Jamie Sobrato - Too Wild

“What about her? Just tell me now.”

“I really need to speak with you face-to-face. It’s a sensitive matter.”

A sensitive matter? Did bloodthirsty criminals talk like that?

“Haven’t you ever heard of the telephone?”

“I’ve been trying to call you for days with no answer.”

Oh. Right. She’d unplugged the answering machine after the strange calls started coming in, and finally she’d just stopped answering the phone.

“Look, if you’re here about the pageant story, I don’t have any idea what your problem is with it!”

She turned off the intercom and pushed her sofa against the door, then climbed on top of it and pulled her legs to her chest. She was beginning to think journalism had been the wrong career choice. What she needed was a nice, safe job. Maybe in forestry, or library science.

No, that was just fear talking. She loved her work. She’d always dreamed of being a freelance writer, and now she was one. Was she really such a coward she’d let someone bully her out of writing the truth? Scared as she might be, in her gut, Jenna knew she wasn’t about to stop working on the article.

Fifteen minutes later, she was still sitting in the same spot staring at her chipped toenail polish when she heard Mrs. Lupinski hollering about the whereabouts of her free pizza, a sure sign that the guy with the sensitive matter to discuss had gotten into the building.

Someone knocked at the door, and in spite of herself Jenna jumped again.

“Ms. Calvert, this is urgent. It’s about your sister’s wedding.”

Kathryn was getting married? No surprise there, if he was telling the truth. Her sister had been dreaming of a rich Prince Charming ever since they’d been old enough to date.

“She needs your help.”

“Right, now I know you’re lying. And why isn’t she here asking for my help herself if she needs it?” Kathryn would no sooner ask for Jenna’s help than she would wear a designer knockoff dress.

“I’ll explain, if you’ll just give me a chance.”

“Go away before I call the police!”

She peered through the peephole at him to see his reaction. Yow! What a cutie. Smoky green eyes, sand-colored hair streaked with blond and cut meticulously short, the kind of stern, masculine mouth that begged to be kissed into submission. Not exactly the face of a thug, but what did she know? Maybe criminals were going for the GQ look this year.

“I understand you and Kathryn haven’t spoken in some time, and you didn’t part on friendly terms.”

Okay, somehow he’d found some personal information to make his cover seem authentic. Jenna sank back down on the couch and chewed her lip.

“Jenna, this is really urgent. Open the door.”

She eyed the fire escape. Today was not a good day to die. For one thing, her roots were starting to show, and she had a zit on her chin. She’d look like hell in a casket. Maybe this guy was legit, but she couldn’t afford to find out. It would only be a short drop from the bottom of the fire escape to the ground.

She hopped off the couch, grabbed her backpack purse, slid her feet into the nearest pair of sandals and hurried to the fire-escape window.

The gorgeous maybe-assassin started pounding on the door, and Jenna pushed her window open and squeezed through it. Her breath came out ragged, and she imagined herself in an action movie as she climbed down the fire escape and dangled herself over the bottom edge for the drop. Five feet, no problem. She let go and landed with a thud in the scraggly mess of weeds that made up her building’s backyard vegetation.

Now what? She hadn’t exactly formulated an escape plan. Jenna eyed the tall chain-link fence that surrounded the backyard and tried to envision herself scaling it. No way—she wasn’t risking it unless there were no other options.

If she hurried, she might be able to go out the alleyway to the street and slip away before he realized she wasn’t in her apartment anymore. Jenna hurried to the rusty gate and eased it open, then ran down the alley to the sidewalk.

She’d only made it past the neighbor’s house when she heard a man’s voice call after her, “Jenna, wait!”

Him again. What, did he have X-ray vision? Jenna ran, and the sound of footsteps quickened. He caught up with her as she rounded the corner of the next street.

“Kathryn said you’d resist helping, but she didn’t tell me you were crazy,” he said over her shoulder, and something about the perplexed tone of his voice made Jenna stop and look at him.

He was even more gorgeous in person without his features distorted by the peephole. Up close, he was half a foot taller than her, and he stood with the kind of assurance that suggested he was accustomed to being in charge. Jenna’s fear was suddenly overcome with a pang of desire. Wow, did she ever need to pay more attention to her love life, if her would-be assassin was suddenly turning her on.

His clothes—a navy wool sport coat, an open-collared white oxford and a pair of beige summer wool slacks—were tailored, expensive. The way they fit, the way he looked so carefully put together, gave Jenna the urge to muss him up.

He was studying her, probably trying to make sense of the differences between herself and her high-society identical twin. “You are Jenna Calvert, right?”

Jenna kept her hair long and dyed various shades of red—this month it was Auburn Fire—while Kathryn had always been fond of short debutante haircuts in their natural blond color. And Jenna had always asserted her independence and uniqueness from her twin through her wild wardrobe, while Kathryn’s taste tended toward the classic and exorbitantly priced.

“Yes,” she said, secretly thrilled that she’d managed to distinguish herself from her identical twin so well.

“I’m Travis Roth. It’s good to finally meet you.” He withdrew a business card from his pocket and offered it to her. Jenna took it and read the raised black lettering on a tasteful white linen card. Travis Roth, CEO, Roth Investments.

Whoopee. Any bozo could get business cards made up and call himself a CEO.

Jenna stuck it in her pocket.

“What color are Kathryn’s bridesmaid dresses going to be?”

“Excuse me?”

“The colors in the wedding—dresses, flowers, everything. If you know that, I’ll talk to you.”

He appeared to be giving the matter some thought. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

Jenna wished she’d remembered to grab a kitchen knife on the way out the window. “If you know Kathryn, you’d know what colors are in her wedding.”

A look of understanding softened his features. “Some kind of purple? Lavender, right?”

Lavender was Kathryn’s signature color. Ever since they were kids, she’d worn lavender, while Jenna’d had to wear identical outfits in pink. But that was one of their many differences—Kathryn had embraced being dressed up as a sideshow act by their mother, while Jenna had hated every moment of it. She still couldn’t look at the color pink without feeling slightly nauseated.

Kathryn could never understand why Jenna had felt the need to differentiate herself from her twin with wild clothes and different hair colors, while Jenna couldn’t understand her twin’s obsession with being one of an identical pair.

“Okay, so what’s your connection to my sister and her wedding?”

“I’m her fiancé’s brother, and I’ll explain everything if you’ll just give me a half hour of your time.”

Her curiosity was piqued now that she had some assurance this Travis guy wasn’t a hardened criminal. What sort of urgent matter could bring Kathryn to turn to Jenna for help? And why had she sent her fiancé’s brother to talk to her?

She looked Travis up and down. Okay, considering his sex appeal, he was a pretty good messenger. She could stand to spend a half hour with him, though she could think of much more interesting things to do with him than talk about Kathryn and her prenuptial problems.