Mason had made her hotter with a look than any other man had done with more, and she had to remind herself he was the enemy. A sinfully gorgeous enemy who had a heavy swath of dark hair falling partly down over his brow and intense green eyes. Even his makeup and fangs couldn’t mask his strong jawline and passionate mouth, or his nicely shaped, classic chin.
Moving to the sink, she splashed a little cold water on her face and calmed down somewhat. Her cabaret singer self wondered what it would have been like to sing a song right to Mason, to tempt him the way he was tempting her. What would it be like to be with a man like that?
“This costume is doing things to my brain, apparently,” she whispered to herself, shaking off the fantasy and intending to blend in to the crowd.
Taking a deep breath, she oriented herself in the room and spotted the main hallway that Tracy said led to the back offices. Getting there was a whole different deal—someone stopped her every three feet to praise her performance. When the waiter offered her a drink, she took it, downing the champagne in one shot and grabbing a second for courage.
By the time she reached the hallway on the other side, she was giddy and overly warm, and she had collected three men’s phone numbers—not that she planned on using them, but still … Maybe she’d crash costume parties more often.
Peeking around to make sure she wasn’t seen slipping away, she made her way down the hall and spotted the large double doors that led to the office. Turning the knob, she found the doors were locked, as she expected. Of course her life would never be that easy.
However, Tracy had described a second entrance, off of another hallway—one that only Mason used. Maybe it wasn’t locked, since no one would be in that part of the house.
Exploring some of the pathways off the main hall, she began to get frustrated and worried—how many rooms did this place have? Finally, she saw a small door at the bottom of a set of narrow stairs, and tried that. Voila! It opened, and inside the office sprawled before her.
She might have walked onto the set of a TV legal drama, the set was so classic. Bookcases on every side, lots of leather and a huge desk dominating the center of the room. Several deep, comfortable chairs were placed by the bookshelves and there was a huge grandfather clock in one corner. She wondered if Mason was a traditional guy, or if this was just his professional persona. The way he’d watched her earlier certainly hadn’t been in the least bit staid.
“Okay … so, he must have files, and the pictures would probably be in the files,” she reasoned out loud, heading to several large, wooden file cabinets behind the desk.
“Well, this is a mess—he doesn’t file alphabetically! What the hell?” she cursed under her breath—there was definitely some kind of order to the files, but apparently it was one that only made sense to Mason. How was she supposed to search through all of these for Tracy’s file without knowing how his system worked?
“Dammit!” she cursed again, unsure she was going to be able to save the day for her little sister this time.
Her search lasted only a few minutes when she finally saw Rio’s initials on a folder and she said a quick, thankful prayer.
Yes. There were several photos. Gina yanked them from the file and gasped, shocked to look closer and see her sister standing on a dock in a hot clinch with a strange man. Other pictures revealed more intimate moments, and Gina would have died of embarrassment for her sister if she weren’t so angry. The pictures were incriminating and they exposed far more of Tracy than anyone should see.
But Tracy was involved in much more than a one-night stand. The dates in the lower corner of the photos indicated they had been taken in different locations over a number of weeks. Tracy wanted Gina to help her get rid of the evidence of her affair, and had clearly played on Gina’s sympathies.
What should she do? Tracy was putting Gina in the middle of her divorce power play, pushing her affair with this new man in Rio’s face. She just hadn’t considered the consequences.
Putting the photos back, Gina decided that Tracy was going to have to pay the piper this time and take responsibility for her actions. Gina shoved the folder into the drawer. This was wrong, and she wasn’t going to be part of it. They were adults now, and Gina had to draw the line somewhere.
Her relief was short-lived. It was then that heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, and she heard the dooming slide of a key into the lock of the main doors.
Pushing the drawer quietly shut, she nearly vaulted over the desk and threw herself into a large leather chair in front of it. There was no place to hide and she’d never make it out before whoever it was came in.
The main doors swung open, and Gina’s thoughts raced—what would a sexy cabaret singer do if she was caught someplace she wasn’t supposed to be? Instinctively, she leaned back into the chair, striking what she hoped was a sexy pose. When Mason walked in, she smiled.
“Count—what a nice surprise,” she said in a sultry voice that was husky largely because her throat was closing from fear.
Mason stopped short, staring at her, his eyes narrowed. “The doors were locked. How did you get in here?”
“A lady shouldn’t give away all of her secrets,” she hedged, but as his eyebrow lifted and she could see he wasn’t going to let the issue go, she said the only thing she could think of on the fly. “Your assistant let me in,” she said, hoping against hope the woman who’d dragged her up on stage was his assistant. It seemed a reasonable deduction. She just hoped he didn’t check out her story.
He nodded, and closed the doors behind him. “I’ll have to speak to her about that. These are private quarters.”
“Please don’t be mad at her. I needed someplace to get a bit of downtime after the performance, and she said you wouldn’t mind if I just hung out here for a little while. People wouldn’t leave me alone for a minute.”
“It’s no wonder. You were very good,” he murmured, then sighed. “I wish she’d told me. Then I would have known where to find you.”
“Find me?” Gina said with a slight squeak, sipping the champagne she’d left on the desk. Why had he been trying to find her?
“I looked for you after your show, but you seemed to disappear.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved. “I was in the ladies’ room.”
She swung one leg back and forth, as if to soundless music, but each time she did so her thighs parted ever so slightly. His eyes fixed on the expanse of thigh she was flashing.
“Do you bite?” she asked, sliding nimbly to her feet to lean against the desk.
He walked closer, his eyes moving over her as if he could see right through her. She swallowed deeply. He was much more imposing, and sexy, close up. Trim and muscular, his jaw was square, his nose patrician. A dashing lock of hair had escaped, brushing the mask that covered intense green eyes. Then Gina made the mistake of focusing on his mouth. Completely kissable, she thought, unable to look away.
“You never know. Vampires aren’t to be toyed with.”
“Maybe I like living dangerously,” she purred, almost biting her tongue at her own bravado.
Her? Live dangerously? Nothing was further from the truth. And yet here she was.
Was she actually doing this? Was she tempting this man, seducing her sister’s enemy? But he wasn’t the enemy, was he? He was just a lawyer, doing his job. A handsome, sexy, successful man who looked at her as if she was delicious.
Gina wanted to think she didn’t have a choice, but she was an adult and she knew there was always a choice. She could have walked right back out the door and saved her skin, hauling butt home to confront her sister. Or she could be the adventurous woman she was pretending to be, just for a while.
This was a moment that would never come again, she knew. A chance to be impulsive and wild.