Dazzle her: Laws of Seduction Book 3 (8 page)

“To survive?” James finishes for me.

I nod as James reaches towards my face to brush away my tears. I hadn’t even been aware that I was crying. “I was disoriented. I couldn’t tell what was happening with Chelsea and Pete, but Seth didn’t panic. He was afraid, but he kept his calm. He talked to me, calmed me down. His foot was stuck. He tried bending down under the water to free himself, but he couldn’t. Then I tried. The seats had shifted so that his foot was between them and the door. I would dive under and pull with all my strength until I ran out of air. Then I would try again and again, until it was too late. I had to leave him. He kept screaming at me to go, and finally I did. Seth was so strong and athletic, and it is wrong that he died that way.”

Sobs wrack me now, and James draws me into his arms. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

“In my nightmares he always asks the same thing, ‘Why did you go?’ He was trapped, and the water just kept rising and rising. I tried everything to get him free. Why couldn’’t I get him free?”

“You are so brave.”

I push at him with my hands, and when he doesn’t budge, I pound with my fists. “No, I’m not. I was so scared.”

“Baby, anyone would have been scared in that situation. You tried to save Seth. No one blames you for saving yourself.”

“I know. I had a lot of therapy after it happened, which helped. I used to have the nightmares almost every night. It was much better until recently.”

“After your experience, I can’t believe you swam out and saved that Rothschild kid.”

“It’s not just that.”

“The fire at your office?”

“Um…” His gaze sharpens, and I look away.

“There’s more?” The incredulity is clear in his voice.

“You forgot the drugging incident.”

“Right,” he clips out.

“And…”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Wait here.” Getting off the bed, I lean down and pull on James’s dress shirt from the night before. I make way to the living room and see my dress lying on the floor where it had fallen last night. Looking around for my bag, I find it on the coffee table.

When I return to the bedroom, James is right where I left him. He watches as I climb back on the bed and pull the card out of my bag. “You probably shouldn’t touch this.” I return James’s look of alarm evenly before holding the card out for him to see.

“Son of a bitch,” James explodes. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in my bag after my confrontation with Jenna.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

I give a half shrug. “After I told you about running into Jenna, well… you know. One thing lead to another, and now we’re here.””

James gives me a reproachful look. “You should have told me about this right away. The asshole who left that note was there last night.”

“I know.”

“You need to take this to the police. This is not something to be taken lightly, especially after the arson in your office.”

“I know.”

“Is that all you can say?” His frustration is evident.

“I don’t mean to be a brat.” Maybe I do, a little. James was so hot when he was all worked up. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. Can we think about all this in the morning?”

“Fine, but we are going to the police first thing in the morning.” His look turns tender. “Poor baby. You’re exhausted. Let’s try to get some more sleep.” James wraps his arm around me and spoons my back. James calling me brave echoes through my mind.

“James?” I whisper after a little while.

“Hmm?” he mumbles back sleepily.

“I love you.”

James rolls me over onto my back and looks down at me. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” His mouth crashes down on mine. His hands fly to the buttons of his dress shirt, which I am still wearing. Then his hands and mouth are everywhere. Rolling over so that I am straddling him, he thrusts his hard arousal into my welcoming heat. He watches through shuttered eyes as I undulate above him. He grabs my hips and thrusts harder, driving us towards completion. I shatter into a million pieces as I hear James’s shout of pleasure. My last thought before sleep overtakes me is that he didn’t say it back.

CHAPTER 10

James and I arrive at the office together on Monday morning. No more letting me off a block away or clandestine elevator rides. I have to admit it feels pretty good. Patti is already seated at her desk when I arrive. “Someone must have had a good weekend. You are positively glowing.”

I wink at Patti. “I drink lots of water. It’s good for the complexion.”

Patti gives me a knowing look. “I know a tall glass of water that I would like to have a taste of, and it doesn’t come out of any tap.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I am going to be the only one drinking that glass of water.”

“Sadly, too true. I’ve seen the way that man looks at you.” Patti waves her hand in front of her face as if to cool herself off.

Rolling my eyes, I turn to boot up my computer. An e-mail from Andrew Mills marked urgent immediately catches my eye. There is little to the email other than a request for my presence in the Lincoln Conference Room as soon as I arrive.

I have only taken a few steps in that direction when James intercepts me. “Did Mills ask you to Lincoln too?”

“Yes, I wonder what this is about.”

“I guess we will soon see.”

We walk into the conference room to find the fire investigator seated next to Mills. “You asked to see us?” James asks as he ushers me into a chair.

“Yes,” answers Mills, “We have some new information about the arsonist.”

“I hope this means you have found who they are.”

The fire investigator clears his throat. “Not quite, but we have been able to determine that it was a woman who set the fire. There is footage of her in one of the stairwells. The time and place match, and she is clearly wearing some sort of disguise to hide her identity.”

“You know now that it was a woman. Is that all?” James does not sound happy.

“We are able to assign a few identifiable characteristics to her.”

“Such as?”

“She is of medium height with a slender build and most likely Caucasian.”

“That could describe millions of women.”

“Yes, well, it is a start. We are looking into the women from this firm who match that description.” The fire marshal’s eyes slide over to me before traveling back to James.

James stiffens beside me. “Are we back to that again? Ms. Hart did not set that fire. This is something that was done to her, not by her. You are just wasting everyone’s time with this line of inquiry.”

“Be that as it may, we have to eliminate everyone who matches the description.”

“Could we please see the video?”

“Of course.”

The fire investigator turns an open laptop in our direction so that we can see the screen. Pressing Play, he sits back and observes us as we watch the video. The video is clearly security footage. We watch an empty stairwell for a few moments until a figure of a woman dressed in a trench coat appears. Her head is covered, and she keeps her head down. As the fire investigator had said, her only identifiable features were her height and size.

James insists on watching it twice more before turning to me. “What do you think?”

I give a hopeless shrug. “Nothing stood out. It could have been anyone.”

“How tall are you?”

“I’m five seven.”

James looks over at the fire marshal. “What do your people say about her height.”

“They estimate her height to be between five four and five six, give or take an inch.”

“So she could have been five three or five seven. That’s a pretty big discrepancy.”

“Putting the video aside for now, let’s get back to Ms. Hart’s whereabouts on the night in question.”

James grips the table in front of him like he is the one on trial. He grits out, “On the night in question, Ms. Hart was with me. We left the Hamptons on Sunday evening, and I dropped Ms. Hart at her apartment around 10 pm. At 10:30 pm, she placed a call to her brother in Taiwan. The call lasted twelve minutes. After the call, she went to bed and slept. This is nothing you haven’’t heard before.”

“Right. We will also be questioning the other women in the firm so you have no need to feel singled out.”

James’s face is a thundercloud as we leave the conference room. “They are wasting time.”

“They are just doing their jobs. Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?” James looks sincerely confused.

“For being my lawyer.”

My pulse quickens at the tender look that comes into James’s eyes. “Anytime, baby. I’m all yours.”

I want to melt into a puddle at his feet, but instead I ask, “Why didn’t you tell them about the note from the gala?”

Holding my gaze, James says, “Because my instincts told me not to, and my instincts are usually right.”

I raise one eyebrow and eye him speculatively. “Cocky bastard, aren’t you?”

“Just confident in my abilities. Are you complaining?”

“Not necessarily.”

“My instincts tell me that they are going at this all wrong. We need a fresh pair of eyes.”

“Do you think the woman in the footage was Elizabeth?”

James gives a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. “We certainly cannot rule her out as a suspect, but there is nothing there that points to her as the arsonist either.”

“I wonder if she has an alibi for Sunday night.” The text messages that I had read on James’s phone pop into my mind.

Two junior associates give us curious looks as they walk past us. Taking my elbow, James pulls me towards his office. Once there I pick up the conversation where we left off. “James, did you go to see Elizabeth that Sunday night?”

“Why would you think that?”

Not able to meet James’s eyes, I walk over to the tall windows and look out. Looking down, I can make out workers in the offices across the street. “Lainey?”

I feel his presence next to me, and without turning I make the admission. “I saw the text message she sent to you saying she would be waiting for you Sunday night.”

“When did you see it?”

“When you were out getting coffee the morning after the fire. You left your phone on your desk.” I rush to assure him, “I didn’’t mean to snoop, but when you had an incoming call, I thought I could catch up with you to let you know. Then I noticed that the call was from Elizabeth. I thought if she was calling you she might be sending messages as well. On impulse I checked your messages. I know it was wrong, but I wanted to see what she had been sending you.”

“And that’s when you saw the message telling me she would be waiting for me Sunday night.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you ask me about this before now?”

“I didn’t want you to know that I had snooped on your phone. I didn’t want you to think that I was that kind of girlfriend, because I am not.”” I turn to look up at him. “I also came to a realization later.”

“What was that?”

“I realized that you would have to be a real sociopath to spend the weekend fucking me in the Hamptons and then immediately go sleep with her the moment you got back. I just couldn’t believe that about you.”

“Well, thank God for that at least.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No, I can’t be mad when I probably would have done the same thing.”

“Huh.”

“I do wish you would have asked me about it before now, though.”

“I’ve been over it a million times in my head, and I could never come up with a reasonable explanation.”

“It’s simple enough. I wanted to talk to her one more time before getting lawyers involved.”

I can’t contain my shock. “You went over there after ten on a Sunday night to talk to her?”

James smiles. “I’m not that foolish. I sent Rex to see if he could reason with her. At first I wantedto go myself, but then I thought better of it for obvious reasons.”

“Did Rex talk to her?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it made much of an impression.”

“What exactly did he say to her?”

“He told her that I was not interested in her and that I was involved with somebody else. He also pointed out the damage she could do to her career if she didn’t change her behavior.”

“How did she react?”

“You can ask Rex, but as far as I know she just smiled, nodded, and acted like she agreed with everything Rex said.”

“Did she know that you were seeing someone else? Maybe she knew it was me. That could have been the final straw that put her over the edge.”

“You mean once she realized that her pursuit of me was hopeless, she ran over here and set your office ablaze?”

“Exactly.”

James pauses for a moment as if seriously considering my theory. “That wouldn’t explain how she knew to set your office on fire. Rex didn’t tell her who I was seeing.””