Debbi Rawlins - All or Nothing

“Come on. Now I’m curious.”

He stupidly hadn’t anticipated the question, but he’d learned doing undercover work that sticking as close to the truth as possible reduced your risk of exposure. “I was bored.”

“Ah. The curse of the idle rich.”

“Now, now, darlin’. You know boredom isn’t only a rich man’s affliction.”

“Okay, you’re right.” Her lips curved in a cheeky smile. “They just get to be bored without worrying about paying the mortgage.”

“Touché.”

“At least you’re honest,” she said, picking up her menu.

He flinched and quickly directed his attention to the list of entrées. Maybe dinner hadn’t been such a good idea. No, this was a good opportunity. As long as he retained control of the conversation.

Nothing on the menu was too pricey, particularly by Manhattan standards. He liked that she’d chosen this place even though she thought he had deep pockets. “Any recommendations?”

“Everything is good.” She closed her menu and set it aside.

“What are you having?”

“Blackened chicken salad.”

Should’ve known she was one of those salad kind of gals, low-fat dressing on the side, no doubt. Why it disappointed him he couldn’t say. Him, he was a having a great big porterhouse steak.

As soon as he closed his menu the waitress appeared again and took their order. He asked for another beer, but Dana declined. A smarter man would’ve followed her lead. He had to meet her at ten tomorrow and run another five miles. Although, if he got enough information tonight, there really would be no reason to see her.

Their eyes met, hers so beautiful his groin stirred. Who was he kidding? No way he’d pass up a chance to see her again. He smiled and went for his beer.

“How’s your side?”

“Better.”

“How did you say you hurt it?”

“A man can humble himself only so much in one night.”

She smiled. “Must be a pretty juicy story.”

He wouldn’t call it that. But he couldn’t very well admit he’d been part of an undercover sting that had gone bad. One that might have shot his career to hell and back.

Focus. He couldn’t start replaying that old tape. Might as well call it a night if his mind had started going to that bad neighborhood. “Let’s get back to your friend. She has a résumé and portfolio, I presume.”

At his abruptness, Dana blinked. “Sure.”

“Okay.” He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “After my meeting tomorrow I’ll know more about how close I am to sealing this deal.”

“Great.” Dana seemed nervous suddenly, her hand trembling slightly as she picked up her bottle of beer. “If it works out for you and you’d like to talk to my friend, I could arrange for the two of you to meet.”

“You sound more like her agent.”

She smiled. “She’s had a tough go of it lately, and I hate to see her give up.”

A loud group of six sat at the table next to them, the three guys arguing over yesterday’s Mets’ game and sounding as if they’d already been partying half the afternoon.

Chase leaned across the table toward Dana. Her lips were really something, full and pouty, but natural-looking. “What about you?”

“What about me?” she asked warily.

“Aren’t you interested?”

She hesitated. “That phase of my life is over. I’ve moved on.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, relieved because he didn’t have to feel like a jerk for getting her hopes up.

She briefly looked away. “What about you? What will you do if this deal fails?”

“Failure is never an option.” Yeah, easy to sound confident when you were full of crap. When you didn’t know if you were even going to have a job next month. What the hell. He was kind of liking this private-dick stuff, especially the expense-account part.

“Good attitude. I hope it works for you.” She smiled, but it didn’t erase the trace of bitterness in her voice.

Brought him back to the reason he was here. Bitterness could change a person. Make them do things they weren’t proud of, or worse, make them think it was their God-given right to take what they wanted. Like turn to thieving to support a lifestyle they felt they’d been cheated out of. He studied Dana as she stared into her beer, her blond hair falling forward like a sheet of expensive fine silk.

Did she fit that profile? Did she feel she deserved more than life had dished out? Did it matter that a woman like her could get a man to give her anything she wanted? She wouldn’t even have to work at it. Just bat those beautiful eyes. Or maybe she liked more of a challenge. Wanted a more active role. Could be she was working with someone.

Hell, that was an angle he hadn’t considered yet. She seemed chummy with some of the hotel staff. Maybe her job was to distract the target while an accomplice snatched the goods. Made sense. The possibility was certainly worth considering.

The idea grated on him more than it should. He didn’t want her to be involved. His lack of objectivity really got to him. Hadn’t he learned his lesson in the past year? Of course it wasn’t as if she were a serious suspect yet. But until she could be eliminated, she stayed on the list. When the eliminations were done, the last man standing ended up in cuffs.

After poking around yesterday, he had his eye on a room-service waiter and a maid. Both had opportunity and knowledge of the ring. He knew the maid had been on the same floor at the time of the other theft. The waiter’s timeline hadn’t been confirmed.

Still, the fact that Dana had lied about not going up to the guest floors nagged at him. He knew that wasn’t true because Roscoe had seen her. Which brought him back to his original suspicion that she did know Roscoe. The idea that they could’ve been intimate made him queasy.

“You’ve gotten awfully quiet,” she said, toying with her napkin so that it was beginning to shred. “Anything wrong?”

“I was thinking about your friend. When did she decide to leave New York?”

Dana frowned. “Why?”

“Because if I go forward, I need people who are committed to the film. If she already has a job lined up back home—”

Dana laughed. “Trust me. If you have a role for her, she’ll commit.”

That didn’t go as planned. “This decision…was it a sudden one?”

“I think so.” She took a pensive sip. “But I don’t really know. I haven’t talked to her much since she dropped the bomb. Actually, I was going to see if she’d meet me this evening and fill me in. That was before you asked me to dinner.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t turn me down.”

“Me, too,” she said quietly, briefly meeting his eyes before looking at the napkin she’d been working on.

He forced his attention on the business at hand. “So this friend of yours, she isn’t leaving because of an old boyfriend or job or anything in particular?”

Dana gave him an odd look. She settled back, her posture on the defensive side. “She received a letter from her mother telling her about a job that’s opened up, a pretty good job, apparently.”

“Ah. Not show business,” he said, absently. That didn’t mean she didn’t have another motive for wanting a quick exit.

“Oh, no. She has a business degree.”

“What about you? Did you go to college?”

Dana nodded. “Yep. Just a junior college near my home for two years and then I finished up at the university. I have a teaching degree so I can always rely on that.”

“You don’t look like any teacher I ever had.”

She rolled her eyes. “What about you? Before you got bored,” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “What did you do?”

“I dropped out of school.”