MisMatch (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (12 page)

And lord knew nothing appealed to her more
than someone to corrupt. But he was an artist and thereby
incorruptible. He’d probably corrupt her.

Loud ringing on the dash snapped her
attention back to the road.
Izzy
.

She pushed the answer phone button on the
dashboard. “What up, home skillet? How’s trix?”

“Home skil—? You know what, never mind.”
Izzy sounded confused, but that was the norm when Jess slipped into
slang. “How did the meeting go? You didn’t kill him or anything,
did you? Is there a body to move?”

Jessica chuckled. “Nah, no body, though he
totally riled me up and left me hanging.”

“Explain riled you up. Did you two…erm.”

Jessica sighed. She sure as hell wished they
had. Maybe he was just one of those guys she had to get of her
system. “No. Though not for lack of trying, I guess.”

“Oh boy. I thought you were strictly in the
no-go area with him?”

“You’ve seen him. How the hell am I supposed
to ignore him with that face and that body?”

“You’ve got to be careful, honey. You’re the
one who gave me the personal and professional rule. Though might I
remind you, you encouraged me to break it with Jason. Just
sayin’.”

“I know. I know. For something like this, I
just want it to be above board. He’s my first major client. I don’t
want that getting all tangled. He’s super talented. I mean like
scary talented.”

***

An hour after Jessica arrived at the studio,
she was back at work, resigned to finding ways to get rid of Samson
as a client.

A shadow danced over the photos Jessica
inspected with a magnifying glass. She was sifting through the list
of possibilities for Izzy’s next show. Once she selected her
favorites, the two of them would haggle over which ones they would
use. She didn’t look up. She’d known who it was the moment he’d
walked into the room. Samson. The scent of sandalwood and musk
enveloped her. The crackle of tension simmered between them.

Her body was playing tricks on her, and she
wasn’t in the mood. “Is there something I can do for you,
Samson?”

He cleared his throat. “How about I start
with an apology?”

She peered up at him through her blue wig.
“Are you serious right now? You’re changing our Facebook status
back to it’s complicated?”

He smirked. “I—guess I’ve sort of
complicated things.”

Jessica stood, folding her arms across her
breasts, wishing she hadn’t taken off her three-inch heels. She
could have used the extra inches for added power. “Look, Samson, we
both know this is a bad idea. Sometimes there’s this weird
attraction that fucks with my mind at least. You, maybe not so
much. But it will get in the way of us working together.”

His eyes flared, and she studied him. He
looked the same. Same towering height. Startling jade green eyes.
Mussed, wavy hair that looked like he’d put some gel in to make it
stick out a little. Same full lips that looked like they were made
for kissing. But there was a tension around his mouth, like he was
holding something back. She wanted to know what it was, but she
needed a complication like she needed a hole in the head. Absently,
she tongued her lip where her lip ring should be. Okay, like she
needed another hole in the head.

“Jess, I need you for my career. You’re
already doing more for me than I had any right to hope.” The pain
and yearning in his eyes almost broke her heart. Maybe he felt like
his budding success was a fluke.

He dropped the timber of his voice. “I can’t
afford to lose that. The rest we can figure out. Do you feel the
chemistry now?”

Frowning, not sure of where he was going
with this, she nodded. “Yeah.” Chuckling, she added, “You’re pretty
as hell to look at, and that body, well, I won’t lie, it’s
nice.”

He smiled ruefully. “Figures. I don’t know
what happened at the studio, but I think the best way for us to
deal is to spend a little time together. Get to know each other.
Decrease the heat with a little familiarity. It’ll all even out. I
need you as my manager. The rest, we’ll keep nice and causal.
Nothing serious to freak either one of us out.”

She chewed on her lip as she thought. The
burning compulsion to strip him down naked right this second made
her fingers twitch. But he was also easy to be with. Still
taciturn, but somehow open to her. She liked this Samson. It still
wasn’t a good idea to mix business and pleasure though. “Samson, I
still don’t think—”

He didn’t let her finish. “C’mon, Jess. Be
the risk taker I know you are. Just say yes. And look, I promise I
won’t lay a hand on you until you ask me to.”

This was a colossally bad idea.
Very, very bad
. But then, no one had ever accused her
of being careful. “Okay. We can try hanging out.”

He frowned, then asked, “Could I ask you to
do me one more favor?”

“You know you’re pushing your luck now,
right?”

“It’s a small one.”

“What is it?”

“Could you call me Eli instead? It’s my, uh,
middle name. Samson is the name that goes on the art, but it isn’t
me.”

Eli strolled into Vince’s office without
knocking. “Hey, Vince, I think I have a lead on our forgers.”

Vince dropped the file he was looking at
onto his desk. “Now I know how you feel when I barge into your
office. Not sure I like it.”

Eli smirked. “This place is a dump.” There
were stacks of papers everywhere and several empty coffee mugs. Not
to mention one dead ficus plant by the window.

“Whatever.” Vince plopped down in his seat,
and the old, tattered roll-along squealed in protest. “Not all of
us can have fancy digs, you know. Some of us actually work for a
living.”

Elis leaned against the door. “Someone’s
cranky today.”

“Yeah, and you'll hear all about it. But you
go first. You almost look chipper.”

“So, I was talking to Samson.”

Vince's eyes brightened, then he
interrupted. “You know, you still haven’t caught me up on that hot
bad girl from the club, but I guess that can wait.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, Samson said we
need to check for areas where the paint is thicker, or look for
some kind of consistent marking in the canvases. Something like a
watermark or something. Maybe something sewn into the canvas as
well.”

“I don't get it. What are we looking
for?”

“Our signature. Remember how I was saying
there has to be something to tie them all together? If it's not the
actual crime, then it has to be the paintings. Now, as for the
forgeries of the jewelry and sculptures pieces, I still don’t have
anywhere to go on those.”

Vince rubbed his jaw. “You want my techs to
do the tests, or do you want to do them yourself?” When Eli just
raised an eyebrow, Vince chuckled. “Yeah okay, I’ll have someone
bring them from evidence to the lab so you can check them out.”

“Okay, your turn. What's causing your
personality change today?”

“Nothing like overlooking something to bring
the bear out to play.”

“What did we miss?”

“Not we,
I
. It's
something
I
missed.”

His partner might seem like a happy-go-lucky
guy’s guy, but he was too conscientious to miss something by
mistake. “What is it?”

Vince whirled around and grabbed a stack of
files off his desk. “This stack here is a list of open cases for
the last six years or so. Basic con man stuff. The Romeo
one—elderly fellow courts and scams poor rich widow. It’s that case
I told you about. We’ve never able to catch the guy. He works with
an accomplice. He moves to town, courts a string of women, usually
keeping only two on his roster. The women learn about each other
then start trying to one-up the other to try and keep him.”

Eli snorted. “Are you serious?”

Vince shrugged. “This guy has cars, boats,
even a house or two. Then he mysteriously falls ill, his daughter
tells the women he’s passed away. Once, there was even an actual
funeral. Then, he and the supposed daughter move on to their next
city. “

“Let me guess, the daughter would act
concerned about his estate, and the women would insist that she
keep everything that had been given to her father.”

“You guessed it. New York, Miami, DC, Palm
Beach, Chicago, shoot, we even have Interpol working with us on a
similar case in London.”

“Okay, what does this have to do with our
current case?”

“We had a priceless Tomas Ekker reported as
forged yesterday by Milton Insurance.”

“I’ve heard of them. They tried to recruit
me a few years ago.”

“Yeah, well, they called because they'd
heard about our Millionaire Doubles case.”

Eli rubbed the back of his neck. “Let me
guess, the fake Ekker is a damn near match for the real thing.
Which the rich widow had authenticated at auction or
something.”

“Bingo.” Vince scrubbed his face.

“Okay, someone conned the widow with a fake.
We don’t know if it was our con man and his daughter.”

“I thought the same thing, so then we
started calling each of our other victims. Three out of our eleven
cases reported forgeries to smaller insurance agencies. The other
victims are checking. Want to bet money that they come up with
forgeries, too?”

“Holy fuck,” Eli muttered. “You think Romeo
is giving our victims gifts of forged artwork?”

“That’s right. I had local field offices fax
over the last known images of our Lothario. He’s very careful.
Always changing his appearance. But here it is.” Vince slid a photo
across the desk to Eli.

Eli studied it. White male, probably
somewhere between fifty-eight and seventy. Fit. White hair,
thinning on top, but still mostly all there. Shrewd eyes. Straight
patrician nose. Handsome with an air of sophistication. Probably
what made him an excellent con man. “Okay, I’ll work my black
market contacts.”

“We've got no actual photos of his
accomplice.”

“This will do for now. At least we have
something to work with.”

***

Jessica trailed a finger over the edge of
her phone. Trying not to call Eli took effort. It wasn’t like she
couldn’t just email him with the details. Her mother had decided
she was speaking to her again—joy—and she had invited Samson to one
of her artist salons, as she called it. Who had salons anymore?
Honestly. Pretty much, her mother wanted to have a fancy party to
show her friends that she knew some talented people. No doubt her
idiotic boyfriend would be there.

Jessica cracked her neck as she warded off
her nerves. “Don’t be a moron. You’re not calling him for a date.”
It was a work-related call, so why did she feel like she was asking
him to the Sadie Hawkins dance?

Jessica glared at her iPhone as she hit the
send button. There was still time to rethink her decision. It
hadn’t started to ring yet. Last chance for cowardice. Her thumb
hovered over the end button, but she couldn’t press it. Instead,
Eli’s clear baritone came over the airwaves.

“Jessica? I was just thinking about
you.”

It was not a good idea to let his voice get
to her. If she did, she’d be crawling back into bed for another go
round with her B.O.B., and she’d already proven that, like the
song, “ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.”

“Uh, hi, Eli.”

A beat of silence. Okay. Awkward. She had no
idea what to say, and he was taciturn enough to keep his mouth shut
and force her to do all the talking.

“So uh, I need to do this dinner thing at my
mom’s. It’s a good way to network with other artists, and there
will be some potential buyers there as well.”

Another beat of silence. Eli’s voice pitched
lower. “So, like a date.”

Jessica swallowed hard. “No. Not like a
date, exactly. More like a work thing for you. But I’ll be there,
and we’ll be spending some time together to uh, let things with us
fizzle out.” God, did that sound as awkward to him as it did to
her? “Look, this thing between us is way intense, and I’m not used
to acting like this with a guy. You make me—” she struggled for the
right word. “Restless, and itchy, and I don’t know what to do about
it, except go back for more rounds with my battery operated
boyfriend, and frankly, since that first night, it’s just not
cutting it, not even Mammoth, and I
love
Mammoth.”

Eli’s voice was a low growl on the other
end. “Fuck, Jessica, you can’t tell me shit like that. I’m already
a hanging on by a thread, and I can’t work.”

The business side of her brain kicked in. He
still had to finish a painting for the exhibit. “Damn, Eli, this is
what I was afraid of. Either of us getting in the way of what the
other has to do.”

Eli hesitated. “No, I know. I’m painting, of
course. I just can’t focus on it.”

“Oh, right,” she mumbled. Searching for a
way to ease the conversation, she started in on the reason she
called. “So dinner? I promise it’ll be informal and low key.
Besides, she wants to actually meet the artist she’s heard so much
about.”

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Wait, just like that?”

“It’s pretty simple—I want to see you. Even
if it is at your mother’s house. Doesn’t matter to me.”

There it was, that frank honesty again. No
games. Would she ever get used to this? “You are such a
contradiction. The controlled artist. Effortlessly charming one
second and brooding the next. And then just plain honest about what
you’re thinking. It’s pretty addictive.”

“Sassy,” his voice was smooth and silky.
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”

***

Eli shifted in his chair. Mia Stanton Waal
Chambers Berber had managed to have him seated directly on her
right. He was unaccustomed to being in the hot seat. Hell, he
couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on the spot in front of a
woman’s parents. College?
Maybe
. As a
rule, nothing flustered him, but for some reason, sitting here next
to Mia Stanton, he was starting to sweat.