SASSY IN STILETTOS ARe version (17 page)

It wasn’t until two hours later when he took Micha
down to the courthouse for an interview of Judge Rines that Sabine called him.

“She’s fucking gone, Caleb.”

He kept his voice even. “Hello to you too, Sabine.”

“Where the fuck is Carlotta?”

“I thought you and I agreed that we’d be doing
things my way. She’s safe enough for now.”

“I’m not fucking with you, Caleb. She’s gone. Do
you understand all the shit I have in play?  She’s the one bargaining chip I
have against the cartel, and you’re telling me she’s fucking safe? She’s not at
the safe house, Caleb. That doesn’t equal safe. She texted me and said she wasn’t
at the safe house anymore.”

“That safe house was no longer secure, so I moved
her.”

Relief and something else he couldn’t place tinged
her words. “Okay, where is she? I want to check on her myself. Make sure she’s
not scared.”

Bullshit
. Sabine cared
as much for that girl’s feelings as she did about him. The girl was a
commodity. What he didn’t know, was why. He still didn’t have any word on her
prints or her DNA. But he’d seen a packet of contact lenses, so he knew
something was up. Until he had Sabine’s game figured out, he wasn’t planning on
showing any of his cards.

“Oh, she’s scared all right. I wish I knew of what
though.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Caleb. Tell me where she is.”

“No can do. But I will tell you she’s safe.”

“Caleb, let’s not forget why you even have her in
the first place.”

“Because you needed a favor, and you’ve officially
run out of friends in this country.”

“Fuck you. You’re helping me because I can get you
the answers you’re looking for. To give you those answers, I need an unharmed
girl.”

“I know the information you claim to have. One
question, how’d you come about it?”

She sighed as if talking to someone very small or
someone very slow. “I already told you. Cabrillo thinks I’m working with him. I’ll
give you the name of the leak as soon as I have what I need. Now stop fucking
around.”

Caleb’s skin crawled. He didn’t want his
suspicions to be right, but at the end of the day, he knew Sabine. She was
lethal and conniving. They might have been partners, but he’d put nothing past
her.

“I’ll call you when I’m ready to share, Sabine.” He
hung up. He’d have to move up his plan if he wanted to keep the girl safe.

***

Micha’s whole body ached. From the top of her head
to the ends of her pedicured toes she was in pain. Every step of those twelve
miles that morning wore on her. Her body could normally handle it, but she’d
been so aware of her running partner she’d been unable to relax. And running
twelve miles like someone had charged her whole body with electrodes was
torture. Not to mention, she’d barely slept last night, given their
extracurricular activities.

All day, he worked at a desk with perfect sight
lines to her office. Every time she’d looked up from her machine, there he was
in all his buffed-out glory. God, that man was sexy. Strictly from an objective
stand point, he oozed sex appeal. And he wasn’t even her type. Okay, no, he
was. Good-looking enough to turn heads, certainly smart. But she’d been overly
dismissive of him before. Yeah, sure, she wanted to know what he was like in
the sack. Because Lord knew that man could dance, but he’d always come across
to her as sweet. Kind. Normal. The way he’d insisted on taking her to dinner. Refusing
to sleep with her. The kind of things guys who like relationships do. Too bad
she wasn’t into relationships. Hell, in the last two years she’d barely been into
sex. Sure, she’d had some, but not as much as she was sure people assumed.

She talked a good game, but at the core, she was
as vulnerable as any other woman. She needed a connection with someone to have
sex, and she’d been too enthralled with Caleb to really get into any guy. She’d
figured she’d get over it eventually, but she’d figured wrong. And now she’d
gone and slept with him. It was so
colossally
stupid.
And hot. Not to mention irrational, thrilling, and moronic. Now she’d never get
him out of her system.

But she was a healthy woman; eventually she’d cave
and sleep with someone even if she wasn’t that into them.
Or
you could sleep with Caleb again
.

Her head throbbed as she dragged her attention
back to her monitor, and she rubbed her temples. She was so focused on the
article in front of her that she didn’t even notice him come in.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but can you come with me
for a minute?”

The hairs on her arms stood at attention. “Shit,
what’s the matter now?”

“Nothing. Sorry to alarm you. I need you for five
minutes, to look at something for me. I promise it won’t take long.”

Eyeing him dubiously, she followed him out of her
office, but he didn’t take her to his temporary desk, instead lead her to the
back stairwell. “Caleb, where the hell are we going?”

“You’ll see. Follow me for a second.”

Five flights of stairs later, he led her out onto
the roof. The building had popped for a barbeque area and some seating, so when
it was nice, many of the tenants would come up to get a taste of sunshine
without having to go to the street level.. “I’ve seen the roof, it’s not that
exciting.”

Caleb led her closer to the edge, and she dug in
her heels as much as she could in the spiky Louboutins. “Caleb, just an FYI,
you’re failing at your job if you actually throw me off the roof. It’ll wreck
your reputation.”

His lips twisted into a smirk. “If I wanted you
dead, I wouldn’t leave behind a body.”

She studied him. To her he was a protector, but to
someone who crossed him or hurt an innocent, he would do real damage.

He slid behind her with his hands on her waist. “Now,
close your eyes.”

“Caleb, what in the world—”

“Just close them, all right? For me.”

Feeling more than a little foolish, she complied,
letting her eyelids flutter shut. Carefully, he maneuvered her a little to the
left.

“You can open them now.”

When she cracked her eyes open, she noticed a
stream of large bubbles coming from the roof across the way. Unable to help
herself, she giggled as some of the smaller ones splashed against her arms. “What
is this?”

“Rodrigo noticed they were having some crazy photo
shoot the next building over and they’re using a bubble machine.” He shrugged. “You
looked stressed, so I figured I’d bring you up here for a little breather. Let
you have some fun for a minute.”

Micha tipped her head back to look at him. He’d
done this for her. Simply to see her happy. He was right; he did see her. It
scared the shit out of her, but it was the truth. And as much as she might
fight it, she felt good with him. Spine tingling good. But if she let him close
he’d have the power to hurt her. And she was
not
going through that shit again. She’d barely survived the last time. The key was
to not get too emotionally attached. For a little while she could enjoy being
with him and not get sucked in too deep. That way she wouldn’t get hurt. Or
worse, hurt him.

Giving herself permission to enjoy, she relaxed
into his hold.

***

Several hours after her interview, Micha gave Caleb
a beaming smile as she exited the courthouse.

“Everything good?” he asked as he helped her down
the last step.

“Yeah, fine. I have what I need for the piece. It’s
not as sexy as the entertainment stuff, but a local judge with an autistic
daughter commenting on recent policy is news worthy.”

He walked her to the car, always on alert,
checking for shadows. Her car was still in the shop, getting a new coat of
paint, so they took his BMW. He opened the door for her, and she slid in. Once
they pulled away from the curb he said, “I’m going to be tied-up tonight. I
need to check on another case. So I’ll have someone else on you. Can you do me
a favor and not go anywhere?”

A quip sat on the tip of her tongue, but she
recognized the strain in his face with the tight lines around his mouth and
thought to behave herself. “Yeah fine, I can stay put.”

“Thanks. The cameras have been set up in your
office, and all the employees have been cleared, so I’m going to post someone
in the lobby for now, okay?”

“Uhm, yeah. What about the apartment?” Did this
mean he wouldn’t be staying with her anymore? She fought the urge to slap
herself. Who the hell was she? The body snatchers could not have her body. She wasn’t
this weak-willed creature that depended on anyone. She was a Bennett for the
love of God. And Bennetts showed no fear.

“It’s been wired. So I’ll have a guy outside, and
for the next couple of days, I’ll post someone outside your door too, but there’s
no need for me to stay with you.”

“Oh. Right.” No nookie bedtime pill for her then.

 Her iPhone buzzed. The screen indicated a text
message. She clicked the message icon to open it. Her breath caught, and she
immediately wished she hadn’t opened the text. A video started of her, on her
couch. Riding Caleb. Clutching onto him for dear life. He gazed up at her with
lust and focused determination and something else she couldn’t identify. As she
rode him, he clutched her ass firmly and pumped into her. Her breasts hung in
his face, and he took a nipple between his lips and sucked. Just seeing the
video was enough to simultaneously horrify and arouse her.

“Caleb.”

His voice deepened and his brows snapped down over
his eyes as he darted her a glance and blared his horn at a taxi drifting into
their lane. “What?”

She held up the video, and he immediately pulled
over to the right, cutting off a bicyclist and a town car. “Where the fuck did
you get that?”

“I d-don’t know. Someone sent it to me. How are
they able to see into my apartment? Who did this?”

Caleb stared, his eyes growing stormy. “Micha. The
fucking blinds were open last night. I-I’m sorry.”

“No, Caleb. Don’t give me that shit. We live on
the third floor. The only unit that has this vantage point into mine is yours. Where
the fuck did someone get this? How did they tape us?”

“Shit. Shit. Shit. There’s the unit to the right
of mine. From the right angle, they could see into your living room.”

Her heart thundered in her ears. Who the fuck
would do this? The violation burned like fire in her throat.

Her phone buzzed again, and she snatched it from
him. This time it was a text.
Give me what I want, or the
video goes viral.

“What does it say, Micha?”

She showed him her phone, and he cursed. “Look, we’ll
find who’s doing this. I swear to you. This is not getting out. It’ll be fine. I’ll
make of it. Shit. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking last night.”

Micha snatched her phone, grabbed a bobby pin from
her hair, took out the SIM chip, and handed it to him. “I assume you need this
to find whoever is doing this. This asshole doesn’t know me at all. They think
threatening me will make me back off. All it does is piss me off.”

They sat in tense silence until Caleb spoke again.
“We need to talk about Jax.”

“Simon? What about him?” Micha stiffened her back.
She didn’t want to get into the Simon thing. That part of her life was long-buried.

“Well someone obviously doesn’t want you to talk
to him. I still have feelers out on the wife. It could be about him
specifically or it could be about the job. What’s your best guess?”

Micha shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. With the
flowers and things, I thought it had more to do with me than with him. About me
getting promoted or getting the media spotlight. But even if there was
jealousy, I can’t see any of my coworkers going this far.”

“And if it’s not about you?”

“Then it doesn’t make much sense to me. Before
yesterday, I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since that day in New York. Zero
contact. There’s no connection there.”

“When you guys broke up, that was it, the end of
communications?”

“He was called as a witness in the trial against
wifey, but that was it. I was in the room, but we didn’t speak directly.” She
tried not to think of how he’d looked at her beseechingly from the witness
stand. His eyes grave and apologetic.
Guilty
.

Micha shook it off. “This can’t be about me and
him personally, because there is no me and him, except for this interview.”

Caleb wove between cars as he took the 163 north
toward their apartment building. “This also could have to do solely with him. A
fan of his going after you because they see you as a potential threat.”

Great
. All the myriad
ways someone could try and kill her. She shivered. “This is fucking fantastic. You
know I could go for a little less crazy in my life.”

Caleb cleared his throat. “There is another
possibility. Given the video we just saw, this could be a jealous ex of yours.”

Micha snorted. “Yeah, first I’d have to have exes,
make that exes who gave a shit enough to care and who had the inside scoop on
my life.”

“You can’t underestimate the delusions of a
stalker.”

“Considering that I haven’t been with anyone
serious since the whole shit show went down, I doubt it.”
Oh
fuck.
Those words should never have slipped out of her mouth. “I mean no
one I would deem serious.”

“Micha, its common knowledge that you don’t keep
guys around for too long. And that any guys you actually date are few and far
between.”

Heat suffused her face. God, was she really having
this conversation with Caleb? “I don’t think any of that is important in this
situation. I don’t think this has to do with my personal life.”

He slanted her a gaze. “Micha, someone sent you a
video of us. They made it personal. People only do things like that for
blackmail and for personal reasons because they feel slighted. I can’t ignore
the fact that it could be someone from your past.”