Lone Star Santa (12 page)

“Right, but here’s where it gets complicated.”

Mitch pushed aside the remains of his dinner. “I thought we’d already done complicated.”

“Not like this.” Kristen showed him lists of investment trades, the companies making them, properties bought and sold and their selling prices and who was doing the buying and selling.

“That’s a lot of activity, but, here again, nothing illegal.”

“Ah.” Kristen had printed some of the details on pale green paper. “This information is courtesy of my mother.” Kristen held the papers close to her chest before letting Mitch see them. “It’s confidential to real estate professionals. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my mom—and my dad, too—”

“Your
parents
know?”

“Well, yeah. How did you think I got access to all this info?”

“Great. That means
my
parents are going to know.” He took a large swallow of margarita and winced. “Brain freeze.”

“Ouch.” Kristen made a sympathetic face even though she was the one with the melted dregs in her glass because she wanted to remain sharp and capable of driving home in case Mitch was one of those men who liked to drown his sorrows. “My parents won’t say anything because of client confidentiality.”

“I’m not a client.”

“But
I
am. I hired myself.”

Mitch looked a question at her as he dug in the basket for any leftover chip crumbs.

“The Dater’s Special. We do background checks for people—mostly women—who want to make sure the
guys they’re involved with are who they say they are and there aren’t any current wives or heavy-duty child support payments or felonies they neglected to mention.”

“Nice. But I disclosed everything. Everything I knew, anyway.”

“I wanted a legit paper trail in case there’s any question about why I investigated you. Anyway, the information on these papers came from my mom’s contacts and isn’t going into the files.”

“Gotcha.”

Kristen handed him the green papers.

Mitch stared at them. “What am I looking at?”

“Lots of your clients’ money seems to find its way into real estate before ending up elsewhere. My mother is plugged into a group that chats about sales and experiences that are out of the norm.” Kristen gestured as she tried to explain. “She
won’t
tell me any more.”

He flipped through the pages. “So how does this affect me?”

“For whatever reason, these property sales attracted attention. And, oh, look, they all involve Sloane Property Development and Construction. And you. In technical terms, your little family of DBAs is hanging out with Jeremy’s dad’s big family of DBAs. Something’s not right about that. I know it. I
feel
it.”

Mitch looked up at her. After a long moment, he slowly nodded. “Okay.”

“I thought it would help if I followed one trail all the way from the beginning—you, or rather an investment your company made on behalf of a commercial client.” Kristen pulled out a chart that she’d taped together.

Mitch didn’t know it, but he was looking at two
days of her life. Honestly, with all the names, it was like following an ant through an anthill.

“I remember that.” Mitch pointed to the beginning of the chart. “He’s one of Chuck Sloane’s referrals.”

“My mother has serious issues with that guy.”

“Jeremy’s father?”

“Yeah. She’s gone head-to-head with him on some real estate deals and hasn’t been very happy about the way things turned out. She said he has an uncanny knack for buying and selling worthless property which then isn’t worthless anymore and inflates the property taxes in the area.”

“Hmm.”

Mitch had tuned her out to concentrate on her chart. “May I write on this?”

She nodded, but he didn’t look up. “Go ahead.”

He brought out a mechanical pencil and a fancy shmancy electronic phone thingie like she’d never been able to afford.

“Blackberry?”

“Palm Treo. I was allowed to keep it since all the files were in my computer anyway.” He still didn’t look at her, not that she was trying to get him to do so. She was interested in watching him, waiting for a reaction or at least an explanation. She felt entitled after all the hours she’d spent researching and making herself dizzy with numbers.

Besides, he was much easier on the eyes than numbers.

Minutes passed and Kristen began to notice details in Mitch’s face that she’d missed before. Details like the way the short hairs right in front of his ears grew in different directions. Details like the shape of his ear
lobes, the bump in the bridge of his nose and the length of his eyelashes. There were a couple of tiny scars—one near the outer edge of his eye and the other on his chin. The crease between his eyebrows deepened when he concentrated. It was attractive now, but in ten years, he’d want to Botox it.

His face was nicely shaped, but his cheekbones weren’t angular enough to look good on camera. And if she were doing a makeover on him, she’d part his hair on the other side, or give him one of those short shaggy cuts with lighter brown streaks in the front.

She imagined him with various styles of facial hair. No mustache because his lips were very well shaped. She couldn’t see him in a full beard, either. A goatee? Maybe. Maybe not. Ick on a soul patch. He could wear his sideburns longer, though. A little bronzer wouldn’t be amiss, either. His eyebrows could be tamed a bit.

There was some seriously good raw material here.

Rough up a few of his edges…and now that she thought about it, he was just
made
for the stubble look, except that was losing popularity, which was fine with her because kissing stubble was bad for the skin.

His jaw clenched. Kristen looked down and saw his finger at the place on the chart where the money trail began to loop back on itself. Companies were investing in themselves, but were losing money. Kristen hadn’t been able to figure that one out, either. And she was no expert, but it didn’t look good to have Mitch taking clients’ money and investing in his own company. He’d discover that info after he moved his finger another three inches. If he was clenching his jaw now, he’d be steaming when he got to that part.

Kristen became impatient. She’d waved their waiter away twice, but was rethinking a second margarita.

She shifted, peeling her thighs off the booth’s vinyl seat.

It couldn’t be long before Mitch realized he’d been betrayed by his partner and Kristen wanted to catch his expression at the precise moment he realized it.

Betrayal was such a powerful action and elicited an equally powerful emotion. Kristen had never been betrayed on the level Mitch was going to experience. Sure, she’d been fooled and disappointed, but she’d never been blindsided.

This was an opportunity for her to see genuine emotion and remember exactly how it looked so when she was called upon to portray it, she’d be able to do so convincingly.

Mitch’s finger moved slowly across the page and he seemed to recalculate or look something up every few seconds.

Hurry up already!
Kristen was afraid to blink in case she missed something.

But Mitch blinked. Repeatedly. He must have seen the part where the money ended up back in one of his own shell businesses.

Kristin watched closely. But he said nothing.

Blinking? That was it? Huge betrayal equals blinking?

She could do blinking. In fact, she tried it, but there should be more.

Mitch’s chest rose and fell and Kristen thought she heard the faintest catch. That was when she realized that there
was
more to Mitch’s reaction. His face had paled, but due to the festive ambient lighting—beer
advertisements and chili pepper lights—she hadn’t noticed. Sweat appeared on his upper lip. Okay, she couldn’t do that, but the breath thing was good.

And then he raised his eyes to hers and her breath caught for real.

Pain. Deep pain. There was no life in his eyes, which dominated his face. They were huge and dark and his skin was putty-colored in between flashes of the blinking red-and-yellow neon beer sign.

But his eyes would always haunt her. Such overwhelming pain in them. No denial, no bitterness, no anger—not yet.

Just soul-searing pain.

Kristen was deeply disgusted with herself. How could she have treated Mitch’s feelings as an acting tutorial? Looking at his face made her stomach queasy.

She wanted to ease the pain, but what could she say? What was there to say? The only good thing about this was that as awful he felt, Mitch now knew the truth and could take steps to protect himself.

Chapter Seven

The silence stretched until Kristen couldn’t stand it. “I’d hoped I was wrong,” she finally murmured. Mitch probably didn’t hear her.

But he must have picked up the sentiment because he closed his eyes, inhaled and tilted his chin slightly.

When he opened his eyes, his expression had hardened. Anger and self-loathing had mixed with the pain. “I’ve been a prize-winning, gold-medal sucker.”

“No—” Kristen started.

“Yes. When I look at you, I see pity. Just what every red-blooded man wants to see in the eyes of a hot
chiquita
.”

“That’s not pity. It’s empathy.”

“Sure, it is.” His mouth twisted. “I suppose you got a good laugh out of this.”

“I never laughed and I never felt like laughing.” Kristen hoped this wasn’t going to turn into a kill-the-messenger situation.

“I’ll bet Jeremy’s laughing.”

“We already know Jeremy’s a jerk.”

“He must not be able to believe his luck. He got a
partner who did all the grunt work and never thought to check up on him. When Jeremy came up with some idea that stretched legal boundaries or even
appeared
dicey, I’d tell him why we shouldn’t do it. Sure, he’d grumble, but we either compromised or he’d agree to drop it. It never occurred to me to make sure he did.” Shaking his head, Mitch stared at the papers spread in front of him. “How stupid was that? Stupid, stupid, incredibly stupid.”

Kristen signaled their waiter. “I’m ordering you another margarita.”

“I don’t want another margarita.”

“It’ll numb the sting. I’ll drive.”

“Oh, this is so much more than a sting. This is a stab in the back.” Mitch illustrated with the table knife.

“Another margarita,” Kristen said as the waiter approached. “And hurry.”

“Cancel that,” Mitch snarled.

She turned to him. “Mitch…”

“Tequila shot. Limes,” he ordered.

Well, all right then. “Efficiency is good.” She wondered if he’d actually ever drunk a tequila shot before.

Mitch slumped against the padded vinyl back of the booth and stared at her across the table.

Kristen was encouraged to see that the raw pain in his eyes had been replaced by anger. Fortunately, it wasn’t the boiling-over-punch-the-wall-and-break-a-hand anger. She imagined he was mentally reviewing everything he’d been doing lately and looking at Jeremy’s activities through a different lens.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” he said.

“I’m a designated driver. Not a babysitter.”

The waiter rushed over with a shot glass of tequila, salt and a dish of limes. “Wait,” Mitch instructed.

Deftly, he licked his hand, poured salt on it, licked it off, downed the shot and bit into a lime wedge. “Another one and make it El Tesoro Platinum this time. I don’t want a hangover.”

“
Si, señor
.” The waiter actually bowed.

Kristen raised an eyebrow. This was an interesting development. It appeared that Mitch wasn’t as blandly vanilla as she’d thought. Good to know.

Mitch resumed staring at her, all affability gone from his expression. His eyes were harder, his jaw was set and his slouch gave off a sullen vibe.

There was no bewildered whipped-puppy air about him.

The man had been done wrong and he was barely containing his rage. “So tell me what the club bit was all about earlier.”

“Just making sure your hands were clean,” Kristen told him.

He made a disgusted sound and reached for the salt and lime when he saw the waiter approach. “I’m flattered you thought I had enough brain power to be involved.” He picked up the tequila shot directly from the tray before the waiter could set it on the table. Slamming this shot back with the same smooth proficiency as the first, he returned the glass to the tray and waved away a third.

And how hot was that? Hot enough that Kristen wished she were sitting on the same side of the booth so she could kiss some of that salt and lime and tequila
and tongue into her mouth. Oh, yeah. Mr. Vanilla Nice Guy had left the building. This guy was pure Rocky Road.

She was supposed to be taking a break from the aptly named Rocky Road types. She was not supposed to be listening to the immature part of her that found brooding bad boys appealing.

But Mitch wasn’t a bad boy. He was a nice guy with experience. Hey, a new combo. She liked it. A lot. How messed up was that? Mitch’s life had blown up in his face and Kristen found his reaction hot.

This was so not about her.

Except he was looking at her. No,
looking
wasn’t the right word…. Watching? Waiting? For what? For her to say something? Do something? If he kept staring at her that way, she was going to crawl across the table and—

“I’m in real trouble,” he finally said.

At least he acknowledged it. Kristen made herself ignore his hotness factor and be supportive. “That’s what lawyers are for. And at least you’ll be able to provide this information so—”

“I am in real trouble because no one will believe that I could have been so stupid.” He grimaced in disgust.

“Please stop beating yourself up.”

“I’m not beating myself up.”

“Then stop using the word
stupid
.”

“Kristen.” Mitch straightened and leaned forward, lacing his fingers together on top of the table. His knuckles were white. He spoke slowly as though lecturing a child. “Even the most junior bank teller is trained to recognize this. I have a masters degree in business and accounting. I’m half owner of a company
that invests and manages other people’s money. I have years of experience. There is no government investigator, no jury, no judge anywhere who will believe that I was totally unaware of what’s going on.”