Under Wraps

“If you’ll just give me your credit card, you can pay the balance on the trip and I’ll mail you a detailed itinerary next week,” she was currently saying to an attractive middle-aged couple in front of her desk.

Marnie had a pen tucked in the swoop of cinnamon-colored hair piled at the back of her head. He knew from hours of watching her that she sometimes stuck as many as three pens back there at a time, occasionally losing all writing implements to her hairdo. His camera was hidden inside a bookcase he’d built for her two months back, when he’d posed as a carpenter and helped remodel the front office. The carpentry skills, a long-ago gift from his dad, had been fun to brush off after his years in the military and the Miami P.D., and they’d certainly come in handy for concealing the surveillance camera at Marnie’s business.

At that time, she’d been a prime suspect in a white-collar crime at Premiere Properties, her former employer. Vincent Galway, the CEO of Premiere, had fired her right after discovering embezzlement that had cost the company $2.5 million.

Vincent only had very circumstantial evidence pointing to Marnie. The missing funds had been funneled through her department, and there had been a rise in client complaints about double billing. Coupled with her frequent overtime, easy access to the accounts and constant work outside the office, Vincent had let her go for superficial reasons—easy enough to do since Florida was an “at-will” state for employee termination. Then, with Marnie out of the company and none the wiser as to why, Vince had asked Jake to quietly investigate a few key remaining employees and to keep his eye on Marnie, too. While Jake hadn’t found the missing money yet, he had leads.

Today, he had the distinct pleasure of taking Marnie off the list of primary suspects thanks to the ridiculously stripped-down lifestyle she’d led for the past two months. Marnie had demonstrated obvious financial hardship while funds continued to disappear from Premiere’s accounts. But Jake couldn’t even share with her since she’d never known she was a suspect. Still, Jake thought of today as a damn happy occasion because clearing Marnie meant he could do more than just watch her from afar.

His eyes locked on her luscious curves as she came out from behind the desk to shake hands with her clients. Yes, the time approached when he could return to her life—as the carpenter she hadn’t seen in two months—and ask her out. He could remove the surveillance equipment easily enough if she left the front office for even a minute.

There’d been a definite attraction between them when he’d first met her, an attraction he would have never acted on while she remained a suspect. But now, the path was clear to explore the fireworks he’d felt when he’d been in her office building that bookcase for her. If anything, he admired her all the more after watching her pull her life together in the wake of losing a job and getting dumped by the waste of space she’d been dating up until she’d been terminated. Marnie had defied the odds and opened her own business in a crap economy, using her travel smarts to her advantage in the new gig.

Smart. Sexy. And she’d be all alone inside in another minute once her customers left. Would he knock on the door as soon as they were gone? Or, knowing that she was prone to stripping off a few layers of clothes as soon as she flipped the Closed sign on her storefront, would he tune in to the BlackBerry a few minutes longer?

Heat crawled up his back at the thought. The need to be honorable warred with the urge to look his fill.

As she ushered her clients to the door, Jake figured he’d split the difference. He’d only watch for a minute and then he’d flip off the feed.

And this time, he wouldn’t settle for just fantasizing about Marnie. He’d follow it up with a house call, because damn it, he wanted to see the show in person one of these days.

Yes, a very Merry Christmas to him….

1

A DETAIL-ORIENTED, TYPE A personality, Marnie Wainwright took all necessary precautions. So she checked and double-checked the lock on the street-level door to her business. She closed all the blinds. She flipped the sign on Lose Yourself from Open to Closed.

Only then, in the privacy of the small storefront where she’d converted the back offices into a living space, did she pump her fist in victory and break out her best Michael Jackson move.

“Yesss!” She shouted her triumph, letting down her hair with one hand and switching the satellite radio tuner to dance grooves with the other.

Two months of hard work at Lose Yourself had paid off with her biggest profit yet now that she’d booked an African safari followed up by a beach getaway to Seychelles for a wealthy local couple. Two months of nonstop trolling for clients. Sixty-one days of researching unique trip ideas to appeal to an increasingly competitive travel market full of selective buyers who could easily book online. But her idea to pitch one-of-a-kind fantasy escapes was working.

“How do you like me now?” She sang a tune of her own making, rump-shaking her way into the back to retrieve a bottle of champagne she’d been saving from the days when her paycheck had been fat and the perks of working in promotions for a luxury global resort conglomerate, Premiere Properties, had been numerous.

She hadn’t salvaged much financially from that time, thanks to the bad investments she’d foolishly let her financial adviser boyfriend oversee. Little did she know then that he’d been even more clueless than he’d been charming, losing her hard-earned money almost as soon as she’d entrusted it to him. She’d been royally ticked off about that, but that had only been the prelude to him dumping her. On Facebook, no less. Apparently he hadn’t been interested in her once she lost her cushy benefits at Premiere. At least she understood Alec’s reasons. She never had figured out why Premiere had let her go or how her department had been losing as much money as her boss had claimed. But while getting laid off had hurt, it hadn’t broken her.

Tonight’s sale proved as much. She’d taken her travel smarts from all those years crisscrossing the globe for Premiere and used them to match up adventure seekers with just the right unique escape to suit them, whether that meant a spa trip to Bali or backpacking around the Indus Valley. The inspiration for Lose Yourself had come from her need to do just that. Since she hadn’t been able to take a vacation from her own problems, she enjoyed helping other people to do so.

Ditching her suit in a celebratory striptease for the benefit of a life-size cutout of a Hawaiian guy offering a lei to her, she tugged on a long black silk robe for her private after-party. The Hawaiian dude had been a promotional item from a hotel and not quite in keeping with the upscale, personalized appeal of Lose Yourself. But he was cute company in the copier room that doubled as a galley kitchen until she got on her feet enough to afford a real house again.

“Cheers to me!” She raised the proverbial roof with one hand while she twisted off the wire restraint from the champagne cork with the other.

Pop!

The happy sound of that cork flying across the room pleased her as much as the taste of the bubbly would. It had been so long since she’d had reason to celebrate anything. About the only other victory that came close was curing herself of the need to throw darts at the ex-boyfriend who’d helped her lose a job and her savings. She used to regularly wing a silver-tipped missile at a photograph taped to the dartboard she kept on an office wall, but she’d torched that picture a month ago in an effort to take ownership of her mistakes.

She’d almost taken a cute guy’s head off with one of those darts a couple of months ago, she recalled. Handsome contractor Jake Brennan had been handcrafting a display case for her storefront and had unwittingly opened a door into one of her tiny arrows. It hadn’t been her finest moment. Although Jake Brennan himself had been very fine indeed. Memories of his strong arms coated with a light sheen of sweat and sawdust as he’d sculpted the wood into shape had returned to her often ever since.

Pouring the top-shelf champagne into substandard stemware, Marnie lifted one side of her robe like a chacha girl before testing out a high kick. A little champagne sloshed out of the cheap glass, but the bubbles felt like an electric kiss sliding down her arm as she lifted the glass in a toast.

No doubt it had been thoughts of Jake Brennan that had her thinking of electric kisses.

“To me!” she cheered, then took a drink.

Rinnng! A call on her cell phone interrupted her celebration and she scrambled to grab it just in case it was a potential client. Seeing her former colleague’s name on caller ID didn’t mean it was a casual call. She’d been pitching her fantasy adventures to all her overworked, overstressed friends these past two months.

“Hello, Sarah.” Marnie turned the music down just enough to hear her friend on the other end of the phone.

“Hi, Marnie.” Sarah Anders’s voice was low, her tone oddly serious next to Marnie’s good mood. “Have a minute?”

“Sure.” Marnie sashayed her way toward the display case the sexy contractor had built, still dancing as she savored the taste of her drink on her tongue. “I’m just having a little toast to rich world travelers who aren’t afraid to take a chance on a new business.”

“You made another sale?” Sarah asked.

“An African safari. Not exactly the most original trip, but it’s long and involved and will keep me in business well into the New Year. Between that and a little holiday escape I booked for a couple who wanted to check out an ice hotel in Quebec City, I’ve had my best week yet.”

“That’s great.” Sarah’s voice didn’t match the words.

“What’s wrong?” Feeling the groove vibrate the floor through her bare feet, Marnie set her glass on one of the shelves of the bookcase.

“I just wondered if you’d heard any rumors about misappropriation of funds or big losses at Premiere Properties before you left.”

“Embezzlement?” Marnie told herself she shouldn’t care what happened over at Premiere Properties after she’d been terminated six months ago for bogus reasons. Her boss, Vince Galway, had told her some b.s. about cutting back on promotions, but the company spent money hand over fist to promote its luxury resorts. Still, she had to admit she was curious. “What makes you think that?”

“Nothing concrete.” Sarah sighed, a world of stress in one eloquent huff of air over the mouthpiece. “But there’s been a guy asking questions this week. He’s been discreet enough, saying he’s part of some forensic accounting team that Vince hired to double-check the books, but I think something’s up.”

For the first time in six months, Marnie almost felt lucky to have lost the job she loved at Premiere. Her business was taking off, and she didn’t have any worries about corporate scams or office politics.

“I’ll keep an ear out since I still do business with a lot of Premiere’s hotels.” In fact, Marnie had sent more than one client to the properties she used to promote. Although she didn’t think it had been fair that she’d been axed with no warning, she still recognized Premiere ran first-class resorts.

“Thanks, Marnie. I’d appreciate any word.”

Disconnecting the call, Marnie cranked the tunes back up, ready to get back into celebrating her successes. She’d dealt with enough crap these past six months to know that she damn well needed to toast the good stuff when it came along since life didn’t give you happy days like this all that often.

Standing in front of the custom-made bookcase that displayed miniature buildings, crafts and other souvenirs from destinations all over the world, she placed her palms where Jake Brennan’s broad hands had once been and ran her fingertips over a smooth edge. He’d done a beautiful job on the piece and he’d done it for a song, all things considered. She’d really needed that financial break since she’d been trying to get the doors open for her business on a budget.

Between the memories of the man, the champagne and the swish of silk around her bare legs, she experienced a rush of longing. Jake had been big-time attractive. Too bad she hadn’t been in a better place emotionally when they’d met or she might have invited him to stick around after the job was done. Maybe asked him out for a drink.

Or—in her wilder fantasies—simply peeled off all her clothes and plastered herself to that gorgeous body of his.

Walking her fingers across a shelf, Marnie blew a kiss to a model of the Egyptian sphinx on one side of the case and winked at a tiny replica of Michelangelo’s David. She had to freshen her flirting skills sometime, didn’t she? One day, she’d get back out in the dating world again.

Retrieving her champagne glass, she knocked over an iron Statue of Liberty nearby. As she moved to straighten it, she noticed a smear on the back of the case—a dark spot that didn’t belong. Unwilling to suffer a smudge in an otherwise perfect display, she reached past the travel guides and mementos meant to entice her clients.

But the spot felt smooth as glass—different than the rest of the wooden cabinet.

“That’s odd.” Shoving aside a few more famous buildings for a better look, Marnie peered into a small circle of smoky glass.