In Plain Sight (Stolen Hearts) (4 page)

She huddled in the corner of the cab. “I can’t believe it’s happening again.”

“Where to, folks?” the cabbie asked.

“Ah…” Rafe looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “745 Hester Street.”

“Where’s that?”

“My place.”

“No.”

His mouth tightened. “Fine. Where do you want to go?”

Not her brother’s apartment, as she’d planned. If Dejarnatt had set her up, too, the police would probably be at his apartment before she got there. She’d lived in Paris for years and had lost contact with almost everyone. And she hadn’t yet been to the bank. Which meant if she went to a hotel, she’d have to use her credit card, and the police would be able to trace her whereabouts.

Claire would put her up, but she couldn’t drag her friend into a scandal. Assuming, of course, there was a scandal. So far she had only Rafe’s word that some gems had been stolen. For all she knew,
he
could have set her up.

“Come home with me until we know exactly what’s going on. No one would think to look for you there.”

“Except your brother-in-law.”

“Trust me, it would be the last place on earth he’d look.”

Because Rafe hated her for making a public fool of him. Not for the first time, guilt flicked at her conscience.

All she’d really intended by luring him into Dejarnatt’s apartment was to shake him off her trail. She hadn’t meant to cause him so much trouble, although she’d enjoyed a good laugh when posters of his beautiful ass had appeared all over Paris. Both ads, one of his naked ass and one where he wore briefs, had sparked more than a few fantasies and made her wish she’d taken time to enjoy him when she’d had the chance.

And it had seemed the perfect opportunity to thumb her nose at Dejarnatt as well. She’d wanted the designer to sweat, knowing she’d been watching him close enough to know where the spare key to his apartment was and both his and his wife’s schedules.

Unfortunately, Rafe was right. No one would think to look for her at his apartment, which meant it was the perfect place for her to hide. “Why are you helping me?” she asked after a minute.

His face hardened. “Who says I am?”

She reached for the door, but before she could open it, Rafe pulled her hand away from the handle.

“Spare me the hysterics. What were you going to do? Throw yourself into the street?”

“This guy giving you a hard time, lady?” The cab driver frowned at them in the mirror.

With one last desperate look at the passing street, she sank back into the seat. “No. Everything’s fine.”

If
Dejarnatt didn’t accuse her of theft.
If
Pascotto didn’t kill her for…take your pick.

“Dejarnatt can’t possibly think he can get away with pulling the same stunt twice,” she speculated out loud.

“If what you say is true, he got away with it once. Why not again?”

She stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes. He looked like he was taking her seriously. “What would be my motivation for stealing the gems?”

He continued to watch her. “Revenge. Money. The usual suspects.”

“I don’t need money.” She bit her lip. Would she ever learn to keep her big mouth shut?

Rafe leaned into the far corner of the cab and crossed his long legs. “Really? I’d assumed you lost your job when you accused Dejarnatt of being a…what was it you called him in public? A fossil from the last century?”

She picked at the folds of her dress. “I’m impulsive sometimes.”

“No kidding.”

“I didn’t mean to destroy your career. I had no idea they were about to plaster pictures of your ass all over Paris.”

“They weren’t. That was a patch job to save the ad campaign.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

“Do you?”

She looked away. Of course, but she had no intention of telling him and giving him leverage. “I’m not a monster. What was so important that agent Gage had you stalk me in Paris?”

“I wasn’t stalking you, for God’s sake. I was just following you. Doesn’t matter now, anyway. It’s water under the bridge.”

Sure it was. That’s why he’d hunted her down at the trade show.

“That’ll be fifteen dollars.” When the cab driver stopped the car in the middle of the street, a car behind them honked.

Rafe handed him a bill and climbed out. “Keep the change.” He swept his arm in front of him. “
Apres toi.”

Bridget’s limbs turned wooden. She couldn’t believe she was going to Rafe Pascotto’s apartment. Alone. Was she insane? She slid out of the cab and pulled his jacket around her. “Lend me the money and I’ll go to a hotel. You could get in trouble if anyone sees me at your place.”

“It’s a little late to be concerned for my welfare, isn’t it?” He took her elbow and guided her to the front door of his apartment building. “There isn’t a chance in hell I’m letting you out of my sight, Irish. Besides, there’s nowhere else to go. And like I said…” His smile hinted at cunning. “No one would dream of looking for you here.”

She’d stay long enough to discover what was going on, and if she was lucky, find a change of clothes. She couldn’t go anywhere wearing a bright red dress without being noticed.

He held the door open and waited for her to precede him into the foyer of what looked like an ordinary apartment building. She’d expected something more upscale. The boring, red-brick building didn’t match the exotic man standing beside her.

“Interesting that I’m the one person in the world right now you feel safe with.”

She shivered and pulled his coat tighter around her. Safe? Never. Not with Rafe Pascotto.

***

Rafe closed and locked the door behind him. Not that locking the door on the inside would keep Bridget in, but now that Sophie was feeling better, she’d taken to dropping by to visit at odd times. Gage’s job wasn’t nine-to-five, and sometimes Sophie needed to touch base with Rafe, as he did with her.

“Not the luxury pad I expected.”

Rafe cursed under his breath when Bridget shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed it on the chair. He’d hoped she’d keep the jacket on, although it only reached her knees. If she knew how the damned red dress affected him, she’d button the jacket up to her chin.

Or maybe not. He wouldn’t put it past her to use whatever means possible to get what she wanted. He narrowed his eyes. What
did
she want? Other than to help her brother, of course.

Not him, that was for sure. A jab of disappointment surprised him. Oh, for chrissake, like he needed a pain-in-the-ass woman like Bridget O’Neill in his life. He’d dated a lot of women, but she topped the list for PIA.

He moved away from the door and decided to risk going into his bedroom. He wasn’t sure why he thought it so important to hang onto her, anyway. Except she could be in serious trouble, and he suspected she had no one else looking out for her. And if he were honest, he had to admit he was enjoying the whole intrigue thing.

“The apartment is from my student days,” he called from the bedroom. “I didn’t want to give it up when I moved to Paris, and when I came back, I couldn’t be bothered to move.” He’d been too busy feeling sorry for himself. It was a relief to finally have something to think about other than his own problems. He grabbed the clothes he’d been looking for and followed sounds out to the kitchen.

He suppressed a groan when he caught sight of her. She stood with her back to him, a slender, scarlet flame in his dreary kitchen. He’d give damn near anything to untie her halter top and watch her silky dress slowly slide down her slim frame to pool on the floor. She obviously wasn’t wearing a bra. Which probably left only a scrap of lace to cover her. And her wicked, red, spiked heels.

Hell. Just the thought of her naked was turning him on. Like it had almost every night since she’d stripped him and tied him to the bed.

When Bridget turned, and he saw the long, serrated knife in her hand, he wondered if he’d sleep at all tonight with her here. He’d never thought to check if he had a lock on the inside of his bedroom door before. “Taking stock of the arsenal?”

“It never hurts to know the lay of the land.”

He presented the clothes to her. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in these.”

She tossed the knife on the counter and twinkled at him as she accepted the bundle and glanced at his crotch. “
Who
would be more comfortable?” She held up a T-shirt tie-dyed in green shades. “An old girlfriend’s?”

“My sister’s. She’s a little…smaller than you. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll give you one of mine.”

She passed him as she headed for the bathroom. “Twin sister, right? Sylvie? Sophie?”

He reached out and grabbed her arm. “How do you know that?”

She shook his hand away. “I looked it up. This may be a game to you, Pascotto. But my brother’s in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Tell me this: how far would you go to save your sister?”

To the ends of the earth
. He stared at the bathroom door after she snapped it closed in his face. Their father hadn’t cared to acknowledge his and Sophie’s existence beyond setting up a trust fund in their names, and their alcoholic mother checked out of reality more often than not. They’d only had each other to rely on. That had changed when Sophie had married Gage, but she was still his twin sister. So, yeah, he understood where O’Neill was coming from.

From the information he’d scraped together about Bridget—Gage had flat-out refused to give him the file on the O’Neills—he knew her mother had been a single mom who worked hard to support her two children. She’d died of an aneurysm ten years ago when Bridget was seventeen and Darcy fifteen. He had no idea what had happened to them after that. Had Bridget been old enough to take care of her brother or did they get swallowed up by the system? She probably wouldn’t tell him if he asked because she was so busy trying to be tough. He wondered if she ever got tired pushing people away. Acting tough took a lot of energy.

Realizing he was still staring at the bathroom door, he wandered into the kitchen to forage for food. Bridget wouldn’t have left her younger brother to fend for himself, so she’d either gone with him into a home or hid from whatever government agency dealt with minors. Regardless, they’d eventually both ended up in Paris, and from the little he’d managed to cobble together, both were talented designers, Darcy being the more innovative one.

He scooped up all the knives and dumped them into the bread box. There was only the two of them here. No one else was coming, so they didn’t need all those old knives, did they?

He dug in the refrigerator for cheese and some fruit, found a handful of crackers in a box and dumped it all on a platter. He’d planned to go out to dinner after the trade show. It hadn’t occurred to him he would actually find Bridget at the show. He’d gone more out of morbid curiosity.

When he’d first caught sight of her tonight, he’d felt a huge rush the likes of which he hadn’t felt since he was ten years old and thought the man who’d stayed overnight in his mother’s bedroom was his real father.

Right on the heels of that rush, he remembered the havoc Irish had caused in his life. He was still waiting for that hundred thousand, although the lawyers seemed confident he’d eventually be paid. But he shied away from going out in public as much as possible, specifically to places where he’d be recognized. He couldn’t tell for certain, but it felt like a whole lot of people were staring at his ass. Hard to relax and have a good time with thoughts like that circling his head.

The other day Gage had mentioned he’d pretty much wrapped up the case, but Rafe could have sworn he heard…something in Gage’s voice. Disappointment? Maybe worry. Guilty or not, Bridget’s brother had to serve his full two-year term, plus pay a ten-thousand-dollar fine, unless someone came up with fresh evidence. When Gage had told him the case was closed, Rafe felt compelled to drop by the trade show and check out the players.

Two years
. Rafe couldn’t imagine being locked up that long. What if Darcy was innocent? Dejarnatt had tried to have Rafe charged after his wife found him in their Paris apartment. Thankfully, the ad company had come to his rescue. Not out of compassion. At that point, they couldn’t dump him fast enough. A minor scandal always boosted sales, but the ad agency would have had to ditch the underwear campaign if he’d received a sentence, so their lawyers had gone to work and gotten him off. He’d ended up having to pay a hefty fine, though, no thanks to Bridget.