His dark eyes were heavy-lidded as he stared down at her. “Damn, Tori,” he said hoarsely, and his hands clenched on her back. “When you do stuff like that, I just want to tear your clothes off and take you where you stand.”
She licked the little hollow at the base of his throat, feeling powerful when it made her tall, tough Marine shiver. “In front of all these people?”
“And their little dogs, too,” he agreed, regarding her with hot, reckless eyes. “So, darlin’, unless you’re prepared to let ’em watch, I suggest you take a quick, large step back and give me a minute to regain a little control.”
“I’M SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN to keep you waiting.”
Victoria couldn’t have started more violently if someone had goosed her with a cattle prod. Feeling her face flame, she was relieved to see that Rocket had turned away once again as he returned his cell phone to the computer case. Taking a few quick breaths, she attempted to collect herself before he focused the force of those dark eyes on her.
“That’s quite all—” her voice sounded like Froggy and his magic twanger, and she cleared her throat “—right. May I offer you something to drink before we get started?” What on earth had she been thinking to let her mind go back there?
“No, thanks. I’m set.” Sitting back, he opened the thin computer on his lap and looked up at her. “Why don’t you tell me about your brother.”
“Oh. Yes. Jared. Of course.” She was mortified that for one brief instant she’d forgotten all about him.
Annoyance straightened her spine. She’d forgotten a lot of things and that was dangerous. Forcing herself to focus, she met John’s gaze head-on. “First of all, he didn’t kill my father. I want that understood.”
“All right. Can you tell me why you’re so certain of this?”
She leaned forward, but before she could say a word, the office door opened and her father’s fifth wife strolled in.
The busty blonde stopped when she saw them. Her gaze skimmed past Victoria with supreme disinterest, but John was apparently a different matter for she subjected him to a lengthy once-over. “Sorry,” she finally said. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”
Tori suppressed a sigh. “Mr. Miglionni, this is my father’s widow, DeeDee Hamilton. DeeDee, this is John Miglionni, the private investigator Father’s attorney helped me hire.”
DeeDee’s big blue eyes grew even bigger and bluer. “Why the hell would you need a P.I.? As far as I can tell, the only even halfway interesting thing you’ve ever done is piss off your daddy by having Es—”
“Mr. Miglionni has a reputation as the man to call when a teenager is missing. He’s going to find Jared.”
“No shit? Aren’t you worried the cops’ll slap him in irons the minute you bring him home?”
Fury flared in Victoria’s chest. “Jared didn’t kill Father!”
The lush blonde simply shrugged.
“He did not.”
DeeDee looked bored. “Okay, fine. So why did he run, then?”
“Well, let me think. Could it be that he stumbled across his father’s dead body, and that he’s seventeen years old and it probably scared him to death? Or for all we know, he could have walked in while Father was being killed. Am I the only one worried that he might not have left voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“For heaven’s sake, DeeDee, if you’ve spent any time with him at all, you must know he hasn’t got a violent bone in his body.”
“Yeah? So how the hell would you know? Except for the odd holiday or flying visit, it’s not like you’ve been around much during the two years I’ve been here.”
“You’re right, I haven’t. And I have to live with the fact that I left him to Father’s less-than-tender mercies. But that doesn’t keep me from knowing that a person’s basic nature doesn’t change. And Jared wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
“Maybe not.” DeeDee shrugged once again. “But who else had any reason to kill Ford?”
“My God, are you serious?” The laugh that escaped Victoria went a little wild, and ruthlessly she slammed a lid on the urge to give in to unchecked hysteria. “Considering Father’s personality, and the fact that he was killed in the middle of a dinner party he was giving to rub salt in the wound of a CEO whose company he’d just acquired in a hostile takeover, I’d have to say darn near everyone.”
She turned to include Rocket. “I realize it’s unkind to speak ill of the dead, but you might as well know up front that my father wasn’t a nice man. He liked nothing more than to toy with people, and from what I’ve gathered, none of the guests attending his little soiree the night he was killed had a clue if they’d still have a job come Monday morning. I’m not just talking about the employees of the company he’d taken over, either. No one could afford to relax around him. He was just as apt to can his own people as the ones from his new acquisition, if for no other reason than to provide himself a moment’s entertainment.”
“And here I thought my old man was the daddy of dys-function.” John had been watching the interaction between the two women with fascination, knowing they had no idea how revealing it was. But it was time for a more straightforward approach. He needed to start directing the conversation to where he wanted it to go.
It was clear the women weren’t overly fond of each other, and turning to DeeDee, he decided she couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Victoria—who, if he remembered correctly, would be about thirty-one now. As Victoria’s new stepmama, that had to make for some friction. He’d bet the main source of dissension, though, was the fact that you’d have to search hard to find two more dissimilar women. Even way back when, he’d understood that Tori wasn’t one of the party girls he was accustomed to picking up in bars. So when she’d allowed him to do exactly that, he’d noted her relative inexperience, then simply felt grateful to whatever karma had thrown him in her path at the exact moment she’d decided to cut loose.
DeeDee, on the other hand, had the look of a woman who knew her way around a wet T-shirt contest. Not that you could always go by appearances, he admitted, remembering when his friend Zach had first met the woman who’d become his wife. Still, there was an indefinable aura about DeeDee that said she knew the score, and at the very least, she struck him as the quintessential trophy wife.
He favored her with his most charming grin. “You have a point,” he said. “A homicide detective will always look first within the family for his suspect. Hell, any cop will be happy to tell you that nine times out of ten the victim is killed by someone he knew.”
Something about the smug look she shot Victoria rubbed him the wrong way, but he wasn’t stepping into the middle of that brouhaha. As a man, he knew better than to get between two women with opposing points of view. As a professional, he didn’t get involved in his clients’ lives, period, or anyone else’s who might be connected to a case. As far as he was concerned, in fact, the two of them could dive right into a knockdown drag-out fight, and he’d simply pull up a chair and enjoy the show. Especially if the ripping of clothing was involved.
He glanced at Tori’s svelte little sheath, then at her patrician nose poking ceiling-ward, and swallowed a snort. Sure, Ace, that’s likely to happen. Turning his attention back to DeeDee, he added, “Of course they generally look at the spouse first, since that’s who most often inherits the lion’s share of money.”
She curled her lip at him. “Lets me out, then. I signed a prenup that said if Ford divorced me or died for any reason during the first three years, I’d get bupkis—or next to it, at any