Indecent Danger (Danger Incorporated #3)(6)

Aubrey stiffened in his arms, hating that he’d brought up the sensitive subject again. They’d had this discussion before early in their working relationship. After only working with him for a few weeks she’d come into the office wearing a softly tailored pink skirt and jacket. He’d complimented her and then tried to guess the designer which had only made her laugh out loud. Assistants didn’t make enough money to buy fancy duds and she didn’t hesitate to point that out to Travis much to his chagrin. Eventually she’d admitted it was her own creation and he’d been impressed enough to want to discuss helping her get into the design business. She’d assumed he was simply being polite.


By the time he’d convinced her he was completely serious they’d begun seeing each other. There was no way she was going to let her boyfriend and soon to be lover shell out money to start her in business. It smacked of…payment for services rendered and she’d told him so straight out finally getting him to drop the idea.

Now he was doing it again.

“No,” she said firmly. “I told you why I can’t do it.”

She felt his heavy sigh and knew the conversation wasn’t over yet. “You shouldn’t care what people think. We’ll know the truth and that’s all that matters.”

“Bullshit.” The word popped out before she could stop it but she did know better. “People with money and power always say that what others think don’t matter because it doesn’t matter to them. To regular people? Those things matter, Travis. It matters what people think about me. Maybe I’m shallow but I don’t want to be known as a woman who slept her way into a job.”

Travis was a good man and he was always trying to help her or care for her in some way but she’d been standing on her own two feet for a long time now. She wasn’t a princess that needed rescuing.

“No one would ever say that about you.”

“Oh, really? Are you sure? From what I’ve seen of your friends and business partners in the last five months they’d love to rip me to shreds. They’re like coyotes that prey on the weakest antelope.”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t call you weak either. You scare the living shit out of me.”

Travis was laughing and even Aubrey had to relax and let her lips curve into a smile. The women he’d dated before her were as different as day to night. She often wondered what he saw in her.

Aubrey leaned against his chest, his heart beating under her cheek as her gaze scanned the crowd in the ballroom. “I think I’m going to run to the ladies’ room.”

“I’ll get you a fresh drink. Meet me at the bar.”

Aubrey tucked her tiny clutch purse under her arm and headed for the dim alcove just inside the entrance to the ballroom. Once inside the restroom she quickly repaired her makeup and applied a fresh coat of lip gloss before running her fingers through her long, thick hair that had a tendency to curl in the humidity. Sighing at her reflection, she shoved everything back in her purse and zipped it shut. The trip to the ladies’ room had only been a distraction anyway to keep the evening happy and light. She didn’t want to ruin the party by having a disagreement with Travis no matter how innocuous.

Pushing on the door, it swung open and in her haste to rejoin Travis she ran right into another body, dropping her purse onto the marble floor. She immediately apologized and reached down but a masculine hand beat her to it, holding it out. Her breath caught in her throat and she had to forcibly straighten her knees to keep them from giving out. She took the purse from him with nerveless fingers trying to make sense of what this man was doing standing in front of her. It had been years but not nearly long enough.

Bruce Livingston.

A classmate from junior high and high school. She’d never liked him even then and now he was standing right in front of her with a triumphant smile.

Slightly paunchy around the middle and his hairline receding, his expression of sickly arrogance made her skin crawl in revulsion. He was the absolute worst person she could see tonight – or any other night for that matter.

Bruce knew all her secrets.

He knew who and what she really was.

Her fingers tightened on her clutch to keep her hands from visibly shaking as her stomach twisted violently in her abdomen. Her carefully constructed facade was about to crumble before her very eyes.

Before Travis’s eyes.

Her past, long dead and buried, had clawed its way out of the grave.





Chapter Four




?


Aubrey never had a chance to flee.

Bruce’s hand snaked out and clamped down painfully on her arm. She’d have bruises tomorrow from his punishing grip.

“I thought it was you, Aubrey.” Bruce’s shark-like grin widened and a shudder of fear and revulsion ran down her spine. She was trapped. She didn’t want to make a scene among this well-heeled crowd but she didn’t want to stay here. “I hardly recognized you across the room. You’ve certainly moved up in the world hanging on Travis Anderson’s arm. Does he know what a little slut you are? Or is that part of the attraction?”

Aubrey’s palm itched to slap that nasty smile off of Bruce’s face but instead she fisted her fingers, the nails digging into her own flesh. The pain centered her anger and kept her from hauling off and punching him in the gut.