“Fantastic. Throw a parade. Excuse me if I don’t come.”
She moved out again, crossing a street. I sprinted after, this time passing to block the path and stop her escape.
The woman glowered at me. She’d stuffed her bras back into the broken bag and had it in a death grip. “Get out of my way.”
“No. Tell me what happened. Why did they accuse you like that? And how do you know Tucker?”
I added the last question as a throwaway, though her expression when I’d said his name bothered me. If she had an axe to grind with my potential business partner, I wanted that information.
The anger radiating from her deepened, and instead of trying to get past me, Miss Braveheart stilled and stared me dead in the eye. “Why, so you can call him back and have a laugh? If you value your skin, you’ll leave me the hell alone.”
Excitement and fresh energy zipped along my veins. I took a deep breath, as if the exertion of chasing her had been far harder. Every cell in my body was switched on, magnetised, and pointing in her direction. “What if I don’t want to?”
She worked her jaw, challenge mixing with a flare of lust in her eyes. I couldn’t miss it. In minutes of this stranger’s company, I’d become attuned to very specific reactions in her. I liked them. A lot.
“Why did you chase me?”
I could’ve lied. But my lips gave up the first reason anyway. “I wanted you from the first second I saw you.”
“Ten minutes ago? Are you crazy?”
“Last night outside the party.”
Her lips parted. I leaned in to hear whatever she had to tell me. I needed to know why her insta-lust had turned to insta-hate.
Then her eyes widened and focused on something over my shoulder. “Shit.”
I spun around to face the danger. There was nothing there but an empty sidewalk. In the second it took to reset my focus, she’d gone. I swung around in a circle. The door of an adjacent store lay open. I darted inside.
I hunted every aisle. Checked the bathrooms. The exits.
She’d vanished.
But the fire inside me didn’t extinguish. For the first time in forever, I was fucking thrilled and needing more.Fine,Miss Braveheart. I knew enough to track her down, and a tech team who could run a trace faster than she could run.
But first, I retraced my steps to Crowley’s Department Store.
And the two women who’d run off my new favourite distraction.
Chapter 5
Bonnie
Frustration and bubbling fury dogged my steps throughout the week. My big idea of presenting my lingerie range at the department store couldn’t have gone worse.
Half of the stock I’d spent countless hours creating and perfecting was lost, and I had no way of getting it back. All because my emotions had got the better of me, and I’d run rather than face my accusers.
If I went to the police, I risked them siding with the shop assistant and her manager. I couldn’t afford a shoplifting charge, and my claim was too outlandish and my actions damning. Crucially, there was no label on my designs. I hadn’t wanted to add something the store owner immediately would want to change, so I’d left it off. A naive mistake which left me with no evidence they were mine.
That realisation was why I’d taken to my heels.
Defending other people was far easier than defending myself. I’d failed so hard I’d made my head spin.
A different impulse guided me today. It had directed me to the warehouse on Deadwater River. The huge red-brick building owned by the infamous skeleton crew. I was here because I needed to try something new. Something fun.
I’d signed up for the predator-prey game Jessie had whispered about.
I had to burn up the energy under my skin. Energy that was in some part built up by the American guy who’d chased me from Crowley’s. The big, dark-eyed, muscular man in a tight mechanic’s shirt had sent a wave of heat through me that made me forget my nerves.
