Swindled (Close Contact Book 1)

T
he unauthorized reproduction
or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (
http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/
).

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

P
ublished
by MM Publishing LLC

Edited by Delilah Devlin

Proofread by Tina Rucci & Lynn Mullan

Cover Design by ProBook

S
windled

All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright 2016 by Megan Mitcham

First electronic publication: June 2016

Digital ISBN: 978-1-941899-25-0

T
o sweat dreams
.

H
arper Lang snagged
a flute
from the service waiter and cursed the vibrant white room.
Why the hell did art installations have to be so damn bright?
Thanks to long New York winters and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them summers, her pasty complexion hadn’t seen sun in the ten years she’d lived in the city. Nor had her face seen this much makeup. She probably looked like a street hooker working her way to professional escort. Well, she was working. A smile tickled her lips while the bubbling champagne did the same to the back of her throat.

Yep, she was a naughty girl. Drinking on the job.

She downed the remainder of the sparkling wine in an unladylike gulp, set the glass on a planter that looked like it had contracted red and white polka-dotted measles, and strode toward the nearest excuse for art. Her public school upbringing didn’t count the pile of day-glow vomit in the shape of an extra-large housefly as art.

Vincent. Claude. Michelangelo. Those were her guys. Igmon Yeaveas, the featured artist of the night didn’t hold a candle to their talents.
That
fraud didn’t lure her here tonight, but for some incomprehensible reason, he attracted the Big Apple’s nobility and their pocketbooks. And they drew Baron Magnus Declan.

At least, Harper hoped they did. Otherwise, she’d wasted three hundred bucks on a half-priced cocktail dress and two hundred more on four-inch stilettos. Maybe, when she needed a pick-me-up, she’d wear the curve-hugging lace and spikes around her closet-sized apartment.

Her gut vibrated with excitement. After months of research and two near misses, this was the night she’d arrest the world-renowned swindler. She’d earn a stripe on her shiny new detective’s shield and maybe get assigned to one of the good cases. Missing persons, rape, homicide. The possibilities stiffened her nipples. Not the atrocities, but catching the real scum of the earth. Who cared about some Rico Suave talking rich broads into bed and out of their inherited dough?

Harper tugged the low-cut fabric toward the ceiling to conceal her peaked twins. The black material managed not to move an inch.

“Quit fidgeting,” her partner’s smoke-scarred voice crackled in her ear through a tiny comm link.

“How the hell are you inside? Is he here?” she whispered.

“Nah, still in the car. I swing my potbelly in that place, and we’d lose Declan forever. I just know you, girly. Anytime you get dolled up, you wring your hands like a perp.”

She smoothed a hand over her bosom and down the narrow curve of her hips. These double-D cups belonged on another woman’s body. A stripper’s, perhaps. They only brought lecherous attention and grief on the force. People thought big boobs equaled a small brain. Even women. So, yeah, she’d kept them on lockdown for so long she didn’t know how to act with them on display. Yet, for the first time, Harper appreciated her chest. They’d landed her this gig. Russell had twenty-five years on the force, but didn’t possess the goods to ensnare the thief. She had the rack, half-a-million in borrowed diamonds, a rented limo, and a silver clutch worth more than the gun inside and the one strapped to her thigh combined.

“We’ll get this guy, Lang. All we need is some damn proof.”

Shoulders back. Chin up. Mouth pursed like the captain showed you. Interested, but not impressed. Boobs in. Think high society. Be upper crust.

By the time she lapped the room, the fizz allayed her discomfort. The hot stares from two Wall Street suit types helped too. Harper’s gaze roved the sea of sequins, feathers, tweed, and skin in search of her quarry.

“You see him yet?” Russell barked. “All I got are alley rats, a homeless guy, and waitstaff.”

“Nothing.”

The glass door opened and closed frequently, bearing couture-labeled couples like the stadium turnstile produced Yankee fans. But no Declan.

* * *

T
hree hours later
, the crowd thinned
, her feet ached, and an edgy quality hugged her so tightly it cut off circulation to her brain. At eight years old, she’d read
A Study in Scarlett
and had wanted to be Sherlock Holmes ever since. She’d used logic and Declan’s developed patterns from years of swindling women in Europe to formulate the perfect trap for the man. He hadn’t even shown his face much less taken the bait. Feeling more like Addison Holmes than Sherlock, Harper closed her eyes, balled her fists, and willed him there.

“I’m callin’ it, Lang.”

“
No, Russ. Give me ten more minutes,” she begged.

“He’s usually in some lady’s bed by this time of night. Whether he pegged us from the door or didn’t hunt these waters, we missed him.”

“Five more minutes?” she negotiated.

“Girly, this job is rife with disappointment. Better get used to it now and invest in hair dye. Your black locks are gonna go gray before you know it. I mean, look at my hair.” He chuckled at himself. “Oh, wait, I don’t have any.”

“Ha. Ha.” She groaned.

“I’m outta here. Want a ride?”

She plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing server, took a step toward the backdoor and her partner, but stopped short. The department had already paid for the limo. It’d be a shame to waste it on account of a no-show. “I’ll see you Monday, ole man.”

“Be safe. Some of these highbrow types are mean bastards,” Russell warned.

“I’m meaner.”

“Sure are.”

Harper chugged the contents of the first glass and left it in the care of another waiter. The suckers crawled through the place like worker ants. She pulled the transmitter from her ear, dropped the thing into her clutch, and snarled as it
clinked
on the gun and handcuffs. Seemed like none of them were getting any action tonight.

Disappointment cut deep. Spinning in a leisurely circle, she cataloged the remaining patrons, craving something to dull the edge of disappointment. The bubbly wouldn’t work on her Italian and Japanese roots. They’d been saturated in sake and limoncello from a young age. Adding defeat to desperations, none of the fellas seemed fit for the job. Neither, the barely pubescent servers nor the ego-inflated suits wagging their brows would do. Tonight, she needed a man to toss her onto, well, anywhere and make things happen.

Too bad her best chances of orgasm tonight came from Danny the Drawer Dick. Harper tipped back the other glass of wine, sipping this time. She savored the taste of liquid money and mentally shrugged.

At least, Danny’s reliable. Until there’s a battery shortage.

As the bottom of her glass came into view, something brushed her upper lip. She righted the flute in a blink and braced for the bug or who-knew-what that surely sat at the bottom.

“What?” she hissed.

In the dregs of her champagne sat a big ass canary yellow diamond. Her gaze shot left and flew right in search of Declan. But no one paid her any attention. Not even the lanky waiter.

“Son of a bitch. He was here, and he knew we were, too.”

She poured the remainder of the champagne into a planter and pinched the three-and-a-half carat rock between her thumb and index finger. The only thing she hated more than losing was being made to look like a fool. Magnus Declan had succeeded where most failed. She held one of three diamonds reported stolen by Declan’s ex-wife, Baroness Genevieve DuMau, and bit back a curse.

* * *

M
agnus peered
through the one-way
glass overlooking the dwindling crowd, but saw only Detective Harper Lang. The woman sucking his lobe faded deeper into the background. Wasn’t it a dangerous thing when a woman could draw you in with a slant of her brow while an heiress couldn’t faze you by offering a blow job?

Hell, yes!

But it wouldn’t stop him. He’d been pursued by women since before his balls dropped. Yet, never quite like this. Harper had been on his heels for weeks, and all he wanted was hers tossed over his shoulders. Well, not all. He wanted to watch her face flush with ecstasy as he slid inside her. The thrill worked him over in ways he’d never known existed in his thirty-five years, and twenty of those had been lived on the edge of legal and off the cliff of moral.

The black-eyed, porcelain-faced beauty chucked the flute into the large planter, dropped the diamond into her purse, and stomped toward the hallway which lead to the restrooms. A grin quirked his mouth.

“Let’s go.” He shrugged the women off his ear and hauled her behind him down the stairs, through the corridor, and to the entrance of the women’s bathroom. When he finally turned and looked down, her light blue eyes glittered mischievously. A little too much like his own. “You come, and then you go. You’re not the one who’ll change me or pin me down. You don’t love me. You don’t know me, and probably have no idea what love really is. Understand?” Her eager hand shot to his fly. “You. Not me.”

“Okay,” she panted, flashing blinding white caps and batting fake lashes.

So much in his world was fake, he longed for something real. This probably wasn’t the best way to go about getting it, but it sure stirred his blood.

* * *

D
etermined
to search the kitchen
and back rooms before heading home, Harper flushed the toilet. The door opened and a giggle accompanied two sets of shoes. Reaching for her matching lace thong, she continued righting herself.

“But someone’s in here,” a woman whispered.

Harper hurried to smooth her dress and split before the chick pulled out a bag of smack. There was only one person worth arresting tonight, and his voice was deeper than that.

“I know,” rumbled the voice she’d swear her mind conjured.

She’d listened to that gooey caramel tone for hours on end. Following along with the translations hadn’t diminished its panty-dropping effect. But that couldn’t be Declan. Not after the stunt he’d pulled.

A throaty moan split the air. Harper flushed rooftop-in-July-hot and clamped a hand over her own mouth. She didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a fuck-fest, unless she was center stage. If it was in fact Magnus Declan, she had to know. Yet, she couldn’t risk chasing him away by barging out of the stall unprepared.

“Ooohhh yes,” the woman groaned, “right there.”

Curse her body to hell and back. Harper’s lady boner swelled to life as though it garnered the attention being awarded another. Releasing her mouth, she inhaled a deep quiet breath and steadied one hand on the metal wall. With the other, she grabbed her clutch from the top of the paper dispenser. One more fortifying breath and she leaned toward the gap between the door and stall.

Her heart ping-ponged between her belly and throat.

Baron Magnus Declan’s hips nestled in the V of a woman’s legs. Her blue dress fanned on the counter around her bare bottom while her panties dangled from the tip of a jeweled, white Manolo. Only the angle allowed the full view because his breadth could easily hide a slight woman or two. The broad’s head arched toward the ceiling, missing the best part of the whole damn experience.