Dangerous Surrender (7 page)

When the door shut behind him, Roman dropped his hand from her shoulder and moved around so that he was facing her. He sat on the edge of the bed, his expression unreadable. It was a little unnerving. “If Cody doesn’t ask you how you got here, don’t mention the Pinto. Later, if you have to, be honest, but right now keep it quiet.”

“I will.” Because she definitely agreed with him.

The detective stepped back in the room, his phone still in his hand. “I’m going to relay everything you told me to Oceanside and I’ll need you both to come down to the station tomorrow to give official statements about the shooting today.” His head tilted to the side a fraction as he glanced at Roman. “Can I talk to you outside?”

Alarm bells went off in her head, but Taylor reminded herself that not all cops were bad, that this man was going out of his way to help her because Vadim and Roman had asked.

Roman nodded and stood. “Yeah.”

Cody focused on her once again. “It goes without saying, but don’t leave town yet.”

She sighed. “I won’t.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With me,” Roman said as he came to stand next to the detective.

Well that was news to her and she certainly wasn’t going to argue. So she nodded. “With Roman.”

That seemed to be good enough for the detective because he just grunted and held open the door for Roman.

Less than five minutes later Roman returned alone. Okay that was good. It probably meant the detective wasn’t coming back to arrest her. She knew the truth was on her side, but fear was a living thing inside her. “Everything okay?” Her voice was high-pitched and uneven so she cleared her throat.

“Yeah. He just wanted to go over the description of the shooter and other details. They’re going to see if they can catch him on CCTVs close to the area. Though I doubt that’s going to happen since I didn’t get his license plate. Vadim lives too far out from the city.”

The fear inside her spiked even more. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay with you.” Not when she clearly had a target on her back. “I don’t want to put you in danger.” Vadim had said the man had been a Marine, so he was trained, but it still worried her.

He snorted and headed for the door again. “I’m going to see if I can find a doctor and get you released.”

After she’d been officially admitted, examined and prescribed antibiotics, the doctor had already told her he wouldn’t need to keep her for further observation. She could stay overnight if she thought she needed it, but she’d much rather stay at Roman’s. Roman had already told her that the truck he’d been driving was a company vehicle and the address listed on the title was for the hotel and casino he worked at; The Serafina. So if the shooter tried to track him down using the truck’s license plate, that guy would be out of luck. It was actually the only reason she would stay with Roman because if there was a chance she could put him in danger, she simply wouldn’t do it. Even if he was deadly and trained.

It still stunned her how kind he was being. Yeah, she knew it was because of his relationship with Vadim but still, it was amazing. She was a stranger and he’d stepped up to the plate to protect her, even letting her stay at his place. That told her all she needed to know about the type of man Roman MacNeil was.

A very rare one—the kind of man she wouldn’t mind getting to know better.

Chapter 6

Taylor opened her eyes with a start and nearly jerked upright in the soft bed. The shadows and furniture in the room were wrong and it took her a second to remember where she was. Roman’s house. In his brother’s bed since Logan was still out of town for his job. They had two guest rooms but one was an office and the other had an uncomfortable looking futon—to discourage guests, Roman had said. So he’d given her his brother’s bed.

Until he’d told her, she hadn’t known that both Roman and his brother Logan worked private security for billionaire Wyatt Christiansen. It certainly explained the extremely large house they lived in. She knew a little about the Vegas real estate market so it wasn’t hard to imagine they’d gotten it for a steal, but even so, the neighborhood was beautiful.

Her racing heart calmed a fraction as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Faint light filtered through a set of wooden blinds on the window behind the king-sized bed. According to the clock on the nightstand it was six in the morning. By the time they’d arrived at Roman’s place last night it had been late and she’d passed out almost immediately. Now, she couldn’t seem to turn her mind off. Sitting up, she was relieved that her wound didn’t hurt as much.

After brushing her teeth with the extra toothbrush Roman had given her, washing her face and inspecting her wound, she headed for his room. It was early and she felt bad that she’d likely wake him up, but she needed a favor. Fast.

His room was two doors down from Logan’s. She knocked softly on the door and was surprised when it opened seconds later. Roman’s hair looked more brown than auburn in the dimness. Even though it was on the short side, it was ruffled, but he looked wide awake, his eyes piercing in their intensity. From his alertness she didn’t think she’d woken him up. “You okay?” he asked softly.

For a moment her gaze dipped to his bare chest and abs. The man was pure muscle, all lean lines and angles with a few scars interspersed on his skin for good measure. She guessed he must have gotten them when he’d been in the Marines. Maybe during combat or training. He was like a walking billboard of what hotness looked like. She had the insane urge to reach out and trace over the dips and striations. Forcing her gaze to his, she said, “Yes. I hate to bug you but can I use your laptop? I thought of something as soon as I woke up.” More like the thought had woken her up. And she couldn’t let the sight of Roman’s ridiculous body distract her no matter how delicious the man was.

He stepped back so she could enter. “Give me a sec.” He flipped on the lamp on his nightstand, illuminating his room. He had a king-sized bed like his brother but his was platform style. Very minimalist. So was the rest of his room with sleek, dark wood furniture, including a bookshelf overflowing with non-fiction books. He headed for the bookshelf and pulled a thin laptop from the top of it. “Is this about what happened to your boss?” he asked as he flipped it open and sat on the edge of his bed.

She hesitated for a moment, but he was letting her use his computer and was basically keeping her safe at his home. He deserved an answer. “Yes. Maybe I should wait for the police to sort things out, but I know Neal stole a ton of money from the company and I don’t want to let him get away with it. Now that I know it’s him and not Hugh—that bastard tried to make it look like his own partner had taken it—I think I can track down the funds. I just need to look at a few of his personal accounts.”

Roman frowned as he looked up at her but he patted the edge of the bed for her to sit beside him. “Wouldn’t Neal have already locked you out of the system?”

She snorted and sat next to Roman, subtly inhaling that masculine, woodsy scent that seemed stronger in his room. As if the air and sheets were permeated with it. “I’m sure he did but I’ve got multiple backdoors into the entire system. I work closely with the IT department but even they don’t know about this.”

Roman’s eyebrows raised but he handed her the laptop. “What exactly do you do for Powers Group?”

“I don’t really have one set thing that I do,” she said, pulling up a browser and typing in the website she needed. She felt so level-headed this morning and couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of this yesterday. Well, she could believe it considering she’d seen her friend die and she’d been shot—and she’d gone on the run. “This won’t come back on you, by the way. No one will be able to trace what I’ve done. Not that it’ll matter because I’m taking the money Neal stole once I track it down and diverting it to a secure company account. It’ll just sit there until the police figure out everything.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she talked. “As far as what I do, I have a Masters in Computer Science and I do a lot of design for the company, but…I really do a lot of investigations for Hugh. Or, I did.”

She swallowed hard, shaking away the dark path her mind wanted to take. She refused to get sucked into depression. Not when she had a chance to take back what that bastard Neal had stolen and clear Hugh’s name. Because she didn’t think Neal was above trying to say Hugh had stolen from the company and attacked him or some crap. It would be a stupid defense considering he’d shot her, but she wasn’t going to let him even try to drag Hugh’s name through the mud.

“Anyway, I look into any company that Powers Group might do business with, including owners’ personal finances or personal anything. For the most part Hugh was all business, pretty cutthroat when he needed to be, but he also had a huge heart. When I found out this construction mogul had a bunch of arrests for domestic violence, Hugh refused to do business with him.”

“Damn.” Roman sounded impressed.

“I know, right. Hugh was…he was just a good guy.” Her throat tightened again and she stopped talking, unable to go on.

“You loved him.” His voice was quiet, speculative.

Taylor paused and glanced at Roman to find him watching her intently. “Well, yeah. Not romantically or anything but he was like a dad to me. He never had kids and he took me under his wing right out of college.” Taylor was pretty certain Hugh had viewed her as a daughter. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, but she knew he’d loved her too. And it broke her heart to be thinking of him in the past tense. Well, she was going to get justice for him no matter what.

Looking away from Roman before she started crying, she focused on her task, infiltrating Neal’s multiple email accounts and files he thought he’d hidden. She nearly snorted at his stupidity and saved them all to a secret company Cloud account only she and Hugh had access to. Well, just her now.

After finding those files it was just a matter of time before tracing the trail of diverted money. She wasn’t able to guess his password, but she was able to reset it using one of his email accounts. The bank sent a ‘reset password’ email to him and she reset it all right. She laughed to herself as she did it, feeling insanely pleased that she was able to do this much to Neal. A man like him only cared about money and she was taking all of this away from him. Sure, he had personal accounts but he was stealing for a reason. He needed the cash because of his gambling debts. She wasn’t sure who he owed money to and she didn’t particularly care. She just cared that he wasn’t going to hurt the company or take anything else that didn’t belong to him. As soon as she’d transferred all the money, she changed the passwords in all his accounts to different ones, effectively locking him out of everything. She wanted him to know exactly what she’d done. Even if he called his bank and got back into his account online, all his money was still gone.

Next she locked
him
out of the Powers Group system.

“And fuck you,” she muttered as she finished the last keystrokes. When she was done, she closed everything down and gently shut the laptop. She looked up to find Roman watching her with a mixture of humor and something else. It was almost like he was impressed. “What?” she asked self-consciously, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“You just did a pretty impressive evil genius laugh.” His lips twitched again, the humor in his beautiful eyes clear.

For a long moment she watched him, completely drawn into his gaze. She felt her cheeks heating up. “I did
not
do an evil genius laugh.”

A dark eyebrow lifted. “You kinda did. And it was hot.”

Her eyes widened at the same time his did. As if he was surprised he’d said it. A spiral of heat swirled through her as she watched him. “You think it was hot?”

He cleared his throat and even though she was just getting to know him, his response told her he might not be big on flirting. Which was fine with her because she sucked at it. She didn’t do coy well. Hell, she sometimes struggled with normal social conversations. Computers were easier to deal with than people and their mixed signals. Feeling awkward when he didn’t say anything else, she slid the laptop onto the bed behind her. “Well, thanks for letting me use your computer.”

Taking her completely by surprise—and that was an understatement—he leaned in close, covering the distance between them, obviously giving her time to pull back. He watched her carefully, his eyes intense as he brushed his lips over hers. As if he was testing the waters.

It was like an electric current jolted through her at the contact. He felt it too. She saw it in his eyes. Refusing to pass up this opportunity, she pressed her lips fully to his, making her intent clear. She didn’t want a weak, barely-there kiss.

Not when this brief contact already had her nipples tightening and heat rushing between her legs. If this was happening, she was getting the real thing. He took over, one of his big hands sliding up to cup the back of her head as his mouth devoured hers. The grip on her head was tight, dominating and had her moaning into his mouth as a shudder rolled through her. He was so different from other men she’d kissed or dated. Not that they were remotely dating, but even her response to him was different. She felt as if he was heating her up from the inside out.

His tongue pressed insistently against the seam of her lips, demanding entrance as his other hand slid up to cradle her cheek. She loved the way he held her in place, as if he thought she might flee.

No way was that happening.