Up Close and Personal. Joanne Rock

up. He didn’t want this woman to be a scam artist.

      The attraction he’d felt for her had been strong. Immediate. Undeniable. To have those feelings for someone totally lacking in scruples…

      Hell. He wouldn’t appreciate what that said about him.

      “It’s over there.” Jessica pointed out the massive vehicle spit-shined to gleaming perfection before she smiled at a security guard striding through the parking lot. “And I’m only following you to gloat about this when you find out you’re wrong.”

      Her high heels tapped a fast pace, making him realize she needed to take two steps to his one to keep up.

      “If I’m wrong—” he dug the paperwork on the vehicle out of his wallet and unfolded it “—you’re going to have a whole world of new problems to worry about. You can forget about gloating.”

      The tap, tap of her high heels slowed. Stopped.

      “What do you mean?” Her perfume—no, the scent of her soap—rode the breeze off the ocean, winding around him as he compared the digits on the paper to the ones under the windshield.

      They didn’t match.

      He didn’t know whether to thank God or curse himself. No doubt a little of both was in order. Still, he hadn’t been kidding about this situation only getting more difficult for Jessica.

      “I mean you’ve got a woman impersonating you and using your name on a car loan and who knows what else.” Though he hated for her sake that this had happened, he couldn’t help his relief that she wasn’t a scam artist.

      “You still think there’s another vehicle with this number you have that’s somehow associated with my name?” The professional woman was back, her brow scrunched as she tried to make sense of the situation.

      A situation she didn’t deserve to be in and one he would damn well help her resolve since he’d only added to her trouble.

      “Yes. There’s another Escalade purchased under your name by someone who looks a hell of a lot like you and who’s obviously using all your credit information. I’d say you’ve been a victim of identity theft by somebody who knows you very, very well.”

      4

      “DAD?”

      Rocco dropped into his bed late that night, exhausted but knowing he wouldn’t sleep until he’d told his father the news. Moonlight streamed over the bed. He’d never bothered to hang blinds, living out in the middle of nowhere had its advantages.

      He just hoped his dad was having a good day and would remember what Rocco was talking about with the Escalade. The old man’s health had been slipping lately, but his doctor didn’t think it was Alzheimer’s. Yet. Still, Rocco noticed gaps in his father’s memory and he worried about doing any kind of work that would make him less accessible when his dad needed something. At least now, as his own boss, he had the freedom to drop everything and lend a hand at Easton Luxury Motor Cars or help his father out at home if he needed anything.

      “Ricardo, why do you call me so late?” His father’s accent became stronger when he was tired. He’d come over from the old country in the sixties, but being in the States for forty years hadn’t smoothed the strains of Italy from his speech. “I have to work tomorrow.”

      Rocco closed his eyes as he laid his head on the pillow and tried not to think of Jessica Winslow’s massaging fingers on his shoulders.

      “I know, Dad, but you made me promise I’d call when I found out anything about the woman who hasn’t made payments on her Escalade.” It was because his father had been so upset about it that Rocco had jumped into his investigative efforts without doing his homework. From now on, he needed to remember his father’s condition could make him more emotional. Less logical. But damn it, that hurt to think about. His father had always been so strong.

      “You found the redhead and my car?”

      “I found out the redhead was impersonating the real Jessica Winslow and that Ms. Winslow is the victim of identity theft, so I’ll have to do some more digging to find out who really has the Escalade.”

      His father cursed in Italian and then in English for good measure.

      “They try to break an old man’s bank, but thank goodness, my son, he is too smart for them, no?” Anthony Easton sighed into the phone and Rocco could picture his father lying back down in his bed. “You’re a good boy, Giuseppe, you know that?”

      A lump stuck in Rocco’s throat. Giuseppe was his father’s first son by another marriage—a son who’d died in a car accident on a California interstate years ago. A son his father never would have mistaken him for unless he was sliding deeper into dementia.

      Or perhaps he was just tired.

      “It’s Rocco, Dad. And I’ll let you know when I find the Escalade, okay?”

      With a soft grunt, his father seemed to agree before he hung up the phone. Leaving Rocco alone with his worries for the man who’d raised him and a renewed determination to find the woman who had ripped him off.

      He just hoped Jessica Winslow didn’t spit in his face the next time she saw him, because he had the feeling he was going to need her help if he wanted to catch the redhead who’d faked her way into a brand-new SUV.

      

      BUMPING AND GRINDING to the wail of Hindi sitar music the next morning, Jessica led the day’s first workshop in the hotel’s double suite. She tried to tune out the hum of anxiety that wove through her head louder than the stringed melody.

      A fruitless endeavor.

      She’d barely slept the night before, spending hours on the phone trying to find real live people at her credit card companies to report the case of identity theft. The police hadn’t been much help, assuring her she needed to follow the official channels set up by the credit bureaus first before they could get involved.

      Eventually, they’d admitted they might be able to help her if she brought them a tape of someone impersonating her in order to secure a car loan. Even so, she needed to contact the finance company first.

      And, of course, the mere act of talking to the police set her nerves on edge. She’d had too many run-ins with the cops in her childhood to feel any sort of ease in that situation. Even though she didn’t have anything to hide these days—unlike in the past when she’d been forced to make up long, convoluted explanations for why there had been yelling coming from their apartment or why her parents hadn’t registered her for school in their newest hometown—she still felt tongue-tied and anxious when she tried to recite her story. While part of her couldn’t help feeling a twinge of resentment at Rocco for bringing all this to her doorstep, she knew she should be grateful that he’d alerted her to the identity theft. She’d had a few instances of bills not showing up and a handful of purchases on her credit card that weren’t hers and which she’d disputed with her company, but nothing she’d worried about until now.

      Still, she definitely nursed more feelings for Rocco than simple gratitude. She couldn’t deny the twinge of hurt she’d experienced that he’d turned away from their heated kisses so easily. She hated that she’d thought about those moments so often through the night, but that revelation of sensual potential inside her had been as big of news to her as any identity theft.

      Between the lack of sleep, financial worries and a body overwrought by desire for a man she should probably stay away from, she wasn’t exactly bringing her A game to the morning belly-dancing class. Securing the good opinion of these students should be her number-one priority.

      Like that of the woman tentatively raising her hand…

      “How do you recommend we incorporate this into our seduction techniques?” asked the quiet blonde who had been the first to arrive for today’s workshop.

      The woman, Bryanna, was best friends with the Hollywood director’s wife,