And Ric had no intention of making it easy for them.
Chapter Three
Ric scanned the room once more, ever alert for any abrupt move or new face. He would feel a lot better when he had Piper safely back home in her apartment. It was evident that she was under twenty-four-hour surveillance by both the good guys and the bad guys.
Agent Townsend had managed to get a partial license plate number before the unidentified car disappeared down a side street. Now, an hour later, the only thing Ric knew was that the license plate could have come from one of two vehicles from the Atlanta area. One was owned by an elderly woman who was out of town, car included, and the other had been reported stolen earlier that evening, then found abandoned only minutes ago. Whoever had stolen it and used it to tail Piper was long gone.
Another dead end unless forensics found a usable set of prints, which was highly unlikely. SSU had proven too smart in the past for a mistake that simple, and he doubted they would suddenly grow so stupid.
His gaze instantly sought out Piper. She had relaxed immediately, or at least pretended to, when they entered the crowded Exhibit Hall. She mingled among the elegant and elite society attendees with an unparalleled grace and confidence. She introduced Ric by name only, not mentioning that he was her cameraman, and going quickly to another subject when the required formality was out of the way. Though the women seemed inclined to take special notice of him.
Ric had been given more private telephone numbers in the last hour than he could remember getting on his best night when he had been actually looking to pick up a woman.
He studied a watercolor by a local artist that was currently up to a twenty-eight-hundred-dollar bid. This was Ric’s first experience with a silent auction. A register stood on an ornate stand where guests could peruse the latest bid and up the ante, if they so desired, by simply signing their name and an amount they wished to bid.
Personally, Ric couldn’t see the attraction in this particular piece, but then, he wasn’t the artsy type. The closest thing to art he’d known growing up was the graffiti that marked the area as low-rent, possibly dangerous to anyone from the better side of town who happened to get lost there.
A tall, slender blonde approached him and Ric shifted to attention and smiled a greeting. He was pretty sure she had arrived with the new, hotshot sheriff of Fulton County.
Ric definitely did not want to be seen accepting anything that might even appear remotely like her number. He doubted the sheriff would be too happy about a move like that.
“A lovely piece,” she said, flicking her gaze from the watercolor to him in a furtive move. “Have you placed your bid?” She sipped her wine and licked her lips slowly, suggestively, then leaned closer. “The artist who painted it died recently. I’m sure the bids will go much higher.” She moved closer still. “And higher.”
“Actually,” Ric explained, angling his head so that he looked directly into her assessing eyes, “I’m not here for the art.”
Her smile was feline, and blatantly sexual. “I was relatively certain you weren’t.” She offered her hand. “I’m Sally Carter. I do Atlanta Live on Channel 9. And they tell me that you’re Ric Martinez. I’ve been dying to get the inside scoop on Piper Ryan for ages.” Miss Carter tilted her chin upward and whispered in his ear, “I would love to interview you for my ‘Kiss and Tell’ segment. The audience would eat you up.”
And so would you, Ric guessed. He eased back a step, putting some distance between them. So, this female barracuda wanted to get some trash on Piper.
She plucked a card from her dainty purse. “Give me a call when you have some free time, Mr. Martinez.” She gave him a thorough once-over and then a smile of approval. “I’d love some one-on-one.”
Before Ric could recite his polite, practiced response, she turned and drifted toward the other side of the room, ensuring that she gave him the full treatment as she walked away. He shook his head and tucked the card into his inside jacket pocket along with the rest.
“What did she say to you?”
The sharp demand jerked Ric’s attention to his left. Piper stood, seething, only a few feet away. Could that be jealousy blazing in those gorgeous blue eyes?
It sure looked like it to him.
Taking slow, calculated steps, Ric moved in on her. Her eyes widened slightly, but she recovered quickly and schooled her expression. “She said she wanted to have sex with me,” he offered candidly.
Wide-eyed, Piper demanded, “She didn’t?”
He shrugged noncommittally, a smile itching to spread across his lips. “But first she wanted to know if I’d had sex with you and what it was like.”
Piper’s mouth dropped open. She snapped it shut, then exhaled the outrage, which had just synapsed into word form, “That bi—”
He held up a hand to halt her outburst of indignation. “Don’t worry, I set her straight.” He leaned down so that he could whisper his next words. “I told her we hadn’t had sex…yet.”
The grin overtook his lips at the startled expression on Piper’s lovely face. Realization quickly dawned in her eyes, and her gaze narrowed accordingly. “You did no such thing.”
“No.” He tasted the wine he’d been nursing all evening. His fingers curled around the stem, his thumb smoothed over the warm glass. How would it feel, he suddenly wondered, to caress that silky smooth cheek of hers? His gaze drifted down to Piper’s mouth then quickly darted back to her eyes. “I didn’t tell her that,” he admitted, trying his level best not to allow what he was thinking to filter into his tone, “but she did give me her card and suggest we share some ‘one-on-one’ time in the near future.”
“That woman has been out to get me for the past year,” Piper grumbled, surveying the crowd for the transgressor in question. “She loves to smear images and ruin reputations. You stay away from her, Martinez. She’s not a nice person.”
“Don’t worry, querida,” he soothed. “I put her card with all the rest. I have no intention of calling any of them.”
“All the rest?” Piper looked properly mortified. “You mean all these women I’ve seen chatting with you have been giving you their numbers?”
“Not all.” It amused him that she’d noticed other women talking to him. Or, he admitted reluctantly, maybe it pleased him. “But most.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed a sound of impatience. “I knew it. I told Dave this wouldn’t work.” She drained her glass and thrust it at Ric. “And I was right. Women have been trying to pick you up all night. Excuse me,” she snapped, then pivoted and stormed away.
Ric quickly deposited their glasses on the tray of a passing waiter and followed.
Piper stamped down a dimly lit, deserted corridor and disappeared into the first door on the left. Ric paused in front of the closing door, noting Ladies emblazoned on the wood plaque. He stepped to one side to wait. She would come out eventually. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. And then he would demand that she explain herself. His smile widened to a grin. He was going to enjoy this.
In thinking back to her incensed outrage, he supposed that Piper’s tantrum had more to do with propriety and appearances than anything else. It didn’t look proper for her date, escort or whatever, to accept the cards of any of the other female guests in attendance. But, he thought with another slow grin, he could pretend that it was more than that. He could pretend that Miss Perfect, Proper Piper Ryan saw him as a man, rather than as simply “her co-worker.”
Ric immediately dismissed that line of thinking. This was an assignment, nothing else. And Piper was the principal. He had to remember that, no matter how much he wanted to forget it for just a little while.