“One more thing,” Pratt said, gripping his hand, and giving it an extra squeeze. “Well, three more, actually. You need this.” He handed Paul an envelope. “That’s something you can put away for a rainy day, or celebrate with. The press releases will go out today. The dinner is scheduled with the senior and junior partners for late next week. We usually do that at the Ritz, and invite everyone to stay the night. Have Martha talk to my assistant, get all the details finalized. The word’s already on the street, by the way. Give marketing a list of anyone you want to personally send a note to, and they’ll handle it.”
“Got it.” Thank God Martha could handle that. He saw the dismissal in Pratt’s nod, and turned to leave. He was nearly at the door when he made the count. Pratt had said three things. “Sir? What’s the third thing?”
Pratt didn’t smile this time. He looked deadly serious.
“Be very, very careful, Paul.”
Everything jumbled together in Torie’s mind as she tried to focus on picking out clothes. What had she done? She’d started everything by kissing him last night. She hated him. Didn’t she? Oh, Lord, had she really slept with Paul? Again?
Was she insane? Hadn’t college taught her anything? Sleeping with him then had been a mistake, too.
They’d been like sleepwalkers afterwards, helping one another to dress. It was that fierce desire that had frightened her so in college. That intensity of attention and focus. When she was younger, to have it turned her way so powerfully had been terrifying after all she’d been through at the frat party.
Now, it was incredible. Commanding. Orgasmic.
She felt her body heat just conjuring the images. His face. His hands.
“Miss? Did you need help finding anything?”
The clerk’s interruption was like a bucket of cold water.
“No, thanks. Oh, just the dressing room?”
She caught sight of a man sitting nearby, reading the paper. He met her gaze, gave a slight nod.
The bodyguard.
It shifted her thinking away from Paul, thank goodness. Hopefully Paul’s house would be secure, if she agreed to stay there. She felt like a hunted animal moving from hotel to hotel, from the fire to the beach, only to return to bullets and destruction. She was looking over her shoulder at every turn.
Everything was crazy. Upside-down. The world had surely gone mad when she of all people needed a bodyguard. Then there was her job. How could they? One part of her understood. It was hellish enough to meet deadlines, and answer RFPs, and beat the competition at the engineering and architecture game in the best of times. If the press were breathing down your corporate neck about an employee, it would be strategic to neutralize that employee.
“Except it’s me,” she muttered, shifting around the racks, looking for the right size.
Piling items into the saleswoman’s arms, Torie made her weary way to the dressing room. She loved shopping as a rule, but having done this same thing several times over the last few weeks, it was getting old. It was also dreadful to try to start over. She kept thinking about a special shirt or skirt that would work with an item, then felt a hard pang when she realized that shirt or skirt was no longer available to her.
Torie had discarded five skirts and as many shirts when her cell phone rang. Sitting down on the bench, she tugged it from her purse and answered it.
“Ms. Hagen? This is Investigator Sorrels, from the Philadelphia Fire Department?”
Like she wouldn’t remember who he was. “Yes, Inspector Sorrels, how may I help you?”
“We’d like you to come down to the scene, identify some items for us, if you can.”
“Okay, I can be there in…” She looked at her watch, a cheap pink Timex picked up from a street vendor. “Thirty minutes? Is that soon enough?”
“That’ll be fine.”
As soon as they hung up, Torie began wondering what they wanted her to identify. Nothing she came up with seemed probable, but it reminded her to call her insurance agent. She’d been so busy getting shot at and recovering, and then, Paul.
Instant arousal had her leaning her head back onto the cool wood of the dressing room partition. She’d been so wanton, so over-the-top with Paul. They’d been so good together, fit so well. Nothing, not even her terrible memories, had come between them.
For the first time in nearly a decade, she felt free.
“Miss? Did you need a different size? Can I find anything else for you?”
The clerk was efficient and helpful, sensing a big sale. Torie stared at the remaining items she needed to try on. She didn’t want to bother, but she had to. For once it was true that she had little to nothing she could wear.
With a grunt, Torie stood up. Her muscles were slightly sore, but the twinge made her smile. She’d instantly regretted the action, and been horrified to give in to the desire she’d repressed all this time. The result was… spectacular.
“Uh, I need a larger size in this,” she said, passing a too-small sweater set over the partitioned door. “And a smaller one in this.” A skirt joined the sweater. “Otherwise, I’m okay for now.”
With another new suit, two skirts, and several sweaters bagged and wrapped up, Torie hurried to Paul’s Mercedes. He’d loaned it to her, arguing that her own vehicle might be a target. He figured that the rental car might be marked by now.
It was a short ride to her house. She wanted to weep at the sight of her once-lovely little row house with its boarded-up windows and smoke-blackened siding. A huge pile of trash was heaped in the front yard, including her
