Don't Look Back

3

LATER THAT NIGHT, Donata didn’t remember the details of how she’d got through the rest of the day.

Hearing her former lover’s name cast into conversation like a gauntlet had scrambled her thoughts, feelings and kick-ass veneer until she’d had no choice but to make lame excuses to get away from Sean long enough to regroup. Reassess. And find out for herself how the hell her old boyfriend—the man who’d been the center of her world when she was a teenager, the man who saved her from an emotional breakdown when her father died—could have possibly orchestrated crimes from behind bars.

At home in her apartment on the Upper East Side, Donata stroked her tabby cat’s head and clicked through her personal files on Sergio. Her first instinct had been to ignore Sean’s suggestion that her ex could continue to exert power from a federal prison. But how naive would that be, especially when she’d seen organized crime up close and personal during her years with Alteri?

The buzzing of her apartment’s intercom system had her cat jumping off her lap a moment later and Donata rose to see who would be downstairs at 8:00 p.m. Neighbors knew better than to buzz her when they locked themselves out since she was super cautious about security.

“Yes?” Her building was an old brownstone between York and East End Avenue. Normally she appreciated the privacy of her homey little building with no doorman, but on nights like this when she was already jumpy she wondered if she’d be better off somewhere else.

Somewhere that Sergio would never find her if he decided to take revenge for all she’d done.

“Donata, it’s me. Sean.”

Relief washed over her for a moment before her heart stuttered and she found herself smoothing her fingers over her clothes, flattening wrinkles and assessing her appeal at this hour when her work clothes were in the hamper. Not that her appearance should matter, damn it.

But the idea of having him here, at her apartment, unsettled her. She liked to face professional acquaintances when properly armed in her I-mean-business suits, whereas at home she liked to remind herself of the femininity she stomped down all day.

“Can we talk about your investigation tomorrow?” Not having the man-woman skills needed to dance around this kind of sexual tension, Donata figured avoidance would be a good policy until she had Mick around as a buffer.

She’d used up all her steely reserve at work today. At home she took comfort in falling into more relaxed—less contentious—surroundings. She found herself wishing she had her cat to snuggle, but Duchess was hiding under a chair.

“No. You told me earlier today that we could talk later, remember?” Impatience laced his voice. “Would you just open the door so I can at least come inside? It’s freezing out here.”

Seeing no graceful way around it, she hit the button to admit him downstairs and prayed hard for a clear mind to at least muddle her way through a conversation. Mick had called her earlier, sounding as weary as she felt, to let her know his daughter had been at a friend’s house but that he had some issues he needed to square away with Katie and was taking a personal day tomorrow. Not a problem for Donata, but it left her to contend with Sean—and the pressure to drop the case—on her own.

Something she damn well refused to be afraid of.

Still, it rattled her to realize she was raking her fingers through her hair while she waited for him to arrive at her third-floor apartment. In defiance of her stupid female primping, she purposely scrubbed her locks into disarray again. What did she care what she looked like to talk to a pit bull P.I.?

By the time the knock arrived on her door and she peered through the peephole, Donata’s nerves were already stretched taut. Yanking open the door, she couldn’t help but resent that he’d blasted right through the boundaries she worked hard to keep in place at the police station.

“I’m off duty, Beringer.” She heard the bitchy tone in her voice but was powerless to call back the words.

“Didn’t anyone warn you there’s no such thing as off duty when you’re a New York cop?” He seemed oblivious to her bad mood or else he was very good at ignoring people’s boundaries. “And call me Sean. I think we’ve been through enough together to warrant a first-name basis, don’t you?”

Ignoring the reminder of a most unpleasant evening spent in jail, she took a deep breath while she closed the door and bolted the lock, hoping to steady herself and instead inhaling the vaguest hint of aftershave.

She’d forgotten what it was like to be inside a man’s personal space. She’d hardened her heart to Sergio long before she’d sold him out. Her need to punish him for breaking the law and his promise of faithfulness to her had helped her ignore the old tug of attraction she’d once felt. But she hadn’t learned how to defuse the heat between her and the man now in her apartment. It would singe her if she wasn’t careful.

“Fine, Sean. I knew what I was signing up for to be on the force.” She backed away from him, retreating deeper into the safe haven of her home. “I’m just not used to tripping over pushy P.I.s at every turn on an investigation.”

“Good cops cultivate their sources, they don’t lock them out.” He followed her into the living area that doubled as her bedroom in the small space. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

So technically, she had a man in her bedroom after a long, long time. A shiver accompanied the thought as her gaze lingered on the foldout sofa where she slept.

“Not quite as grand as my Long Island digs, but at least it’s all paid for honestly.” She’d inherited a house in the Hamptons from her father when she was eighteen and she’d used the proceeds from the sale to set herself up in this apartment with a nice savings account for a rainy day. Everything that Sergio had ever given her she’d donated to charity after the split.

She hated what it said about her that she’d been involved with a crook. The police background check may have forgiven the transgression, but forgiving herself was far more difficult.

“I knew four years ago that you weren’t guilty of anything but poor judgment, Donata. I only made the big show of putting you under arrest in the hope you might spill something about Sergio’s connections in the filmmaking industry.” He took off his coat and tossed it on her couch, making himself at home before she’d invited him to stay.

The intimacy of the act suggested an ease around her that men didn’t usually feel with a woman accustomed to being labeled “cold.” One of the police cadets she’d gone through training with had gone so far as to suggest she could wither a man’s sexual interest at twenty paces with just one glare. Not exactly flattering, but a helpful kind of superpower for a female who was scared spitless of dominating men.

And yet Sean remained immune to the glare.

“I knew you didn’t have any evidence,” she admitted, figuring she might as well come clean if they were going to work together. “And I could have called in my FBI connections to set things straight, but I figured the threat of me being busted would buy me street cred with Sergio. He was starting to get suspicious of me. The big bust happened just a few weeks later.”

“So all that surly silent treatment was an act?” He strolled around her living room, checking the titles of the books on her shelves, the DVDs next to the TV and the wine bottles on the rack near the kitchen.

The attention to his surroundings was typical of a good cop and she wondered why he’d felt the police department couldn’t bring his sister’s molester to justice. The department always needed good investigators and she had the feeling his leaving was a loss for the city.

“I honestly didn’t know of any connection Sergio might have had to the film industry. But as for the tough-girl behavior, I did a lot of acting those last few months with him.” What scared her more were the hours where she’d forgotten it was an act, the dates they went on that had seemed like old times and had made her forget for a little while that she was staying with him only to bust him.

It had all felt so unclean. So dishonest.

“What about the harassment charges?” Sean turned on his heel to stalk straight toward her now, all pretense of interest in her apartment gone as he focused on her. “Was that an act to buy points with your boyfriend, too?”

“No.” She stifled the impulse to step backward, away from him. “But I realized afterward that I was just scared and…acting out…to even the odds between us. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”

She’d rescinded her verbal accusation and refused to formalize it in writing after her head had cleared from the sensual haze that enveloped the room when she and Sean had been together.

“Luckily, I was already making plans to leave the department by then so it wasn’t as big of a deal as it might have been.” He stopped a foot from her, his sleekly muscular body making its presence felt even though he didn’t touch her.

Four years ago she’d thought the resulting shaky feeling inside had been from harassment. Now she recognized it for what it had been all along.

She had the hots for Sean Beringer.

EVEN AS SEAN BEGAN to realize it had been a mistake to seek out Donata after hours, he still couldn’t make himself back away from her.

He’d seen hints of the old over-the-top sexiness at the precinct today in the pure silk blouse she’d worn beneath her navy suit. The fire-engine-red lips had been another clue, even if the rest of her face hadn’t been made-up.

But in the safety of her own apartment, she obviously gave her diva leanings more room to play. Her blue-and-yellow lace camisole blouse outlined spectacular cleavage while a fuzzy blue sweater was tied closed with a satin ribbon around her waist. The crocheted sweater was full of so many holes a man could see everything through it, from the spaghetti straps of the blouse to the hummingbird tattoo on her lower back that showed between her low-rise jeans and the camisole.

What man could see a tattoo like that and not fantasize about tasting it?

Exotic perfume clung to her clothes and her skin, a scent that hadn’t been present during her workday. Most women came home and stripped away the material trappings of beauty but apparently Donata cloaked herself in sexy feminine decor the minute she left the police department behind. The thought of her switching roles like that turned him on at a primal level.

“What did you want to discuss?” Her throaty words floated through his consciousness to distract him when all he really wanted to do was close the space between them and see if she felt as good as she looked.

From the satiny blouse and the fuzzy sweater to the sleek silken swish of her hair, everything about Donata was a tactile temptation, begging to be touched.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in any position to cop a feel.

“I need to know where you’re going with this investigation since our conversation ended prematurely today. You seemed freaked out about Alteri’s possible involvement in the filmmaking scheme, and I’m here to ask you nicely to back off if you think you can’t separate feelings for your ex from the job.”

“How dare you insinuate I can’t keep my personal feelings out of my work?” She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper even though there was no one around to overhear them. “It’s because of me that Alteri is behind bars in the first place.”

“Hey, I couldn’t keep my personal life out of my work, which was why I left the force.” Frustration replaced some of the heat between them and he was grateful for the impetus to back away. He didn’t need attraction to Donata screwing him over now that he was close to finally busting the sleazy video outfit. He needed to know more about the Sara Chapman case to see if her situation coincided with some of the other girls’ experiences of having their video images posted online.

Donata seemed to think over what he said, her arms folded tight while she stared up at a framed photo of herself as a flamboyantly dressed teenager with her arm wrapped around a skinny old guy wearing a Doors T-shirt and a poorly fitting dinner jacket.

Had she started dating ancient men that young?

Alteri had to have been twenty years her senior and this guy looked closer to thirty.

“I respect your need to go after somebody who hurt your sister.” Slowly, Donata turned on him, her eyes wearier and wiser than he remembered. “In turn, you have to respect that I’m going to be all over this investigation. Not just because it’s my job, but because I have a particular axe to grind with men who try to take advantage of innocents. That doesn’t make me sloppy. That makes me driven.”

He barely recognized the woman who delivered the words. Outside, she looked the same with her too-sexy clothes and killer body. But the steely strength that emanated from within—that was all new since the last time they’d crossed paths. This Donata was a woman with a mission and Sean thought any guy would be damn lucky to have her on his side.

Except he didn’t want a professional partner. If she wanted to partner in other ways, however…

“Heard and understood. I appreciate the honesty when we—”

“You ready for some more?”

“What?” He blinked.

“Honesty.” Cool purpose gleamed in her eyes and Sean got a mental picture of her heading up a boardroom instead of a police investigation.

That mental picture lasted about three seconds before being replaced by one of Donata naked and in his bed, his fingers exploring the soft terrain beneath the hummingbird tattoo.

“Su-sure.” He loosened his collar before he remembered he wasn’t wearing a tie. Damned if a Mets batting jersey could strangle a man, but somehow, his managed to do exactly that.

“Focus on this case is important to me and I’m having a hard time finding it with you and me working on it.”

Of all the things he might have expected her to say, this would have been the farthest from his mind. She couldn’t honestly be…flirting with him?

“Are you coming on to me?” He’d gotten rusty at interpreting signals from women in the years since his wife had left him, so chances were good he’d read Donata wrong. But since he’d never had enough finesse to muddle through blindly when asking a direct question could clear up everything in an instant, he figured he had nothing to lose by confronting her.

“Just the opposite.” She fidgeted with the long blue ribbon dangling from the bow where her sweater was tied closed. “I’m asking for your help in keeping our interaction as impersonal as possible given our…unusual history.”

The way she said it made him wonder how much of those hours they’d spent together she remembered. When she had refused to call a lawyer and he had been hell-bent on interrogating her anyway. There had been anger, resentment and undeniable sparks.

“No one at that precinct gives a crap about the past. Cops are only interested in your present and future and what you’re bringing to the table that will help catch crooks.”

“Perhaps I’m less concerned with what my colleagues think than what I think.” She released the ribbon and the satin fabric swung like a delicate pendulum for a moment before coming to rest on the snap of her jeans.

The sight of that sleek fabric pointing the way south on Donata’s voluptuous body would have distracted him under the best of circumstances, but now when he was trying to navigate his way through her cryptic words…his brain seemed to short-circuit.

“I’m not getting it.” The scent of her—darkly sexy and warmed by the heat of her skin—drugged any remaining sense right out of him. “You’re going to have to spell it out for me, Donata, because I’m not following you.”

“Then let me make it clear as crystal.” She swept aside the hem of her loose sweater to cock a hand on one denim-clad hip. “I’m not even sure I like you, Beringer, but there’s something undeniably sexual in the air when we’re in the same room and I want to avoid that at all costs.”

Okay, this he could understand. Something sexual? Yes ma’am. This was finally making sense.

“You don’t mean sexual in the negative sense, right?” He just needed to get this one last point straight because no way, no how, would any woman accuse him of something like harassment again.

Thinking hot thoughts wasn’t a crime. Just so long as he didn’t act on anything without two thumbs up from the woman in question.

“No. I mean sexual in the distracting sense and I’ll tell you right now I’m not going down that path with any man who knew me back in my questionable youth.”

Her eyes were so cool and remote that he couldn’t reconcile her overtly sexy exterior with the uptight words.

“I met you four short years ago. Hardly during your childhood.” Reason clamored through the haze of lust in his brain, urging caution.

“But you saw me in the setting of the criminal underworld.”

“You were working undercover.”

“As an informant, not a paid detective. Big difference in respectability, don’t you think?”

A knock sounded at her door before he could pick apart how ludicrous it was for her to write him off because they met under inauspicious circumstances. But then, he was too rocked by her admission that he distracted her to process anything else with much speed.

“Yes?” Donata answered the door after peering through the peephole.