Chapter Twenty
Bethany
I picked up my phone and knew immediately it was Annie even though all she said was, "The valets say he's there again."
I bit my lip. Dylan had been camping out in front of my office building on and off for almost a week. Annie had noticed him on one of her treks back from the courthouse, and since then she had bribed the valets to let her know when he reappeared.
Part of me wanted to march downstairs and across the street and confront Dylan right away. The other part cringed in embarrassment.
I had acted like such a fool in front of him!
I don't know why the sight of that sexy blonde made me lose my mind but as soon as she showed up, I stopped thinking straight. All I could think about was the footage of her heading up to Dylan's apartment after I had left.
Common sense told me it was strictly what she said: she needed Dylan's help.
"Maybe she crashed her pimp's car and needs Dylan to fix it," Annie had said after I described the blonde's snakeskin dress.
Jasmine. Dylan had called her Jasmine. Just the fleeting memory of her name on his lips made me shudder.
"Bethany? Earth to Bethany?" Annie called into the phone. "If you're not going down there then I am."
"No. I have to go. My boss will kill me if I don't." I thanked Annie and hung up the phone.
Then I dragged myself to the elevator with more than just gravity giving me a sinking feeling. It had taken me days to sort through a tsunami of feelings before I realized that Jasmine's appearance might have direct links to the DA's case. I had to face Dylan professionally, even if personally I wanted to die from embarrassment.
Did he think I was jealous?
I forced my feet to jog across the crosswalk; there couldn't be any turning back. I knew Dylan would have spotted me as soon as I left my office building and couldn't chance him deciding to drive off.
He must have seen me coming because he got out of his car and smiled. "Too obvious?" he asked.
"That's a Mercedes gull wing? Right?" I let myself into the passenger seat. "Yeah, I'd say it's a little obvious."
If had butchered the make and model of the car, Dylan ignored it. He dropped back into the driver's side and started the car.
"Where to?" he asked.
I seat-belted myself in. "How about a long drive?"
Dylan shook his head. "First, we clear the air."
My nerves jangled but I laced my fingers tightly together and nodded. "Fine. Who's Jasmine?"
Dylan shifted gears and pressed on the gas. "She's the woman you saw the night we ran into each other. That's the first night I met her and the night her boyfriend landed me in that holding cell," Dylan said.
"And?" I took a sharp breath; I did sound jealous.
"And I was right," Dylan said.
"What?" I held onto my seat as we took the on-ramp to the freeway at breathtaking speed.
"I thought she needed my help that night in the parking lot and I was right. That's why she came to my loft when you were leaving. That's why she flagged me down the other day," Dylan explained.
My fingers loosened, and I relaxed back into my leather seat. "What kind of help does she need?"
My stomach dropped. Had I been so focused on Dylan, so jealous because I couldn't even date him properly, that I had missed out on a woman that really needed help? I remembered Dylan's report from the night he was thrown in jail. Her supposed boyfriend had been threatening her and getting rough when Dylan stepped in.
"I don't know." Dylan gave the steering wheel a frustrated smack. "I can't find her. I don't know what I've gotten myself tangled up in, Bethany, and I really don't want to drag you into it, too."
I laughed. "I'm already in it! Don't you get it? There's a real distinct possibility that you are involved with that chop shop ring."
Dylan grimaced. "I can't think straight. Can we go to my shop, please?"
I hesitated. "I shouldn't have told you any of that."
"No one's at the shop. It's the only place I don't get that feeling that I'm being watched," Dylan said.
He pulled straight into the mechanic's shop and closed the garage door behind us. For one moment, we both sat in the quiet confines of the car. It felt like we were two waves that had just crashed back into each other and we needed to settle.
Then Dylan helped me out of the gull wing car door. "Thank you," he said.
I swayed closer to him before I stopped myself. "For what?" I asked.
"For believing me enough to come here. No one else is going to look past my rocky history and still believe I'm a good guy," he said.
I shouldn't have but I hugged him. "Innocent before proven guilty. That's what I believe in."
Dylan chuckled and the vibration from his chest caused my nipples to pucker tight. He was so warm, so solid and strong. My memory flashed back to how easily he had pressed me up against the door of our room at the inn. The temperature rose steadily between us.
"So, you'll help me?" Dylan asked. "Even if I'm trying to help Jasmine?"
Even the little curvy blonde's name couldn't throw a bucket of ice water on my thoughts. Dylan was such a good man he was even willing to help a stranger who had once wronged him.
I kissed him.
"Bethany?" Dylan asked when we came up for air.
"I don't know, Dylan. I don't have any answers. I just know that I want this," I whispered. I pressed myself against the length of him and still wasn't close enough.
"Oh, god yes," Dylan muttered as his lips nipped mine again.
Dylan slid me past the Mercedes windshield and then pressed me down on the hood. I shimmied against it, forcing my skirt to inch up high enough that I could spread my legs and draw him closer.
I didn't know whether Dylan was so gentle because of the car or me. All I knew was that his slow, deliberate probing pushed me to the edge over and over again. I was panting and clutching at him, thrusting my hips up with abandon when he finally exploded inside me.
We relaxed against the low sports car's hood and tried to catch our breath.
"God, I think I needed that. I might finally have a clear head," Dylan said with a soft sigh.
I kissed his ear and moaned happily when he squirmed. "Me, too. Who needs a good night's sleep when I can have that?"
Dylan helped me up. "You can have that whenever you want, counselor. And I don't mind the sneaking around either."
I fanned my cheeks. "Oh, that did make it hotter, didn't it?"
We forgot all about Dylan's shop worries and slipped around the corner for a slice of pizza instead.
"So, can we, ah, talk shop here?" I finally asked Dylan as he ordered two more slices.
His eyes went wide. "Damn. For a minute there I actually forgot about all that."
I smiled, so very flattered. "So, tell me exactly how long Jasmine was at your loft that day."
He frowned. "Bethany, you know nothing happened, right?"
"Dylan, this is important," I said.
He continued to frown but described how Jasmine had not left when he kicked her out of the loft and how she was waiting for him in the garage downstairs. I asked what time he ended up getting to work and counted backward.
"Great, thanks!" I jumped up and tossed away my paper plate and napkins.
"What? You're leaving?" Dylan stuffed his last bite in his mouth and stood up.
"Don't worry. I'll let you know if I need my head cleared again," I joked.
He walked me outside, and I took a cab from there. For the first time in a week, I was actually looking forward to getting back to work.
Besides a clearer head, Dylan had given me a solid lead.
An hour later, I was explaining my new theory to a meeting as the DA paced around the conference table.
"And you have security footage to back this up?" she asked.
I nodded. The footage showed Dylan rebuffing Jasmine's advances again and again. More important than that, though, was the time stamp.
"He has an alibi for the time of the carjacking," I said.
The DA frowned. "And your theory is that he would have had to be at his shop at the time of the robbery if he was part of the team?"
"That's the only thing that makes sense. We all know Dylan's shop is the perfect place to stash and/or disguise a stolen car. If he had been part of the plan to steal that car, he would have been waiting at his shop during that time," I explained.
"More. I need more than this, Durham," the DA said.
I cued up the security footage from the parking lot the night Dylan had his run in with Jasmine and her boyfriend. "I believe this man fits the description of the car-jacking."
"So, what you're showing me is that Dylan Wylde has close connections with the carjacker?" the DA asked.
I froze. "No. I'm saying these two have been pulling a scam on Dylan and using his shop for the car thefts."
The DA tapped her chin and then shrugged. "Either way, it's one step closer to the truth. Get over to the hospital and show the carjacking victim that big guy's face. Maybe it's a match."
I had to tamp down my excitement before I entered the victim's hospital room. It wasn't hard when I thought of the painful attack he had been through. Or how the DA had so quickly flipped my plan to show Dylan once again in a criminal light.
"Mr. Poole?" I called quietly.
"He can't talk too loud; his jaw's wired shut." A uniformed police officer poked his head out and beckoned me in the room. "I'm the sketch artist who met with Mr. Pool when he first woke up."
"Great; then maybe you can help me compare your sketch with this image?" I asked.
The officer took a studied amount of time before he nodded. He then gently showed the street fighter's face to Mr. Pool. The injured man nodded, too, and then winced in pain.
I leaned down and heard Mr. Pool whisper, "That's him, tattoo and all."
I went back to the office feeling elated.
Until I saw the most recent reports. Most of my colleagues did not believe Dylan was in the clear. I read conclusion after conclusion by intelligent peers and felt that horrid gnawing of doubt start again.
What if Dylan had been playing me from the start?
It was one way to explain our random reunion, plus his urgent phone call from the holding cell. Dylan Wylde was trying to make me his alibi.