Great. Jake didn’t want to be associated with an investigation that screamed police corruption. He’d left the force because a couple of the cops appeared to be flunkies for some bigwigs who didn’t want that particular corporate fraud case prosecuted. To keep his eyes off Marnie’s legs, he diverted his attention to a nearby painting of the Anasazi cliff dwellings, decorated for the holidays with a few balsam sprigs on the top of the frame.
“I quit when the system screwed over Vince. He talked to the cops and the Feds to try to throw some light on dirty dealings in his last company, and he was the one with mud on his face after the evidence was misplaced.” Jake swiped the champagne glass off the table. “But I know Vince from way back. He served in Vietnam with my dad. Because Vince trusts me, he hired my services to help him wade through the embezzlement scandal that could have hurt his company if news about it leaked.”
Marnie swirled her glass and watched the bubbles chase each other.
“So you got onto the work crew when I had the office overhauled and you installed a camera.” Her bathrobe slipped off her knee, unveiling bare skin for as far as the wandering eye could see up her leg.
A slice of creamy thigh proved too much competition for the picture of the damn cliff dwellings. His gaze tracked up her skin as he calculated how quickly he could have her naked…
“Yes.” His throat went dry. “It was a fast way to either clear you or confirm your guilt, and it’s a tool the cops rarely use because—”
“—because it’s highly unethical and borderline illegal?”
“Because it takes a lot of reviews to obtain permission for it.” He’d be damned if he’d let her call his honor into question. “Technology is saving a lot of manpower hours at your local cop shop, so I can guarantee you it’s not illegal when there is just cause—for me, or for them.”
“But I’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing, thanks to having my life put under a microscope?”
“You’re no longer a prime suspect.” He watched her retuck the bathrobe around her legs, possibly feeling the heat of his stare despite his best effort to rein himself in. “In fact, I was hoping to remove the equipment tonight.”
Right before he hit on her. He planned to get very close to Marnie Wainwright in the near future. Now? Who knew how long it would take for him to rebuild some trust?
“You thought you’d just saunter in here tonight after I hadn’t seen you in two months?” The precariously lopsided twist in her hair finally gave up the ghost, spilling caramel-colored strands and spitting out a pencil that had been holding it all together.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to have that equipment running any longer than necessary,” he told her reasonably as he retrieved the fallen pencil and placed it on the coffee table.
“Of course not, but since I didn’t know I’d been under surveillance for the past two months, might I inquire why you thought I’d even let you in?”
Animal attraction.
But he knew better than to say as much.
“I figured I’d look into a fantasy escape.” Heavy on the fantasy. God knew, she’d been occupying enough of his lately.
The woman had compromised his investigation every time she sashayed past that surveillance camera, her confident feminine strut one hell of a distraction.
“At this hour?” Her gaze narrowed. Suspicion mounted.
And with damn good reason.
He hadn’t even come close to laying his cards on the table with her yet.
“I work late.” He shrugged, not sure what else to offer in his defense. “Do you want me to take the equipment now?”
“No.” She leaned forward on the love seat, invading his personal space in a way that would have been damn pleasant if she hadn’t fixed him with a stony glare. “I know how to take a sledgehammer to the cabinet, but thanks anyway. Right now, I’m more interested in two things.”
“Shoot.” He breathed in the warm, spicy scent of an exotic perfume he wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been this close.
“First, you didn’t say I was cleared of suspicion. You carefully distinguished that I’m no longer a prime suspect. Care to explain what that means?”
Her silk-covered knee was only inches from his. One bare foot sat so close to his loafers that he’d have to be careful of her toes if he stood. The nails had been manicured with glittery white polish except for the big toe on each foot, which featured a carefully painted holly berry leaf.
Lifting his gaze to meet hers, he wondered if he was the only one fantasizing about peeling off her robe.
“It means that there’s an outside chance you could still be a conspirator, but we don’t think that’s likely and we are one hundred percent sure you are not the primary force behind the embezzlement.”
“How reassuring.” She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, frowning as she seemed to consider the implications of that.
“You said you were interested in two things?” He saw the dartboard behind the love seat no longer contained a picture of her ex-boyfriend, something he hadn’t known from the video feeds since his camera didn’t give him enough of a wide angle on the room.
Good for her for not caring anymore. Jake’s investigations had dug up more than a little dirt on him.
“Right.” She fixed him with her gaze. “I’d also like to know just how much of me you’ve seen with that camera lens of yours.”
2
MARNIE HAD HER ANSWER in a nanosecond.
The heat that flared in the private investigator’s eyes practically singed her skin before he said one word.
Hell, he didn’t have to say a word.
“Oh, my God.” She buried her face in her hands to escape Jake’s gaze. Or maybe to hide from the answering heat inside her that she had no business feeling for a man who had spied on her.
Damn him.
“Please believe it was never my intent to see more than the business transactions.” He had that cool, authority-figure voice down pat and she wondered how she ever could have believed he was a carpenter, let alone a good guy.
Jake Brennan had dangerous tattooed all over his big, imposing bod, a wedge of powerful muscle that looked fit to take care of business in a back alley. The brooding, hot expression in his eyes communicated something altogether inappropriate, as if he knew exactly what she looked like naked and had devoted a fair amount of thought to seeing her that way again.
Was she reading into that enigmatic look of his? Maybe. But his presence made her twitch in her seat.
“But you did see more than business transactions,” she snapped, frazzled by sexual thoughts. She lifted her head and quickly realized she’d sat far too near to him for this little tête-à-tête.
His knee was so close she could feel the warmth of him through the thin silk of her robe. He sat forward in his seat, his sculpted shoulders leaning toward her as if he debated offering comfort. A worn gray Henley shirt stretched over the taut muscles of his arms, the sleeves shoved up to his elbows past a heavy silver watch that rested on one wrist. Wavy dark hair brushed his collar; his jaw was bristly with a five-o’clock shadow.
She wondered what it would feel like against her skin. And damn it, why did she care? It had to be because she’d spent the past weeks thinking about Jake the Carpenter in a romantic way, building him up to be someone he wasn’t based purely on attractiveness. A stupid habit, that. Hadn’t she been burned oh so recently by a guy who was all flash and no substance?
Although