Risking It All: The Proposition / The Dare / The Favour / The P.I. / The Cop / The Defender. Cara Summers

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СКАЧАТЬ Through the glass, she watched as he circled the desk, then met her eyes again and waited. For five long beats, she stayed right where she was. But it was the wrong battle to draw a line in the sand for. Turning away, she started toward the pool. As Jared Slade’s vice president in charge of retail acquisitions, he was probably used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

      She’d never been good at taking orders or following someone else’s agenda, but she’d do what he wanted for now. She had a feeling she’d need all the energy she could muster up to get that interview.

      FOR A LONG MINUTE, Hunter didn’t pick up the phone. Instead he let himself recall just what she’d felt like pressed against him for that moment after she’d jumped off the wall. He hadn’t wanted to let her go. For an instant, every bit of the desire he’d felt for her in that dressing room had returned. And it wasn’t going to go away.

      Not seeing her again might have solved the problem. But avoiding her wasn’t going to be possible now. Frowning, he picked up the phone and said, “Tracker?”

      “I’m still here. I take it you have a visitor?”

      “Yeah. Rory Gibbs. Seems she got wind of the possibility that Jared Slade was here to consult Lucas Wainwright’s chief of security. She knew about the bomb scare, too, but she assured me that part was off the record.”

      Tracker swore, then said, “Do you know her source?”

      “Sources. And you’re not going to like it,” Hunter said. Then he repeated Rory’s explanation.

      “Damn,” Tracker said. “Sophie is usually more discreet than that.”

      “Don’t blame her,” Hunter said. “She was talking to friends. One of them just happened to be the sister of a woman who’s determined to interview Jared Slade. My bad luck and Rory Gibbs’s good fortune.”

      “Look, I just put my man on Lucas’s private plane. I’ll come out to the estate and have a talk with her.”

      “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hunter said.

      There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line. “I’m listening.”

      “She seems to always be at the right place at the right time, but I don’t think she’s being fed information. She’s just got brains and good luck. And a reporter’s curiosity—which could mean trouble.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “I wish the hell I knew.” But talking to Tracker was helping him work through it. And it wasn’t hurting that Rory Gibbs wasn’t in the same room. His brain cells were beginning to function again. Through the window, he could see her reaching the gate of the pool. The dogs were romping around her, but they didn’t seem to scare her. She stooped down, picked up a stick and shot it away. The dogs tore after it. “She’s…”

      “Yes?” Tracker asked.

      A constant surprise, Hunter thought. But what he said was, “She’s a loose cannon.”

      “Meaning?”

      “I’m afraid if you talk to her, warn her off, it’s only going to make her more curious. She’ll start digging, probing.” He started to pace back and forth in the space behind the desk. “It’s like she’s got a sixth sense or something. I’m afraid that she may even come up with the theory that I’m Jared Slade.”

      “And if she does?” Tracker asked.

      “I’m trying to prevent that. I told her that Slade’s gone, that I’m his vice president in charge of retail acquisitions. That’s when she guessed I was acquiring Silken Fantasies.”

      Tracker couldn’t prevent a laugh. “She’s as smart as her sisters.”

      “I wonder if she knows that,” Hunter mused.

      “How’s that?”

      “Nothing.” He watched the huge black Labs race toward her, topple her over on the grass. When she sat up and looped her arms around their necks and let them lick her face, he was abruptly and totally charmed.

      “I’m going to keep her here until we sort this out,” Hunter said.

      “And just how do you plan to do that?”

      The plan was beginning to take shape in his mind. “Jared Slade doesn’t give interviews. I’ll offer her the next best thing—an interview with his vice president in charge of retail acquisitions, Mark Hunter. I use that name when I travel,” he explained. “There’s even a personnel file on Mark Hunter in the Dallas office.” Then he thought to ask, “I assume there won’t be any problem with her staying here on the estate?”

      For five beats there was dead silence on the other end of the line. “She’s the sister of a friend of mine. I don’t want to see her hurt. Her sister wouldn’t want to see her hurt. Neither would Lucas.”

      Hunter’s brows rose. There was a clear warning in Tracker’s voice. “Let’s look at it this way. The interview will be legit, and it will be the next best thing to interviewing Jared Slade. She’ll have the scoop she needs to get her a full-time staff position at Celebs. And I’ll have the certainty that she’s here where I can keep an eye on her while you’re springing the trap we’ve set.”

      “I don’t know,” Tracker said.

      “There’s something else to consider. What if she’s not just lucky and smart? Someone sent an anonymous tip about my hotel to Celebs and not to the Post, as you mentioned earlier today. What if the bastard who set the bomb is using her as a pawn in the game he’s playing? Until we know what’s going on and who the players are, she’ll be safer here with me than she’d be trying to get a lead on Jared Slade’s whereabouts.”

      As he watched Rory throw a stick for the dogs, he waited out the silence again.

      “Why do I think that there’s a more personal side to this than you’re telling me?” Tracker finally asked.

      “Because your nature is to be suspicious. But neither one of us wants her stumbling onto something that will lead her down to the Keys,” Hunter said.

      “Yeah.” He sighed. “You’re right. I’ll be in touch when I have something.”

      After hanging up the phone, Hunter walked to the French doors. Whatever he’d said to Tracker, he wouldn’t lie to himself. He wanted Rory Gibbs with him for very personal reasons that had nothing to do with her safety or protecting his anonymity.

      He didn’t kid himself, either. Keeping her here was every bit as risky as letting her go. But he hadn’t built Slade Enterprises by running away from risks. He would just have to be careful. He watched her race across the lawn with the dogs chasing her and felt his body begin to harden again. Would she be that reckless, that abandoned when they made love again? He wanted to find out. He would find out, Hunter decided. Soon. That decision made, he began to plot a strategy for handling Rory Gibbs.

       6

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