Chapter Two
Although the hour Maggie asked for during their phone conversation hadn’t passed yet, Darcy couldn’t keep herself from crossing the street when camera flashes reflected off Micah’s building.
One man stood on the sidewalk in a blue hoodie. The last time she’d seen Malcolm Franks, he’d been shoving his camera in the face of a four-year-old girl whose mother had just been hit by a bus right in front of her.
As far as scum-spewing freelance dirtbags were concerned, Malcolm was the king. Figures he’d have taken up residence outside the office of the juiciest untold story of the decade. News outlets around the world offered big bucks for pictures of Micah and facts about how he’d escaped Colombia with six other hostages. Public interest in the story was quickly turning him into a legend—some casting him as the hero, and others, the villain. Darcy had her theories about the former millionaire playboy, and she hoped they were right.
His story was the price Sol, her boss, demanded in exchange for what she’d been fighting for all along: a chance to investigate and report on the international drug trade’s exploitation of children in Toronto. She had sources willing to talk; now she needed Sol to give her the nod to go after news that could make a difference.
She marched up to Malcolm, resisting an urge to yell in his smug face. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?” she asked, meeting his icy stare. “Stalking Micah Laine isn’t going to get you anywhere.” Hypocritical, considering she’d covertly stalked his assistant through the elderly woman’s blog comments and befriended her, but Malcolm didn’t need to know that.
He grinned and held up his camera. “The shot I took this morning will probably pay my rent for three months. And I’m not doing anything illegal. This is a public street. The more interesting question is why are you here? If you’re really thinking about going after Laine, you are way out of your league. This guy’s high class, and you always look like you just crawled out of a donation hamper at the Goodwill.”
She thought about telling him about her potential meeting with Micah, but she was a girl on a mission and wouldn’t risk any interference. “You’d better get along home. I’m sure your mom has your grilled cheese ready for you by now.” Paparazzi tactics had always irked her, and she refused to adopt them despite Sol’s insistence that they were the only way to succeed in this business.
“Nobody cares about bleeding heart human-interest stories anymore, Delacorte. You’ll have to get nasty if you want to play with the big boys. Oh, and have fun in your basement cubicle. I hear you have to wear rubber boots every time it rains.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, so what? I’d rather have wet feet than no soul.” Fuming, she turned her back on his laughter and went through glass doors into the lobby of the building done up in white marble tile. Fancy, like the guy upstairs. No kidding she didn’t belong here, not that she wanted to. She just had to endure the hoity-toity Laine long enough to open a few professional doors.
The playboy had once been a poster boy for everything that was wrong with modern society, prior to his kidnapping. He’d pretty much disappeared from the public eye since his return from South America last year, aside from the initial fundraising galas for the foundation where he hosted from a dim corner of a ballroom. The public wanted to know why, and she intended to find out. Along with why he’d started the foundation in the first place.
A short ride in a mirrored elevator took her to the fourth floor, where Maggie stood at a filing cabinet beside a corner desk unit. The only other items in the room were a large fern and a picture on the wall of the Toronto skyline at night. What had she expected, armed guards? Crystal chandeliers, or, given the man behind the door, a brass pole and dancing girls? It seemed simpler than Micah Laine would keep his territory, and too easily accessed.
“You’re a bit early.” Maggie extended her hand, and they shook. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you in person.” Maggie’s lids lowered, and she raised fingers to Darcy’s cheek as if they were family. “You’re flushed. Is everything all right?”
“It will be. I need to talk to Mr. Laine about your paparazzi problem before I go back down there and knock a man’s thick head in.”
“By all means.” Maggie gestured toward the only door that didn’t have a picture of stairs on it, a mischievous smile curling her lips. “I’m glad I’m not the only one pissed off with that wanker of a photographer.”
Darcy headed toward the door Maggie pointed to.
It opened before she got there. The red haze clouding her vision wouldn’t let her stop to look at the tall man who appeared in the doorway. She went by him to the window, pulling back the closed vertical blinds far enough to glare down at Malcolm, who was probably still laughing at her. “Is he here every day?” she asked. “Does he follow you? Because that’s harassment; I don’t care what the law says.”
“Please, come in,” a smooth tenor voice said behind her, dripping with sarcasm. “Him and others. Every day, morning and night. Now, tell me what you said to him and why you’re so offended by your own kind. Yes, it was clear even from four stories up. You don’t know me, so it can’t have anything to do with me.”
“He’s not my kind, and I don’t have to know someone to recognize when they’re being treated like crap.” She finally slid her gaze sideways to the man standing in the way of her career.
His virile male energy turned the air into crackling electricity, an aspect of him not apparent through his pictures or in news footage. No wonder women fell over themselves to be near him.
“It isn’t every day I have a beautiful woman crash into my office and get angry on my behalf.” His voice held a mocking edge.
Still a jackass, apparently, but she had burst into his space without an invitation. Lengthening her posture, she thrust out her hand. “Sorry for barging in on you like that. I’m Darcy—”
“Delacorte,” he interrupted. “Yes, I know who and what you are.” A tall, lean body filled out a pair of slim-fitting, slate gray slacks, and a navy blue dressy button-down. She was five-ten, so he had to be six foot two or more given how much he towered over her. His hair had grown almost to his shoulders, the blond mass concealing the entire left side of his face, all but a hint of a scar across the left side of his mouth.
There was something wild about him that hadn’t been in his pictures. Something beautiful and raw. The angle of his jaw, the one dark blue eye not hidden by hair, and the sleek lines of him made him appear primal. Her pulse fluttered as he stared back, her hand still hanging out there in the silence between them.
If her curiosity had been a kitten’s mewing before, now it roared loud and clear. This was not the same guy who used to strut around with a model on his arm, his hair businessman short, and an oh-so-charming smile on his face.
No doubt about it, he was gorgeous. Not that she’d be going within a thousand miles of that landmine, even if she didn’t need his help. She was so done with being used up and tossed aside, and once upon a time, he’d been the worst user that ever existed. Was he still?
Feeling helpless in his shadow, she withdrew her offer to shake, gasping when he shot out a hand at the last second and used her fingers to pull her a step closer to him. Another inch or two, and they’d be within slow-dancing distance. Way too close.
Jesus, he was strong and too goddamned bold for her liking.
He smelled fresh and crisp, like a spiced winter morning. Why had he done the buttons on his shirt all the way up? Did he have more scars there, too?
Adding a little flint to her stare, she met his, the dark blue nights rimmed with light lashes. What horrors had they seen? What had it done to the man? She saw the same darkness in her own reflection now and then, and she suffered a fleeting sense of kinship with the man she’d written off as a shallow brat.
Beneath the curtain of his hair, she made out more pink lines of what could have been scars, the heaviest one crossing the corner of his lips. An urge to reach out and trace the lines of it had her muscles singing.
To her relief, Micah broke their visual tug-of-war first and turned his attention to her fingers still trapped in his, lifting her hand closer to his face. “You have long fingers.” His tone, along with the dimness and quiet of the room, added a sense of intimacy that made her thighs resonate. “Do you play the piano?” he asked.
Was he trying to seduce or intimidate her? She jerked her hand back and turned her attention to a wall that held several large, framed photographs. Her imagination wanted to entertain thoughts of everywhere he could touch her with those hands. They could give her relief from an ache she hadn’t even been aware of. Living a celibate life for almost three years would do that to a girl every time. But men were trouble, every one of them, and her energy had somewhere better to go.
“So, do you?” he asked, his smile apparent in his tone, as if he knew the effect he seemed to have on her.
“Do I what?” The sharpness of her retort didn’t hide the huskiness in the words.
“Play piano.”
Yes, now that she thought about it, he had asked that while she was trying to figure him out. Shit. “Once upon a time, but I haven’t played in years.” Not since Gran had passed and Darcy had given up on the life she’d dreamed of as a girl.
Forcing her attention to the pictures, she studied the composition, the lighting, the incredible eye the photographer had for angles and architecture and people. “These are fantastic, so artistic and well arranged. Are these all the places you’ve traveled?” She pulled at her T-shirt. “What’s with your thermostat? It’s tropical in here.”
He stepped in beside her. “Actually, it’s on the frosty side. Never higher than sixty-eight.” A hint of amused interest had taken the place of his earlier irritation. Playing with her before throwing her out? “And yes, I took these photos myself. That one’s from Thailand, this one’s from Prague, and that one over there is from a vacation I took in Crete.”
“You took them?” Somewhere in her, a knot unknotted, and her synapses fired double-time at the shock of that news. There was far more to this man than she’d imagined. “You can see.”
“What?”
She waved him off. “Something someone said to me once. Instead of just grabbing a quick Instagram shot without paying much attention to your surroundings, you went into the heart of these places.”
“There’s passion in that statement. Why would you care what anyone else sees?”
Still fixed on the images, her mouth ran away before she thought about what spilled out of it. “Because in a blink, those moms and dads and kids and lovers could be gone, and they may never see what’s really important.”
He edged closer. “And what’s that?”
Cursing under her breath, she shrugged, realizing how many tangled emotions she’d laid bare in the words. “People who need our help.” One of her biggest challenges in becoming a journalist was stopping herself from getting emotionally involved in the stories she researched and wrote about. She couldn’t afford to do that, not this time.
The picture closest to her wasn’t quite straight, so she nudged it with her knuckle.
Not avoiding his gaze.
Nope.
She needed his attention on something else for a second so she could breathe. “Do you know what the most shocking thing about these pictures is? I just can’t get over the fact that at least one of your hands wasn’t in some woman’s panties long enough to work the camera.”
She couldn’t help but join in with the infectious sound of his dark, quiet laughter.
“Who are you?” He stretched one long, lean arm toward the wall and propped his palm against it.
“Darcy Delacorte. Let me know when it sinks in.” Flashing a genuine grin, she clapped her hands together. “So, are we going to get down to business, or what? I’m sure you’re a busy guy.”
Micah watched her as he returned to his desk and remained standing behind it, all amusement gone. Suspicion stared back at her now, deep and cold. “I haven’t agreed to anything with you, Miss Delacorte, despite whatever promises my assistant made to you.”
“Let’s stick with Darcy.” She took a moment to assess his body language before meeting those wintery eyes again, feeling bolder than she had since making the decision to take Sol up on his challenge. “And you’re wrong; you have agreed.”
His brow furrowed, and he tipped his head forward, causing all of that blond hair to whisper forward, shadowing his face even more. Every pose favored his undamaged side. His hair had become his wall against the gawkers. “Please, enlighten me as to my own line of thinking, then.” His tone held a warning edge.
Flopping down on the chair in front of his desk, she smiled. “Well, you haven’t thrown me out yet despite your apparent grumpy mood. Your arms are relaxed, one in your pocket and the other loose at your side, not crossed or tense like they’d be if you were about to throw me out.” She spun her chair around to break her insane need to smooth his hair back from his face so she could see him better. “Besides, I need you, and I think you need me, and if not consciously, then subconsciously, you know it.”
He laughed again, but it held disbelief and anger more than humor, and he sat down in his chair across the desk from her. “Are you always this arrogant?” His hands worried over his computer mouse, the motion sending zings through her fingers.
“I have no delusions that I’m superior to anyone. The facts are these: I’ve noticed you don’t show up at your own fundraising galas or at press conferences for the foundation, and the reason why is obvious—the paparazzi are relentless where you’re concerned. If you let me, I can make them leave you alone. Unless, of course, you like being a prisoner in your own office. But I’m guessing that’s a resounding no.”
He squinted at her, rubbing his arm absently, as if it was an old pain he dealt with so often he didn’t realize he was doing it. “What’s your angle, here? If you lie to me, this meeting’s over.”
She sat forward in the chair, realizing her next words would either send her back to the basement or put her on the front lines of a war few people knew about. Time to lay it all out there and hope he’d say yes.