When She Was Bad...

Prologue

Wednesday, February 11—9:30 p.m.

IT WAS THE PERFECT night for a burglary.

Pepper Rossi tried to push the paranoid thought away, but it continued to nag her as she peered through the French doors. The small balcony outside the Atwells’ penthouse suite was bathed in shadows. The moon, which had been bright and full an hour before during the preview party, was now trapped behind a batch of paralyzed clouds. In Pepper’s mind, the whole scene provided an excellent setting for a little second-story work.

Her aunt Irene, the most immediate cause of her paranoia, was the queen of second-story work. As the star of a local reality show—Are You Safe?—Irene Rossi broke into the homes of prominent San Franciscans on a weekly basis. And Irene also had a motive for stealing the priceless Monet that Pepper was currently babysitting while the Atwells and their guests were attending a gala performance of the symphony.

But Irene wouldn’t actually go so far as to steal a Monet, would she?

A little voice in the back of Pepper’s mind shouted, Yes!

Don’t panic, Pepper lectured herself as she stepped back from the first set of French doors and moved to check the next. So what if the queasy feeling in her stomach was warning her that disaster was imminent? She’d had these premonitions before, and they hadn’t always panned out.

Just because her aunt had attended the Atwells’ preview party for the upcoming charity auction on Sunday night didn’t mean that she’d come to case the place. After all, most of the movers and shakers in San Francisco had been invited for a private viewing of the Monet that would be auctioned to benefit the new children’s wing at the hospital. The guest list had included Pepper’s father who was running for mayor in the fall election, and he’d brought his sister Irene as his guest. Simple as that.

At the next set of French doors, Pepper tested the lock and peered out. Nothing. But she couldn’t quite stop worrying about her aunt. Over the years, Irene had been the only one of her Rossi relatives who’d kept in touch with her. There’d been birthday cards, surprise presents and letters, and she’d gotten pretty close to her aunt. That meant she was privy to all the details surrounding Irene’s forty-year star-crossed romance with ex-mobster Butch Castellano.

Pepper was aware that during his time in prison, Butch had become a legitimate businessman and was now running a resort in the Caribbean, that he had a weakness for French Impressionist paintings, and that he’d reneged on his promise to allow Irene to join him after his release from prison. Butch’s excuse for breaking up with Irene was that he still didn’t think he was good enough for her.

She also knew that Irene had taken his excuse literally and was determined to prove that she was bad enough for him.

Would she do something as drastic as steal a priceless Monet? Pepper sent up a little prayer that her aunt wouldn’t be so foolish.

Fighting off another wave of queasiness, she dashed into the bedroom. The Monet was still there resting on its easel. Feeling a little better, she crossed to the French doors and checked the lock. It held. She was not going to blow this job. This was her big chance to prove to her brothers that she was a competent PI. And she was. Hadn’t she received the highest grade in the PI training class she’d taken?

The problem was that being a PI in a test-taking situation had turned out to be radically different than being a PI in the real world. She’d always been able to ace tests, but so far her career at Rossi Investigations, her brothers’ fledgling security firm, could best be described as hit and miss.

And she could lay the blame for that solidly at the feet of Cole Buchanan. Fisting her hands on her hips, Pepper marched out of the bedroom. Cole was ruining everything. Why on earth had he moved to San Francisco and joined Rossi Investigations at the same time that she had? It wasn’t fair. Every time she thought about it she wanted to kick something.

Since she’d paid a week’s salary for the high-heeled red shoes she was wearing, she resisted the urge.

Instead, she imagined Cole as a rag doll and mentally stuck a pin into his arm. First off, he affected her in a way that no other man ever had. She was certain that she lost brain cells whenever he was near her, starting with the first time they’d ever met at one of her father’s weekly family dinners. She’d just arrived in San Francisco and had been anxious to make a good impression on the family she’d just found out she had and was just beginning to know. Everyone who attended Peter Rossi’s Sunday dinners was required to bring a dish they’d prepared, and she’d been holding hers, a pasta salad in a newly purchased glass bowl, when Cole Buchanan had walked into the kitchen.

That’s when it had happened. It was just as if the man had put a spell on her. The very instant her eyes had met his, her mind had quite simply gone blank. All she’d been aware of was the strangest sensation—an electric jolt that had hit her right smack in her center and radiated through her whole system.

The next thing she’d known, the pasta was lying at her feet with little bits of shattered glass sparkling through it. And that had been just the beginning of the disaster. When she’d knelt to clean up the mess, she’d gotten a shard of glass in her hand. Before she could even react, Cole had lifted her up, settled her on a counter and begun to administer first aid.

If simply looking at him had jolted her system, having him hold her hand had nearly destroyed it. Close up, the man’s effect on her had increased to the point that she’d been tempted to kiss him—a man she hadn’t even met!

Even now, she could recall that moment when his face had been so close to hers that she could see the color of his eyes, a fascinating mixture of gray and green. And she remembered exactly how his breath had felt on her lips, how that whisper of heat had sent flashes of fire along her nerve endings. And she also vividly remembered the hot coil of desire that had grown inside of her. All she would have had to do was lean a little bit forward and she could have tasted him. The desire to do that had bordered on desperation.

And it still did. Mentally, she plunged a second pin into the rag doll’s other arm. Then she forced herself to recheck the French doors in the living room of the suite. Each time she was near Cole Buchanan, the strength of her desire to kiss the man had only increased. It had grown into an obsession. And she couldn’t seem to get away from him.

Every time she did some field work, her brothers invariably sent Cole to check on her. The only reason he wasn’t here tonight was because Evan Atwell had assured her brothers that he was confident she could handle the Monet babysitting job by herself.

And that was another thing that she could blame Cole for. He’d ruined her romantic life. Evan was such a nice man, and thanks to Cole she’d had to break off her relationship with him. She and Evan had dated for almost three months, but she couldn’t in all conscience continue to see him when she felt the way she did about Cole. Even if she was determined never to act on her feelings.

Mentally, she considered a spot for a third pin and decided on a leg and stabbed it in.

Cole Buchanan was the last man on earth she should be attracted to. They were literally as different as night and day. Plus, he just happened to be her biggest nightmare come true. Cole was her brother Luke’s best friend from college and her brothers had hired him right after they’d hired her. She’d moved to San Francisco determined to prove to her newly discovered family that she could fit in and the person she had to compete against was a costume and mask short of being a super hero.

He was an ex–CIA agent, and she was an ex–Philadelphia debutante. He was good with guns; her hand shook whenever she picked one up. Oh, she was great at the shooting range, but she didn’t think she would ever have the nerve to actually point her weapon at a real person. Cole was trained in hand-to-hand combat; she was enrolled in a karate class. The list went on and on.

It simply wasn’t fair. Not only had he ruined her romantic life, but he also stood in the way of her goal of becoming a partner in her brothers’ firm. How could they possibly consider her for the position when they could have him?

But in spite of the fact that she was about to stick another pin in him, if Cole Buchanan walked in right now, she’d want to kiss him.

The sudden ringing of her cell phone had her jumping. She grabbed it out of her blazer, dropped it and managed to catch it before it hit the floor. Her heart sank when she saw it was Luke, her oldest brother.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine.” Except she was mentally obsessing about Cole Buchanan instead of keeping her mind on the Monet. Just to make sure, she ran back into the bedroom to check. The painting was still there on its easel.

“You sure you can handle this alone?” he asked.

She stiffened. “Evan thought that I could.”

“Yeah, I know.” This comment was followed by an almost inaudible sigh. Pepper knew the tone of that sigh. She’d heard it often enough. It was the same kind of sigh her grandmother had made whenever she’d failed to live up to the responsibility of being a Pendleton.