I always had everything I needed. Open the door.
Now she was going to talk to the dead? Obviously Krissy should not have come here tonight, even if it had felt pressing. It was too soon. The wound was too fresh. Krissy was not her normal self.
“Can we speak for a moment?”
His voice was muffled by the door. Even so, it had a sensual rasp to it. He gave her a small smile, no doubt contrived to make him look harmless, but the smile, revealing beautiful, even, brilliantly white teeth, made him more dangerous than ever.
Not in the stranger-danger way, but in the way that showed he had extreme confidence in his own ability to charm, and no doubt that confidence was well earned.
Jonas Boyden was exactly the kind of man who was extremely dangerous to a woman who was deliriously satisfied with her choice of a solitary existence.
What he definitely was not? Alexandro Helinski. He was not the kind of man who would have needed the kind of services her aunt offered. Ever. He was the kind of man women flung themselves at, and he carried himself with that aggravating self-assurance of a man accustomed to that.
So who was he? A lawyer? Someone here about bills? A business associate of her aunt’s? Why at this time of night? But if he wasn’t a client, that might mean that he had not been vetted thoroughly. Still, that was her aunt’s handwriting on the card.
Krissy wished she had the nerve to tell him to come back tomorrow, but wasn’t that what she was doing with all her aunt’s affairs? Trying to put them off until tomorrow? It would just take a few seconds to find out what he wanted, break the bad news to him and send him on his way. It might even be just the impetus she needed to get started on all the things that had to be dealt with.
She clicked the dead bolt and pushed the door open a miserly crack.
An alarm began to shriek. It was loud enough to wake the dead, which given her aunt’s current status—and her request to hear from her—was terrifying.
The sound paralyzed Krissy, her feet felt pinned to the floor by it. She wanted to just cover her ears and shrink away from the appalling noise. Instead, she jumped away from the door and scanned the wall. Sure enough, there was a keypad, flashing the message Enter Code Now.
Code? She didn’t have a code. She had come through the back door. She hadn’t even been aware there was an alarm system.
“May I?” Without waiting for her answer, the man opened the door fully and stepped through it. A blast of wind came through with him and lifted some papers off her aunt’s desk and tossed them onto the floor. Really, it was like meeting the hero in a gothic novel!
He closed the door quickly against the wind, barely spared her a glance, but even so she noted his eyes were dark: not black at all, but a rather astonishing shade of blue—navy, like the deepest part of the ocean.
His presence, the broadness of his shoulders under that exquisite jacket, made the cramped office seem even smaller. Between an overflowing bookshelf and a file cabinet with open drawers, it felt as if there was no place to go.
She squeezed back against the wall as he studied the control panel. Even so, his shoulder brushed hers, and a lovely scent wafted off him. It transported Krissy. The wailing of the alarm took a back seat. It was as if the solid strength, the timelessness, of a pine forest had come through the door with him.
He was that kind of man who made a woman, even one as deliriously independent as her, feel that if they did rely on someone other than themselves every now and then, it wouldn’t be a weakness.
It would be utterly delicious.
CHAPTER TWO
JONAS FELT AS though his eardrums were being ripped out of his head. The woman, obviously wary of strangers, as she should be, was gazing at the control panel with consternation.
Madame Cosmos—his secret name for Jane Clark—was nowhere to be seen. Was this the woman that she had come up with for him?
She was definitely not his type. Not a speck of makeup, almost owllike with those huge dark eyes behind large glasses. Masses of luxurious dark hair were pulled into a sloppy bun. She was not very tall and she was not exactly plump, but gave the impression of hiding generous curves under an unflattering outfit.
Then again, given the task he had given Madame Cosmos, not his type might be exactly what was called for.
But yoga pants and a mustard-colored, too-large sweater? Sneakers? No one met their match like that. Plus, it was more than evident she had been surprised by his arrival.
No, she was obviously an office assistant, working late, or maybe she was even the cleaning staff. Madame Cosmos had obviously forgotten him. Was that so surprising, given what had appeared to him to be flakiness at their initial interview? She had asked him, with grave interest, his zodiac sign.
“What’s the code?” he called over the din.
The woman covered her ears and glared at him. It was really no time to notice her ears were tiny and sported prim little pearls. Her withering look indicated it was more than obvious she did not have the code. Her eyes sparkled with warning not to mistake her for an idiot.
He could step back into the night and let her deal with it. But he had important business with her boss—satisfaction guaranteed, indeed—that could not wait. It was June already. The long weekend in July was looming large.
He stepped up to the box and lifted the panel on it. No code, and surprise,
