‘I put my phone on vibrate after I sent the message to you. I didn’t want it ringing during dinner.’ Rielle talked directly to Nina. It was clear how shaken her friend was. For God’s sake, she’d contacted Detective Morgan. Nina had been doing her best to shake the persistent detective with all his questions about their business. ‘I’m sorry if I made a mistake.’
She didn’t usually do this. She wasn’t the one who went out with clients. She stayed behind at her desk, where it was safe and sheltered. She hadn’t been trained in the procedures that escorts followed.
‘I checked him out before I agreed to go out with him,’ Rielle insisted.
‘See?’ Howard said. ‘I told you he was in the database. Melvin Summers. We verified him, Nina.’
Rielle nodded, thanking the Security guard for the backup. They’d both looked. They’d both followed proper procedure on that.
‘Let’s go up to the main office, and you can show us,’ the detective said.
Nina’s eyes narrowed. The detective was not getting a look at their database, it was clear.
But the fewer ears on this, the better. Rielle was becoming overly warm, wrapped up in her winter coat. Her lips still tingled from the kiss Mel had dropped on her. She was confused, tired, and she just wanted to go home.
She didn’t understand why everyone was so bent out of shape. She’d gone on a date. She shouldn’t have to get approval to do that.
Was Nina unhappy he’d circumvented their process for hiring a companion?
She got into the elevator and leaned against the railing that encircled the interior. Nina stood stiffly at her side, but reached out and squeezed her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, Rielle saw the detective stroke Nina’s back. Nina stiffened for a moment. Rielle thought she’d pull away, but instead the powerful CEO’s tension released. Her shoulders lowered, and she started blinking fast.
Rielle blew out a breath. She wasn’t in trouble. Nina had been scared.
Why was everyone overreacting like this?
The elevator was quiet the rest of the short ride to the fourth floor. Nina fumbled for her keys to the office, but the detective smoothly took them from her shaking hand and opened the main office door for her.
Rielle looked around. It seemed like a million years since she’d been here, and it had an entirely different vibe from when Mel had filled the space with that impatient, driven energy.
Why was it that she could remember his name so well now?
Because she remembered the names of the men who kissed her like demons?
That energy that he encapsulated so easily filled her, and she whipped off her coat. ‘I’m getting to the bottom of this.’
‘Holy…shit.’
Rielle glanced towards the detective. What had he seen? What had he figured out?
He’d seen something, all right, but it wasn’t any clue Mel had left behind. The detective was staring at her with his jaw dropped open. He snapped it shut, but in that moment, he wasn’t looking at her as a cop but as a man.
A rough-hewn, sexy hunter.
It was a look he usually saved for Nina, and he quickly shot an apologetic look her way. Even if they supposedly had no relationship beyond the professional.
‘She looks good,’ he said. He rolled his shoulder uncomfortably and put his hand on his hip. ‘Well? She does.’
Rielle blushed. As much of a nuisance as the detective was, as much as he intimidated the bejesus out of her, she liked him. Nina liked him, too, loath as she was to admit it.
Rielle took the compliment because it wasn’t threatening – and because he was talking to Nina as if nobody else was in the room.
‘Thank you. It’s Nina’s dress,’ she said, trying to break the tension. She grimaced. ‘I hope it’s OK I borrowed it.’
Although, apparently, she shouldn’t have gone out at all.
‘Of course it’s OK.’ Nina’s composure finally broke, and she closed the distance between them for a tight hug. ‘It looks better on you than it ever looked on me, anyway. Keep it.’
Rielle hugged her back.
‘I’m so relieved you’re all right,’ her boss said.
‘What did I do wrong?’ Rielle asked. ‘He took me to the White House. We had a wonderful time.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong. If you felt safe with him, then I know you were.’ Nina pulled away and rose to her full stature in her five-inch heels. ‘I just got nervous when I received your message and didn’t recognise the name. Then I came here and found your clothes.’
Oh, her clothes. Rielle spotted them folded up on the coffee table. That must have looked bad.
‘I’m not angry with you. I’m just not comfortable with how any of this went down tonight.’
‘Me either,’ the detective said. ‘Rielle, can you walk us through the evening? When did he approach you? What did he say and do?’
‘I was just closing up for the night when he showed up.’ As badly as things were going, she left out the part about forgetting to lock the office door. ‘He was looking for an es– He was looking to talk to you, Nina. He mentioned his date for the event had gotten sick, and he asked me if I’d like to go.’
She shook her head. ‘He’s in there. I know he is.’
She went to turn on her computer. She had to look for herself.
‘Wait,’ the detective said. ‘Don’t touch that. We may end up needing to dust this room for fingerprints. Was he ever in the back rooms?’
‘What?’ Rielle said in surprise. ‘No.’
‘Fingerprints?’ Nina said, echoing Rielle’s concern. ‘Why would we need those?’
‘What crime has been committed?’ As confused as Rielle was, she didn’t want Mel hunted down like a common criminal. All he’d done was take her out for dinner and dancing at an incredible venue. Maybe he’d lied about being a client. Someone had to have referred him.
‘My computer is already up and running,’ Nina said. ‘Use it.’
The long ballroom dress swished as they moved down the hallway as a pack. Rielle gathered the skirt in so it wouldn’t wrap around the detective’s legs. She moved swiftly to Nina’s desk while Nina blocked Morgan’s view of her monitor. He lifted an eyebrow. He turned instead towards the display of blue glass figurines, and her boss shifted in discomfort.
When their gazes connected again, the combative clash of personalities was back. ‘There’s one missing,’ he said coolly.
‘It didn’t belong here,’ she replied.
Rielle frowned, not understanding, but the intimate rapport between her boss and the cop was suddenly strained and back to normal. It made her feel somewhat better, like she was back on an even keel. She punched Mel Summers’s name into the search box and waited for his bio to pop up. Her stomach sank when the database came back with no results. They’d told her they couldn’t find him, but she was sure there was some kind of mistake.
‘He was in here. Howard saw him, too,’ she insisted. ‘It said he was a client, and the last time we’d…worked with him was two years ago.’
The detective wandered closer to the desk, and Nina folded her arms over her chest. His lips twitched as if he found that amusing. ‘And what kind of client is that, exactly?’
There were going to have to be careful saying any more. The detective had been