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“Sure.” He chuckled. “Them most of all.”
The mild censure in his tone was the very least she deserved.
She hiked up the train of her evening gown as the walk of shame took her through the station house. The sound of a ringing phone, the tap of computer keys, and a parade of bold stares from the small number of officers on night duty followed her every step of the way making her humiliation complete.
“I’ll leave you here.” Officer Kelly stopped as they arrived at the door leading to the front desk at the station entrance. “Just don’t do anything that reckless again, okay? Or at least not on my watch.”
“You have my word.” She crossed her heart with her little finger. “Pinkie swear.”
“Good girl.” He sent her a paternal smile, tipped his hat, and left.
Pushing open the door, she noticed the tall lean man standing by the admitting sergeant’s desk with his back to her.
The combo of worn T-shirt and jeans marked him out as a civilian, although the hipshot stance as he leant on the desk and chatted to the admitting sergeant made it clear he was more than comfortable in this environment. His unruly hair gleamed black under the fluorescent light, much darker than the chestnut curls of his sister Faith.
Tyrone ‘High and Mighty’ Sullivan, her knight in battered denim.
The unwanted pulse of awareness hit Zel in the solar plexus.
As her knight shifted to sign a sheet of paper handed over by the sergeant, she noted the magnificent width of his shoulders. Now in his early thirties, he’d gotten a lot more solid than the last time she’d seen him, scowling at her as she waited her turn to get eviscerated by the Mother Superior on her fateful, final day at St. J’s.
Sucking in a calming breath, she strode towards him.
Her heels echoed on the concrete floor as she approached the desk and her knight whisked round. Bold, vividly green eyes alighted on her face. The spark of irritation was only marginally more annoying than the judgmental once over he gave her, his gaze snagging for a second on the jeweled bodice of her Versace gown.
“Hello Mr. Sullivan, thank you so much for coming,” she said, keeping her expre
ssion blank. There was no point wasting her enslavement smile on a man who was making such a concerted effort to fire daggers of disgust at her.
“I’ve paid the fine,” he said, neatly cutting off any more unnecessary pleasantries—the knife-edge in the tone sharp enough to slice through bone.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, trying her very best not to resent the high-handed attitude. “I just needed someone to…”
“You don’t need a lawyer. It was only a citation,” he said. “And anyway, I couldn’t act for you, even if I wanted to.”
“Why not?” she asked, hating the tiny quiver of vulnerability in response to his pissy attitude.
She prided herself on being strong in any given situation. But she’d just spent the last two hours sitting in a police station contemplating how much she’d relied on others in the last six years to organize her life.
Appearances to the contrary, she hadn’t actually planned to get picked up at midnight on Manhattan Beach for disorderly conduct. Okay, going for a swim by moonlight to celebrate her decision to finally jack in her modeling career hadn’t been her smartest decision of late. In fact, it had definitely been one of the dumbest. But the beach had been deserted, the hurricane-damaged residences that backed onto it apparently empty. And the feeling of freedom, of liberation, of excitement had overwhelmed her at the thought of how far she’d come. That she no longer needed to be at the beck and call of an army of publicists and stylists and agents and personal assistants to keep her life in order. She’d wanted to mark the moment—and the water had beckoned, cool and inviting in the muggy night, and edged by the magical twinkle of city lights on the opposite shore and the canopy of stars that shone through the smog.
And frankly, how could she possibly have known that one of those apparently dark, empty properties actually housed a couple of old biddies who spent their nights scanning the vicinity with telescopes on the lookout for runaway supermodels swimming in their underwear?
Sullivan’s disdainful look became pitying, spiking her temper. “I work for the Legal Aid Society. I doubt your income would qualify.” He slung a hand in his pocket, still sending her those you-are-such-a-waste-of-my-time vibes. “Plus there’s a clear conflict of interest.”
“Which is?” she asked, drawing herself up to her full height. At five-foot-eight, she rarely had to look up to speak to guys, especially when she added on the three inches supplied by the heels of her Laboutins. Ty Sullivan, though, still had a good two inches on her. And he was using every millimeter of his height advantage to look down his nose at her.
The bastard.
“I know you.” He leant forward, invading her personal space enough to overlay the scent of cheap disinfectant, vomit and perspiration that permeated the precinct house with the whiff of laundry detergent. “Personally.”
“Yes, but it’s fairly clear you can’t stand me. So, where’s the conflict?”
“It still qualifies,” he said, not denying the accusation. But then what was the point, when those emerald bright eyes were firing rotary blades at her now, instead of just daggers.
He turned back to the desk sergeant. “I’ll take Ms. Madison off your hands, Officer Benton. Give my thanks to Kelly and Mendoza too, for bringing her in so she didn’t get mugged or worse.” He sent her a cautionary look, as if she were a disobedient three-year-old. And she hadn’t already thanked both officers personally. “Does she need to sign anything before we head out?” he added.
“Here you go, Ms. Madison.” The sympathy in the sergeant’s friendly, brown eyes made his hangdog face look comfortingly homely as he passed a form across the desk. “You be careful from now on, no more swimming at night. It’s not safe. Or smart.”
