Temptation in Shadows (3 page)

“Nice of him,” Rowan said with a laugh.

Bill grinned. “Wasn’t it, though? We’ve had an agent inside for two weeks, a female, but she hasn’t had much luck. Gabrielle keeps to herself. We think a boyfriend can get her to open up and ease her into helping us.” There at the end, his gaze had zeroed in on Rowan.

“Me? Again?” Rowan asked, pointing at his chest. He was grinning. While he wasn’t attracted to Gabby, he liked variety and sex—however and whenever he could get it. “Is it Christmas already?”

Sean wasn’t surprised the blond had been chosen as the romancer. Like every Rose Briar agent, Rowan possessed an unnatural ability, and it sure as hell beat the shit out of Sean’s. Sean could manipulate the shadows. Rowan could read a woman’s desires—and give her exactly what she craved—without her ever saying a word. Gabrielle Huit wouldn’t stand a chance.

And that did not cause every muscle in Sean’s body to clench with anger. It didn’t. Really.

“You are to be a rich, up-and-coming entrepreneur,” Bill told the agent.

“Easy. But what do you think this Gabrielle will like?” Rowan rubbed two fingers over his stubbled jaw. “Well, besides this beautiful face of mine.”

Bill strode to the table against the far wall, lifted several sheets of paper, and handed them to Rowan. “Bentley, our woman on the inside, compiled a profile
on what she thinks the target will prefer in a man. Gabrielle is disgusted by the club’s patrons, thinks they are cheaters and liars. She enjoys lattes, but doesn’t often venture into coffee shops. Too many pervs with laptops, I suppose. Therefore, you will be as un-pervy as possible. You will drink coffee and be sensitive. Maybe pretend to read poetry and that kind of shit. Oh, and if she thinks you’re interested in marriage, even better. That might prove how trustworthy you are.”

Rowan’s grin never wavered. “I’ll put love quizzes and letters to my mom on a laptop and make sure the thing is on when I call her into my office for a chat with the new boss.”

“And my job?” Sean asked.

“Eyes and ears,” Bill said. “To everyone else, you’re the hired muscle. That way, it won’t seem odd that you’re always around, digging into everyone’s business, while protecting Rowan and his employees. And yeah, you’ll need to protect Gabrielle. We don’t think anyone else knows who she is or what she can do, but secrets have a way of getting out. . . .”

Two days later, Sean finally found himself face-to-face with Gabrielle Huit. Rowan was at his desk, drinking a cup of coffee he didn’t really like, with his laptop in front of him and conveniently turned on. Sean stood behind him, and Gabrielle sat in front of him, back ramrod straight, shoulders squared, and face expressionless.

In person, there was nothing mousy about her. Her brown hair was like silk, gleaming in the light.
Her eyes were honey and cinnamon, just as Sean had supposed, only he hadn’t noticed the length and thickness of her lashes, framing those eyes and giving them a take-my-panties-off-with-your-teeth tilt. Her nose was small, dainty, her cheekbones just a little rounded. Her lips were lush and pink, and her skin a deep gold. And she
did
have freckles. A smattering on her nose.

Rowan would get to trace then when he bedded her.

Sean’s hands fisted at his sides.

“I’m so glad to meet you, Gabrielle,” Rowan said, his voice as smooth as scotch. “As I mentioned during the staff meeting, my name is Rowan Patrick and I’m the new owner of Eye Candy. The man behind me is Sean Walker, bodyguard, bouncer, and friend. Now, before we begin, can Sean get you anything? A delicious cup of coffee, perhaps?”

A moment passed. Gabrielle didn’t speak or even twitch in her seat. She simply sat there, silent and still. Was she downloading the files in Rowan’s computer even now?

Her brow furrowed; then a few seconds later a smile was lifting the corners of her mouth. Yep. She’d just opened the files. Question now was whether or not she liked what she’d found.

“Gabrielle,” Rowan said when her expression once again cleared.

“What?” She blinked, shook her head. “Oh. Sorry. Please, call me Gabby.”

Sean liked the sound of her voice. A little raspy, a lot seductive.

“Would you like that coffee, Gabby? I always have coffee around, I just love it so much,” Rowan said.
“Or would you rather have something to relax you? You look nervous. Sean’s happy to fetch anything you desire.”

Of course he was. He was the lowly bodyguard/ errand boy.

“No, thank you,” she said, her gaze flicking to Sean. It didn’t remain on him for more than a few seconds, but he felt the heat of it all the way to the bone. “I’m fine.”

Rowan sipped from his cup. “Well, there’s no reason to be nervous, I assure you. This is just an informal meeting for us to get to know each other.”

She didn’t shift, didn’t even twitch. “I’m not nervous.”

“Oh. Well, good.” Rowan waited for her to say something else, but she never did. With a sigh, he ran a finger down the paper in front of him. “Your file says you’ve been working here for six months.”

“That’s right.”

There was another long pause as they waited for her to elaborate. Again, she didn’t.

Rowan settled back in his seat. “What’d you do before coming here?”

They already knew the answers because they’d done an extensive background check on her,
and
her aliases, but they wanted to, one, see if she’d lie and two, get her to open up.

“I waitressed for another club.”

Truth. But just as before, she offered nothing extra.

Rowan ran his tongue over his teeth and laced his hands at his middle. He frowned. Was probably frustrated. Females usually offered him their panties at this point.

“So . . . do you like working here?” Rowan asked.

“Yes.”

Sean’s lips twitched.

Suddenly Gabby’s gaze lifted and locked with his, brown against blue. He knew she saw amusement in his. He saw . . . nothing in hers. Her expression remained completely unreadable.

He wasn’t disappointed. Really. At least Rowan was striking out, as well.

Hey, you’re supposed to
want
him to succeed.

God, what was it about the girl that was screwing with his common sense? He didn’t know her, had never spoken to her, and wasn’t the one who would be sleeping with her. No, he wouldn’t be the one sinking into that soft body, hearing her passion cries in his ears, and riding tide after tide of pleasure.

His hands were clenched again, he realized.

“I want you to be as happy working for me as you were with your former boss.” Rowan lifted a pen and began tapping it against his knee. “If you have any problems, if anyone gives you a hard time about anything, you come to me and I’ll take care of it.”

“I will. Thank you.” She pushed to her feet, the conversation clearly over in her mind.

Rowan didn’t speak as she turned on her heel and strode to the door. Didn’t speak as she opened it, exited, and shut it behind her with a gentle click. Then he swiveled in his chair and leveled Sean with a dark glare.

“What the hell just happened?”

“That’s called a strikeout,” Sean said with a grin. “I’ve never seen you crash and burn like that, my friend.”

“I know. Embarrassing is what it is. I mean, really.”
Rowan tangled his fingers through his hair. “You got a better response than I did.”

“Please, I got nothing, same as you.”

Rowan offered him a sheepish smile. “I know. But I felt the heat pulsing off you the moment she stepped into the office.
Then
I saw the fantasies you were weaving about her and decided to throw you a bone. So you want her, huh?”

Sean lost his grin but managed to shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Unless you picked up on her weaving fantasies about
me
?”

A sigh. “Sorry. Her mind was a blank slate to me. I didn’t pick up on a single thought, emotion, or desire. It’s like she operates on a completely different frequency than the rest of the world.”

She probably did, with all those wires and chips in her head.

“Still,” Rowan continued, “we can call Bill and tell him you’re the one who should be—”

“Nope.” The word burned his tongue, and he hated himself for saying it, but he didn’t take it back. Success was too important. “I don’t exactly inspire trust in the women I date. The opposite, in fact. Something about me makes people distrust my every word and action.” His affiliation with the shadows, with darkness, most likely. They must have sensed it on some level. “You’re better at romancing and I’m better at killing.”

Rowan nodded reluctantly. “I thought I had her when she downloaded my files. She cracked a little bit of a smile.” He shifted thoughtfully. “Even though we’re abnormal ourselves, it’s so weird to think a human can do that. Act like a computer, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Made him wonder what else she could do. What they didn’t know about.

Another sigh. “So what do we do now?”

He didn’t have to think about it. “We do what we’re good at. You work your way into her pants and I eliminate anyone who tries to stop you.” Himself included.

Thursday through Sunday, Gabby worked from 7:00
P.M.
to 3:00
A.M.
, her usual nights and hours. Only difference was, her new boss and his bodyguard. Mr. Patrick was in his office upstairs, standing at the wall of windows that overlooked the entire club, watching her. That shouldn’t have bothered her. He was a handsome man, almost pretty. But bother her it did.

Why? He was the kind of man she usually preferred—on the rare occasions she allowed herself to date, that is. Clean-cut, well mannered, established. He’d had letters to his mom on his laptop, even. Sweet letters. Loving letters. Not many men were that sensitive, and she liked that about him.

But he wasn’t the one who had fascinated her. The moment she’d walked into the office earlier that week, Sean Walker had consumed her attention. He was big and tattooed, his gaze unwavering, his expression etched in constant challenge. There were secrets in his eyes . . . a darkness that should have frightened her.

Unlike Rowan, Sean was the kind of man she usually avoided. Hard, rough around the edges, a fighter. The kind of man that reminded her of her
past, of those nights spent on the streets, alone and scared. Of those days locked in some madman’s laboratory, a lab rat whose head had been shaved, whose skull had been sawed open—whose brain had never been the same.

Hell, her
life
had never been the same. Before releasing her, the asswipe who’d operated on her had given her a warning:
Go to the authorities and spend the rest of your life in someone else’s laboratory. Have your head examined and spend the rest of your life in someone else’s laboratory. Tell someone what was done to you and spend the rest of your life in someone else’s laboratory
.
But if you do the smart thing and tell no one, you’ll keep your freedom.

She hadn’t realized the extent of what had been done to her until years later, when laptops and cell phones became so prevalent. She’d walked into a building and suddenly found file after file opening up in her brain. Private information, photos, password-protected documents.

For several years, she’d assumed she was going crazy and hallucinating—but she’d been too afraid to get help. As if she could ever forget the warning she’d been given. Only when she’d worked on her own computer, trying to write a résumé, had she realized the truth about her ability. Once she’d saved that résumé, it had downloaded into her mind, just as thousands of other files had done, and she’d known it wasn’t a hallucination.

Secrets were hers for the taking. Secrets she didn’t want. Secrets that could bring down an entire nation.

Why the man responsible had let her go, she didn’t know. What he’d hoped to prove, she didn’t know
that, either. She only knew that it had taken nearly a decade to learn how to shield her mind from automatic downloads. Sometimes her firewalls failed her and things seeped in, but for the most part, she now controlled what entered her mind.

Like on Wednesday, when she met her new boss. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d wanted to know what kind of man she would now be working for. Thomas Wayland, former owner, had had his quirks and a violent temper, but he’d left her alone and paid her under the table.

Mr. Patrick refused to pay her in secret, but he wasn’t selling drugs out the back door, either, so she could live with the change. Didn’t mean she’d pay her taxes, though, and put herself on the grid.

“The new boss is
hawt,
isn’t he?”

Gabby turned. Bentley, a waitress like her, pressed up against the bar, unloading the empty beer bottles from her tray. She looked to be Gabby’s age, late twenties, had a short cap of black hair and pretty hazel eyes. Her skin was pale and freckled. She always had a friendly smile, and everyone seemed to like her.

“Sure,” Gabby said, remaining noncommittal. That was always easiest.

“I wonder if he’s available.”

Thankfully, they didn’t have to strain to hear each other. The band and dance floor were enclosed by glass and the bar and tables in a separate room, keeping the music and laughter muted.