But this was Morgan.
And the last time she’d seen him, she’d given him a kiss-off.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket again. It was time she called her lawyer. It was time for her to start protecting herself from the protector.
Things weren’t over between them yet.
* * *
Josh still hadn’t been to bed when he stopped by Luxxor’s offices the next morning. He always felt like a bull in a china shop when he came to this place, but, tired and rumpled, he felt even more out of place. He supposed he could have gone home first, showered and shaved. But if he’d gone home, he would have crashed.
But probably not slept.
He had to see her. He had to look into her eyes. If he didn’t, the questions would drive him nuts.
He stopped in front of the door to Luxxor’s suite. The gilded letters of the company’s name matched the font he’d seen on that business card. He dragged a hand through his hair and straightened his jacket. When he stepped inside, the look on Rielle’s face told him it hadn’t helped.
‘Oh, Detective. Can I get you some coffee? Aspirin?’
He looked that rough, huh? He shook his head. ‘I just came by to see if Nina had an opening in her schedule.’
The office manager looked at him dubiously. ‘You’re asking?’
He shrugged. Typically, he didn’t. He just went in to see her. He liked catching her unaware. He liked shaking her up. Today, it felt like he should follow the rules.
‘She’s not with anybody right now.’ Rielle reached for the phone on her desk. ‘Let me check if she can see you.’
‘I have time.’
The soft words came from around the corner. When Nina entered the room, Josh felt the jolt like he always did. She looked like a million bucks. She was wearing a fitted blue suit with a necklace that dangled low in the V between her breasts. Her heels were the serious ones this time. No flower-patterned designer sneakers. The four inches of additional height told him just how ready she was for battle.
He felt the tiredness overtake him. He didn’t want to fight with her. He didn’t want to know if they were on the opposite sides of the law. All he wanted to do was take her home to his place, to the soft bed that awaited. It was more than big enough to fit both of them. They could pull the covers over their heads and forget about the world outside. All their problems.
And everything that stood between them.
‘Detective Morgan.’
Fuck. They were back to that?
‘Ms Lockwood.’ His voice sounded like sandpaper.
Just … fuck.
‘I won’t take much of your time,’ he said. ‘I need to ask you a few questions about one of your employees, Genieve Hart.’
Rielle’s chair squeaked as she spun away and became interested in her computer.
Nina folded her arms around the folders she carried. ‘Genieve’s not here. She’s still shaken from what happened last night.’
‘She called you.’
‘Yes, she asked for the day off. I gave it to her, of course, with pay.’
‘How kind of you.’
Her brown eyes flared. Finally. There was the reaction he was used to.
She tapped her fingers against the folders and reined it in. ‘Thank you for helping her. She told me you came to her aid.’
‘No problem. It’s my job.’
The silence became uncomfortable.
‘So,’ she finally said, ‘you’re here because …?’
‘Just doing some follow-up work. Your employee was the victim of a pretty bold crime last night. I’m trying to figure out why she might have been targeted.’
‘Her boyfriend obviously was the target, Senator Gunderson.’
Josh cocked his head. ‘Maybe. I still need to check all the angles. You know that about me by now, Nina.’
Her eyes widened. She set the files on Rielle’s desk and gestured to the hallway. ‘Come to my office. We can talk there.’
His gaze swept down her form as he followed her. It was beyond habit now; it was a compulsion. Her skirt cupped her backside like it had been custom made, and the slit up the back gave him glimpses of sleek legs. She thought those sky-high heels of hers could help her kick ass.
Come to think of it, they did. The first time he’d seen her, he’d been knocked on his.
They hadn’t kicked him out the door, though, and he’d kept coming back.
He looked around the familiar office. It screamed sophistication with plush grey carpeting and lighter grey walls. Pops of royal blue were sprinkled around from the pillows on the sofa to the decanter on the wet bar. He’d guessed long ago it was her favourite colour. He sat down in the chair in front of her desk – the normal one, not the funky blue one. You couldn’t pay him to sit in that thing. Yet when he sat, he felt all of her menagerie staring at him. Blue glass figurines flashed at him in disapproval from the shelves on the walls. The elephant on the corner of her desk even flailed its trunk in outrage.
I know, buddy, Josh thought. I know.
He didn’t know why he felt guilty. He’d had inklings all along about Luxxor’s mysterious line of work. Inklings that, in truth, had been big, glaring red neon signs. He just hadn’t looked too hard at them.
He’d been looking somewhere else.
He watched Nina as she moved behind the big oak desk and sat in that oversized leather chair of hers. ‘Now, what is this about, Detective?’ she asked.
‘I thought you might be able to help with our investigation.’
‘Into the break-in at the Emissary Hotel? How?’
‘I’m looking for a motive.’ He held up his hands. ‘You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. This isn’t an interrogation.’
She arched an eyebrow at him. ‘So if I ask you to go away, you really will this time?’
He lowered his hands and wrapped them around the arms of the chair. ‘I wasn’t the one who ran away, Nina. You were.’
Colour lit her cheeks, and she fussed with her pen. They both knew that, the last time they’d seen each other, they’d been in a lip-lock that had lit up a 40,000-seat stadium.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I apologise. That was rude of me.’
He didn’t mind so much. He intimidated most women. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help his size. OK, maybe he could fix his attitude, but when he was working he focused. He’d focused hard on her, and she hadn’t flinched. He liked the way she stood up to him, itty-bitty thing that she was.
He looked at her more closely. He hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks. Her ash-blonde hair looked soft and shiny. Her lips were a soft pink to match the colour on her fingernails. She looked put together, but with enough femininity to balance the seriousness of that suit. With the morning sun coming through the windows behind her, though, he could see the tiredness written across her face.
He frowned. When had Genieve called her? He’d bet his lucky nickel it had been before she’d made it down to the car. Which meant that Nina had been up nearly as long as he had … Unlike him, she’d tried to hide her fatigue with the magic of makeup, but he could see it.
She sat behind that huge desk looking tired and way too calm, and he just couldn’t