me.”
There was a pregnant pause, the silence in the marble foyer only broken by the sounds of the CSI techs’ cameras clicking inside the apartment.
“Fine,” she said at length, but obviously mad as a hornet. “I’ll move a futon for him out into the vestibule.” She rounded on Conner. “You can set it up in front of the elevator so there’s no way I—or anyone else—can slip past—”
His brows shot up. Excuse me? He shoved aside the insult. “You want to stay in a ransacked apartment?”
“Like I have a choice?” she fired back.
“Sorry,” Duncan interrupted. “Not possible. No one’s allowed into the apartment until the techs are finished processing for trace and fingerprints. That’ll take at least a few hours.”
“She’ll stay at my place,” Conner said through clamped teeth, ready to strangle the woman. A freakin’ futon? He didn’t think so.
She opened her mouth to protest but he nipped it. “I have plenty of room. And can provide an armed guard,” he added pointedly.
“Good,” Duncan said, passing Conner his notebook. “Write down the address and phone number.”
Almost sputtering, she crossed her arms over her ample chest. Sending an untimely reminder through his body that he was still more than half-aroused. But her vehement, “I am not going anywhere with you,” jerked him right out of his momentary hormonal stupor.
Which probably made him point out more sharply than strictly necessary, “I happen to know you have no money and nowhere else to go.” He ignored her gasp and went on, “And if you think I’m paying for a hotel when I have ten bedrooms sitting empty at my house, you’re dead wrong.”
She blinked and her eyes shuttered. He realized too late he’d reacted like a defense attorney, trampling her objections like a charging rhino. And he’d hurt her.
Well, too damn bad. She’d hurt him first.
He pushed out a calming breath, chagrined at his childish outburst.
God.
Was he actually whining like a two-year-old?
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “That was a thoughtless and unnecessary remark. But the reality is, it’s my house or jail.”
She looked like a Nile cat chased into a tree by that charging rhino. Angry. Cornered. But undefeated. “In that case,” she said with chin held high, “I’ll take jail.”
Chapter 7
Vera stared up at the stunning mansion in front of her.
Holy mackerel.
The rising sun was just peeking over the desert horizon, spreading a magical spill of golden light over the soft coralcolored adobe walls and arches of the Southwest-inspired manor house and surrounding lush green lawns and gardens.
“You live here?” she asked her jailer. “Alone?”
They were the first words she’d spoken to Conner Biggest-Bully-in-the-Universe Rothchild since she’d grudgingly hunched into the passenger seat of his ridiculously ostentatious car to be driven here. To his house. Where he lived.
How she’d let herself get talked into going anywhere with the lying jerk, let alone his own home, she’d never know.
Okay, not true. It was the work of the usual catch-22: absence of money, family or personal influence.
Story of her life.
“Alone, yes. But I have a lot of friends who visit,” he answered her rhetorical question.
She just bet he did.
Never mind that ninety-eight percent of the women in the state of Nevada would kill to take her place. Or that Las Vegas Magazine’s official Most Eligible Bachelor was undoubtedly the sexiest, most attractive man breathing on this earth. Vera knew very well when she was outclassed, outplayed and miles out of her comfort zone. About ten-and-a-half miles to be exact—the distance between the mobile home park where she’d grown up and Conner Rothchild’s sprawling, multimil-lion-dollar neighborhood.
No, Vera Mancuso had no freaking business being in this place, with this man.
“Must be nice,” she responded as he drove through the ten-foot-tall iron security gate, which closed automatically behind the car. “And you have a lot of family, too, from what I hear. Quite the Las Vegas dynasty, the Rothchilds.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the tabloids,” he said, pulling to a stop under the entry’s porte cochere.
“I don’t,” she assured him. “My information comes straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Oh?” He gave her a mildly curious hike of an eyebrow as he opened the car door for her and helped her out.
“Darla was good friends with your cousins Candace and Silver. I still have lunch with Silver occasionally.”
“Ah.”
She stopped suddenly and turned back to his car. Before leaving the apartment, the CSI techs had packed her a small overnight bag, including a pair of flip-flops, but she needed her stage shoes for work tonight. They were still behind the seat where he’d tossed them back at FBI headquarters. “I’d like my shoes back, please. From last night.”
“Of course.” He leaned over the side of the car to fish them out.
Oh, boy.
His suit pants stretched over his tight backside, revealing every luscious dip and muscle of that tasty bit of anatomy. She had to stuff her hands under her armpits to keep from touching.
He handed her the glasslike shoes with a wry smile. “Don’t lose one, Cinderella,” he teased.
She made a face and snatched them from his hand. “You know, she talked about you all the time. Your cousin Candace.”
“Did she, now.” He took her overnight bag and led her up the mansion’s sweeping front steps.
“She didn’t like you very much.”
“Now there’s a shock.” He did something with his key chain, and the ornately carved entry door swung open.
“She said you’re mean, stubborn and ruthless and will do anything to get your clients off.”
“Never a good thing in a lawyer,” he said dryly. “After you.”
She met his amused gaze, so strong and confident. Not to mention devoid of shadiness or deceit. With a sinking feeling she suddenly knew Candace was completely wrong about him.
She shouldn’t be surprised. The rivalry between the Rothchild family cousins was legendary in Vegas, where each sought to outdo the other in glamour, media notoriety and wild living. Conner was no exception. He regularly figured in the gossip columns.
But Vera, of all people, was acutely aware that a public image did not always reflect the real person. Although she got along with Candace okay, and Darla adored her, Candace always did have a family ax to grind.
“Touché,” Vera acknowledged, thinking just maybe she’d been wrong about Conner, too.
Not good. She did not want to like this man. Bad enough she was so hopelessly attracted to him physically. How depressing would it be to have him turn out to be honorable and principled, too?
He ushered her in. “Welcome to my home.”
Said the spider to the fly.
“Wow,” she murmured, stepping into a stunning showplace of glossy, contemporary elegance. Clutching her shoes in her hand, she walked from the soaring foyer into a