Miracle On 5th Avenue

“About ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes and the guy is willing to defend you to the death? Do you have that effect on all men?”

“Never the right men. Never the young, hot, eligible ones.” She changed the subject. “Why did the police not make an arrest?”

“According to you, you weren’t committing a crime.”

“I was talking about you. They should have cautioned you. You flattened me and scared the life out of me.” She remembered the way his body had felt against hers. She could still feel the hard pressure of his thigh, the warmth of his breath on her cheek and the heaviness.

Her gaze met his. The way he was looking at her made her think he was remembering that moment, too.

“You were creeping around my apartment. And if I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now.”

“Is that supposed to be a comfort?” She rubbed her bruised ribs, reminding herself that however her imagination played with the facts, it hadn’t been a romantic encounter. Lucas Blade was looking at her with a hint of steel in his gaze. There was something about him that didn’t seem quite safe. “Do you assault everyone who enters you’re apartment?”

“Only those who enter uninvited.”

“I was invited! As you would have found out if you’d bothered to ask. And I would have thought a man with your expertise in crime would have been able to tell the difference between an innocent woman and a criminal.”

He gave her a speculative look. “Criminals aren’t always so easy to identify. They don’t come with a twirling moustache and a label. You think you can recognize a bad guy just by looking at them?”

“I’m pretty good at identifying ‘loser guy,’ and I definitely know ‘hot guy,’ so I’m confident ‘bad guy’ wouldn’t slide under my radar.”

“No?” He stepped closer to her. “The ‘bad guys’ live among us, blending in. Often it’s the person you’d least suspect. The cabdriver, the lawyer,” he paused before saying, “the doorman.”

Was he intentionally trying to scare her? “Your doorman, Albert, happens to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met so if you’re trying to persuade me he has a criminal past I’m not going to believe you. In my experience most people are pretty decent.”

“You don’t watch the news?”

“The news presents only the bad side of humanity, Mr. Blade, and it does it on a global scale. It doesn’t report the millions of small, unreported acts of kindness that take place on a daily basis in communities. People help old ladies across the street, they bring their neighbors tea when they’re sick. You don’t hear about it because good news isn’t entertainment, even though it’s those deeds that hold society together. Bad news is a commodity and the media trade in that.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes, and I don’t intend to apologize for preferring to focus on the positive. I’m a glass half-full sort of person. That’s not a crime. You see the bad in people, but I see the good. And I do believe there is good in most people.”

“We only ever see what a person chooses to show. You don’t know what they might be hiding under the surface.” His voice was deep, his dark eyes mesmerizing. “Maybe when that kind man has helped the little old lady across the street he goes home and searches indecent images on a laptop he keeps hidden under his bed. And the kind person who takes their neighbor tea might be an arsonist or a dangerous psychopath and his, or her, intention is to get a closer look at how and where their neighbor lives to assess access points and vulnerabilities. You never know, just by looking, what a person is hiding.”

Eva stared at him, unsettled by the image of the world he’d painted. It was as if someone had sprayed ugly graffiti over her clean vision of life. “You may look good on the outside, Mr. Blade, but inside you need a makeover. You have a dark, cynical, twisted mind.”

“Thank you.” The faintest of smiles touched the corners of his mouth. “The New York Times said the same thing when they reviewed my last book.”

“I didn’t intend it as a compliment, but I can see that maybe you need to be like that to be successful. Your job is to explore the dark side of humanity and that has twisted your thinking. Most people are simply what they seem,” she said firmly. “Take me as an example. Take a good, hard look at me. And now tell me, do I look like a murderer?”

Two (#ulink_6a7ba7be-c462-52f8-9afd-3d03fa218977)

A frog is always a frog, never a prince in disguise.

—Frankie

Do I look like a murderer?

Lucas scanned her sweet, heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a dark blue and with those bouncing golden curls and the dimple in her cheek, she looked as harmless as a fluffy kitten.

Nothing like a murderer.

She’d be the warm, kindly nurse no one would ever imagine to be capable of killing her patients, or the sweet-natured kindergarten teacher whom people assumed would nurture the children in her care. She looked like the poster girl for health and vitality—she could advertise the juiciest orange juice, or the crunchiest salad.

A woman with a face and body like hers could evade suspicion for months or years.

His heart pounded and he felt the spark of creative energy that had eluded him for months flicker to life.

She eyed him cautiously. “Why are you staring? What have I said? I can assure you I’m not a murderer and frankly I can’t imagine why you’d think it for a moment. I don’t even kill spiders. I carry them to the nearest safe place, although if I’m honest I do usually use a glass and a piece of cardboard because I don’t like the way their legs feel on my skin.”

I don’t even kill spiders.

And neither would his murderer.

Just humans.

“That’s it.” He didn’t even realize he’d spoken. Without thinking, he walked up to her and slid his fingers into her hair. Blond, silky, it flowed through his fingers and framed her face with lustrous gold. Her hair alone would be enough to dazzle any man. Dazzle and distract him. He’d be dead before he knew what had happened.

“That’s what?” She sounded exasperated. “Mr. Blade?”

“You’re the one.”

His mind, roused from its soporific state, was racing ahead so fast it took him a moment to realize he still had his fingers in her hair.

How would it happen? How would she commit murder?

Could her hair be a weapon? Or a motif? Something she left at the crime scene?

No. She’d be caught within a week.

Maybe she changed her hair each time she committed murder.

Maybe she wore a wig.

“Mr. Blade!” Huge blue eyes were fixed on his face. “What do you mean, ‘I’m the one’? I’ve never committed a crime in my life if that’s what you’re implying.”

But she would. She would. “You’re perfect.”

Her cheeks turned from whipped cream to fondant pink. “P-perfect?”

She even blushed. A woman who could blush like that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or would she? “Can you do that at will or is it just something that happens?”

“What?”

“Blushing.” He stroked his fingers across her smooth skin, exploring the silky texture. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to deconstruct her so that he could decide which traits to give to his character.