge of anger roared through her and her back snapped straighter than a yardstick even as her heart settled down to a more manageable tempo. Tilting her chin up at him, she met his furious gaze head-on. “Esme belongs to me. She’s my daughter.”

“And mine,” he snarled. “A not-so-minor little detail I never would have known about if I hadn’t come here today.”

She might have categorically denied his parentage if she’d just had a moment to think things through. After all, they’d religiously used condoms that week. But over the course of the current past two weeks, her father had been murdered, her brother had disappeared and she’d packed up and moved everything she owned from one side of the world to the other. Add to that the father of her child dropping into her life from out of the blue and her mind had turned to chop suey. Besides, what was the point? She had a feeling he knew that her fling with him had been unusual enough. She’d sustained too many shocks and was worn to a nub—she simply didn’t have the wherewithal to pull off the pretense that she’d gone straight from his bed to someone else’s.