The Proviso (6 page)

She rocked back on her heel and crossed her arms
over her chest, one eyebrow raised. He gulped, but attempted to
save face: “You’re going to be very sorry about this, Miss
Cox.”

“Ralph.” Giselle and Ralph both started at the deep,
hoarse male voice behind them and turned to see who had spoken with
such ice. She felt Ralph tremble as she gaped, up up up, at the
most beautiful man she had ever seen. She felt a jolt of desire as
she stared at him, her body tingling for a real man the way it had
only once before, long ago and far away.

He continued, “When you’re feeling froggy, you just
go ahead and jump.”

“Hey, buddy!” Ralph said, his bright tone
manufactured and patently false.

The stranger’s bright green eyes flashed fire and
his lips pressed together in a thin line. His big body radiated
tension and a hint of his divine cologne wafted her way.
Intimidating under any circumstances, the burn scars that matted
the left half of his face and disappeared down into his collar made
him fascinatingly ferocious.

Black hair. Fair skin that would tan easily and
probably very dark in the summer sun. Chiseled features on the
unscarred side of his face. She couldn’t place his ethnicity, but
he was extraordinarily exotic to her.

Those eyes, that face: Perfect weapon.

Giselle felt the heat between her legs, the wetness,
as she examined him head to toe, shameless in her inspection,
wondering what lay beneath all that finely tailored silk, wool, and
cotton . . .

. . . wondering how long she’d remain a “good little
Mormon girl” if
that
man had the good sense to ask her
out.

She reluctantly drew her gaze away from him to look
over her shoulder at Ralph, who had lost all color. He stood to his
full height, though it gave him no advantage against this beautiful
stranger’s height and mass.

“Pack up your desk, Ralph,” the man rumbled.

“You don’t work here.”

“I’ll inform your boss I’ve invited you to hand in
your resignation. I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Aw, man,” he whined, but forced a laugh. “It’s just
a little running gag Miss Cox and I have some fun with, right,
Giselle?”

“Pffftt. Nice try.”

“Your office better be cleaned out when I leave here
tonight.” His order, so final, so threatening, made Giselle want to
take another quick glance. Her breath caught at his power.

“You can’t prove anything.”

The man crossed his massive arms over his broad
chest and drawled, “Can’t I.”

Ralph’s lip curled and he glared at Giselle before
stalking off, as if it were her fault. She supposed that in his
mind, it was.

“Thank you,” she said with her most flirtatious
smile. She looked at him wide-eyed, wanting—
begging
—him to
invite her to . . . something. Dinner, maybe.
Ballet-theater-symphony-opera, preferably. She would love to dress
up for this man. “I was afraid I’d have to take him out back and
give him a good spanking.”

He didn’t laugh at her dumb joke. “You’re welcome,”
he said tersely, turning to go.

Damn!

“Well, wait,” she said and offered her hand for him
to shake. Her flirting lacked finesse because she was too direct,
too open, too . . . unpracticed. It had never mattered to her
before this moment when she needed to stall him long enough to
figure out how to keep his attention. “I’m Giselle Cox.”

His eyebrow rose and he stared right back at her,
ignoring her hand. “Miss Cox,” he murmured with a slight sneer and
a curt nod. His disparaging glance swept her from head to toe, then
he turned again to walk away.

Her breath caught and her chest hurt right behind
her sternum the way it had the only other time a man had left her
breathless. She could only stare after him, stunned, speechless,
moisture stinging her eyes.

She recovered herself in time to snap, “So I guess I
did something to deserve that.”

He stopped short and she studied him further while
awaiting his apology.

A custom-tailored olive silk/linen blend suit
accentuated the perfect musculature of his torso. The hems of his
pants cuffs gathered artfully upon the leather of his Italian
loafers. His sleek hair just brushed the collar of the white shirt
peeping up from his lapel. Precisely half an inch of snowy cuff
appeared from the sleeve of his coat. His left hand—as scarred as
his face—bore no ring and contrasted sharply with his cuff. Diamond
cufflinks sparked tiny rainbows in a random stream of last-gasp
sunset.

Turning halfway, he pinned her with that weapon he
had. She felt dizzy under that stare, his disfigured beauty
radiating raw sex and power. His expression remained stony. “I’m
sure,” he replied, his tone measured and precise, “that you think
you’re entirely blameless.”

Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. Oh, no.
No. Men did not talk to her like that. She drew up every bit of her
five feet, four and five-eighths inches, done with her starry-eyed
infatuation. “’Scuse you. You don’t know me from Eve.”

His eyebrow rose at that. “Lilith, maybe?”

With that, he continued on his way, leaving her
dumbfounded, breathless, and thoroughly aroused.

* * * * *

What the
hell
had made him say that?

Shock.

Shock at seeing her, of actually meeting her. Here.
In his own lawyer’s office. Working as a second-shift
transcriptionist.

It hadn’t occurred to him that Knox’s lover might
work for a living. Knox always took care of his women well; he
could afford to with all the untraceable money that ran through his
office. Certainly, Leah had had the best of everything.

He fought the urge to turn around and walk backward
just so he could inspect her more closely: faded Levi’s, white tee
shirt, and flamboyant vest that looked like a refugee from a Mardi
Gras rag bag; rich golden-red hair—
why
had he thought it
dull blonde?—in a ponytail, bound with a pert yellow ribbon and
dripping those large, loose corkscrews down to her nape.

If only he didn’t know that she wore a gun under
cocktail dresses at funerals.

If only he hadn’t heard her say
I am not going to
fuck you
with the bored amusement of a woman who knew what to
do with a man who couldn’t understand the word no.

If only she hadn’t turned on the charm once Ralph
had been disposed of and looked at Bryce like
that
.

He sucked in a sharp breath and it caught.

Women just didn’t look at him like that anymore and
hadn’t since the fire. More than one who’d found his wallet
intriguing had spoken to his necktie in an effort to avoid looking
at his face. Most children scrambled to stay away from him, the
combination of his big body and scarred features overwhelming.

Monster.

He almost laughed. He could afford to now that he
knew that the woman who’d tormented him for the last six months, a
woman he’d assumed would react the same way the rest of the female
population did, had found him attractive enough to let him know
exactly what she wanted from him and how she wanted it, Knox be
damned.

He
must
have imagined it.

Deep breath. He held it, then puffed it out again in
a whoosh. She’d completely blown his mind.

Again.

All the way through the meeting with his attorney he
felt distracted, scattered.

“Bryce? You with me?”

He shook his head to clear it. “That typist you have
out there—the redhead—”

“Giselle? What about her?”

“Your idiot attorney Ralph ‘Call Me Rafe’ hit on her
as I was walking in. He’s a walking sexual harassment suit. He
threatened to get her fired if she didn’t sleep with him.”

Geoff Hale’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to get rid of
that son of a bitch.”

“I suggested he have his office cleaned out by the
time I left here tonight. I hope you don’t mind me stepping into
your business like that, but he was a little too pushy for my
comfort.”

Hale’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. Well thank you, then.
I’ll send a quick email to HR.” He turned to his computer for a
moment and as he typed, he continued, “You know, he’s been nothing
but trouble from day one. Giselle’s more valuable to me than three
of him.”

“Oh?” Bryce kept his voice casual to invite more
comment, the perfect way to glean more information about her
without arousing suspicion.

“Brilliant woman. Going to law school on the
five-year program and she’s interning for me this summer.” Bryce
hid his surprise. “She’ll be a good trial attorney. Enough ego and
charm to pull anything off and the brains and wit to back it up.
I’m just hoping not to lose her to Hilliard’s office, since that’s
where everyone wants to go. Not that I’ve asked her, come to think
of it,” he added absently while finishing his email with a
flourish.

Bryce’s heart quickened, but he controlled his
expression. “Ah. Does she, uh, have any connections to any local
attorneys?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Curious is all.”

For some reason, Bryce kept what he knew to himself.
Mentioning her intimate involvement with Knox Hilliard would
definitely get her fired, but he didn’t know why he felt compelled
to protect her.

“Is she married?”

Hale glanced at him then and his mouth twitched. “I
forgot to mention that she’s pretty,” he said, “but I see you
noticed that.”

Bryce kept his expression carefully blank. “I’ll
take that as a no.”

“I can, uh, put a bug in her ear as to your
interest.”

“I’m not,” Bryce murmured, his tone carefully
masking his frustration with himself for going too far. Hale was no
fool, but he said no more about Giselle Cox, and for that, Bryce
was grateful.

“Oh, by the way,” Hale said as he shook Bryce’s hand
at the office door once their annual meeting had come to a close,
“my condolences on your client. Leah Wincott, was it?”

The mention of Leah’s name was enough to bring back
some of the anger that had dissipated with the discussion of other
matters. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Very nice lady.”

“I wish I could believe Knox killed her,” Hale said,
“but he’s got too much to lose.”

“That’s kind of the way I figured it,” Bryce said,
then continued, “I don’t know why Leah finally agreed to marry him,
but she must have had her reasons. For what it’s worth, she was
very happy; he treated her well.”

Hale looked thoughtful. “Fen’s the most likely
suspect, but nobody’d believe it.”

“Agreed,” Bryce said, then started. “Hey, isn’t Fen
your client?”

“Oh, no,” Hale returned. “I haven’t met a Hilliard
yet that I liked and that includes the old man. Fen and I had a
couple of meetings before I decided I didn’t want to do business
with him.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. He’s honest. Smart. He’s good to the
community, good to his employees. There’s just . . . something. I’d
trust Knox before I’d trust Fen. At least with Knox, you know
exactly what you’re getting. And that proviso? Taight? That whole
situation’s a nasty tangle.”

And your “valuable” typist is intimately mixed up in
it.

“I’m going home,” Hale said on a yawn. “What time is
it anyway?”

Bryce looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty in the
morning. Geez, Geoff, I’m sorry.”

He waved a hand. “No need to apologize. It’ll be in
your statement at the end of the month.”

“I’m sure,” Bryce returned.

As Bryce walked to the elevator, he couldn’t help
but cast a look toward Giselle Cox’s desk. Her empty chair, blank
computer, and tidy desktop all bespoke the end of her shift. He
felt a great disappointment settle in the region of his solar
plexus, but he only sighed and continued on his way.

He stopped cold when he got to the parking garage
and stared at the occupant of the only other car in the lot besides
his.

She couldn’t see him from the angle at which her
car, an older model generic Chevy, sat. From what he could tell,
she might be asleep or she might be hurt, for her head tilted back
against the seat rest.

Refusing to think about the consequences of his
actions, he walked across the lot and noted her open car windows.
The April breezes that wafted through stirred her ponytail and the
ends of the ribbon just a bit.

Once he got within speaking distance, he could see
her dozing, a thick textbook open and lying face down on her chest.
Even as he watched, her head lolled to the right so that he caught
sight of the underside of her jaw and throat.

He imagined all the things he wanted to do to that
throat; remembered her as she had been that night six months ago
with her skirt pulled up enough for him to see the top of her black
stocking;
needed
to see the rest of her body stripped bare
for his pleasure.

Bryce squatted down beside the car and just watched
her for a moment. “Miss Cox,” he murmured, then found himself nose
to nose with a very lethal woman—and she had the barrel of
that
gun bored right in the middle of his forehead.

She flipped it up and away from him once recognition
dawned, but her face still held that tense, wild look of someone
startled out of her wits.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, her voice husky with
sleep. His cock strained at his fly and he gulped. She rubbed her
eyes, shoved her gun in the waistband of her jeans, and put the
textbook in the backpack next to her, then stretched as far as she
could within the confines of her car.

He said nothing as he watched her. She had taken off
her vest and the thin white tee shirt did nothing to hide the lacy
nearly-nothing bra she wore underneath it. Her nipples had hardened
in the cool night air, begging for a nip, a lick, a tug.

A bite.
Bryce released a strangled
breath.

She came down from her stretch with a hard glint in
her eyes, an ice blue that could probably sear a man in half. He
had the oddest feeling that he had seen those eyes somewhere
before.