Pandora's Box (10 page)

“Like you would listen to me.”

“I might.”
 
She watched him cook.
 
She thought about the quiet phone call he’d made the night before.
 
It was hard to believe he had betrayed her.
 
“I need to hurry.
 
I want to get to the bank and check out my father’s safe deposit box.”

“Will they let you get into it without a key?”

“My father and I share a box.
 
Getting in won’t be a problem.”

She held her breath, waiting to see if he would try to stop her.
 
If he was working against her, he would.
 
He’d want to give her enemies a chance to get to the box first.

Before he could say a word, someone knocked on the door.
 
Madison
hurried to get it.
 
She didn’t want her mystery guest to wake the neighbors.
 

Tyler
stood on the other side of the door.
 
He raised a small brown bag and smiled.
 
“Fresh donuts and coffee.
 
I thought you might need something after last night.”

“Who is it, babe?” DeMarco asked as he stepped into the open.
 
He didn’t fool her.
 
Somehow he’d known it would be
Tyler
.
 
Marc had timed his entrance to the second.
 
He made quite a picture of domesticated bliss with her apron around his waist and a pot of coffee in his hand.
 
He added, “Oh, I’m afraid you’re too late.
 
We’re having a homemade breakfast this morning,”

Mission complete, DeMarco returned to the kitchen, leaving her to clean up the aftermath.
 

Tyler
took three steps backwards and turned to go, his lips a grim line.
 
“Sorry.
 
I didn’t realize you had company.”

“It isn’t what it looks like.”
 
She grabbed his arm and pulled him back inside the doorway.
 
“I wasn’t the only one drinking last night.
 
DeMarco was in a bad state.
 
So I let him sleep on the couch.”
 
She pointed at the discarded blanket on the living room floor.
 
“On the couch,” she repeated.
 
“Nothing happened.”

“Why was he drinking?”

“I don’t know.
 
He wasn’t making sense, and then he passed out.”

“Don’t lie to me.”
 
His intense green eyes glittered with contempt.
 
“I can’t believe you’re covering for him after he tried to shoot me.”

Stunned, she asked, “How do you know about that?”

“He called me last night, told me all about it and offered to flush his career if I wanted retribution.”
 
Tyler
held the brown bag up again.
 
“He also told me I should bring you breakfast this morning because you’d probably be up all night crying your eyes out over losing your dad.”

DeMarco knew better.

“I don’t cry.”
 
It was the only thing she could think of to say to him.
 
She wanted to strangle DeMarco.
 
He hadn’t reported her safe deposit box story to anyone, but he’d set her up so
Tyler
wouldn’t want her.
 
He had betrayed her after all, just in a different way.
 
She added, “At least not about things I can’t change.”

Tyler
nodded slowly, but his eyes pinned her to the wall.
 
“The fact remains you lied to me.
 
If we’re going to work together to clear your father’s name and find out who’s behind the attempts on my father’s life, you have to be honest with me about everything.
 
Understood?”

“You still want to work with me?”

Instead of answering her verbally,
Tyler
leaned forward, crowding her until her back hit the open door.
 
His mouth hovered for a moment, giving her time to evade.
 
All the reasons for not kissing him climbed her throat but never made it to her lips.
 
She realized that she’d been longing to kiss him since the moment they’d met in the president’s car, even before she knew his name.

When she didn’t move, his eyes flashed, triumphant.
 
Their mouths met.
 
His lips, soft and warm and tasting of coffee moved against hers with a deliberate passion she hadn’t experienced with any man in her past.
 

Her knees turned to molten jelly.
 

Then it was over.

Tyler
took a step backwards, broke the kiss off, and said, “Yeah, I still want to work with you.
 
Among other things.”
 

He left her standing there, confused and a little bereft.
 
She’d been dying to feel his arms around her, but he’d kept them at his side.
 
Her body tingled, awakened sexually for the first time in over a year.
 
Since her one-night-stand she’d been living like a nun.
 

She glanced around in time to see DeMarco step back into the kitchen, having witnessed the kiss.
 
His face had been twisted in anger.
 
A new fear set upon her heart, the fear of what DeMarco might do next.
 
He had already shot at
Tyler
.
 
She didn’t actually think he would kill over her.

What if she was wrong?

******

Tyler
leaned against the wall near
Madison
’s door.
 
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
 
Now her taste was in his mouth.
 
Mint and citrus.
 
He pressed his lips together, lips still warm from kissing her sweet mouth.
 
He closed his eyes.
 
Seeing DeMarco in her apartment had made him sick to his stomach.
 
Not to mention angry as hell.
 
If he was smart, he’d forget about her.
 
She had a set of emotional baggage not even he could carry.

His cell phone played the familiar rock song.
 
He moved away from her door and glanced at the caller ID.
 
Brett.
 
The only one who called him at the most inconvenient of times.
 
Groaning, he answered the phone.

“What’s up?”
Tyler
asked.

“I’m in town, so I decided to look you up.
 
Can we meet for a drink?
 
You can fill me in on the secret project you’re working on.”

Tyler
stepped into the elevator.
 
He leaned against the back wall and stared at
Madison
’s door as the metal box closed around him.
 
The thought of DeMarco’s hands on her was almost more than he could stand.
 
He made a fist around the cell phone.
 
“Can’t.
 
Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” Brett said with a laugh.
 
“Did I interrupt something?
 
Are you with a lady friend?”

“No.”

“But there is a woman involved in this somehow, right?”

More laughter from Brett set
Tyler
’s teeth on edge.
 

“What are you doing in town anyway?”
Tyler
asked.
 
“It was my understanding the Navy was sending you on a top secret mission somewhere down in
South America
.
 
Did you finish already?”

Silence.
 
Then, “Actually they pulled me out early, so I’m totally free now.”

The elevator door opened and
Tyler
left the building, cell phone on his ear.
 
He frowned, more confused than ever at Brett’s sudden appearance in town.
 
The Navy hadn’t ever pulled him out early before.
 
Something didn’t feel right about Brett’s story.

“Is there something you need to tell me?
 
Are you in some sort of trouble?”

Brett denied it and
Tyler
knew better than to push him, so he told Brett to call back later.
 
They would meet for dinner—or a drink.
  

After hanging up,
Tyler
’s thoughts returned to
Madison
.
 
He felt like a giant hypocrite.
 
He’d laid in to
Madison
about keeping something from him when he was keeping a whopping secret from her.
 
He wondered if she’d ever forgive him once she found out the truth.

******

Getting rid of DeMarco had proved too easy after he’d seen her kissing the man he saw as his rival.
 
He hadn’t even stuck around for breakfast.
 
At that point she hadn’t had much of an appetite herself, so she’d thrown the food away, wasting it, which wasn’t like her.
 
Then she’d taken a bus downtown to the bank, ready to see her plan through to the end.

An hour later she shoved the bank’s glass door hard and stepped out into the cold winter day.
 
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, unconcerned for the pedestrians in a hurry.
 
Raising the empty manila envelope she’d taken from the safe deposit box high into the air, she made a show of examining it in the light.
 
If DeMarco had betrayed her, if he’d informed someone she was looking into her father’s safe deposit box, she would know soon enough.

Ten minutes ago the envelope had held her mother’s heart-shaped locket, but now that necklace hung around
Madison
neck.
 
The feel of the heart between her breasts gave her a warm sense of peace like nothing could hurt her.

Madison
slid sunglasses up her nose and turned for the closest bus stop.
 
She felt eyes on her, watching her every move.
 
It took every ounce of self-control she had to not look around for those eyes.
 
She decided to take a detour.
 
Whipping around the corner of an old brick building, she headed into an alley.

She purposely dropped the manila envelope on the ground.

Madison
jumped high, grabbed the bottom of a metal ladder dangling from the lowest apartment’s fire escape.
 
She flipped upside-down, hooked her knees over the bottom rung and pulled herself up.
 
In silence, she waited for the intruder to catch up with her.

She didn’t have to wait for long.

A man entered the alley without hesitation.
 
He stopped, looked around.
 
Hands on hips, he didn’t seem to know what to think about her disappearance.
 
For a moment he stood just below her.
 
She waited for him to take three steps forward.

He picked the envelope up.

Madison
flipped.
 
Somersault in mid-air, she landed on her feet behind him.
 
The impact of her feet against the concrete floor made a loud slapping sound, alerting the intruder.
 
He began to turn around.

She grabbed his arm, spun in a tight half-circle, and used her hip to flip him over.
 
He landed hard on the ground, and she straddled his lean hips and looked down at his face.

Tyler Law stared up at her, dazed.

******

Chapter Five

No matter how many times
Madison
had been in the Oval Office, the room still had the power to intimidate her.
 
It wasn’t a feeling she was used to experiencing.
 
She felt very small in comparison, almost insignificant.
 
So many presidents had ruled the country from this room.
 
Powerful men making hard decisions.
 
She could picture them, each in their own time, sitting behind the large desk, talking on the phone to leaders in other countries.
 

She wanted to discuss
Tyler
with his father.
 
The president could stop his son from following her.
 
The day before, after catching
Tyler
in the alley, she’d reamed him out good.
 
Then left him standing in the alley with his mouth hanging open.
 

Tyler
had insisted he hadn’t been following her, but she didn’t believe a mere coincidence had brought him to the alley.
 
If he hadn’t followed her, then he’d paid someone else to tell him where she had gone.