The traffic accident that had totaled her truck and damaged her beloved camper had compelled her to move into a one-bedroom rental on King Street until she could afford to replace her vehicle. Her temporary living arrangement was a twenty-minute walk from the hospital through Charleston’s historic district. She focused on the pleasant ambience of the antebellum homes she passed, the glimpses of private gardens through wrought iron fencing, and savored the sunshine warming her shoulders.
Caught up in her thoughts, Lia barely noticed the man leaning against the SUV parked in front of her apartment until he pushed off and stepped into her path. Finding her way blocked, her pulse jumped. Lia had traveled the country alone since she was eighteen and had good instincts when it came to strangers. Only this was someone she’d already met.
Paul Watts had the sort of green eyes that reminded her of a tranquil pine forest, but the skepticism radiating from him warned Lia to be wary. Despite that, his nearness awakened the same buzz of chemistry that she’d noticed in the hospital room.
He wasn’t at all her type. He was too obstinate. Too grounded. Merciless. Resolute. Maybe that was the attraction.
“You were hard to find,” Paul declared.
Ethan had told her Paul was a former cop who now ran his own cybersecurity business. She suspected his single-minded focus had stopped a high number of cybercriminals. Her skin prickled at the idea that he’d do a deep dive into her background where things lurked that she’d prefer remained buried.
“And yet here you are,” she retorted, dismayed that he’d run her down in the time it had taken her to walk home.
She wasn’t used to being on anyone’s radar. To most of her massage clients she was a pair of hands and a soothing voice. The kids at the hospital saw only their favorite princess character. She relished her anonymity.
“Is everything all right with Grady?”
“He’s fine.” Paul’s lips tightened momentarily as a flash of pain crossed his granite features. “At least he isn’t any worse.”
“I didn’t know him before his stroke, but Ethan said he was strong and resilient. He could still pull through.”
“He could,” Paul agreed, “except it’s as if he’s given up.”
“Ethan mentioned he’d become obsessed with reuniting with his granddaughter these last few years,” Lia said. “Maybe if you found her—”
“Look,” Paul snapped. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you need to stay away from my grandfather.”
“I’m not up to anything,” Lia insisted, pulling her key out of her bag as she angled toward the building’s front door. “All I want to do is help.”
“He doesn’t need your help.”
“Sure. Okay.” At least he hadn’t barred her from connecting with Ethan. “Is that it?”
She’d unlocked the door and pushed it open, intending to escape through it when Paul spoke again.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious how I found you?” he asked, his vanity showing. Given her minimal electronic footprint, tracking her down left him puffed up with pride. No doubt he wanted to brag about his prowess.
Despite the agitation making her heart thump, Lia paused in the doorway and shot him a sidewise glance. While Paul exuded an overabundance of confidence and power, she wasn’t without strengths of her own. She would just have to combat his relentlessness with freewheeling flirtation.
While teasing Paul was a danger similar to stepping too near a lion’s cage, Lia discovered having his full attention was exhilarating.
“Actually.” Pivoting to face him, Lia summoned her cheekiest smile. Everything she’d heard from Ethan indicated that Paul was ruled by logic rather than his emotions. Challenging the cybersecurity expert to confront his feelings was bound to blow up in her face. “I’m more intrigued that you wanted to.”
King Street melted away around him as Paul processed his response to Lia’s challenging grin. Her expression wasn’t sexual in nature, but that didn’t lessen the surge of attraction that rocked him, demanding that he act. He clenched his hands behind his back to stifle the impulse to snatch her into his arms and send his lips stalking down her neck in search of that delectable fragrance. Frustrating. Intolerable. This woman was trouble. In more ways than he had time to count.
What was her endgame? Money, obviously.
Based on the fact that she’d chosen to live in one of downtown Charleston’s priciest neighborhoods, she obviously had expensive taste. After meeting Ethan, she’d obviously targeted him, using their grandfather’s illness to ingratiate herself. Was she planning on getting Ethan to pay off her debt or to invest in some sort of business?
“Ophelia Marsh, born March first—” he began, determined to unnerve her with a quick rundown of her vital statistics.
“Fun fact,” she interrupted. “I was almost a leap-day baby. My mom went into labor late on February twenty-eighth and everyone thought for sure I would be born the next day, which that year was February twenty-ninth. But I didn’t want to have a birthday every four years. I mean, who would, right?”
Her rambling speech, sparkling with energetic good humor, soured his mood even more. “Right.” He had no idea why he was agreeing. “Born March first in Occidental, California...”
“A Pisces.”
He shook his head. “A what?”
“A Pisces,” she repeated. “You know, the astrological sign. Two fish swimming in opposite directions. Like you’re a goat,” she concluded.
Paul exhaled harshly. Horoscopes were nothing but a bunch of nonsense. Yet that didn’t stop him from asking, “I’m a goat?”
“A Capricorn. You just had a birthday.”
He felt her words like a hit to his solar plexus. “How did you know that?”
Her knowing his birthday filled him with equal parts annoyance and dismay. He was the security expert, the brilliant investigator who hunted down cybercriminals and kept his clients’ data safe. To have this stranger know something as personal as his birth date sent alarm jolting through him.
“Ethan told me.”
“Why would he do that?” Paul demanded, directing the question to the universe rather than Lia.
“Why wouldn’t he?” She cocked her head and regarded him as if that was obvious. “He likes to talk about his family and it helps me to picture all of you if I know your signs. You’re a Capricorn. Your mother is a Libra. She’s the peacekeeper of the family. Your father is a Sagittarius. He’s a talker and tends to chase impossible dreams. Ethan is a Taurus. Stubborn, reliable, with a sensual side that loves good food.”
This quick summary of his family was so spot-on that Paul’s suspicions reached even higher levels. Obviously, this woman had been researching the Wattses for some nefarious purpose. What was she up to? Time to turn up the volume on his questioning.
“You don’t stay in one place for very long,” he said, remembering what he’d managed to dig up on her. “New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, now South Carolina, all visited in the last twelve months. Why is that?”
In his experience grifters liked to work an area and move on when things became too hot. Her pattern fit with someone up to no good. She might be