LITMIR.BIZ

      Dear Reader,

      Brace yourselves! I took a dive into darker terrain for the second book in my WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL series, as detective Vanessa Torres (remember her from Silk Confessions, Harlequin Blaze #171?) takes center stage. Who knew the tough-talking detective had so many secrets up her sleeve? I hope you enjoy my most suspenseful—and possibly hottest—Harlequin Blaze release yet. I fell for Alec right along with Vanessa, even though he’s hardly a charmer. What is it about those brooding alpha males that can turn a girl’s head? Even Vanessa had to pay attention…once she brought him down a notch or two!

      There’s more to come in WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL, which will be an ongoing Harlequin Blaze miniseries. You can look for the next release in the series at eHarlequin.com, or visit me at www.JoanneRock.com to learn more. Until then, please keep an eye out for Love Me Tender, an anthology of Elvis-themed stories with offerings from Stephanie Bond, Jo Leigh and me, coming to Harlequin Signature Select in August 2005.

      Happy reading,

      Joanne Rock

      His Wicked Ways

      Joanne Rock

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      So many hands touch a writer’s work before it finds its way to a reader. I owe great thanks to the people in my life who bolster me and inspire me to take new creative risks. This book is dedicated to Wanda Ottewell, whose expert advice and encouragement have helped me remain focused and enthused about the creative process over the past four years through sixteen releases for Harlequin Blaze, Harlequin Temptation and special projects. Wanda, thank you so much for all your thoughtful insights and helping me make each story the best it can be!

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      1

      VANESSA TORRES didn’t need to click the heels of her ruby slippers together to remember there was no place like home.

      Nope, her shoes—size ten black leather Converse sneakers that had seen better days—beat the streets of the South Bronx with the same mixture of wariness and attitude that had carried her through twelve years of public school in New York’s toughest borough. So what if the neighborhood had undergone some revitalization? The sun might be shining on an old men’s chess game in front of a new antique shop on 172nd, and the girls skipping double Dutch looked harmless enough, but Vanessa would lay odds the geezers were packing heat beneath their game board and the preteen jump ropers had probably already been recruited by local gangs who still haunted the playgrounds.

      Damn straight there was no place like home when you grew up in the Bronx.

      Scavenging what peace of mind she could from the 9 mm tucked in the waistband of her jeans, Vanessa gladly endured the late spring heat through the extra layer of a linen blazer since it covered the NYPD-issued weapon. Five years of training in kendo had given her confidence in her ability to fight hand to hand, but sometimes it took a gun to even up unfair odds—a lesson she’d once learned the hard way on this very same street corner.

      Shrugging off old ghosts, she studied the buildings around one of the housing projects and searched for the address an informant had given her. God knows she wouldn’t be walking this block if she weren’t here on business, even if this particular piece of police business was still on the q.t.

      “Hey baby, you new in town?” The male shout emanated from a construction-worker type wearing an orange fluorescent vest and a hard hat. The guy lounged on the tailgate of an oversize truck while a fire hydrant leaked copious amounts of water two feet from his toolbox.

      Why was it so many men possessed all the right equipment and not a clue how to use it? But then, it had been a long time since she’d had a positive disposition in regard to the male species.

      Squinting at the guy’s features, Vanessa placed his face. “Hell no, I’m not new here, Tony. Don’t you have anything better to do than toss out tired old pickup lines?”

      She stared pointedly at the leaking fire hydrant.

      “Damn, Vanessa. I didn’t recognize you.” Lifting a paper cup from a fast-food joint, he toasted her. “Looking good, girl.”

      “You bet your pipe wrench.” Having grown up with the world’s biggest buckteeth and hand-me-down Coke-bottle glasses, she now considered her hard-won good looks as much a part of her personal armor as the Smith & Wesson. Her life now at twenty-seven was a carefully erected facade, a slick exterior to hide an inside long grown cold. “Do you know where there’s a new rec center down here?”

      None of the buildings around her looked like what her informant had described and she was getting anxious to get off the streets so she could head home before dark.

      “Two blocks up.” Tony pointed a negligent thumb before mopping his forehead with his shirt cuff. “Some city guy with a platinum card thinks he can bring urban renewal to the neighborhood with a few new basketball hoops.”

      “Yeah?” Could be her man. “I hope he thought to spring for some extra security.”

      The local precinct was taxed enough without having to babysit the new wave of cosmo-sipping bohos who moved into urban hell for the sake of low rents and a short commute. She’d taken the express train out of the Bronx five years ago and hadn’t looked back since.

      “You should come around more often, Vanessa,” Tony shouted as she started toward the Old School Recreation Center.

      “Maybe I would if the public utilities weren’t so damn pitiful,” she called over her shoulder, careful to protect the cool exterior she’d adopted in her career as a detective. “Didn’t they teach you how to use one of those wrenches?”

      Tony surely would have stood around and argued that point with her, but Vanessa wasted no time closing the distance between her and the center.

      Alec Messina, her current quarry, maintained organized crime connections that went deeper than the Harlem River and he’d been missing for months. His business associates claimed he’d pilfered money out of a real-estate development project and they’d contacted the NYPD for help locating him, making Messina a wanted man.

      Or—considering

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