Sex & the Single Girl (16 page)

Brianne looked around the backyard as neighbors emerged from their houses. Dogs barked. A siren wailed in the distance.

Chaos in Palm Beach. Definitely not the kind of public attention Pauline would have ever wanted.

Realizing her mother needed her now more than ever, she lifted them both to their feet and wished like hell she had a remote that could rewind the whole day and set everything back to rights. For herself as well. Today's scene served as a too-potent reminder of how much the Wolcott women sucked at relationships.

Watching Aidan in motion before her very eyes bore little resemblance to the suspenseful action she had occasionally dramatized in her work as a filmmaker.

This sort of drama left her a bit shell-shocked. Speechless. She'd been through so many emotions in the last twenty-four hours she didn't know what to feel any more.

As police sirens neared the house and whined to a stop out front, Aidan took calls on his cell phone and spoke to the swarm of officers who appeared on the scene.

Brianne settled her mother in the house with migraine medicine and a good book, then returned to the lawn to clean up a couple of potted plants that had been knocked over during the incident.

By then, Aidan had sent Melvin off with someone. And although Brianne hadn't necessarily wanted to renew her relationship with a criminal, it still felt odd that she hadn't even said so much as hello or goodbye to the man who'd saved her from caviar and toast points in her lunch box.

Now, Aidan made his way over to her, stooping to help her as she righted a pot of jasmine cuttings that had only just started to take root.

“Are you okay?” He brushed spilled dirt back into the terra-cotta pot, his voice conveying a hint of tender concern. Or had that been wishful thinking on her part?

Brianne didn't trust her scrambled senses to decide. Clearing her throat, she managed to nod. Speak. “I'm fine. Shaken, but fine.”

He gestured toward the throng of blue uniforms on the lawn and the two guys in suits and shades that Brianne suspected were FBI associates. “I've got about ten places I need to be this afternoon, but first I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

The words permeated some of the residual numbness still clinging to her. He needed to leave. Wanted her blessing on his way out the door. Gun in hand.

She wiped excess dirt off the jasmine leaves and nodded, unable to meet those intense gray eyes of his. “I'm going to stick around here for a little while until my mother is settled. I need to talk to her anyway.”

She'd come to Pauline's house for a conversation this afternoon and in light of the gunshot and the arrest on the lawn, the topic had never been more timely. Her mother needed to swear off dangerous men.

As for Brianne, she needed to figure out if she could handle Aidan's hazardous crusade to keep South Beach safe, especially now that she understood how much that mission required him to put himself at risk.

Her brush with the reality of Aidan's day-to-day life left her chilled, uncertain.

“I'm sorry about this morning.” Aidan tugged the terra-cotta pot out of her hand and set the plant aside. He peered over his shoulder at the mass of cops and federal agents as they fended off a growing crowd of
reporters on the lawn. “It's just that I had a lot on my mind with the investigation and I know you don't want to get drawn into that. For that matter, I'm pretty sure you're uncomfortable about my job altogether.”

He studied her as if waiting for her to deny it.

And she wanted to. But how could she pretend she wasn't scared of something happening to him when he hunted down members of the Most Wanted list for a living? She wasn't naive enough to think all of his prey would be white-collar criminals who wore seersucker and brought teddy bears to lonely little girls.

“You're in a dangerous line of work, Aidan. I think it would intimidate a lot of people. And my life has been filled with too much upheaval to handle a relationship with no emotional security.” She brushed the dirt off her fingers, rubbed a spot off her slim black dress and tried not to meet his gaze.

Their future that had seemed filled with possibility last night had grown far more frightening this morning.

Staring back at her flurry of movement, Aidan didn't need to use his investigative skills to figure out what Brianne was feeling right now. He caught her wrist and held it until she looked up at him.

The fear in her eyes, the hesitation in her voice said it all. She couldn't handle his lifestyle any more than Natalie ever had.

No matter that Natalie had looked the part of a fragile flower while Brianne had been a firecracker for ten years and counting. Just because Brianne had grown adept at hiding her vulnerability didn't make it any less real.

He told himself her withdrawal didn't hurt. That he
was okay with this. “Not a problem. I would never try to put you in a situation that would ultimately cause you grief. Been there, done that, signed the divorce papers to prove it.”

The words sounded colder than he'd intended. But damn it, he was feeling pretty damn cold inside today.

“I didn't mean to suggest—”

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me you're not scared of this, Bri?”

She blinked twice, quickly. And from the mixture of confusion and disappointment in her gaze, he knew she didn't stand a chance of telling him otherwise.

An ache shot through him. Disappointment. Regret. He hadn't expected it to tug at him so strongly.

Maybe because she was a woman so well matched for him, even if she would never recognize it. Despite the fact that she preferred to live behind the safety of a few lenses and lots of security controls, she still possessed more strength and flat-out chutzpah than most men he knew.

How would it feel to have that kind of woman watching out for you?

She had nerves of steel when it came to most anything but his job.

He reached to touch her face. Marveled at the softness of her skin. Wished that touch didn't have to be the last. “Then you're off the hook, Brianne. Free and clear.”

Shouts from the lawn competed for his attention. Pulled him back to his job.

“You'd better go.” Her words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush as if she welcomed the opportunity to
end their conversation. Welcomed the chance to say goodbye.

With a heart full of regret, he brushed a thumb over the fullness of her lips.

Already missing their taste.

S
HORTLY PAST SUNSET
,
Brianne finally found the video she'd scoured her house for beside an overgrown cactus and underneath the basket of clothes to take to the cleaners.
Dangerous Men and the Women Who Love Them—
the documentary she'd filmed last year after flying around the country to talk to countless flirts and daredevils, heartbreakers and bad boys.

She only hoped she hadn't found the video too late.

Judging by the shaky feelings of leftover panic that had dogged her since the afternoon, Brianne feared she was already half in love with Aidan. She'd always approached her relationships with just a little detachment in the past, careful not to get caught up in emotions— or men—she couldn't handle.

Granted, she screwed up in that department on a regular basis—hence her run-in with the stalker boyfriend. But she'd tried to maintain reasonable defenses with guys in the past.

But Aidan had plowed past them with typical lack of concern for rules or boundaries, barging into her world on her security monitor screen and then heading straight for her heart in real life.

The telephone rang before she had the chance to do anything with her tape. She caught herself hurrying
toward the receiver and stopped herself. Aidan had no reason to contact her after the way she'd called it quits this afternoon. And she didn't want to talk to anyone else. Summer had already called her twice since Melvin's arrest today, insisting she take the night off so Brianne wasn't concerned anybody would be calling from the club.

Lingering near the answering machine on the off chance that the call might be important—and not just because she secretly hoped to hear Aidan's voice on the tape—Brianne waited for her message to play. Hands pressed, white-knuckled to the cool, pristine tiles of her kitchen island, she listened for the beep.

Silence on the other end.

Not a dial tone. Not a hang-up.

Just silence.

Someone waiting for her to answer? Fear crawled up the back of her neck as it occurred to her that although Aidan had assured her Jimmy was in New York early yesterday morning, he hadn't discovered whether or not Jimmy knew her current whereabouts.

Her eyes darted to the shiny new set of kitchen knives by her espresso machine.

But then, the phone connection clicked and a dial tone kicked in for a split second before the answering machine rewound the message.

She'd need to start making a diary of the hang-ups for the police, just in case. The recent rash of calls could be coincidental, but she hadn't survived months of stalking in New York by writing off episodes like this as coincidence.

Willing her breathing back to normal, Brianne pur
posely returned her focus to Aidan and the video in her hand.

She fanned herself with the documentary tape as she moved back to the VCR. She really didn't
need
to watch it since she still recalled half the script and all the dangerous male archetypes anyhow. Jimmy Vanderwalk had been a brooding poet. Aidan tended more toward the daredevil category.

But damn it, there was more to Aidan than that and she knew it. She'd romanticized Jimmy's brooding into sensitivity and she'd paid for it dearly. That didn't mean she had to overcompensate for her mistake by reading into Aidan's risk-taking.

He didn't take risks for the sake of the thrill, after all. There was a nobility about his job that had attracted her ten years ago and continued to draw her now. After having tangled with enough men who walked on the wrong side of the law, Brianne found she appreciated Aidan's sense of honor.

Still, that didn't change the fact that his job scared her to her toenails.

Officially depressed, Brianne tossed the video documentary onto the shelf where it should have been in the first place. She stared down at the row of her favorite movie titles, the backlogs of unused film footage she'd shot on various assignments and the overflow of security video feeds taken at the club over the last two weeks.

Including the very steamy footage of her and Aidan tangling limbs in the harem-themed room at the resort.

Not that she'd checked out the tape or anything. She'd been tempted, but so far she had managed not
to play voyeur on that particular scene. Somehow, it didn't seem fair to watch them kissing, touching, heating up the screen without him by her side. How would she feel if he ever watched a video like that without her?

Flattered.

Unsure whether or not she was simply giving herself justification for what she wanted to do all along, Brianne tugged the video off the shelf and cracked open the clear plastic case. Shoving the contraband into her VCR she picked up her new all-inclusive house remote from on top of the television and dimmed the lights with the touch of a button. Clicked play on the VCR with another.

She had no clue why she wanted to torture herself with images of her and Aidan when her heart already ached at the idea of losing him.

Now that his investigation had ended, there would be no more long nights sitting side by side in her office. No more encounters on her desk or in the harem. She would go back to being detached. Alone. But safe.

The tape whirred to life inside the machine. A noise just outside her window distracted her, made her grateful she had her house remote still in hand so she could double-check her security. The doors were locked. Windows bolted. Alarm activated.

Could she be any more paranoid? No woman who jumped at every bump in the night could weather a relationship with an FBI agent. A fact that sucked in so many ways Brianne couldn't begin to enumerate them, let alone decipher which one had made tears pool in her eyes.

Sniffling, sighing, she heaved herself on to the loveseat and settled in to watch the show. Maybe if she granted herself this one last look at Aidan, a few moments to indulge all her heart's hungry might-have-beens, she'd be able to walk away for good.

If only she could have this final peek, maybe she could find the courage to burn the tape and move on with her life.

Too bad the man on the screen in his suit jacket and crisp white shirt didn't look like the kind of guy a woman could walk away from.

She sat in the dark smiling past the tear sliding down her cheek as she watched Aidan on screen. The video had just reached the point where Brianne tumbled the wall of rattan baskets to get to him.

Her bittersweet enjoyment of the moment was marred only by her delusions that a noise sounded outside her window again.

Probably just neighborhood dogs.

Still, her heart pounded with an odd mix of lingering paranoia from the days when Jimmy had been stalking her and the definite turn-on factor of watching her on-screen self crawl on all fours to confront Aidan.

She'd looked like a woman on a mission.

Brianne held her breath in rapt fascination as she and Aidan loomed closer. But she experienced more than just the flare of heat from watching a kiss in the making. Her director's eye viewed the film from a more critical perspective, almost as if she was searching for the emotion behind an acting performance.

Body tense, she saw the on-screen couple hover near one another. Then move toward one another like mag
nets in slow motion, drawn together like forces of nature.

And in that moment of silver screen drama, Brianne saw what had eluded her in real life.

The woman melting into Aidan on her television set was in love. Wildly, madly and passionately in love.

She
loved Aidan.

The news thudded down on her with the force of a director's slate snapping closed between takes. How could she have missed it when the truth stared back at her so obviously from the celluloid pictures flashing on the television in front of her? Her heart jumped, skipped, fluttered with the realization.

The scene on the screen exploded into an R-rated kiss, making Brianne's body ache to relive the moment, making her heart yearn to act on this newly discovered love.

As for Aidan being a dangerous guy—she wondered if that was just an excuse. Maybe half the reason she went for troublemakers of all kinds in the past had been a way of keeping a
real
relationship at arm's length.

Falling for dangerous men had always kept her heart safe. Until now.

Although, as she watched the enraptured couple kissing on the screen, Brianne realized that all this time she'd probably been running from Aidan and not his job.

Behind her, another noise outside caught her attention. The sound made her jump, and for a split second she wondered if Aidan might be dropping by to talk to her tonight after all.

Until her bay window overlooking the back yard shattered.

Jimmy Vanderwalk plowed his way through the breach, stumbling and falling in a sea of jagged glass.

Brianne tried to scream, but her voice failed her. Which was just as well since she probably only had about five more seconds to save herself before he recovered.

Clutching the house remote in her hand, she reached for the cordless phone still at her side and pressed the number three button on speed dial.

Aidan.

She lifted the receiver to her ear with painful slowness, not wanting to alert her intruder to her intent too soon.

Still, she could hear the phone ringing.

And ringing.

Please let him be there.

Jimmy started to move. Glass shifted and fell to the floor from the folds of his clothes as he rose to his feet. A cut on his forehead spilled blood down his cheek while his smaller scratches covered his arms. He wore jeans with a rumpled concert T-shirt bearing the name of an up-and-coming rock band.

Cradled a sleek black gun in his right hand.

“Hello?” Aidan's voice in the telephone receiver sounded so far away.

As Jimmy's eyes focused, his gaze landed on the phone in Brianne's hand.

Words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. “Help me, Aidan—”

A shot blasted through her house, cutting her off.

For an instant she thought
she'd
been hit until she realized she could hear the dead air where the phone had been shot off the wall.

“And just what the hell do you think you're doing?” Jimmy held the gun in a white-knuckled grip as he stalked closer.

“Nothing.” She choked out the word, afraid he'd shoot her, too.

Panic welled with his every approaching step. How could her ex-boyfriend be here in her living room among shards of broken glass when Aidan had just spoken to him in New York less than two days ago?

Brianne shook off enough of her trancelike fear to scuttle backward off the couch, all the while keeping her eye on him.

His eye roved to the television where Aidan was slowly undressing her. The gun, however, remained pointed in her direction.

“I swear to God I would have knocked on the door if I hadn't seen this shit through the window.” He swung the gun around to gesture toward the television screen, but his eyes looked too wild, too on the edge for Brianne to use the moment to run. “What the hell am I going to do with you, Brianne? Of all the faithless…”

His words spiraled downward into a gutter-spew of vulgarities Brianne refused to hear.

Answering him with fear-induced silence she scavenged to find her voice. Had Aidan heard her plea before their call disconnected? Had he recognized her voice on the other end?

She'd give anything for a dangerous guy like Aidan
to arrive and kick some serious ass right about now. Of course, suddenly Aidan's dangerous tendency struck her as more akin to a guardian angel's than a daredevil's. Why hadn't she ever tried to see that big-picture reality before? Her heart slammed so viciously against her chest she felt pummeled from the inside out, her body rebelling against her and the situation in which she found herself.

Then Jimmy shot the television.

Glass exploded out from the screen. Blue sparks jumped from the wasted machinery while the steaming shell of lacquer cabinetry echoed with popping and hissing sounds.

Holy crap.

“Answer me, damn you!” He shouted the words, crunching through the glass-covered carpet to loom over her. “What the hell were you doing kissing another guy?”

Shaking with fear and the realization that Jimmy had gone off the deep end somewhere between here and New York, Brianne dug her nails into the cold hard plastic in her hand. The house remote.

She squeezed the new gadgetry in her hand, an idea taking shape. To buy time she blurted out the first answer that came to mind. “It was a mistake. A movie I was making. The kiss you saw on the screen wasn't real.”

“Don't tell me your cold-as-frigging-ice lies.” His breath reeked of sickness. Madness, for all she knew. “I warned you not to mess around on me.”

Her eyes fell on the gun despite her best efforts to look at him. She forced words out of her mouth to keep
him distracted, to give him something to think about besides killing her then and there. “I was going to call you about the movie, actually. I thought you might put together a soundtrack for me.”

There wasn't a chance in hell Aidan would show up now to play guardian angel for her. Thanks to her inability to see beyond the filter of her bad experiences with the men in her past, she'd called it quits with him when she should have been working harder to understand him.

But even if she didn't have his solid presence to rely on, she still had his wisdom. And Aidan had shown her how to think outside the box.

Brianne didn't need a gun to defend herself. Sometimes it worked to pretend to be a telemarketer. Well, not in this case. But she could definitely call upon her own strengths in this situation as opposed to running away from a gun she couldn't fight.

She wouldn't play in Jimmy's court. She'd lead him into hers.

Sure, she'd never fought off a criminal before, but she'd choreographed plenty of fight scenes for her films. And she knew a thing or two about utilizing special effects.

“Damn you and your lies.” He stared at her across the living room with glazed eyes. Stalked after her into the hallway.