Jinxed (6 page)

“You like wieners?”

“What?”

“Hot dogs.”

Her cheeks burned. “I guess.”

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t had one in years.”

“Figures,” he mumbled while bending over to open his bottom desk drawer.

Afia frowned. Fantasizing about a jerk. Definitely losing it. She watched in wide-eyed horror as he withdrew a holstered gun and strapped it to the right side of his belt. “Is that legal?”

He buttoned up the bottom half of the boxy shirt effectively concealing the weapon. “Not any more.” He opened his top drawer, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tucked it in his left breast pocket.

“Smoking is bad for your health.”

He tugged on a taupe baseball cap. “So is poking your nose into other people’s business.”

She snorted. “This from a licensed snoop.”

His lip twitched, and her heart skipped. She wondered how she’d react if he actually smiled. Her bones would probably melt. The notion was nearly as frightening as his gun. Being attracted to this man was not an option. She’d only been widowed a year. He was a bossy jerk and quite possibly married. Which reminded her …

“Joni dropped by.”

“She okay?”

Her stomach knotted at the concern glittering in his eyes. Married or not, he obviously cared a great deal about Joni McNichols. “One might call her feisty,” she quickly assured him.

“That’s my Joni.”

He smiled then, a genuine, affectionate smile that affected parts other than her bones.

Mesmerized by his full lips, her mind skipped merrily down fantasy lane.

“What did she want?”

She blinked, met his questioning green gaze, and blushed. “Excuse me?”

“Joni.” He held her gaze a brief, cleavage-damp moment before breaking off and snatching up a pair of aviator sunglasses. “What’d she want?”

“Oh. She dropped off some coupons and said to tell you dinner is at six-thirty and to bring ice cream.”

“What flavor?”

“I … um …” Darn!

“Never mind.” He nudged her into the reception area. “Can’t make dinner anyway. I’ll be working.”

“At six-thirty?”

“This isn’t a nine to five.”

“Does that include me?” She didn’t mind working late. The more time she spent with Jake, the greater her chances of tracking down a crooked accountant. Only, she’d hoped to squeeze in a few hours at the daycare center. It bothered her that she could no longer make her monthly donation, although, as Rudy had pointed out, time was also valuable. Unfortunately, she’d spent every minute of the last few weeks dealing with the fallout of Henry Glick’s betrayal.

“Depends on the case and whether or not I need assistance in the field,” he said. “We’ll talk about it over lunch.”

“Lunch?”

He glanced over his shoulder toward the scattered receipts. “I have to be somewhere, and I figure it’s safer than leaving you here unsupervised.”

She refused to take offense. Her body hummed at the prospect of being an active participant in a case. A chance to learn some actual investigative techniques. Could it be her luck was changing for the better? “Just a minute.” She hurried over to her desk, snatched up her Chanel handbag, and then turned back to find him staring down at her with an intense frown. Her stomach churned. “What?”

“We’ve got to do something about that hair.”

So much for not taking offense.

Steering one-handed, Angela Falcone-Brannigan popped two antacid tablets and gunned her silver Jaguar through a yellow light. She needed a drink, but she’d be damned if she’d step one heel in a local lounge and risk running into a friend of her dad’s or a co-worker of Tony’s. She’d have to hold out until she got home. Home was fifty minutes away, that’s if she drove seventy on the Atlantic City Expressway.

She’d drive eighty.

Damn Tony for putting her in this position. Everything had been perfect.
They
were perfect. They shared the same interests, favored the same music and wines, and Caribbean getaways. They had similar taste in clothing for chrissake. He was gorgeous and an extremely considerate lover compared to her first husband and the string of insatiable pigs she’d dated in between. Anthony Rivelli was everything she wanted, but more importantly everything her dad wanted. Educated, sociable, and wealthy. A prominent figure in an Atlantic City casino.

Italian.

She refused to lose him to another woman. Of course, when confronted he’d pleaded innocent. He’d explained the lipstick, a wholly reasonable explanation, and she would have believed him if not for the sliver of doubt stabbing at her ulcerated stomach. Suddenly, she found herself second-guessing everything she’d taken in stride during their whirlwind courtship, such as his habit of spending several nights a week at his condo down at the shore, rather than commuting to his home in Cherry Hill. Considering he put in more than seventy hours a week as the vice president of the newly erected Carnevale Casino, that annoying penchant hadn’t seemed suspicious. Until now.

Needing answers and not wanting to risk discovery by hiring a detective anywhere in the vicinity of her hometown, she’d thumbed through the yellow pages of an Atlantic City directory and decided on Leeds Investigations. Since the listing told her shit about the agency’s qualifications, she’d opted for a personal visit. Jake Leeds, she’d ascertained in one minute flat, was her man— intelligent, confident, and an obvious sucker for a female in distress. If Anthony was seeing another woman, Leeds would nail the cheating bastard.

What then?

She couldn’t think about what then just now. It made her want to puke.

She popped another antacid and sailed through the EZ-Pass lane of the tollbooth, craving a double martini and a scalding hot bath. She wanted to wash away the sleaze of Atlantic City and that P.I.’s crummy office. She wanted to forget the snotty appraisal of his young, obnoxiously pretty assistant, and the fact that she was fast nearing forty. She wanted to put an end to Tony’s affair, before her dad found out and put an end to Tony.

Utilizing Afia as a field assistant was probably a mistake, but preferable to the alternative. Left to her own devices, she’d organize his office into mayhem. He had a system. Bills, receipts, expense reports, arranged in an order that made sense to him. At least they used to be arranged. They currently littered his hardwood floor. First his files, then his receipts. Either her mother was right and she was jinxed, or she was your run-of-the-mill klutz.

He feared the former, as there was nothing run-of-the-mill about Afia St. John. When he’d escorted Ms. Brannigan from his office, he’d expected to find Ms. Socialite filing her nails or skimming a fashion magazine, not diligently sorting folders.

The shiny red plastic tote filled with sponges, paper towels, latex gloves, and assorted cleansers had whipped him into a tailspin. He’d tried picturing her on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors and toilets. The “hands and knees” part came easily, but scrubbing bubbles and bathrooms led to thoughts of bathtubs and scented soaps. Instead of concentrating on Ms. Brannigan’s parting words as she’d descended the stairs, he’d digressed into a fantasy involving a bubble bath, a bottle of champagne, and an extremely naked Afia.

“What do you think?”

I think I need my head examined.
“Too tight.”

“But it’s a medium and I’m a small.”

“Go for a large.”
Preferably something that hangs to your knees.
As thin as she was you’d expect a bony ass. No such luck. She had a great ass and a subtle sway that would garner the attention of every man on the famous seaside boardwalk.

“I won’t have a shape.”

“Good.”

Afia looked at him quizzically, as if trying to process a foreign concept. God forbid she not turn heads. Well, to hell with her ego. If she was going to work surveillance, she needed to be invisible. Tall order for a woman who’d probably been the center of attention since birth.

“You’re concerned people will recognize me, that I’ll draw attention to us.”

“Something like that.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” He tried not to analyze the sad note in her tone. She was depressed because she’d lost her fortune. Bottom line. Three weeks ago she’d shopped in exclusive boutiques, shelling out hundreds of dollars for obscenely overpriced merchandise. Today he’d ushered her into a cheesy souvenir shop. He kept waiting for her to complain. Anything to keep her in the rich bitch category. Anything to make her less attractive. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched as she methodically sorted through a rack of five-dollar T-shirts, passing over lewd cartoon graphics and tacky quotes in favor of small, subtle logos.

Come on, baby. One catty jab
.

“I didn’t do it, just in case you were wondering.”

“Do what?”

“Off my husbands.”

“Off?” He would’ve laughed if she hadn’t sounded so earnest.

“Don’t detectives use that term?”

“Not this detective.”

She worked her way around the rack, avoiding eye contact. “I’m not a ‘Black Widow.’ ”

“Nice to know.”

“Although it is true that I inherited a substantial amount money from both of my husbands.”

He held silent wondering where she was going with this. Amazing how much information he gathered by keeping his mouth shut.

“Aren’t you curious?”

About whether your first husband had an unusually weak heart or if you’re that amazing in bed? Hell, yes
. “About?

“About why someone as wealthy as me would need to work. You do know who I am, don’t you?”

He found it interesting that she’d lowered her voice to a near whisper. Famous and infamous were two different things, and from her downcast gaze he suspected she considered herself the latter. “I know who you are. That is I’m aware of your tabloid history. And lots of wealthy people work.”

“Yes, but not as a private investigator’s assistant.” She looked up then. “May I ask how much I’ll be earning?”

“Four hundred and fifty.”

“Per week?” She smiled, no doubt planning a weekend shopping spree. But then her appealing mouth slacked into a worried frown. “Considering the job, that seems high.”

Damned high. But that’s what Harmon wanted her to have. He ignored her observation and gestured to the rack. “You want to pick up the pace?” According to Ms. Brannigan, her fiancé spent his lunch hour on the boardwalk soaking up the sun. He knew where and when to catch a glimpse of Anthony Rivelli. The latest addition to Atlantic City’s glitzy boardwalk casinos was near, but so was the time.

“I was bored.”

“Pardon?”

“With my life. So I decided to get a job.” Her cheeks flushed as she concentrated back on the shirts.

She was either too embarrassed to tell him she’d been duped by her accountant, or too proud. He was having a very hard time getting a handle on this woman. Intriguing and irksome at the same time.

“If you want me to disappear, maybe I should get an extra-large,” she said, changing subjects. “And maybe I should go with blue.” She pulled a sky-blue T-shirt from the crammed circular rack and held it up in front of her. “I look hideous in blue.”

He disagreed. She’d make gray look good. He lifted a teasing eyebrow. “Yes, but then people will stare and point and say,
my God, what was she thinking
?”

She smiled, and his gut twisted, dammit. One second stretched into five, and his palms grew moist. He felt like the high school chess geek gawking at the homecoming queen. Christ. It’s not like he didn’t get enough sex.

Her smile faltered, and something akin to panic flashed in her baby browns. “I’ll go with a large. Black. Very unassuming.”

“Good idea.”

“I’ll just be a moment.”

He watched her walk toward the dressing room, cute butt and waist-length ponytail swaying, albeit subtly, in a fashion that gave him an instant woody. “About that hair …”

She stopped in her tracks, the black T-shirt dangling from her right balled fist. “I’m not cutting it,” she said without turning.

Touchy about her hair, was she? The investigator in him wondered why. He wondered a lot of things about Afia St. John. Then he reminded himself that curiosity killed the cat. Or in her case the men in her life. He tucked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and glanced at a bin of gambling paraphernalia, resisting the absurd urge to snatch up a lucky seven key chain. “I was thinking about a hat.”

“Oh.” She turned, the relief in her eyes hiking his interest another notch. “I love hats. I have … had quite a few.” She motioned to the front of the store. “I think I saw a hat rack when we came in.”

“Remember, Jinx,” he said as she walked past, “we’re not going to the Easter parade.”

“As if I’d pick a Jackie O pillbox to wear with a 100% cotton T-shirt,” she grumbled.

He grinned at the bite in her tone. Better a ticked cat than a lost puppy. That underlying sadness, her vulnerability, was a major part of her appeal. Made a man want to take her into his arms and promise to make everything better. Was she always like this? Or was it simply a result of her current dilemma? Widowed, homeless, and broke. Hell, that would be enough to depress the staunchest soul. Except she wasn’t living on the streets. She was living with a friend. And she wasn’t penniless. She had a job. For the next two weeks anyhow. After that … After that mommy would be home from Tahiti and she, or her insanely rich husband, or Harmon, would make everything better.