Rome didn’t even breathe a sigh of relief, because he’d known that all along. Kalina was not the type of woman who would do anything she didn’t absolutely want to. And judging by all the sex toys he’d spied in the bedroom at her apartment, she wasn’t missing any sexual fulfillment by not being with a man. No, Rome was positive she’d wanted him, right from the start. She hadn’t liked that idea, not one bit. Now he knew she had reason to be resistant. Still, the idea that the feds were attempting to investigate him for something as ridiculous as drug trafficking still grated on his nerves.
“Why didn’t you just tell me when I caught you trying to break into my computer?”
“Oh I don’t know, probably the same reason you didn’t rush to tell me you were a human shape shifter.”
“Not the same,” he replied, quickly folding his arms behind his head as he watched her. “So if you don’t close this case, you don’t get the big promotion?”
“How did you know about the promotion? How did you find out I’m a cop? Or used to be one. After this, who knows what I’ll end up doing. Maybe flipping burgers right beside the high school kids.”
“You graduated from high school and went right into the academy. From there you started out as a beat cop, tumbled onto a few dealers who turned state’s evidence and gave you their big boss. Moved up to narcotics about five years ago. You were working a case to bring down one of the Cortez Cartel’s biggest street hustlers when the sting went bad and you were attacked in that alley.”
Somewhere around his second sentence she’d turned and looked at him. “Thorough background check your firm does on its employees, huh.”
Rome shook his head. “I’m a Faction Leader for the shifters.”
“What does that mean?”
“I guess you could say I’m the leader of all the stateside shifters on the East Coast. That means I’m privy to a lot of classified information, especially when it threatens us.”
“I’m not a threat to you,” she said. “Not anymore. I mean—” Taking a deep breath, she let it out in a quick whoosh. “I don’t have any evidence to convict you. My report will say that. I’ll go back to the MPD and you can go back to whatever it is you really are doing in South America.”
“I help support my people in the rain forest. The money I send buys supplies and food and weapons so they can defend themselves and our secret.”
“Then why do they think you’re supporting a drug cartel instead?”
Rome figured it might have something to do with the meetings his father had with an associate of Raul Cortez. But even Rome didn’t know what had transpired at that meeting. He didn’t know what his father had told that man or what was supposed to come of the meeting. Bingham had only given him Cortez’s name, nothing more. The old man simply didn’t know any more, and Rome accepted that. If his father didn’t tell him, Baxter, or even his mother what he was doing, the odds that he’d tell his lawyer were slim. So it looked like whatever had transpired years ago was about to come to light and the shifters would be the ones dealing with the repercussions. Not if he could help it.
“I don’t know” was his reply, because until he had more to go on than a name and an appointment in a journal he wasn’t talking about this situation, especially not with a cop.
Kalina waited a beat and figured she’d just been lied to. But that was fair, she figured; she was now the enemy. Which made the feelings she now knew she had for him even more difficult to deal with. So without another word she slid off the bed, taking the sheet with her as she moved closer to her clothes.
“Look, I can get a uniform to sit outside my apartment and keep watch. I’ll report the pictures and Ferrell’s weirdo act this afternoon and all will be well. I don’t have to stay here.” Bending over, she began picking up her clothes that were strewn about the floor.
She gasped when a strong arm came around her waist, pulling her upright against the hardness of his body.
“You’re not going back there alone.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said even though her body was saying something totally different. This desire for him was getting worse, like a craving that just wouldn’t go away. And she wanted it to, oh how she wanted it to. Because despite what she was feeling physically, this thing between them would never work. “I have to get out of here.”
Her voice sounded desperate and almost frantic to her ears. She couldn’t stand it.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Oh, but he already had, she wanted to say. His accusations, although basically true and brought on by her own dishonesty, had hurt. The fact that he thought she could sleep with him as a part of her job hurt. The fact that she ended up sleeping with him as a result of her job was embarrassing and painful. And the mere thought that he wouldn’t want her anymore because of everything he’d learned about her was going to make her physically sick in just a few minutes.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying to pull away from him.
“It does.” He loosened his grip on her only slightly, so that she could breathe but she still couldn’t break free. “I asked you to trust me before, I’m going to ask you to do it again.”
She was shaking her head. “I can’t. And you don’t trust me. So we’re even.”
“I trust you,” he said solemnly. Then as if to show the truth to his words, he let her go.
Kalina spun around and looked at him in all his naked splendor. She simply stared, wondering what was about to come out of his mouth, seeing in flashes the beast he’d turned into, remembering with startling clarity the compassionate lover he’d been. “Why?”
“Because I can scent a lie miles away. Because I knew from that moment I saw you in the alley there was something special about you. Because like it or not somebody is after you and I think that somebody is a shifter.”
“What? Why would a shifter be after me? It’s probably one of the dealers from that night. One who didn’t get busted.”
“Then what does he want with you now?”
“Revenge.”
Rome shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t wait two years to get back at you. He would have struck sooner. This is about something else. When did you get the first pictures?”
Thinking, Kalina tilted her head as she looked up at him. “The day I met you in your office.”
“Whatever they want from you is personal. Ticked anybody off lately?” he asked, his lips lifting into a small smile she suspected was meant to lighten the mood.
As far as after sex banter went—this was rating a low three at best.
With a heavy sigh, she admitted, “I don’t know anybody to tick off.”
“What does that mean? You have to have friends, family. Somebody who’d get angry with you at some point.”
It was Kalina’s turn to shake her head. “I thought you did your research,” she said, but it was spoken so low it lost any biting sarcasm she might have attempted. “I have no family and the only person I know is Mrs. Gilbert, my neighbor. I don’t socialize much.”
“Why?”
This had turned into a question-and-answer session, but she really hadn’t expected him to ask her that. “I don’t know. I just don’t do well with people or relationships or something like that.” Why couldn’t she just say she was afraid to give herself to anyone in any capacity, in case they left her just like her parents did?
For a few seconds Rome was utterly silent.
“I can relate to that.”
“No, you can’t. You’re the Roman Reynolds, playboy attorney, richer than most and on every woman’s to-do list. I’m sure you have no problem with relationships.”