Caught Off Guard. Kira Sinclair

WOULDN’T HE go away? Didn’t she have enough to deal with?

      Anne wasn’t happy about his reasons for coming to see her. Okay, she’d admit that her ego had taken a bit of a hit over that one. He hadn’t come because he’d been unable to get their night together out of his mind. Instead he’d come because her mother had probably paid him an obscene amount of money.

      Why Blake? Why now?

      Why couldn’t her mother leave her the hell alone?

      “It appears the intruder forced entry in through the back door.”

      No joke.

      The officer seemed to be waiting for a reply. What could she say? Brilliant deductive reasoning, Sherlock? Glancing over at Blake, she realized he would be no help at all when he simply lifted an eyebrow at her.

      Mumbling something appropriate, she waited for the officer to continue. The picture he made was almost comical—he was so out of place sitting on her dainty rose-velvet sofa. His butt was barely on the edge of the thing and he looked as if he was either ready to bolt—not what you want from the cop handling your case—or he was afraid the sofa would collapse beneath him. Again, not reassuring. She liked her furniture set. She’d found it at an estate auction and reupholstered the pieces herself. They were very feminine and frilly and far from the heavy lines and modern furniture her mother had always insisted on.

      They were old, had a history. They’d belonged to a family who had laughed, cried and lived life on them. And now they were hers.

      In contrast to the police officer, Blake was kicked back on one of the matching chairs, a boot-clad ankle crossed over his knee, intense eyes taking in every last detail before him. If anyone should worry about crushing the delicately carved wood and fabric, it was him. Was he worried? Nope. Ego or confidence? Did it really matter? The man looked right at home in her precious space. Damn it.

      “Is anything missing, Ms. Sobel?”

      Anne tore her attention away from Blake, berating herself for getting distracted by him … again.

      “Not that I’ve noticed on this floor. There are several things out of place but nothing I can find missing. The electronics are still here.”

      “What about upstairs?”

      “Well, I haven’t been up there yet, but I can’t think of anything impor—”

      With a gasp and a feeling in her stomach as if someone had tied a rock to it and thrown it over a bridge, she raced upstairs. Tearing into her bedroom, she opened the closet doors and let out a sigh of relief when she pulled down the bins—full. Everything right where it was supposed to be.

      Her designer collection: Jimmy Choo, Manolo, Prada, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade.

      These were the only things she’d kept from her previous life. Slipping into those shoes, pulling out a new designer handbag … it always made her feel pretty and special. Each new purchase had cost her months of saving, but it was her one indulgence.

      Sitting heavily on the bed, she balanced one box on her knee and sighed.

      A sound at the door caught her attention and she snapped her head around to find Blake standing in the doorway to her bedroom.

      She was an idiot. There was just no other way to explain why her body responded to the thought of him here, in her space. Her breasts began to tingle and an ache she’d been ignoring for weeks settled deep and hard at the center of her sex.

      But apparently she was the only one experiencing the need for a quick repeat of their night together, because instead of undressing her with his eyes—which is what her body wanted him to do—he was shaking his head in disbelief.

      “Shoes. Purses.”

      “Hey, buddy, don’t knock the importance of designer leather goods. In fact.” An idea sparked as her eyes raced across the contents of the box on her lap. Snapping open the lid, she dug into one of the neatly arranged boxes and lifted out a pair of Prada pumps, nothing fancy from the front, but the heel was spindle thin and shaped like the stem of a flower. The petals, a throbbing hot pink, unfurled around the heel of the shoe. They were sexy and sophisticated. She always felt like a million bucks when she wore them.

      If there was ever a time she needed an extra boost of confidence, it was now.

      “What are you doing?”

      “What does it look like? Changing my shoes.”

      “Now?”

      She shrugged. He wouldn’t understand.

      Placing the box back on its shelf, she pushed past Blake and went downstairs.

      “Nope, nothing is missing.”

      She wasn’t a complete idiot. She had glanced inside her office on the way past to make sure that the computer, printer and fax were all still there. However, those could have easily been replaced. Some of the shoes in her collection she’d had since she was sixteen. They were irreplaceable works of art.

      A scowl marred the officer’s face as he followed her progress back to her seat.

      “Can you think of any reason someone might want to scare you? Upset you? Hurt you?”

      They spoke at the exact same time, Anne saying, “No,” Blake blurting “Yes.”

      She glared across at him, telepathically telling him to shut his big mouth. “No.”

      He ignored her. “Do you know Anne’s real name?”

      The other man looked startled for several seconds before his face shuttered and he slowly answered, “Apparently not.”

      “Meet Annemarie Sobel Prescott, the heir to the Prescott Hotel fortune.”

      The officer’s eyes went huge in his face and Anne just sighed. Another person who knew her identity. Another potential leak. Another person who might contact the gossip rags and reveal her location. Sure, it had been ten years, but she could just see the headlines now—Missing Heiress Found in Podunk, Alabama. Some people might view her certainty at being front-page news as egotistical self-aggrandizing. She saw it as reality. The way she’d disappeared … hell, Mother hadn’t even known where she was for months.

      Besides, Prescotts were always newsworthy.

      “Her mother recently asked me to bring her back to the family compound in New York. There have been threats against her life.”

      “Bullshit.”

      Both men turned to stare at her. She supposed the phrase hadn’t been exactly ladylike. Too bad.

      “My mother simply wants me, and you—” she looked pointedly at Blake “—to dance to her tune. She’s been trying for months to get me home and that lie is just the last in a long line of them. Have you seen proof of these supposed threats against me?”

      It was Blake’s turn for pointed glances as he stared behind her, at the splintered edges of her back door.

      “Coincidence. No one knows I’m here.”

      “I found you. Rather easily.”

      “You knew where to start looking. It wasn’t exactly a needle-in-a-haystack hunt.”

      Apparently deciding to break up the heated discussion before it escalated, the officer cleared his throat and asked, “Has anything else happened recently?”

      “No.” She glared at Blake.

      “Well, this report will be on file. I’m sorry to say that I don’t expect much to come of it. Nothing was taken. Although, I will send a crime-scene tech out to collect evidence.” He rose from the sofa, sticking his hand out. “Ms. Prescott.”

      “Ms. Sobel.”

      The smile on his face faltered for a moment before he regained his composure. “Ms.