The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(92)

Jamie raised his eyebrows. "Yes." He kissed me on the lips again. "I'm going to New York for business next week, but I want to see you as soon as I get back."

I shrugged my shoulders callously. "I don't know. I'm getting pretty bored of you."

Jamie's eyes pleaded with me.

"Fine. What night?"

He pretended to search his pockets. "Damn, I forgot my Palm Pilot. I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one."

I laughed and pushed him in the direction of the elevator as I started to fish through my bag for my house keys. "Get out of here."

"I'll consult my secretary and have my people call your people," he said, stumbling across the hallway. "You do have people, don't you?"

I put my key in the lock. "Yeah, sure. We'll do lunch."

Jamie ran back over for one final kiss before I stepped inside. "Bye," he said as he watched my face disappear behind the slowly closing door.

Once I was on the inside, I silently leaned my forehead against the back of the door. This is insane, I thought. Nobody is supposed to fall this fast. I'm not supposed to fall at all. Especially when it's become my job to remain unattached – no matter what.

I couldn't understand what was happening to me. I couldn't understand why I was feeling things I swore I would never feel. That I promised myself I would never feel.

Because I had become so certain that there was no point in feeling them.

God, was I ever wrong.





21

Celebrity Status


I'D HAD little time to prepare for tonight's assignment.

And the only reason I'd had little time to prepare was because Sarah Miller had given me little time to prepare when she insisted that this inspection take place tonight, a mere three days after our initial meeting. The fast-track approach was extremely unorthodox in my line of work, and I didn't really like the ad hoc feeling of it all. Given that I knew very little about Daniel Miller, I opted for a fairly generic wardrobe selection. A pair of black dress pants with a tan sleeveless turtleneck sweater and my red backless Manolo mules. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to overdress. Since this inspection would take place at a regular, upscale bar in Westwood, I had to look the part. Showing up in this bar wearing an over-the-top designer dress that drew the attention of every man and woman in the place would not do the trick. Then I would just come off looking like a gold digger, hitting on older men who appear to have money. It was the last image I wanted to put forth. Men don't want to cheat with gold diggers because they're not trustworthy. Well, most men anyway. Raymond Jacobs would probably cheat with anything with two legs and a pair of boobs, the disgusting, classless *.

I checked my reflection in the mirror and decided that the ensemble was perfect for the occasion. Sexy enough to draw attention but classy enough to make it look like that's not all I was after. Tonight the key was to be just another girl in a bar. Not looking for anything in particular. But also not ruling anything out.

I hurried into my office while I attempted to put my second diamond-stud earring into my ear. The folder labeled Daniel Miller was sitting on my desk. I had put together a few pages of his biography based on some of the information shared by his wife, but I hadn't had time to do a lot of additional research. And the fact that my Google search for Daniel Miller had yielded 261,000 results and more than four thousand images, none of the first two hundred of which even remotely resembled the photograph that Sarah Miller had given me, didn't help much, either. This was going to require some serious mind-reading, superpower "wingage." I flipped through the pages casually, reminding myself of some of the smaller details, and then retrieved the key hidden in my office closet to open the bottom locked drawer of my desk. I pulled out one of my black business cards, running my fingertips over the slightly raised surface of the crimson A on the front. Then I flipped the card over and studied the toll-free number on the back. The number that Daniel Miller would call at the end of the night should he choose to fail his inspection. The same number that everyone calls.

And yet every time I pull one of these identical black business cards out of my locked bottom drawer, I silently pray that I won't have to use it.

Every time I place that card in my bag at the beginning of the night, I fantasize about ceremoniously tossing it into a nearby trash can on the way out of the bar or the hotel, or wherever I have just been rejected.

Sadly, though, those cards, more often than not, end up in someone else's hands by the end of the night... and not in my fantasy trash can.

I dashed into the living room and stuffed my red Louis Vuitton leather pochette with all the necessary items: keys, credit card, cash, ID, phones, failed fidelity inspection card. Then I was out the door.



WHEN I arrived at the bar I spotted Daniel Miller in a back booth, nursing a drink and gazing off into space. His half-empty glass on the tabletop was clenched tightly in his hands. He looked concerned, lonely, contemplative. The glass itself was not quite as lonely as the man holding it, however. Surrounding it were several other empty glasses, once belonging to Mr. Miller's former company.

To anyone else it might have looked like he'd recently said something offensive, causing everyone at the table to abruptly depart, leaving him there alone. But to me it looked just as Mrs. Miller had described it. He most always stays afterward for another drink. The business associates she mentioned appeared to have already left, and from the look on his face, the meeting hadn't gone quite as well as he had hoped. I remembered what she'd said about his recent layoff and made a mental note not to bring up the topic of employment.