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He admired her self-possession. But Dylan’s chauvinistic attitude irked him. “Not from my brother.”
“You’re not responsible for what he says.”
“Aren’t I?”
He didn’t know. He felt he should be.
She faced him squarely. “Listen, I’ve got a kid brother, too. And God help us both if I tried to take responsibility for him.”
Her gaze was clear and direct as a punch. He felt its impact in his gut, harder than recognition, deeper than desire. His breath went.
How long they stood there, staring at each other, he didn’t know.
But then her thin face colored. She looked away, breaking their connection. “I’ve got to go.”
His heart was pounding, his chest felt tight, and he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t… What the hell had just happened here? He didn’t need his memory back to recognize lust. But this understanding was both more foreign and more seductive.
“Go where?” he asked. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m on harbor patrol today.”
“I meant about Swirsky.”
“Nothing. I’m off the case.”
“No.” His protest was automatic. Instinctive. “I want you to handle the investigation.”
“It’s not up to you.” Her mouth quirked ruefully. “Or me, either. Chief Denko has assigned the case to Detective Palmer.”
That long look had diverted the blood from his brain to below his belt. He couldn’t think worth a damn. Which explained what he said next.
“I’ll pay you.”
She stiffened. “For what?”
All right, he’d said it badly. But it wasn’t such a bad idea.
Laura Baker was intelligent. Stubborn. Discreet. She hadn’t blurted out his loss of memory to his brother. She’d come to him directly to tell him about the new detective assigned to the case. And she had nothing personal at stake in the outcome of this investigation.
“I want someone close to me I can trust.” Pushing back from his computer, he stood. “I want to hire you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t work for you.”
He came around his desk. “Why not?”
Her soft lips set. “Well, for one thing, I already have a job.”
Her resistance made him want her more. He didn’t take time to reflect on what that revealed about his character.
“You can do it in your off hours,” he argued. “Moonlighting, or whatever they call it.”
“No, I can’t. I have a conflict of interest.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, it bothers me,” she snapped. Her gaze flicked to his face. He didn’t know what she saw there, but her own expression suddenly softened. “Look, I’m sorry, but…no.”
No.
Simon sat on the corner of his desk. Well, that was clear. Confronted by a million unanswered questions, he’d pushed her for a response, and he’d gotten one.
Too bad it wasn’t the one he wanted.
He continued to stare at her, trying to figure out what he could possibly say or do to change her mind, to persuade her to help him, to stay with him, to be with him.
He closed his eyes, dizzy with the force of his need.
She cleared her throat. “How’s your head?”
“What? Oh.” He reached up to touch the swelling above his ear. “It hurts.”
“Have you had it looked at yet?” she asked.
As if, he thought wryly, now that she had slapped him down, she was trying to soften the blow.
“No.”
She took a step closer. His body went on alert. “Maybe you should,” she said.
His mind snapped into action, testing, weighing options.
He angled his head. “Be my guest.”
She took another step forward.
Cautious, he thought. But not a coward.
Her hip, in navy blue polyester, brushed his thigh. She raised her hand; hesitated. And then, very gently, threaded her fingers through his hair.
She smelled like sun and water, like shampoo and…gasoline? For a second he thought his mind might be playing tricks on him again, and then he remembered her boat.
“It looks bad,” she said.
“It’s clean.”
“Tough guy.” His scalp tingled as her touch feathered through his hair. “You should have had stitches.”
“Too late now.”
“Yeah.” She started to draw away.
He grabbed her wrist.
“Hey,” she protested. “You’ve already got one bump on the head. Don’t make me hurt you again.” But her pulse thrummed under his thumb.
Simon’s grip tightened. Maybe he’d pushed for the wrong response before. Maybe he’d asked the wrong question.
At least he could settle one damn thing.
Leaning forward, he covered her mouth with his.
Chapter 3
If Laura had let herself think about kissing Simon Ford ahead of time… Okay, so she had thought about it. Big deal. Anyway, she’d expected him to kiss the way he talked. Cool. Controlled. Kind of dry.
She missed the target all three times.
His kiss was hot, wet and deep. He kissed like he was starving for her, like he wanted everything, wanted her. And instead of getting offended or disgusted or afraid, she yanked him closer and kissed him back.
Tongues. Teeth. Heat.
Sensation kicked through her system like rapid fire on a pistol range, all flash and fire and recoil. She was blinded, deafened, her palms sweaty and her mind a blank. She was operating on instinct and body memory, living purely in and for the moment. Her knees buckled.
Simon made an encouraging sound deep in his throat and widened his stance against the desk.
Wow. Pow. Even better.
His body was lean and hard. It fit hers as if they’d been carved from the same piece of oak, every plane and curve lined up and matching. Her starved system sparked and exploded. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she fed and devoured him.
But when his hand slid from Laura’s arm and sought the shape of her breast through the heavy Kevlar vest she wore, another instinct kicked in. Something older and more urgent than sex.
Self-preservation.
“You… I…” She couldn’t form words.
“‘We’?” Simon suggested, a hint of a smile in his voice. But she noticed with a pinch of satisfaction that his breathing was as ragged as hers.
She shook her head, struggling for coherence and control. Oh, God. Oh, God. She’d really screwed up. “I don’t mix sex with the job.”
There, a whole sentence.
He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t work for me. You can’t call this harassment.”
She stepped back, tugging on the bottom of her vest. “How about assaulting an officer?”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that what you think this was?”
“No. Sorry.” Her face flooded with heat. “I’m just… My brain’s still on Planet Stupid.”
“I’m feeling a little out of this world myself,” he murmured.
It was geeky. And charming.
Laura scowled. “Yeah, well, it’s time to come back to earth. This can’t happen again.”
“Why not?” he asked curiously.
“You’re the genius. You figure it out.”
“You’re not giving me enough data to draw a conclusion.”
“There are cops who mess around on the job, okay? It’s like a crime of opportunity. You’d be surprised how many people out there are willing to make it with anything in a uniform. Heck, I’ve been propositioned by guys I had handcuffed in the back of the squad car.”
He studied her with quiet intensity. “Did it work?”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or amazingly clueless. “I don’t get involved on cases I’m investigating.”
“You’re not investigating my case.”
He had her there.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t get involved.”
His brows raised. “Ever?”
“Not recently.”
“Define recently.”
She stuck out her jaw. This conversation was even more risky than sex. She didn’t “do” intimacy. She couldn’t afford it. “Are you asking for my sexual history, Ford?”
“I think now that we’ve swapped saliva you could share the highlights.” His eyes gleamed. “You might even start calling me by my first name.”
She didn’t want to be amused, damn it. Or to share the messy details of her personal life. But maybe she could give him enough to shut him up. To shut him down.
“I was married,” she said. “A long time ago.”
“What’s a long time? Two years? Five?”
He was a scientist. It figured he wanted answers, specific, quantifiable data. As if all the fear and pain she’d felt then could fit some tidy little chart.
“What does it matter?” she asked.
His gaze never left her face. “I like numbers,” he said simply.
“Okay, fine. Ten.”
He couldn’t quite keep the surprise from his face. “Ten years. And…?”
“And what do you think?” Her shoulder jerked in an ill-tempered shrug. “I was eighteen. It didn’t work out.”
“What happened? He cheated on you, beat you, broke your heart?”
“He died.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. She didn’t mind being blunt. Hell, she took pride in it. But that had been a cheap shot, designed to shock. It was unworthy of her. Simon’s kiss had rattled her more than she wanted to admit.
“I’m sorry,” Simon said calmly.
“Don’t be. The relationship was on life support even before Tommy died.”
“What happened?”
Simon’s voice was quiet, unthreatening, like a doctor’s or a priest’s. Laura was trained in interview techniques. She knew better than to fall for that nonjudgmental tone. But she responded to it anyway.
“Tom Baker was a seaman at the Great Lakes Naval Training Facility. I was a teenage girl in Chicago with more attitude than smarts. I got pregnant, we got married, he got killed two months later in some freak training accident. End of story.”
“Not quite,” Simon said.
“You mean the baby?” Her throat clogged with tears. Her fault. Her stupid fault, for letting a moment of sexual excitement crash her usually strong barriers. Damn, damn, damn.
“There was no baby,” she said harshly. “I lost it a couple weeks later.”
If he had reached out to touch her, she would have bolted. But he sat, unmoving—unmoved?—against his flat, polished desk, his light eyes focused on her face.
“You were very young,” he observed.
“I was stupid.”
His lips parted, as if he were about to say something, and then he stopped.
Not so comfortable when it isn’t all about numbers, are you? Laura thought, not without sympathy.
But he surprised her.
“That must have been hard,” he said.
“I…” She cleared her throat. “I got over it. I am over it.”
“Good. Go out with me.”
Her heart bumped, which annoyed her. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”
“Yes,” he answered promptly. “You’re not my employee, you’re not investigating my case, and you’re not grieving for your late husband. So I see no barriers to our becoming involved.”
None. Except her father had worked for the company contracted to provide his security, and the old man was missing now along with a cache of cultured rubies valued at half a million dollars. And this afternoon at the end of her shift, Laura was going to have to report that theft to her boss.
“Except I’m not interested,” she said.
Simon didn’t point out that her kiss had definitely been interested. Either he was actually a nice guy, or he was experienced enough to know better.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he said.
She shook her head, unreasonably tempted. “It would never work.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not your type.”
“How do you know?”
“Look at me,” she said, her voice rising with frustration. “Look at us. You’re Millionaire Inventor Guy, and I’m—”
“—an incredibly attractive woman with practical knowledge and principles.”
A pleased flush swept over her. “Thanks.”
But she knew who and what she was: a small-town cop with a troubling connection to his case. And those principles he was talking about wouldn’t let her gloss over the differences between them.
She squared her shoulders. “But the answer’s still no. Detective Palmer is handling the investigation from here on in. After today, there’s no reason for us to ever see each other again.”
He blew it.
Simon didn’t know how or why, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of connections missed, of opportunities lost. It was like calculating a complex equation. His formula was correct, but his data was wrong. Or he was missing a variable completely.
He watched the police boat’s choppy progress across the lake, aware of Laura Baker’s slim, straight figure at the controls. She’d taken off her hat, making her neatly constrained hair gleam like tarnished metal in the sun.
He inhaled sharply. He wanted her. Still. The taste of her lingered in his mouth like honey. The itch for her buzzed in his blood.
She wanted him, too. He might not remember whatever women had occupied his bed or his mind before, but he recognized a woman’s desire.
But it didn’t take a genius to see that this woman was equally determined not to have anything further to do with him.
Why not?
Considering the problem logically, there was nothing obviously wrong with him. Well, except for the void where his memory should be. And while the detective was smart enough to suspect the worst, she couldn’t know the full extent of his loss.
No one could know the full extent of his loss.
Expelling his breath, Simon turned back to his desk. Laura Baker was a puzzle and a challenge. But however much he might enjoy fitting the pieces together, he had bigger problems to solve.
“I didn’t mean to screw things up with the meter maid,” Dylan volunteered over lunch. “But she’s not your usual type, is she?”
Simon lowered his fork to stare at his brother, seated nine feet away at the opposite end of the long, polished table. All of the furniture in the house was over-sized and shiny, as if it had been designed for very neat giants. The colors were all neutrals, cream and beige and gray. Simon wondered if he’d chosen them or even liked them. He didn’t like them now. Would he when he got his memory back?
“Detective,” he corrected his brother. “And why isn’t she my type?”
“Because she’s difficult. And you’ve always liked your women easy.”
Simon raised his eyebrows. “Easy?”
“No work,” Dylan explained. “No hassles. The Stepford Girlfriends—beautiful, intelligent, perfect, polite. Like you could shut them off and put them away in the lab when you were done playing with them.”
Simon was amused. Appalled. “I don’t have a lot of time to invest in relationships,” he said. Now, where had that come from?
Dylan snorted. “You’re telling me. If you didn’t have so much money, no woman would put up with you.”
Could he ask about the portrait of the schoolgirl upstairs? Simon wondered. No, not yet.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Are you offering me a raise, big brother?”
“No.” Should he? What did his brother earn?
“That’s okay. I don’t need more money.” Dylan grabbed a roll from the basket in the center of the table and buttered it lavishly. “I have charm.”
Quinn Brown stomped into the dining room. He glared at Dylan and shoved a phone handset at Simon.
No charm there, Simon thought.
“Call for you,” Quinn said. “Vince Macon.”
“Damn,” Dylan said.
Who the hell was Vince Macon?
Simon had spent some time yesterday studying his company’s organization chart, trying to grasp its structure, hoping to strike a name that would spark a memory. In the process, he’d learned that Lumen Corp employed over a hundred researchers and support staff at its Chicago headquarters and that his brother Dylan—surprise, surprise—was a vice president of marketing. But he didn’t recognize the name “Macon” at all.
He had to say something. Do something.
“You take the call,” he said to Dylan.
His brother’s face froze. If Simon had been in the mood for a laugh, it would have been funny.
“You’re kidding,” Dylan said.
“No. Why?”
“Because he’s one of your biggest investors and he hates me?”
An investor. Relief eased Simon’s shoulders.
“Good enough,” he said and accepted the phone. “Hey, Vince. Simon here.”
“Simon!” The voice was hearty, warm…and completely unfamiliar. Simon squelched his disappointment. “You’re a hard man to reach. What are you doing on the island?”
“Research,” Simon said.
“Ha. Good one.” Vince Macon lowered his voice. “I heard Dylan was up there with you.”
Simon looked down the table. His brother had settled back in his chair and was watching him. “Yes.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said honestly, meeting Dylan’s eyes. “But he’s here.”
“You mean, in the room? Listening?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not having any…trouble up there, are you?”
A prickle of disquiet raised the hair on the back of Simon’s neck. Trouble? Yeah. He had a bump on his head, a missing cache of cultured gemstones and great big gaps in his memory. But why would Macon ask? How would he know?
“No,” Simon said finally. “No trouble.”
“Good. I’ll talk to you later then. When are you coming back to Chicago?”
Frustration bubbled inside him. He was stumbling around in a fog, trying to avoid dangers he could not see. His blindness was bad enough here, where the only people he bumped into were his brother and Quinn Brown. Who knew what problems would trip him up outside? Better perhaps, safer perhaps, if he stayed in safe isolation on the island until his memory returned.
But his mind remained a stubborn blank. Sometimes he had a flash, a moment’s hope. Last night he’d reached for his nail clippers, and his pleasure at finding them in the drawer he’d opened so automatically had been embarrassingly acute.
He couldn’t count on such moments. They were frustratingly rare in any case. His business, his life, even his own character were like a puzzle he had to assemble without all the pieces or any real idea of what the finished picture was supposed to look like.
And yet his business and his life might depend on his ability to fit it all together.
Every day that slipped away took with it another chance to compile the pieces and make sense of the puzzle. Who had attacked him? Who had betrayed him? Who could he trust?
“Simon? You still there?”
Simon collected himself. “Yes. I’ll be back in the office soon. A day or two. I’m close to something here.”
He wasn’t close to anything, he thought bleakly.
Or anyone, apparently. The only person he felt a connection with had just told him flat out there was no reason for them to ever see each other again.
At least Laura had been honest with him.
“Great,” Vince said. “I’ll see you then.”
They said a few more words and disconnected. Simon set the phone beside his plate.
Dylan leaned forward, stabbing his lettuce with a fork. “So what did the old bastard want?”
“What do you think he wanted?” Simon countered.
Dylan swallowed a mouthful of salad. “He probably told you to kick me out before I talked you into funding my foolish, evil schemes.”
“I can’t kick you out. You’re my brother. And a vice president of the company,” Simon added.
Dylan grimaced. “That’s always been an afterthought for you, hasn’t it?”
Had it? Simon wished again, desperately, he could ask for an explanation. He went fishing for one instead.
“You’re still my brother.”
“Half brother,” Dylan said.
It was another puzzle piece. Simon seized on it. “We still grew up together.”
Dylan gave him an odd look. “If that’s the way you want to remember it.”
Simon didn’t remember his childhood at all. He had a sudden image of wedging himself on the floor between his bed and the wall to read, and a shelf full of books. But no house. No yard. No memory of friends. Not even an impression of his mother’s face.
Why were there no pictures of his mother in the house? No family at all, except the girl upstairs.
He wanted to ask, but he was afraid to show any weakness.
Laura would have asked. No one would have counted it a weakness. No one would be suspicious if she was around asking questions. It was a function of her job, a component of her character.
Simon needed answers.
He wanted an ally.
He needed Laura.
He wanted Laura.
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