My Sinful Love (Sinful Men Book 4) Page 17

  Until now.

  Because I’d wanted to get home to sleep in my own bed next to my wife. So I’d gunned the engine.

  I lowered the window, trying to put on my best just an average fella smile. A working joe, just like the trooper. Because I was.

  Boots crunched over the gravel on the side of the road.

  “Afternoon,” the officer said, his voice cool, his eyes obscured behind aviator shades. “License and registration, please.”

  “Sorry about that, sir. I was going a little too fast,” I said, opting for patent honesty, hoping it might do the trick.

  “Yeah, I’d say,” the officer remarked, humorless. The young man studied me from behind his sunglasses, then whipped them off. I felt naked and exposed, and I blinked several times, unsure of why I was under such scrutiny. The trooper scrubbed a hand over his chin as I reached for my wallet in the center console. It slipped from my fingers, and I gripped it more steadily, shaking my head. Damn, I needed to get some sleep.

  I fished in my wallet, then handed the cop my ID.

  The cop raised his chin. His mouth curved up, and his eyes narrowed as he glanced from the ID to me, then back again.

  “Funny thing, Mr. Doyle,” the cop began in a drawl. He clucked his tongue and tapped his finger on the ID. “Your eyes don’t look so bloodshot in this photo.”

  I sat bolt upright. “Come again?”

  The cop cocked his head. “You been drinking? Smoking maybe? You look like you might have been enjoying some substances.”

  My jaw tightened, and I shook my head, fear prickling along my skin. “No, sir.” I’d never done that, never would. But when the cop’s eyes roamed the car, spotting my bag in the back seat, the man arched an eyebrow. “What have you got in there?”

  “Just my stuff.”

  “What were you up to? Where have you been?”

  “Visiting my sister. In California.”

  “In California?” His eyebrows rose, like it was so ridiculous an Irishman might have a sister in the States.

  “We moved here with our parents when we were teenagers,” I said. “Never lost the accent.”

  “Fascinating,” he said, his tone telling me it wasn’t fascinating at all, and he was clearly doubting me.

  He tipped his forehead to the back seat. “Mind if I have a look?”

  “What are you looking for, may I ask?” My voice was etched with worry, nerves skating over my skin.

  “Whatever you’re on,” the cop said smugly.

  I held up my hands, heart thumping wildly. “I’m not on anything. I swear.”

  Doubtful eyes stared back at me. “You were swerving in and out of the lanes like you’re drunk or high. Your eyes are bloodshot.”

  “I’m just tired. Been driving a lot. Trying to get home and sleep in my own bed.”

  “If you’re just tired, you won’t mind if I have a look around.”

  My stomach plummeted. “Go ahead,” I said, trying to sound like I wasn’t terrified.

  Five minutes later, the cop gave me a sharp, knowing stare. “You want to start talking about what you’re transporting across state lines?”

  For more than eighteen years, I had been making these runs. I’d been flawless. I hadn’t asked questions. I hadn’t wanted to know. I’d simply taken the packages and brought them to the addresses I’d been given.

  I’d never been pulled over, never been questioned. And now, four months from retirement, I was nabbed.

  That was just my luck.

  For the first time, I felt the cold grip of fear that the authorities would find out everything I’d done.

  44

  Michael

  The grocery store. The piano shop. His house.

  That was what the private detective had said Luke Carlton’s daily life consisted of.

  Since Annalise had returned to Paris and I was back in Vegas, I narrowed my focus on the investigation and conducted some recon of my own.

  I pulled into the parking lot at Luke’s regular grocery store on his usual evening to shop. Maybe it was an act of desperation. But hell, this guy was slippery. And I didn’t care for slippery. I wanted the man to be caught. Put behind bars. Locked the fuck up.

  Maybe I could find a clue. The detail that would tip the scales on the side of justice. I sat in my car and waited, like I was the private eye.

  And hell, if this job didn’t suck.

  But Luke was like clockwork, and at six p.m., he walked through the front doors of the store. I got out of my car and kept a decent pace behind him, clenching my fists.

  How could that man—that Royal Sinner—have such an ordinary, average life?

  Luke pushed a cart through the aisles, buying bananas, a whole chicken, some cereal, toilet paper, potato chips, orange juice, and a can of white beans.

  Each aisle Luke wandered down, I was tempted to confront the fucker. To grab him by the collar of his short-sleeve button-down shirt, slam him against the canned peas, and ask him what the fuck he had done eighteen years ago. How he’d gotten away with it. How he was still getting away with everything.

  But somewhere between the bathroom supplies and the salty snacks, I slowed my pursuit and tamped down the treacherous ball of anger inside me. Talking to Luke, confronting Luke, spitting on the man’s face—none of that would help solve the crime. Those would only serve to mess with the investigation. To tip him off.

  I turned around, marched to my car, and yanked open the door. Once inside, I dropped my head to the steering wheel and cursed up a blue streak.

  When I looked up, Luke was depositing grocery bags in the trunk of his car a few rows over. Shrugging, I decided to follow him when he left. Keeping a reasonable distance, I drove behind him for a few miles on a long stretch of road, stopping at traffic lights, never going above the speed limit. Luke turned into a strip mall, and I followed too, watching as the man parked and headed into a piano shop.

  The bastard probably needed more sheet music.

  I loathed him for that too.

  For his boring fucking life.

  Work consumed me. The next few days roared by in a sea of trouble, triage, and shitstorms. I’d been called to one of the financial firms that employed us for private security to deal with some threats against the building. Then Ryan and I tackled an issue with one of our banks involving an attempted robbery of an armed vehicle. Bad mojo was going around daily, and I was tense, poised for the next shoe to drop. It was like one of those weeks where bad things happen in threes.

  The next one would come any second . . .

  And it happened on a Thursday night.

  We were working late at the office when the call came. I answered the office line on speaker. “Michael Sloan here.”

  “Hey, Mr. Sloan. We had more gang trouble at White Box.” It was our on-the-ground guy at the club.

  I groaned as Ryan looked up from some contracts.

  “What happened?”

  “Actually, it all worked out,” the man said, and I breathed more easily as my guy recounted what went down. “Some dude from the Royal Sinners tried to solicit one of the dancers.”

  “But that happens all the time at a club,” I pointed out as Ryan nodded silently, following along.

  “True. But he wasn’t just trying to get her to go home with him. He wanted her to be part of a prostitution ring.”

  “Jesus,” I said, seething.

  “But don’t worry. We handled it. Threw the guy out.”

  “Good,” Ryan chimed in.

  “Thanks for the heads-up. Glad it was all taken care of,” I said, and when I hung up, I met Ryan’s eyes.

  We were thinking the same thing.

  “We should go there and touch base. Check in,” Ryan said.

  I nodded. White Box was far too important a client.

  Fifteen minutes later, we walked through the main doors and quickly found Curtis and Charlie at the sleek silver bar. Women in next to nothing danced onstage, and scantily clad waitresses delivere
d highballs and scotches, as low techno music thumped through the club. Patrons lounged on red velvet couches, mostly businessmen, judging by the sheer number of suits and ties. In the far corner, a group of men puffed on expensive cigars in the smoking lounge.

  “Everything work out okay?” Ryan asked after saying hello to Curtis and clapping Charlie on the back.

  “All good now,” Charlie said, then huffed in frustration. “I can’t stand those street thugs trying to recruit the women here. That’s not the business we’re in.” He counted off on his fingers. “They are dancers, plain and simple. And my dancers are salaried. They have health insurance. I even have a retirement plan for them. That isn’t how I run this place. They aren’t ladies of the night.”

  “Sorry that happened,” I said.

  Charlie waved me off. “No apologies needed. It comes with the territory. But I will be breathing easier at night when the authorities finally break up the gangs. What do you think we can do as private business owners to combat the problem?”

  I eyed Ryan, and a look passed between us. These guys were speaking our language. We loved having a client who cared so much, who wanted the same things we did.

  We spent the next thirty minutes strategizing, brainstorming, and discussing best practices for private citizens and companies to handle the problem.

  When we were through, Curtis glanced at his boss, and Charlie nodded, giving him permission to say what was on his mind.

  “This is why we want to do more work with you,” Curtis said. “We want you to handle security for our clubs in Phoenix, Dallas, and Miami.”

  More business sounded good, so I took Ryan out for a celebratory round of poker and beer afterward. That was a welcome end to a shitty work week.

  With so much trouble still on the streets, we decided it made sense for us to start carrying again. We both had concealed weapons permits and knew how to be safe. With crime on the uptick, it was a necessary precaution.

  I said goodbye to my brother. As Ryan headed home to his bride-to-be, a pang of sadness hit me. I was happy for Ryan, and I also couldn’t help but want that for myself.

  With one woman in particular.

  As I arrived home, my phone buzzed. It was Friday morning in France, and there was a note from Annalise lighting up my screen.

  45

  Annalise

  I ran my finger over the computer screen, tracing the contour of my own body. I’d turned the image of myself on a hotel bed into an arty black-and-white photograph. In it, I looked at the photographer out of the corner of one eye, one knee raised, hair spilling down my back.

  From my desk by the floor-to-ceiling window in my apartment, I adjusted the contrast a bit more, then I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and studied the screen.

  Trying to understand more fully what I was seeing.

  What I was feeling.

  Here in this photo, I felt . . . like myself again. For the first time. So odd that a nude photo, a shot of me turned on beyond all reason, would make me feel that way.

  Like I knew who I was once more.

  Like I knew myself again.

  But it did, only it wasn’t entirely because of me.

  I moved closer, the world narrowing to this image and me.

  Another look. Another angle.

  And then, in a burst of understanding I knew.

  I felt like myself again because of Michael.

  Because he was the one who’d seen this photo. And more so, because he was the one who’d seen me.

  And that meant everything.

  Because he was the one I wanted to share myself with.

  And my God, I hadn’t felt that in ages.

  But I did. I felt it with him, that desire to share.

  Myself.

  My past, my present, and perhaps my future with him.

  I pushed away from my chair and roamed around my flat, a flare of energy igniting me. It was as if I was understanding the world again.

  And I needed to move.

  To go beyond this small space, these walls.

  To drink in the city around me.

  An idea seized me, and in minutes my purse was slung on my shoulder, flats were on my feet, and the metro was rattling its way to one of my favorite spots in the city. One of the passages of Paris.

  I got off the train, lifting my face to the sky, then looking around.

  Everywhere. Just looking.

  Taking in Paris anew.

  All the places I loved.

  In the passage I headed to a map shop, stopping outside the window to stare at the vast collection of maps of the world. I’d always loved history and geography. That was one of the reasons I’d become a photojournalist. To see the big world beyond this city. I ran my finger over a map in the window, tracing a line over Italy, to Turkey, over to Singapore . . . all the places I’d been.

  I looked at my watch. I was due at my mother’s in two hours to help her with dinner and to fix her broken sink. That gave me time to walk past some of my old haunts.

  My city.

  My home.

  I strolled past a café I loved, stopping for an espresso, savoring every sip, as I watched my countrymen and women stroll by, laughing, arguing, loving. I paid the check, then tapped my regular table for good luck. I wandered across my favorite bridge on the Seine, marveling at the gray ribbon of water that snaked through Paris, then along the antique shops and art dealers near the Musée d’Orsay, one of my most beloved spots in the city, and past the sidewalk dealers by the river, peddling postcards.

  Everything I adored.

  Everything I’d barely noticed lately.

  But I was seeing it all again.

  Almost for the first time.

  And as I took in the familiar and the new, I was struck with another flash of clarity.

  I wanted to share this city with Michael.

  It was good to feel again. Good to want again. Good to live and share and maybe even love again.

  When I arrived at my mother’s later that afternoon, I knocked then let myself in. She was reading a book on her couch and when she saw me she set down the book and greeted me with a hug and a warm hello. “How was your day, mon petit papillon?”

  “It was completely necessary,” I answered, and my mother raised an eyebrow at my response.

  “I took myself on a tour of Paris,” I explained.

  “Ah, did you see the Arc de Triomphe?” she teased.

  I laughed, then gathered carrots and potatoes from her fridge, chopping them as I talked. “I saw the places I used to love. Places I wasn’t sure I could love again.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Just places?”

  “They’re more than places,” I said, because they were.

  “I had a feeling you were going to say something like that.”

  “Places I want to share. Places I want to go. The ones I saw today and others.” I set down the knife and clasped her hands, my heart expanding in my chest, cracking open. Everything I hadn’t fully accepted in New York, I was accepting here. And it felt incredible to understand my heart, why it was thundering in my chest. And to tell someone. In a way, it was fitting to tell my mother first. She’d been wanting my happiness for my whole life. “I want to feel again, Maman. Everything.”

  Her smile brimmed with love. “You will. Perhaps you already are.”

  We talked more as I finished dinner, then fixed the sink, chatting about the news of the day. Later, I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I stretched, brushed my teeth, and said goodbye.

  Outside, as the sun rose in the Paris sky, I snapped a photo of a coffee éclair in a bakery window. Then I sent a message with it to Michael.

  Annalise: Are coffee éclairs on your hell-no list too? Wait. Don’t tell me. I want to discover all the things about you I don’t know. I want to share this city with you. I want to learn what you love. Will you let me?

  46

  Michael

  As we finished a quick early
walk-through of Ryan and Sophie’s ceremony, slated for next month at Mandalay Bay’s outdoor terrace, my cell phone buzzed, and my new Pavlovian response kicked in, a dart of lust flaring in me.

  My phone had been glued to my side since I’d left New York, but even more so after Annalise’s note the other night. That note. It was a window opening and sunshine pouring in, and of course I’d said yes. In the last couple of days, there’d been a shift in our communication back-and-forth. She sent me sweet little messages throughout the day, and often included photos too, pictures of her life in Paris. And she captioned them all.

  In French.

  I answered them. In French.

  That wasn’t all though. She also gave really good naked Skype strip shows. The best, actually. Last night, for instance, she’d shown me precisely how a cheektini looked on her succulent ass. She’d modeled no less than a dozen, sliding them on, gliding them off.

  I missed seeing her, holding her, but I was okay with how things were. Because at least we had something. I didn’t try to define it, or pressure her for more. Just voicing my own feelings on the street before she left had been enough for now. I was no longer carrying that hard knot of tension inside me, that secret knowledge that I was a man wildly in love with a woman. My feelings were out in the open, and somehow that made things better, especially when she sent her note. I want to discover all the things about you I don’t know.

  But as I pulled my phone from my pocket, it was my private investigator’s name that flashed across the screen. It had been a quiet several days on that front since I’d returned from New York, but Morris had messaged me the other day to say that he had some leads and hoped to get some solid intel soon.

  Soon couldn’t come fast enough, especially after my pointless pursuit of Luke several nights ago.

  “Michael,” the man said in a gruff, gravelly tone befitting a PI. “I got something for you.”

  I straightened and glanced over at Ryan and Sophie, who were wrapped up in each other, laughing, whispering. They probably wouldn’t care that I was busy on the phone. I walked away from them and down the aisle that would be covered in peach tulip petals for the wedding.