LITMIR.BIZ

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      Relief washed over her for a moment before her heart stuttered and she found herself smoothing her fingers over her clothes, flattening wrinkles and assessing her appeal at this hour when her work clothes were in the hamper. Not that her appearance should matter, damn it.

      But the idea of having him here, at her apartment, unsettled her. She liked to face professional acquaintances when properly armed in her I-mean-business suits, whereas at home she liked to remind herself of the femininity she stomped down all day.

      “Can we talk about your investigation tomorrow?” Not having the man-woman skills needed to dance around this kind of sexual tension, Donata figured avoidance would be a good policy until she had Mick around as a buffer.

      She’d used up all her steely reserve at work today. At home she took comfort in falling into more relaxed—less contentious—surroundings. She found herself wishing she had her cat to snuggle, but Duchess was hiding under a chair.

      “No. You told me earlier today that we could talk later, remember?” Impatience laced his voice. “Would you just open the door so I can at least come inside? It’s freezing out here.”

      Seeing no graceful way around it, she hit the button to admit him downstairs and prayed hard for a clear mind to at least muddle her way through a conversation. Mick had called her earlier, sounding as weary as she felt, to let her know his daughter had been at a friend’s house but that he had some issues he needed to square away with Katie and was taking a personal day tomorrow. Not a problem for Donata, but it left her to contend with Sean—and the pressure to drop the case—on her own.

      Something she damn well refused to be afraid of.

      Still, it rattled her to realize she was raking her fingers through her hair while she waited for him to arrive at her third-floor apartment. In defiance of her stupid female primping, she purposely scrubbed her locks into disarray again. What did she care what she looked like to talk to a pit bull P.I.?

      By the time the knock arrived on her door and she peered through the peephole, Donata’s nerves were already stretched taut. Yanking open the door, she couldn’t help but resent that he’d blasted right through the boundaries she worked hard to keep in place at the police station.

      “I’m off duty, Beringer.” She heard the bitchy tone in her voice but was powerless to call back the words.

      “Didn’t anyone warn you there’s no such thing as off duty when you’re a New York cop?” He seemed oblivious to her bad mood or else he was very good at ignoring people’s boundaries. “And call me Sean. I think we’ve been through enough together to warrant a first-name basis, don’t you?”

      Ignoring the reminder of a most unpleasant evening spent in jail, she took a deep breath while she closed the door and bolted the lock, hoping to steady herself and instead inhaling the vaguest hint of aftershave.

      She’d forgotten what it was like to be inside a man’s personal space. She’d hardened her heart to Sergio long before she’d sold him out. Her need to punish him for breaking the law and his promise of faithfulness to her had helped her ignore the old tug of attraction she’d once felt. But she hadn’t learned how to defuse the heat between her and the man now in her apartment. It would singe her if she wasn’t careful.

      “Fine, Sean. I knew what I was signing up for to be on the force.” She backed away from him, retreating deeper into the safe haven of her home. “I’m just not used to tripping over pushy P.I.s at every turn on an investigation.”

      “Good cops cultivate their sources, they don’t lock them out.” He followed her into the living area that doubled as her bedroom in the small space. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

      So technically, she had a man in her bedroom after a long, long time. A shiver accompanied the thought as her gaze lingered on the foldout sofa where she slept.

      “Not quite as grand as my Long Island digs, but at least it’s all paid for honestly.” She’d inherited a house in the Hamptons from her father when she was eighteen and she’d used the proceeds from the sale to set herself up in this apartment with a nice savings account for a rainy day. Everything that Sergio had ever given her she’d donated to charity after the split.

      She hated what it said about her that she’d been involved with a crook. The police background check may have forgiven the transgression, but forgiving herself was far more difficult.

      “I knew four years ago that you weren’t guilty of anything but poor judgment, Donata. I only made the big show of putting you under arrest in the hope you might spill something about Sergio’s connections in the filmmaking industry.” He took off his coat and tossed it on her couch, making himself at home before she’d invited him to stay.

      The intimacy of the act suggested an ease around her that men didn’t usually feel with a woman accustomed to being labeled “cold.” One of the police cadets she’d gone through training with had gone so far as to suggest she could wither a man’s sexual interest at twenty paces with just one glare. Not exactly flattering, but a helpful kind of superpower for a female who was scared spitless of dominating men.

      And yet Sean remained immune to the glare.

      “I knew you didn’t have any evidence,” she admitted, figuring she might as well come clean if they were going to work together. “And I could have called in my FBI connections to set things straight, but I figured the threat of me being busted would buy me street cred with Sergio. He was starting to get suspicious of me. The big bust happened just a few weeks later.”

      “So all that surly silent treatment was an act?” He strolled around her living room, checking the titles of the books on her shelves, the DVDs next to the TV and the wine bottles on the rack near the kitchen.

      The attention to his surroundings was typical of a good cop and she wondered why he’d felt the police department couldn’t bring his sister’s molester to justice. The department always needed good investigators and she had the feeling his leaving was a loss for the city.

      “I honestly didn’t know of any connection Sergio might have had to the film industry. But as for the tough-girl behavior, I did a lot of acting those last few months with him.” What scared her more were the hours where she’d forgotten it was an act, the dates they went on that had seemed like old times and had made her forget for a little while that she was staying with him only to bust him.

      It had all felt so unclean. So dishonest.

      “What about the harassment charges?” Sean turned on his heel to stalk straight toward her now, all pretense of interest in her apartment gone as he focused on her. “Was that an act to buy points with your boyfriend, too?”

      “No.” She stifled the impulse to step backward, away from him. “But I realized afterward that I was just scared and…acting out…to even the odds between us. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”

      She’d rescinded her verbal accusation and refused to formalize it in writing after her head had cleared from the sensual haze that enveloped the room when she and Sean had been together.

      “Luckily, I was already making plans to leave the department by then so it wasn’t as big of a deal as it might have been.” He stopped a foot from her, his sleekly muscular body making its presence felt even though he didn’t touch her.

      Four years ago she’d thought the resulting shaky feeling inside had been from harassment. Now she recognized it for what it had been all along.

      She had the hots for Sean Beringer.

      

      EVEN AS SEAN BEGAN to realize it had been a mistake to seek out Donata after hours, he still couldn’t make himself back away from her.

      He’d seen hints of the old over-the-top sexiness at the precinct today in the pure silk blouse she’d worn beneath her navy suit. The fire-engine-red lips had been another clue, even if the rest of her face hadn’t been made-up.

      But in the

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