Passion and Scandal (9 page)

And she had a great little figure to show off, Steve thought appreciatively, eyeing her through the windshield as he pulled his Mustang into the porticoed driveway of the hotel. Her tailored business suit hadn't shown the half of it, which, he supposed, was the purpose of a business suit.

He wondered why she was outside, chatting with the doorman, instead of waiting inside for him. It offended his sense of chivalry to see her standing there on the curb. He would have let the valet stand watch over his car while he went in and got her. As it was, she didn't even give him a chance to get out and open the door for her. She reached for it herself as soon as he pulled to a stop, yanked it open, and slid into the front seat, waving a cheery goodbye to the doorman as they left.

"So, what did you find out from your police buddy?" she asked, crossing her legs as she settled back against the white leather. Her black skirt slid halfway up her thighs with the movement, showing off a spectacular pair of legs.

Steve glanced at her face, wondering if she'd exposed that silky length of stocking-covered thigh on purpose, as a way to get back at him for being, as she'd so delicately put it when she'd slammed his car door, "an arrogant ass."

"Well?" Willow looked back at him with a bland smile, one eyebrow raised slightly, waiting for an answer to her question. "What did he say?" she asked again.

He supposed it could have been unintentional. The skirt, unlike the gray pin-striped one she'd had on earlier, was quite narrow. There was no place for it to go but up when she crossed her legs. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Marty confirmed what Mueller told us. Eric Shannon jumped—or fell—to his death from the third-floor apartment of Donna Ryan and Christine Loudon, her roommate. No one saw him do it. No one knows why he did it. The closest anyone could come to a reason was the argument he'd had with his brother but even the cops thought that was pretty thin. He wasn't as loaded as Mueller implied, either. The autopsy revealed blood alcohol levels equivalent to a couple of beers, and there was some trace evidence of marijuana use. But nothing more than that. So it's highly unlikely he flung himself over the railing in some kind of drug-induced frenzy." He slanted a glance at her, wanting to see how she'd take the next bit of information. "It happened on June 28th, 1970. Almost eight months to the day from the date you were born."

"Does that make it more or less likely that he's the one?"

"It makes it
possible,"
Steve said. "No more, no less."

"So we still have three possibles, then." She sighed, loudly, her bottom lip pushed out in a disappointed little pout, and recrossed her legs. The skirt inched a few crucial inches higher. "Were you able to find out anything from anyone on that soap opera my mother was on?"

"Nothing really helpful. You knew it was a long shot," he said, wondering when in hell she was going to pull that skirt down. She'd smoothed her other, longer skirt down over her thighs a half-dozen times earlier that day. "There aren't many of the same people working on a soap opera after twenty-five years but I was able to convince the secretary in the studio office to dig through some of their old records for me."

I'll just bet you did,
Willow fumed, and lifted her hand to her throat.

"I was able to confirm the dates both Donna Ryan and Ethan Roberts worked there. They overlapped but we already knew they would. A couple of the older actors remembered working with her. One of them said he'd thought she'd had some real talent, and had always wondered why she'd left the show, especially when the writers were making plans to beef up her part. A makeup artist recognized her picture right off the bat, and for the same reason Madame Markova did," he said, sliding another glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "Superb bone struct—What are you doing?"

"I shouldn't have worn such a heavy suit." Her long slim fingers were halfway down the front of her jacket, her shiny red fingertips sliding in and out of the hidden placket as she worked each button loose. "Especially not one with such a high, constricting collar."

Steve found his eyes glued to those red nails. Had they been that color earlier today? And wouldn't he have noticed if they had been?

"Look out for that car up ahead," Willow warned him. "The light's about to turn red."

He jerked his gaze back to the road just in time to avoid plowing into the car in front of him. With the Mustang safely stopped at the light, he turned his head back toward Willow, his mouth half-open to continue his report—and almost swallowed his tongue.

She was leaning forward in her seat, trying to shimmy out of the tight-fitting jacket. The creamy mounds of her breasts were practically spilling out over the low, square-cut bodice of the little black dress she wore under it.

"Could you help me with this, please?" she asked, extending her left arm out to him so he could pull the cuff off over her hand.

Speechless, his gaze glued to the quivering mounds of her breasts, he did as she asked.

"Thank you." She gave him a polite little smile. "I didn't expect it to still be this warm in October," she said as she wriggled the rest of the way out of the jacket. "This is the only evening outfit I brought with me, so I didn't have a choice about what to wear."

It was a blatant, bald-faced lie. She'd bought the outfit that afternoon at Gianni Versace's Rodeo Drive boutique, right after she'd gotten her hair and nails done at Vidal Sassoon.

"The light's green," she said, hiding a satisfied smile as she carefully folded the jacket. Knowing he was watching out of the corner of his eye, she shifted around, wriggling a good bit more than necessary, and draped it over the back of her seat. Then, settling back down, she lifted both hands and ran her fingers up through the back of her hair to fluff it. The movement lifted her breasts even higher, threatening indecent exposure if she wasn't careful.

Steve's hands began to sweat against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?" he growled through clenched teeth.

Willow dropped her arms. "Doing?" she said innocently, turning her head to look him full in the face.

"Don't bothering giving me that wide-eyed look," he warned her. "I know when a woman's up to no good."

She hooked a sheaf of hair behind her ear with one long red fingernail. "I don't know
what
you're talking about."

He had to admire her nerve; most people backed down when he growled at them like that. She just shrugged and gave him her shoulder. Her soft, bare, creamy, sexy shoulder.

"Isn't that Flynn's?" she said, pointing as they passed it.

Steve swore and made an illegal U-turn, causing her to reach out and brace herself against the dashboard.

"That wasn't very nice," she said, shooting him a pouty look as she straightened. "I could have broken a nail."

"Keep it up and it might be your neck," he warned as he nosed the car into a parking space in front of Flynn's.

He cut the engine and then sat there a minute, his hands on the steering wheel as he struggled to get control of his rampaging libido. Why did women always use sex when they wanted to get even with a man? Didn't they know the kind of trouble it could get them into? He was as hard as a rock, and about two seconds away from dragging her into the back seat and peeling her out of that dress. Only the fact that she was his client kept him from acting on the impulse.

He loosened his grip on the steering wheel and turned to face her, prepared to calmly, concisely and in terms guaranteed to blister her pretty little ears, tell her exactly what he thought of the ridiculous game she was playing. "Do you have any idea how close you came?"

"Hmm?" she murmured absently, unconcernedly rummaging through a tiny, beaded black evening bag.

She extracted a tube of lipstick and reached for the rearview mirror. "Do you mind?" she said, twisting it around to face her without waiting for his consent.

"Willow," he said, his voice low and threatening, and laced with willing laughter. He was having a hard time maintaining any kind of righteous male anger in the face of her determined indifference to it.

"Yes, go ahead. I'm listening," she said, as she began carefully applying a fresh coat of red lipstick. She made a production of it, parting her lips in a sexy pout, slowly drawing the tube of color over them. "I have no idea how close I came to...?" she prompted, urging him to complete the thought.

Steve couldn't help it. He laughed. "Are you trying to drive me
completely
around the bend?"

"Yes." She gave him a saucy smile as she put the lid back on her lipstick. "How am I doing?"

"I'm halfway there already," he admitted. "I was halfway there when you crossed your legs. And you know it, you heartless little witch."

"Good." She dropped the lipstick in her purse and snapped the tiny bag shut. "You deserved it."

Steve shook his head in exasperation. Only a woman would punish a man for trying to save her from his baser instincts. The whole female sex was crazy, and men were crazy for putting up with their nonsense—and coming back for more with their tongues hanging out.

"You stay right there until I come around and open that door," he said as she reached for the car's door handle. "The pavement in this parking lot is full of potholes. You could break your neck."

"Before you could break it for me, you mean?"

"You've got a real sassy mouth on you," he said as he opened the car door. "I don't know why I didn't notice it before."

"Probably because you were staring at my chest."

He gave her a narrowed look as he extended his hand to her. "Sooner or later," he warned her, "that mouth's gonna get you in a whole lot of trouble."

She pursed her shiny red lips at him in an exaggerated kissing motion. "Promises, promises," she taunted and, placing her hand in his, swung her legs out of the car, giving him plenty of time to ogle them while she did so.

And he did, blatantly, letting his gaze travel from the thigh-high hem of her dress to the impossibly high heels on her feet. The muscles in his stomach tensed as if he'd just taken a punch to the gut. How the hell had she known?

Her damned shoes were straight out of his fantasies, made of narrow black velvet straps and black satin ribbons that tied in neat little bows around her slender ankles. Steve took a deep breath and decided, then and there, that the first time he made love to her she was going to be wearing those shoes—and nothing else.

"Oh, grab my jacket for me, will you?" she said, brushing past him while he stood there, thinking about all the things he meant to do to her when he got her in his bed. "Sometimes the air-conditioning can be a bit chilly."

She strolled on toward Flynn's ahead of him, her hips swaying lazily as she silently fired another salvo in their delicious little battle of the sexes.

"Good God Almighty, woman," she
heard him rasp hoarsely, and she knew she'd hit her mark.

The back of the dress was cut past discretion, coming to a V just below the curve of her waist. Her black stockings were seamed. The poor sap didn't have a chance.

"I'll get even with you for this," he growled, his voice laced with amused frustration.

Willow laughed and kept on walking. "You're certainly welcome to try," she taunted.

* * *

Flynn's was a nice little neighborhood bar, with a black-and-white art-decoish decor that made it elegant and cozy at the same time. Vintage posters from old Errol Flynn movies decorated the walls, interspersed with glossy publicity photos of some of the biggest stars from Hollywood's Golden Era. Waitresses clad in modified, skirted tuxedos with jaunty red bow ties moved deftly through the noisy, cheerful crowd, dispensing drinks, high-calorie munchies, and the occasional wisecrack. Happy Hour was in full swing.

Willow realized immediately that she was overdressed—or underdressed, depending on how you looked at it—for the Friday-night after-work crowd. Two yuppie business types at a nearby table stopped talking to stare at her exposed cleavage, one of the waitresses gave her a sliding sideways glance, and a distinguished, extremely well-dressed man with a small brown mustache raised his wineglass and winked appreciatively.

Willow had a moment of uneasiness at the attention she was attracting, wondering if there was a way to make a graceful retreat, when she heard a threatening growl rumble in her ear.

"Here, put this on, dammit," Steve said, draping her jacket around her from behind.

The man with the wine blanched and looked away, the two yuppies abruptly returned to their conversation. Willow turned her head, looking over her shoulder to see what Steve had done to cause the men's sudden disinterest in her charms.

He was standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders, like an alpha wolf standing guard over a juicy little rabbit, warning any and all comers he wouldn't hesitate to tear them apart if they dared to challenge his right to it. The look in his eyes sent shivers of delicious fear and excitement racing down Willow's spine.

She hadn't counted on arousing his jealousy; she hadn't even considered it as an option when she started her teasing little game. She should have, she realized now. Steve Hart was all man, and men were notoriously territorial by nature. She forgot all about being overdressed for the occasion and began wondering just how far she could exploit this unlooked-for bonus without taking it too far and getting herself—or anyone else—into serious trouble.

"Don't even think about it," Steve said, bending his head to whisper the words into her ear. "You wouldn't like it if one of these slobbering Romeos got hurt because you were trying to bring me to heel." He turned her around to face him. "You want to yank on my chain a little more, fine. But this is between you and me, sweetheart. Let's keep it that way."

He bent down and pressed a hard, possessive kiss on her astonished mouth, then whirled her around again and, hands firmly on her shoulders, headed her through the Happy Hour crowd toward the bar.

"Which one of you is Tim?" he asked, aiming his question at the two bartenders working behind the long polished bar.