Not that it made any of this much easier, but still.
Lola’s laughter reached me again.
I glanced up. The sink was directly opposite the door, and the mirror that hung above it was large and clear, and I met the eyes of my reflection.
Time to get on with it.
Chapter Eight
Perrie
“Stop looking at me,” I hissed over my shoulder. We were just leaving the police station after the briefing, and already, I was severely regretting my dress choice.
I’d worn a coat over the dress when I’d left Adrian’s bathroom, so the first time he’d seen it was, well, now.
A plunging neckline probably wasn’t my best idea, given the situation.
“I’m just getting into character,” he said, unlocking the car and reaching for the door handle. He swung open my door, eyes hot on me as I sat on the front seat.
“I’m here to work, not here to be undressed with your eyes.” I grabbed the inside handle and yanked the door shut, much to his amusement.
The sound of his laughter carried as he walked around the car and got in the other side. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Oh, please. That’s the most pathetic apology I’ve ever heard.”
“Ouch. If kids are more believable non-apologizers than I am…”
“Oh, they’re better. That was abysmal. Not to mention I’m a woman so naturally assume that your apology is bullshit anyway.” I raised my eyebrow. He didn’t try to deny it. “I thought as much.”
“In my defense,” he paused as the engine hummed to life, “I didn’t know you were wearing that dress. I didn’t know you owned a dress like that.”
“Why would you? You haven’t been inside my closet. Plus: I wore my coat.”
“All I’m saying is that you need to give a guy a little warning before stepping out in a dress that would give the elderly a heart attack.”
I rolled my head to the side and gave him a flat look. “You’re not supposed to be looking at me like that. Remember, Detective?”
Still keeping his grip on the steering wheel, he moved his hand back and forth, flexing his arm. “The fact I’m not supposed to be looking at you the way I am is the only reason you’re not on the backseat with the dress around your hips.”
“That’s inappropriate.” I cleared my throat, turning my head so quick my neck cricked.
“So is that fucking dress.”
“I’m only here because of you. This is a torture of your own making. You want me to fit in, then I’m gonna wear what I used to.”
“Bit of a departure from the jeans of last night, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know what was expected of me. Now, I do. So, tough.”
Adrian took a deep breath, his eyes fixated on the road. I was glad of that—I wanted to just drive and drive, where he had to keep his eyes on where we were going as opposed to me.
I really, really hadn’t thought it through when I’d picked this dress out of my closet. I didn’t even remember buying it. The tags were still on, and it was languishing at the back of my more regularly worn dresses, so there was a good reason I didn’t remembering ever having bought it.
It’d been a long damn time since I had.
Tonight, I’d just picked it up, shoved it in the bag, and moved on with my packing. Unless it was my wedding day or a prom, a dress was just a dress, right?
Wrong.
Apparently, a dress was a torture weapon…I just hadn’t meant to wield it around Adrian Potter.
Whatever. I still maintained this was all his fault, of his own doing, and it wasn’t my fault if he found me attractive in it. That was his fault for staring at me.
That was my story, and by damn, I was sticking to it.
“You heard the chief,” he said, making a welcome u-turn in our conversation. “Three arrests tonight. And we even have a target.”
“And like I said, I know the woman publicly known as Jenna Rose. You won’t find her during the week.” I rolled my eyes. Everyone who’d been in the seedy prostitution life in Vegas for a considerable amount of time knew who Jenna Rose was. Not many actually knew her, and at this point, she was closer to a sugar baby than she was a whore.
She’d made money by being damn good at what she did. Rumor had it there were even a couple of sex tapes.
And she was the one. The one the LVPD wanted more than anything. The problem was, there was a very gray area between being a sugar baby and a whore. One got paid for sex, the other got paid to show up somewhere and be pretty.
I’d taken the wrong path.
“We have to try to find her,” Adrian asserted, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Then you should probably look in the Caribbean, because last I heard, she was spending the month there.”