Justine Davis - Deadly Temptation

“Why?” he asked, barely aware that his voice was hoarse. “Redstone’s got no stake in this.”

“We believe in our own. One of them believes in you. It’s not tricky, really.”

Logan shook his head, as if that would help him make sense of all of this.

“I haven’t seen her in eight years,” he said, feeling a bit numb.

Alvera studied him for a moment. “Then perhaps you should,” he said finally. “You know where Redstone is?”

Logan’s mouth quirked. “Every cop in Southern California knows where Redstone is. Josh Redstone does more to support his local police than anybody in the state.”

Alvera grinned. “That he does. In more ways than you even know. I’ll meet you there, at the front entrance.”

The man got back in his car, assuming, Logan noted, that he would follow. And rightfully so, he added to himself somewhat ruefully. Because with barely a few seconds’ thought, he walked back to the parked BMW and did just that.

Hearing the sound of someone approaching her office, Liana expected it was Lilith. She’d sent her boss an e-mail asking for some printed reports she needed to take her computer searching to the next level, and it would be very like Lilith—and everyone at Redstone, she was discovering—to hand-carry them herself rather than delegating a gofer to do it. In fact, Liana wasn’t sure Redstone even had gofers; people were expected to follow through on all phases of their work, and they did it, happily.

When it registered that there were two sets of footsteps, and that neither sounded like Lilith’s light-footed stride, she looked up.

She hadn’t expected to see Tony Alvera again this soon. The Redstone Security agent had come by to introduce himself just hours after she’d had her meeting with Samantha Gamble. He’d explained with a charming grin that it hadn’t been a great leap for Security head John Draven to decide that he’d fit into the world Logan Beck had been frequenting better than the blond, blue-eyed Sam would.

There had been something about that grin and the warmth in his dark eyes that had overcome her natural reticence with strangers and allowed her to tease him back.

“I don’t know,” she’d said, studying his golden skin and the small, rakish patch of beard beneath his lower lip. “You’re a little clean-cut, aren’t you?”

He’d laughed, and she wondered how many women fell at his feet anytime he did.

“I wasn’t always,” he’d told her. “And I’ve got scars to prove it. Josh plucked me off the street when I was a sixteen-year-old gangster, headed for nothing but prison, a lethal injection, or dying in the gutter. The day I tried to rip him off was the best day of my life.”

Liana remembered her amazement at his story, that he indeed had tried to rob at knifepoint one of the richest men in the world, and that man had, instead of surrendering, offered him the chance of a lifetime.

“I don’t know what he saw in me,” Alvera had said, his tone becoming solemn, “but he saved my life.”

Now, as Alvera stood in her office doorway with a smile on his exotically handsome face, Liana wondered how many others at Redstone felt the same way.

“I brought somebody to see you,” Alvera said. “He’s a little confused, I think.”

He stepped aside then. Although she’d already guessed, Liana’s breath still caught in her throat when she saw the man behind him.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

He looks so different, she thought, the change in him even more apparent in person than it had been in the photograph, his once-vivid blue eyes seeming not just shadowed but haunted.

“Logan.” She was barely aware of saying it until she heard it herself, just above a whisper.

Alvera said something about leaving them to it and left. Neither of them watched him go.

Logan Beck took three steps toward her, stopping in front of her desk. He stared at her, and she found it oddly difficult to breathe. It seemed forever before he at last spoke. And when he did, his voice was harsh and matched that haunted look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“All of a sudden I’ve got Redstone Security on my tail. Alvera said you put them up to it. Why?”

“I’m trying to help,” she said.

He gave a low, humorless chuckle. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t waste your time.”

Liana studied him for a long, silent moment. Had he truly given up? Or was he just still in shock over what had happened to him, and hadn’t yet begun to fight back? She had to believe the latter; the Logan Beck she’d met that day would never give up so easily.

“It’s my time to waste,” she said firmly.

He looked startled. She supposed he was; she’d changed a bit since that day in the bank.

“Liana,” he said, at last using the name she hadn’t been certain he even remembered, “there’s nothing you can do.”

“Maybe there’s nothing I can do myself. But Redstone is a different story.”

“I know their rep,” he acknowledged. “But there’s no reason for them to get involved.”

“Apparently I’m reason enough,” she said.

His eyes narrowed. “Alvera said you just started working here a couple of days ago.”

“Yes. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Not a great way to start a new career, dragging your new employer into a corruption investigation of a crooked cop.”

“You’re not a crooked cop.”

He drew back slightly, staring at her. “You sound awfully certain.”

“I am.”

“Liana—”

“I know you didn’t do it, Logan. You couldn’t.”

He made a low sound that was almost a groan. “Don’t, Liana. Don’t waste your time, don’t risk your new career.”

“Are you saying you don’t need any help? That you trust—what is it?—Internal Affairs? You trust them to clear you?”

He laughed, this time harshly. “Hardly.”

“Then let me help.”

She saw a muscle along his jaw jump, then set. “Don’t,” he said, his voice cold now. “Don’t even try.”

Liana stared at him. What had happened to the hero she remembered, the man who had shown a courage she’d only seen once before in her life? How had he ended up so beaten, so broken? She hoped his wife—what had his fiancée’s name been?—was keeping a close eye on him.

“It’s my decision,” she said.

He stared at her. She saw something flicker in his eyes for the first time, some tiny glimmer of light. Hope? she wondered.

For the first time since the startling realization that Redstone truly meant to help him, Liana was certain he needed that help.

Chapter 4

“Who’d have thought it?” Logan murmured almost under his breath.

“Thought what?” Liana asked, finally coming out from behind the desk. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a light green sweater that hugged her curves without being blatant, just as he would have expected. Part of that girl-next-door thing, he thought, along with the sweet smile and the big blue eyes.

“I should have known,” he said hastily, veering off a path he didn’t want to travel. “The woman who did what you did that day in the bank isn’t one to shy away from a losing fight.”

She frowned. “You’re the one who took that crazy guy out.”

“I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t put yourself in his line of fire and rolled that chair at him.”

He knew he’d never forget that moment. They’d been huddled in a corner, him pulling his off-duty weapon from its ankle holster, assessing the situation and looking for a way out, her exhibiting an odd combination of fear and anger. One bank customer was already dead, and he’d known there would be more bodies if he didn’t do something. The thought that one of them might be this beautiful, innocent, girl-next-door type was more than he could take.