Silk Confessions

She broke off, surprising Wes with a hint of vulnerability he hadn’t expected. The woman lived her life in a relentless public spotlight, ran a company with a net worth that boggled the imagination, and could afford anything her heart desired. Yet she seemed genuinely distressed about the loss of her homemade statues.

“If it’s any consolation, insurance ought to cover their value.” Maybe that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but his practical side couldn’t help pointing out she wouldn’t be hurt financially.

Her curt nod and well-camouflaged sniffle assured him he hadn’t consoled her in the least.

“I’m sure you’re right. Do you think the person who broke in here was looking for business information of some sort?” She relieved the other officer of his handful of lingerie and the guy got back to work looking around the apartment. Tempest tossed the silky pile of undergarments on the arm of a red floral club chair.

Wes couldn’t say how long he stared at the stack of lace and satin, imagining the black silk hugging Tempest’s hips, the blue netting cupping generous breasts…

But he knew it took a Herculean effort to pull his thoughts back to reality. Blinking hard, he wrenched his gaze away.

“Possibly.” Deciding he was making zero progress by waiting for her to incriminate herself, Wes laid more of his cards on the table, still searching for some telltale reaction. At the very least, by sharing his suspicions he would put her on the defensive if she was guilty. Maybe she’d trip up and give him the lead he needed. “I’m investigating a small company owned by Boucher Enterprises. MatingGame.com?”

“The Internet dating service?”

“You’re familiar with the business?”

“I brought them aboard myself shortly before my father’s death.” She whistled to her dog and absently pet the animal while she spoke. “They had a talented web mistress who keeps the site fresh and provides great visibility all over the Web, but they were being inundated by crank dating résumés and starting to flounder under client dissatisfaction. Boucher brought the financial help they needed to screen all their clients by collecting more information. I believe they’re turning a very healthy profit now.”

“I believe they are a front for a prostitution ring.” He kept his gaze direct. Detached. That was a crucial part of interrogation unless you had a damn good reason for wanting your suspect to think you were on their side.

Wes didn’t know whether he’d struck pay dirt or if he’d merely scared the hell out of her, but she swayed on her feet at the news.

Damn.

“Are you okay?” He reached for her on instinct, pushing aside his need to dig for the truth long enough to steady her.

His hand went automatically to her waist, securing her at the base of her spine. Right away he knew touching her had been a mistake, but what the hell else could he have done? She looked as though she’d seen a damn ghost.

Too bad all he could think of was how tiny her waist felt under her jacket. The tailored cut wasn’t nearly tailored enough, the fabric not doing justice to the cinch of her midsection between gently flared hips and incredible cleavage.

Her scent—something rich and warm that made him think of the hot chestnuts sold by street vendors all winter—made him feel damn light-headed too. Good thing he would let her go any second now.

Yup. Any minute.

“I’m fine.” Tempest cleared her throat, the soft vibration of her voice reverberating gently against his palm where he still touched her. She stepped away before he remembered he was supposed to be letting go.

Cursing himself and his stupid sex-starved senses, Wes regretted the loss of mental control. He hadn’t done anything outwardly inappropriate, but his thoughts were another story. Worst of all, he’d lost track of his instincts since they’d gotten mixed with lust.

Where the hell was the cop buzz when he needed it? It seemed to have been soundly thrashed by a much louder hum of desire.

“I don’t know anything about MatingGame being involved in illegal activity, but you caught me off guard since—” She peered over her shoulder toward the other officers in the apartment. “Can we possibly speak in private?”

Surprised at her apparent need to confess, Wes couldn’t deny a rush of disappointment. The sexual hunger simmering in his veins had been really rooting for this woman’s innocence.

“Sure.” He shouted to the cops finishing up their routine search for evidence and quickly cleared the room of everyone but the two of them and Eloise, who curled up in front of the door for a snooze.

Wes hoped Vanessa wouldn’t show up on the scene too soon now that Tempest appeared so close to telling him what she knew. His partner had planned to investigate a few other leads on their murder case, but he expected she’d arrive at the precinct soon.

Now he settled in the club chair, a safe distance from the temptation presented by the first woman to send sparks his way in too long.

And didn’t it just figure she was going to turn out to be part of a prostitution ring?

Tempest eyed the muscular cop sprawled in a chair two sizes too small for him and prayed she was making the right decision by trusting him. But if he was investigating MatingGame, he might as well know everything she knew.

She sank down into the couch across from him and dug out the old memories that had caused her family so much pain.

“You’re probably familiar with the scandal surrounding my father’s death last year while he was in Mexico?” It had been the subject of speculation in the papers for weeks, making it nearly impossible to grieve privately.

“Heart attack during sex with a much younger lover, right?” Detective Shaw didn’t look scandalized in the least. Somehow, that made it easier to continue.

“Most people assumed it was a heart attack, allowing us to keep quiet the fact that the Mexican officials said he actually died of asphyxiation. You know how some people think cutting off their oxygen supply will increase the power of their release?” She waited for his nod, her cheeks heating at the nature of the discussion. She’d never been a shy woman, but the frank sex talk unnerved her.

Especially in light of her inconvenient attraction to the cop.

“He died during kinky sex?” One eyebrow lifted.

“Yes. And the woman involved might have come under more scrutiny if my mother hadn’t assured police my father had been perfecting ways to achieve the ultimate release throughout their marriage. It was one of the core reasons my parents fought.” Her mother had been horrified by her husband’s increasing obsession with pushing sex to the limit, finally walking out when he’d nearly strangled himself, although they’d never actually divorced. Apparently Ray Boucher demanded as much from his sexual encounters as he had from every other facet of his glittering, over-the-top lifestyle. “And as it happened, the woman my father had been with that last night wasn’t really a girlfriend. She was a one-night stand he’d met through MatingGame.”

Wes sat straighter in his chair, his long, lean body suddenly charged with alertness. “She never said anything to the press?”

“My mother and I made a trip south of the border to appeal to her sense of common decency and asked her to keep the sordid details to herself since the local officials didn’t leak the information to the media.” The woman had been nice enough and she’d been as eager as they were to put the ordeal behind her. “We helped her to relocate overseas so she wouldn’t be faced with the situation day in and day out over the turbulent months that followed.”

“You paid her off?”

“Hardly. She was down on her luck after a divorce left her broke, which was why my mother and I thought it would be just as well to help her start over again. Last I heard, she’d learned to speak Italian and settled just outside of Florence.”

“But you felt guilty enough about the whole situation to confess all this to me,” he pointed out with a bluntness Tempest began to recognize as part of his investigative style.

Or maybe it was just his personality. She had found it rather cold at first, but after a lifetime surrounded by people who were often pleasant to her face only for personal gain, she was beginning to find his direct manner more appealing.

Or maybe it was simply all those hard male muscles she found interesting. She hadn’t been enticed to get close to a man in a very long time.

“I don’t feel guilty about it in the least since no one outside his family needs to know what happened to my father. I was just taken aback when you mentioned MatingGame could be a cover for a prostitution ring.” She had thought the scandal of having her father die in bed while having adulterous sex with a woman half his age had been bad. Imagine the repercussions if the adulterous sex turned out to be part of an encounter with a prostitute?

The tabloids would have a field day, her mother would be humiliated and Boucher Enterprises would suffer. And while Tempest and her family were well-insulated from the rises and falls of the business, she couldn’t help but think of the people who worked for the company in one capacity or another. Those were the people who would suffer the most.

“You’re worried about the negative press that will ensue if people learn your father cavorted with a prostitute.” Shaw nodded knowingly, as if that statement summed up the situation.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that.” Tension built in her forehead, the sure sign of another stress headache coming on. She could have handled all this better if she’d at least had her weekly dose of Days of Our Lives. Damn it, melodrama like this belonged on her television screen, not in her living room. “You know how many people depend on our company for their livelihood? Those are the people who get hurt when my family comes under attack.

“My mother will console herself with shopping. My late father’s board of directors will unload their stock options and jump on early retirement. But what about the thousands of people we employ around the globe? They don’t deserve to lose their jobs because my father suffered a midlife crisis from the time he turned thirty until the day he died.”

Levering herself off the couch, Tempest stepped over the piles of rubble from the break-in, slowly making her way toward the kitchen where a bottle of Tylenol waited.

“What about you?” The cool-as-you-please detective merely followed her with his eyes, though his long limbs retained their alert stance, as if ready to pounce at any moment. “What would you do if Boucher Enterprises takes a financial nosedive?”

The question made her head throb all the more. Fishing through a maze of cooking spices and boxes of Milk-Bones in every conceivable flavor, she found the pain reliever and popped two in her mouth. Downing them with a cold glass of water, she took deep breaths and reminded herself nothing catastrophic had happened to the company yet. She could still fix this.