Fatal Heat: A Navy SEAL Novella (19 page)

He’d actually had to rub his eyes, sure that what was right before him had to be some kind of vision, maybe some kind of compensation for the horrible night.

Her eyes had widened when she’d seen him. He knew what she was seeing—a very large, very strong, hugely pissed-off man, dressed like a bum and smelling like one, too.

Well, he couldn’t shave, wash and change his clothes right then and there and there was nothing he could do to kill those deadly pissed-off vibes so he’d merely walked down the corridor and entered his office.

Her huge cobalt blue eyes had followed him warily every step of the way. She’d actually stepped back as he approached, which pissed him off even more. Goddamn it, the last thing he’d ever do was hurt a woman.

Though, in fairness, she couldn’t possibly know that. Probably every cell in her single urban female body was screaming
danger
. He knew she was single because though he saw she had some fancy rings on those pretty hands of hers, none of them were on her left-hand ring finger.

She absolutely had to be single because Sam couldn’t even remotely imagine a man married or even engaged to a looker like that who wouldn’t put a rock the size of her head on her finger, to warn other men off her. And what husband or fiancé wouldn’t be around to help his womanhelwho move into her new office?

She couldn’t know that his rage wasn’t in any way directed at her, of course, but at the system. He wanted to nail the gang
right now
and send them all into the slammer five minutes later, special treatment reserved for one Kyle Connelly, child rapist.

But what you want and what you can have are very different things. No one knew that more than he did. So he’d had to stay under cover, sick at heart, wondering if some other little girls were being raped while he put together enough evidence to put the fuckers away. And to do that he had to stay in Scumland for another couple of weeks.

So every time Nicole Pearce saw him, he’d been tired and grim and dirty, inside and out. Dealing with the scum of the earth was filthy work.

He knew that while he was on this mission, there was no room for anything else, certainly not something as beautiful as Nicole Pearce, so he’d waited.

But all that was now behind him and life had just handed him a big fat present all wrapped up in a fancy bow, to thank him for his patience.

Nicole Pearce, outside her office, looking as beautiful as ever, even with a ferocious scowl on her face, rifling through her bag and jacket pockets, looking for her keys.

The keys to the flimsiest piece-of-shit lock he’d ever seen. When he’d signed the lease on his office, he’d been happy with the space and the location and—though he ordinarily didn’t give a shit about his surroundings—the classiness of the building. It was the kind of building that made clients relax, which was crazy to him. What the fuck difference did mellow earth tones and fancy designer junk make?

But to most people it made a difference. A huge one. He’d noticed that. Noticed tense clients start unwinding after entering the building, with its liveried doorman, elegant brass and teak fittings, slate floors, expensive floral arrangements scattered around.

The building supervisor had given him the name of some office designer, who’d come in, taken measurements of the huge space he’d rented and come back a week later and outfitted the office so it looked like a spaceship. A designer spaceship, sleek and comfortable. It all cost a fortune but it was worth it, to see his clients’ faces as they walked in.

Anyone who came to Reston Security by definition needed relaxing, and it was good that his office did the trick because Sam wasn’t good at putting people at ease. He had no charm and no small talk in him.

When Sam came across a problem, he wanted it solved yesterday. He became an arrow shooting straight at a solution.

That attitude had worked real well for him in the Teams, where problems and possible solutions were clearly stated and no one’s goddamned feelings ever came into anything.

Civilian life had been a bitch, as Sam found himself tussling with clients who were afraid to say what they wanted, who kept intel from him, who had hidden agendas. Christ.

So the upscale, soothing premises had come in real handy.

Not to mention Nicole Pearce, right across the hallway from him, right now scrabbling for keys that weren’t there.

Well, he could do something about that. For a price.

“Need some help?” he asked, and suppressed a smile when she nearly jumped right out of that gorgeous skin of hers.

“N
eed some help?” the scary lowlife who worked for the security company across the hallway asked.

Nicole Pearce’s head whipped around, heart kicking up into a hard panicky beat in her chest. Oh God, there he was, long and broad and dark and grim. And frightening as hell.

He hadn’t been there a minute ago. Everyone on her floor came in well before her company’s opening time of 9 A.M., so she had been sure she was alone as she scrabbled in her purse, quietly freaking out.

How could such a large man move so quietly? Granted, her head was completely taken up with the tragedy of
no key
, but still. He was huge. Surely he’d have to have made some noise?

Come to think of it, the times she’d seen him coming and going from what she assumed was his workplace across the hall, he’d been utterly silent. Frightening.

She looked at him warily, hands still in her large purse that often doubled as a briefcase.

He was standing with arms crossed, leaning back against the wall, looking completely out of place in the elegant hallway. Tall, immensely broaimmAdobed-shouldered, grim and unsmiling. Just perfect if Central Casting had sent out an urgent call.
One thug. Huge. Intimidating. Report to set.

But it hadn’t. Central Casting populated the Morrison Building in downtown San Diego with perfectly nice, perfectly tame office workers, some a little flamboyant if they were in the advertising business, but otherwise harmless.

Lowlife had absolutely no business here, staring at her out of dark, steady eyes, gaze still and unwavering, completely out of place in the context of the cream and teal accents, the expensive Murano wall sconces and the faux Louis XV Philippe Starck Plexiglas console with the very real calla lilies in the Steuben vase.

She’d chosen to pay premium rent for a tiny office in the upscale building near Petco precisely because its classy, elegant design had appealed to her and because, well, it shrieked success so loudly she hoped no one could hear the crackling sound of financial distress underlying her new company.

Everyone in the building bustled in and out in morning and evening waves, well dressed, well groomed and busy busy busy. Even after the stock market crash, they all made an effort to look sleek and prosperous and successful, which was why Lowlife was so out of place.

The rent took a big chunk out of the earnings of her brand-new company, and her office was the size of a thimble, but she loved it. She’d signed the lease half an hour after the realtor had shown it to her.

That was, of course, before Lowlife started haunting the halls. Every time she turned around, it seemed, he was there. Enormous, dressed like a biker. Or how she imagined a biker would dress—what would she know? Bikers had been scarce growing up in consulates and embassies around the world.

He had a uniform of torn, filthy jeans, a formerly black tee shirt washed so many times it was a dirty gray, and at times a black leather bomber jacket.

Overlong black hair and a heavy, scruffy black beard, nothing at all like the chic designer stubble sported by the guys working at the ad agency two doors down. No, this was a man with a heavy beard who didn’t shave for weeks at a time.

But beyond not following the yuppie dress and grooming code, Lowlife was different in other ways from all the other people in the building.

She would never forget her first sight of him in the elevator, leaning one-armed against the wall, head down, looking like a warrior who had just come in from battle.

Only there was no war going on in downtown San Diego that she knew of. He’d disappeared into the office across the hall, passing some pretty fancy security, so she’d imagined he worked there.

As an enforcer?

She’d been aware of his scrutiny as she entered and exited her office. He never overtly stared, but she could feel his attention on her like a spotlight.

Now, however, God help her, he was definitely staring, arms crossed over that absurdly broad chest, unsmiling, gaze fierce and unwavering.

“Need some help?” he asked again. His voice matched his physique. Low, so deep it set up vibrations in her diaphragm.

Then again, maybe the vibrations were panic.

No key.

This definitely wasn’t happening. Not on top of the Ride from Hell in to work. Of all the days to lock herself out…

“No, I’m on it.” Nicole bared her teeth in what she hoped he’d take as a smile, because she so
wasn’t
on it.

What she didn’t have—and what she so very desperately needed—was her office key. The office key on her Hermès silver key fob that had been a birthday present from her father, back in the days when he could work and walk on his own. The set of keys that was always, always, in the front pocket of her purse, except… when it wasn’t.

Like now.

Nicole Pearce contemplated beating her head against the door to her office, but much as she’d like to, she couldn’t. Not under Lowlife’s dark, intense gaze. She’d save that for when he finally left.

He watched as she once more checked her linen jacket pockets, first one, then the other, then her purse, over and over again, in a little trifecta routine from hell.

Nothing.

It was horrible having someone see her panic and distress. Life had taken so much from her lately. Oneer nt of the few things left to her was her dignity, and that was now circling the drain, fast.

She tried to stop herself from shaking. This was the kind of building where you keep up appearances and you never lose your cool, ever. Otherwise they’d raise the rent.

It was so awful, fumbling desperately in her purse, sweat beading her face though the building’s powerful air conditioners kept the temperature at a constant 62 degrees. She could feel sweat trickling down her back and had to stop, close her eyes for a second and regain control. Breathe deeply, in and out.

Maybe Lowlife would disappear if she just kept her eyes closed long enough. Realize that she deeply,
deeply
wanted him gone. Do the gentlemanly thing and just go.

No such luck.

When she opened her eyes again, the man was still there. Dark and tough, a foot from the console she wanted to use.

She looked at the slate floor and the transparent console and gritted her teeth.

Of the two horrible choices, getting close to him to dump the contents of her purse on the console was marginally more dignified than simply squatting and dumping everything in her purse on the floor.

Approaching him warily—she was pretty sure he wasn’t dangerous, and that he wouldn’t attack her in broad daylight in a public building, but he was so very
big
and looked so incredibly
hard
—she reached the pretty console, shifted the vase of lilies the super had changed just yesterday, opened her purse wide and simply upended it over the transparent surface.

The clatter was deafening in the silent corridor.

She had her home keys, car keys, a removable hard disk, a silver business card case, a cell phone, four pens, a flash drive—all of which made a clatter. And her leather bag of cosmetics, paperback book, checkbook, notepad, address book, credit-card holder, all of which made a mess.

In a cold sweat of panic, Nicole pushed her way through the objects on the console, checking carefully, over and over again, reciting each object under her breath like a mantra. Everything that should be there was there.

Except for her office key.

What a disaster. Construction on Robinson had forced her into a long detour, which was why she was opening the office at 9:15 instead of 9. At 9:30, she had a vital videoconference with a very important potential client in New York and her two best Russian translators, to negotiate a big job. A huge job. A job that could represent more than 20 percent of her income next year. A job she desperately needed.

Her father’s medical bills kept rising, with no end in sight. She’d just added a night nurse for weeknights and it was $2,000 a month. A new round of radiotherapy might be necessary, Dr. Harrison had said last week. Another $10,000. It was all money she didn’t have and had to earn. Fast.

If the conference call went well, she might be able to keep ahead of her money problems, for a while at least.

There was absolutely no time to cross all of downtown to go back home and get the keys. Not to mention the fact that she would upset her father, who was so ill. He’d be worried, be unsettled all day. Sleep badly that night. She absolutely didn’t want to upset him.