Ritz Carlton Ballroom
Cleveland, Ohio
12:27 a.m., Dec. 24
“You’ve got five minutes, Margaret. Then I’m breaking out of this stupid cage myself.”
“Now, dear, you don’t need to look like you’re really in prison,” Margaret Pettiman said breezily in reply as she waved her thick ring of rhinestone-studded keys in the air for emphasis. “It’s all in good fun and for a wonderful cause, so why not make the effort to appear as if you’re having, you know, fun?”
“Who put you up to this, specifically?” Dana asked, narrowing her eyes. “Mom or Uncle Lester?”
“Between the attention you’ll receive in here and your company providing security for the event, you should garner several new business opportunities!” Margaret beamed in apparent excitement, her skin tensing up in brief alarm at what would have been a wrinkle-inducing movement on any other face.
Not Margaret’s, though. Platinum-haired and carefully preserved, the chairwoman of the Founder’s Circle Charity Ball had been nipped, tucked, lifted, and lasered in nearly every way imaginable, to the point that the rest of her skin knew better than to crease or fold without express permission. “Your mother will be so pleased you agreed to your uncle’s suggestion to participate in this little fund-raiser. And again, it’s so much fun.”
“Right.” Dana grimaced, trying to regain her patience. Mrs. Pettiman was her mother’s oldest and dearest friend, and that counted for something with Dana. “So where is Mom, anyway? I’ve been trying to talk with her all night.”
“She offered to see the mayor’s wife home. Didn’t she tell you?” Margaret turned back to Dana, her delicately arched eyebrows caught in a permanent state of mild surprise. “She said she planned on coming directly back.”
“Uh-huh,” Dana said. “Holding my breath. Starting now.”
If it was one thing Claire Griffin was good at, it was avoiding her daughter. Especially these days. Since Dana’s injury on Halloween night, it was her mother who’d officially ghosted. Most of the time, she didn’t care—it wasn’t as if the two of them had ever been close. But between the nightmares and the pain and Dana’s own debilitating doubts…a little motherly attention would have been nice. But, apparently, not going to happen, not even on Christmas Eve.
“Now, Dana, enough with the grim expression. You should smile! Enjoy your moment in the limelight.” Margaret fluttered her gloved hands. “With both your mother and your uncle in such prominent roles tonight, you’ll truly be living the Founder’s Circle motto: ‘With a strong family, you can save the world.’”
“Right.” But who’ll save me from them?
As Margaret leaned over to air-kiss an eighty-year-old man in a sixty-year-old tuxedo, Dana shifted back away from the bars, her knee sending up a bolt of annoyance at the sudden movement. Dammit. Her fifty-yard dash to reach the snowcat in Alert had earned her high marks with the RCAF captain, but she’d been paying for her enthusiasm since the moment her adrenaline had drained away. The weather station crew had been beside themselves at the unexpected wolf attack, and no one could figure out what’d happened to scare off the creatures.
But something had scared them, thank God.
The pain in her knee grounded her, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Biting back the string of foul language that would definitely not earn her high marks as a charity prize, Dana brushed her hip to convince herself her gun was there, then turned her attention to the world outside her cage.
Glittering pinpoint lights dripped from graceful chandeliers, illuminating a dozen fully decorated trees that stretched above the crowd like proud ballroom sentinels. A silver-haired band looked ready to belt out every Christmas standard from the last seventy years, and everything seemed appropriately merry and bright. She even caught sight of Max determinedly weaving his way through the crowd, technically operating as security detail—never mind that the most vicious attacker he’d ever dispatched was a computer virus. Still, it was good to have him here. He’d been with her since she’d opened Griffin Security with its dual focus on tech security and on-the-ground protection, and that mattered too.
Almost unconsciously, Dana raised her hand to her lapel, touching the heavy pin that Lester had given her the year before. Her uncle had a habit of acquiring bright and shiny things—especially if they were old and bright and shiny. And he never denied her anything, if she was truly honest.
Dana leaned against the bars, guilt stealing through her. She needed to talk with Lester, finally. She knew she should’ve told him about the wolves in Canada showing up out of nowhere, then suddenly running away—but she hadn’t. And she didn’t know why. Ever since the attack they’d both sustained in October, she couldn’t shake her uneasiness about her uncle. She hated that. She hated even more that she hadn’t been able to get her mom alone long enough to finally ask her questions about Lester either.
She sighed. She’d had such a noble plan in place for tonight too. She’d show support for her mother’s favorite charity. She’d convince Lester that she was a hundred percent healed from her injuries, so he would stop with the twenty-four seven questions about her recovery process. She’d reach out to her mom again.
But now she was here, and her mother was AWOL. Again.
“Ladies and gentlemen…” Dana jerked upright as Pettiman’s voice wheedled out over the AV system, and she glanced to the front of the room, her hand falling back to her side. “It appears that Dana Griffin, one of Cleveland’s rising young entrepreneurs, has gotten herself in a bit of trouble. We owe it to her to set her free, don’t we?”
Dana inwardly winced as Margaret directed the audience to stare at her standing in her makeshift cage. Dutifully, she gave a little wave and what she hoped was a charity-worthy smile. Lester is so going to pay for this. Her uncle might be her firm’s number one client, but this kind of public humiliation went way beyond her usual rates.
“After all, Dana and her family have given so much to the community.” Pettiman’s tone oozed pomposity and the sort of self-righteous cheer that people dredged up when they talked about saving orphans and homeless dogs. Dana looked back at the woman, startled at Margaret’s melodramatic turn. She began to feel the cage shrink around her, was suddenly afraid of what was coming. Not Dad, she thought. Please don’t pimp a dead man for your charity, Margaret.
Then Pettiman opened her mouth again, and Dana’s blood pressure spiked.
“That’s right, ladies and gentlemen,” Margaret sang on. “Caught behind bars is none other than the daughter of the late, beloved Cleveland police officer, Walter Griffin, who served our fair city for more than twenty years before he was cruelly cut down in the line of duty.”
Dana held herself carefully straight as the crowd oohed their admiration. The minute she got out of here, she would perform a citizen’s arrest on the woman for harassment. Common Decency violations. Something. Then she would go find Pettiman’s stock of Mary Kay cosmetics and set it on fire. With no other option at the moment, however, she gave her best Miss America smile and scanned the room again. No Lester. No Claire.
“As some of you know, Dana has recently rejoined her firm after recovering from injuries sustained in an assault while valiantly protecting Lester Morrow, CEO of Exeter Global Services, who is generously sponsoring tonight’s event.”
“Put a sock in it, Margaret,” Dana muttered as applause greeted that announcement. Her shooting had been in the news, of course. A cop’s daughter shot in a parking garage on Halloween while protecting a male executive was titillating information for a slow news day in early November, even if the man she’d been protecting was her own uncle. But to hear Lester tell the story, the attack had been a mugging gone awry, nothing more. He was the target, and she’d gotten in the way.
He had that part right, anyway.
“We’ll open the bidding on Ms. Griffin quite high,” Pettiman continued, her voice devolving further into a singsong, sugary ooze. “And remember, all the money goes to support the Founder’s Circle Society in our fight to help fund pediatric cancer research. Ms. Griffin’s bail amount will drop every fifteen minutes, so don’t wait to get premium billing as a supporter of all our many children in need. The bidding will start at ten thousand dollars!”
Dana blinked, forcing her expression to remain steady in the face of such abject madness. Dammit, Lester. Ten thousand dollars? She’d be stuck in here till New Year’s Eve.
After the surprised murmurings drifted away and the stalwart smiles dimmed, Dana cast a glance around the fastenings of her cage again. Actually, it wouldn’t take so much for her to unscrew the wires…
She placed her hands on her bars again, trying to keep from rattling them. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of bailing herself out, but decided against it. Griffin Security was full up with clients, nearly all of them Lester referrals. But nobody needed to know she was flush with cash. Least of all the Founder’s Circle Charity committee.
Then Margaret’s leering face swam into Dana’s vision again, and in a flash, she understood why inmates would reach through the bars to strangle their captors.
“Try to look pretty, Dana dear,” Margaret said, warming to her role as jailhouse matron. “Perhaps you can find yourself a young man this way. Your father would thank me, I’m sure.”
Dana felt her hands begin to itch. “Actually, I think my dad would be happier if you—”
“I apologize for interrupting.”
The words were not so much spoken as brushed over her skin, and Dana turned abruptly to the edge of her cage closest to the corridor. The shadowy side. Appropriate, because the man standing there looked like he belonged in the dark.
Holy crow.
Lounging in front of her cage was an unreasonably tall, powerfully built Adonis, a heart-wrenchingly dark angel, with sleek black hair and penetrating blue eyes and a face so chiseled that he looked almost frozen in time… Frozen, except for the full, curving, heartbreakingly lush lips that—
Dana blinked, struggling to refocus. “Do I know you?” she managed. He looked…almost familiar. Didn’t he look familiar?
A smile played over the man’s lips as if he could follow the trail of her thoughts. “Do you want to know me?”
Margaret spared Dana the need to reply by laying her stubby, satin-clad fingers on Mr. Gorgeous’s arm. “You look so familiar, dear,” she cooed, and Dana’s brows shot up. So it wasn’t only her. “Are you a member of the Founder’s Circle?”
Dana watched as the stranger took in Margaret with his come-and-get-me smile, his manner as smooth and seductive as if Margaret was a starlet in the first blush of youth and not a scheming harridan out to bilk him for every dime he carried. Unaccountably, Dana felt irritation cut through her lust. The woman was a billion years old! Have some self-respect, both of you.
“Actually, I’m looking for a gentleman you may know,” Mr. Sizzle said to Margaret, in an unreasonably sizzling way. “Lester Morrow?”
“Why?” Dana asked sharply as Margaret’s mouth moved into a girlish “Oh!”
The man’s gaze swung back to her. “You know him?” he asked. Gone was the smolder, replaced with cool, keen attention. Dana felt the flames of her budding desire collapse into rapidly cooling ashes.
“Yes, I do. I’m his personal assistant,” Dana said smoothly.
“His…assistant.” The International Man of Mystery studied her as Margaret openly gaped. Dana flicked the woman a hard glance, and for once the woman got a clue. She nodded, wild-eyed, then scurried away without another word. Thank heaven for small favors.
Dana turned her all-business smile back on the newcomer. “Mr. Morrow has stepped out, I’m afraid, and I’m not sure if he’s going to be back tonight.” Dana reached into the interior pocket of her suit and pulled out her phone. “Do you have a card? Or a number where I can reach you?”
“Where has he gone? It’s important I see him as soon as possible.”
The man stepped forward, and Dana’s breath hitched, her arm falling uselessly to her side. His eyes glittered, cold and blue in the soft light, and she suddenly felt dizzy. There was something wrong with his eyes, she thought. Or maybe she was jet-lagged. Could you get jet-lagged flying from Canada? Either way, she couldn’t understand what was happening to her body, the warm rush of heat that coiled in her belly, making her legs weak and her heart pound.
She needed to get herself back together. She licked her lips and tried again. “If you don’t have a card, I can give you one of mine.”
“I don’t need your card. As you can see, I found you easily enough.”
Dana lifted her brows. “So you did.” So much for lust. All Mr. Crazy Eyes incited in her now was irritation. “Can I take your name and have Mr. Morrow get back to you?”
“Or perhaps you can take me to him.”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit tied up here.”
“I can get you out easily enough.”
“Thanks, but the place has kind of grown on me. I’m thinking about decorating, maybe inviting over a few friends.”
“Really.” He cocked his head, those maddening eyes focusing on her once again. “And yet I wonder what you would give me for loosening your restraints?”
Inexplicably, Dana felt a resurgence of heat flood through her, her breasts tightening beneath her silk suit and her lips tingling as his gaze came to rest upon them. Her brain stutter-stepped another second before annoyance surged forth again, banking the unexpected fire. Chill, she ordered herself. “Nothing that would make it worth ten thousand dollars, sorry.”
“I’d appreciate the opportunity to find out.” He watched her try to master her reactions, and his smile deepened into a sensual grin. “You’re thinking about it.”
“Nope, simply memorizing your features for the police report.”
The man leaned forward, and Dana nearly whimpered. Her body suddenly felt flushed, wobbly, and she swayed forward against the bars of her cage. Something was going terribly wrong. Sweat threaded its way down between her breasts, and her breath seemed stalled in her lungs.
“What do you want, Ms. Griffin?” Bobby Blue Eyes asked. “Are you sure it’s not something I can give you?” He lifted his hand to graze her fingertips as her hands clutched the bars, and Dana’s throat tightened, her mind skittering into dark and forbidden places.
“I want answers,” she gritted out, surprising herself with her candor. “A lot of them.”
“Which means you’ve decided what you’ll give me in return? No.” He raised a hand as Dana glared at him. Who is this jackwit? “I prefer to savor the possibilities.”
He looked to the front of the room. “I’ll be right back.”