All or Nothing

Did she fit that profile? Did she feel she deserved more than life had dished out? Did it matter that a woman like her could get a man to give her anything she wanted? She wouldn’t even have to work at it. Just bat those beautiful eyes. Or maybe she liked more of a challenge. Wanted a more active role. Could be she was working with someone.

Hell, that was an angle he hadn’t considered yet. She seemed chummy with some of the hotel staff. Maybe her job was to distract the target while an accomplice snatched the goods. Made sense. The possibility was certainly worth considering.

The idea grated on him more than it should. He didn’t want her to be involved. His lack of objectivity really got to him. Hadn’t he learned his lesson in the past year? Of course it wasn’t as if she were a serious suspect yet. But until she could be eliminated, she stayed on the list. When the eliminations were done, the last man standing ended up in cuffs.

After poking around yesterday, he had his eye on a room-service waiter and a maid. Both had opportunity and knowledge of the ring. He knew the maid had been on the same floor at the time of the other theft. The waiter’s timeline hadn’t been confirmed.

Still, the fact that Dana had lied about not going up to the guest floors nagged at him. He knew that wasn’t true because Roscoe had seen her. Which brought him back to his original suspicion that she did know Roscoe. The idea that they could’ve been intimate made him queasy.

“You’ve gotten awfully quiet,” she said, toying with her napkin so that it was beginning to shred. “Anything wrong?”

“I was thinking about your friend. When did she decide to leave New York?”

Dana frowned. “Why?”

“Because if I go forward, I need people who are committed to the film. If she already has a job lined up back home—”

Dana laughed. “Trust me. If you have a role for her, she’ll commit.”

That didn’t go as planned. “This decision…was it a sudden one?”

“I think so.” She took a pensive sip. “But I don’t really know. I haven’t talked to her much since she dropped the bomb. Actually, I was going to see if she’d meet me this evening and fill me in. That was before you asked me to dinner.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t turn me down.”

“Me, too,” she said quietly, briefly meeting his eyes before looking at the napkin she’d been working on.

He forced his attention on the business at hand. “So this friend of yours, she isn’t leaving because of an old boyfriend or job or anything in particular?”

Dana gave him an odd look. She settled back, her posture on the defensive side. “She received a letter from her mother telling her about a job that’s opened up, a pretty good job, apparently.”

“Ah. Not show business,” he said, absently. That didn’t mean she didn’t have another motive for wanting a quick exit.

“Oh, no. She has a business degree.”

“What about you? Did you go to college?”

Dana nodded. “Yep. Just a junior college near my home for two years and then I finished up at the university. I have a teaching degree so I can always rely on that.”

“You don’t look like any teacher I ever had.”

She rolled her eyes. “What about you? Before you got bored,” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “What did you do?”

“I dropped out of school.”

Her eyebrows went up.

“Not high school. College. In the middle of my third year.”

“Holy moly, that must’ve made your parents real happy.”

“My mom was ready to run me up a flagpole.” He went with the truth. Besides, being easier to keep track of, for some reason, he didn’t want to lie to her anymore than he could help it. “My dad didn’t care one way or the other.”

Her expression softened. “Was he present in your life?”

“When it suited him. Hey, no puppy-dog eyes for me. The less I saw of the old man the better I liked it.” He meant it, although he regretted offering that much information.

Fortunately, the waitress arrived with their food, and he immediately dug into his steak. Dana didn’t press him to talk more, which was a good thing because he had no intention of getting that personal again. Better he keep his focus on the job and not her incredible blue eyes.

5

DANA ORDERED cheesecake for dessert, ignoring Chase’s grin when she asked for extra chocolate drizzle. That was the up side of exercising a couple of times a day…she got to overindulge sometimes. Besides, she doubted there’d be any ice cream left once she got home.

After Chase paid the check, refusing her offer to cover the tip, they left the restaurant. Just outside, people waiting for tables had formed a line, causing a bottleneck. The pressure of Chase’s hand at the small of her back as he guided them to an opening on the sidewalk created a pleasant tingling that started at the base of her spine and radiated to her breasts and the inside of her thighs. It was crazy because it was a casual touch. Nothing sexual about it at all.

“Do you need to get home right away?” he asked, his mouth close to her ear.

“I have an early appointment.” She sidestepped a teenage couple who were so busy kissing as they walked that they nearly plowed into them. The move broke her contact with Chase.

“I thought maybe we could take a walk through the park.” He came up alongside her, their shoulders touching as they walked.