Heated (Most Wanted 2)

I'm not sure what compelled me, but I moved from the end of the bed to Tyler's side. "Do you want me to get you guys anything? Some coffee, maybe, while we wait."

"No," Cole said. "I'm good. Appreciate it."

"Stay," Tyler said, and as he spoke, he reached for my hand.

I took it without thinking, and as Lizzy stirred, Tyler's fingers tightened around mine.

"Lizzy. It's Cole. Wake up, sweetheart."

At first, she didn't react, and I feared that she'd fallen back into a deep sleep. Then her eyes fluttered. The left one blinked open, the swollen right one remained glued shut.

"Hey there, kid," Tyler said, softly. "You're going to be just fine."

"Tyler?" I could barely hear her thin, fragile voice.

"Cole's here, too. Evan's on his way."

Cole clutched her hand. "What happened?"

She licked her lips. "Water?"

While Tyler found the water for her, Cole fiddled with the bed. "Do you want to sit up?" he asked, then raised the bed in response to her affirmative nod.

She scanned the room, her eyes stopping on me.

"I'm Sloane," I said. "I'm a friend of Amy's."

"Sloane's with me," Tyler said. "Go on. Do you feel up to telling us what happened?"

"My fault--ran a red light." A tear trickled down her cheek. "The guy I hit?"

"Fine," Cole assured her. "I asked when I got the first call. Treated at the scene. You didn't hurt him."

She nodded, then winced, as she reached again for the water.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have--" Her eyes drooped. "Medicine. I'm sorry. So sleepy."

"Go back to sleep. You don't have anything to be sorry about," Tyler said. "It was an accident. And I'll get a temp to cover for you. Just take your time, and you can go back to work when you're well."

"No." Her eyes fluttered open. "Franklin ... please ... shoulda taken ... pop job ... I don't ..." Her eyes drifted closed, and sleep took her.

Cole tilted his head up to meet Tyler's eyes.

"Poor kid," Tyler said.

Cole glanced at me. "You two take my car. You go on to the benefit. I'm going to stay with Lizzy for a while."

"You sure?"

"Hell, yes."

Tyler hesitated, then pressed a kiss to Lizzy's forehead before leading me out.

"It's horrible," I said. "She's lucky, though. It could have been worse."

Tyler nodded, his expression pensive.

"Did you arrange that job for her?"

"Got her in with Eli Franklin. Solid job for her. Second assistant to Franklin himself. He's into real estate, and damned successful, too. We were lucky to add him to our client list. Lizzy's the first placement with him."

"You mentioned helping the girls at the house find jobs, too," I said.

He nodded. "I own a placement agency. Knight & Day staffing. I bought the company for a song, and still probably paid too much."

"I think I remember reading that you owned an agency." I grinned wryly. "You own so many things it got lost in the list."

"You could say it's a pet project. The entire organization was a mess, but I changed the name and put in a hell of a lot of man-hours. In the end it was worth my time, and my investment. It's turned out to be profitable. And worthwhile."

"Doesn't really seem sexy enough for one of Chicago's leading businessmen," I teased as we exited the hospital and headed for the emergency parking area where Cole had parked his Range Rover.

"The press is interested in sexy. All I care about is profit and functionality. In this case, I was looking at function. But because I'm a goddamn miracle worker, we're also turning a tidy profit now."

"What kind of function? I mean, job placement, obviously, but ..."

"The girls," he said. "The ones you met, of course, but the other staff at Destiny. Waitresses, dancers. A lot of women turn to exotic dancing because they don't have the money for school. Because they ended up with a kid but no husband. They don't have the education to make more than minimum wage. K&D helps them out. Placement, tuition assistance, job training." He lifted a shoulder. "It's working."

"K&D helps them out," I repeated. "You mean you help them out."

"I do what I can." We'd arrived at the car.

"Why?"

"Because they deserve better," Tyler said, opening the door for me. "And if they're willing to work for it, then I'm willing to help."

Good pay, good benefits, good policy regarding customer interaction with the girls. A semi-charitable boarding house. And a protective attitude toward those women that melted my heart. It wasn't the kind of thing I expected a criminal mastermind with a swindler's heart to say. It wasn't what I'd expected when I'd made the drive into Chicago.

But I was looking at Tyler with my own eyes. And not the eyes of a woman who'd been soundly and thoroughly seduced. I was seeing the man with eyes trained to see evidence and nuance. And I had to admit that I liked what I was uncovering.

This Tyler was a man who'd raced to the bedside of a girl he employed. A man who had not only rescued women, but had built up an entire support system for them.

Maybe he did have some seedy side businesses, but at his heart, the Tyler I'd seen and touched and fucked was a different breed of man than the one Kevin sought.

Assuming, of course, that I was really seeing the man. Nobody is what they seem.

The possibility that he was showing me only what I wanted to

see gnawed at me, but I pushed it away. Both my instincts and the evidence said that I'd seen the real Tyler.

And when you got right down to it, what else was there to look at?

"You're a good man, Tyler Sharp," I said softly, once he was seated in the car beside me.

"No, I'm not." He drew in a long, tired breath. "But I have my moments."

Chapter Twenty-One

"I don't think I've ever dined with the fishes," I said, as Tyler took my arm and led me to one of the cash bars set up under the watchful eye of a sleek, Bonnethead shark.

The event was in the Shedd Aquarium's Caribbean Reef rotunda. During the day, clusters of schoolchildren and tourists wandered this room. But now it was filled with over two hundred men and women gathered in small groups, chatting and drinking and watching the underwater world float by in the giant tank that sat like a centerpiece in the middle of the stunning room.

"I feel a little like Ariel," I said, referring to The Little Mermaid.

"Does that make me your Prince Charming?"

I grinned up at him. "Maybe. It depends on if you find me wine."

"A quest," he said, "for the fair maiden Ariel. Come, my princess, let us be off."

I laughed. "Okay. I take it back."

"I'll admit I'm no prince," he said, "but you are as beautiful tonight as any princess ever was." He hooked a finger under my chin and tilted my head up so that he could press a gentle kiss to my lips.

I sighed, feeling soft and girly and romantic, and when I took his arm, I realized I was smiling.

"What are you thinking?"

"That this feels like a date," I said. "Considering how we've spent our time together so far, that makes the night a standout."

He lifted my hand, then kissed my fingertips. "Disappointed?"

"No," I said softly. "Not even a little bit."

We continued on to the bar, where he got a Scotch and I got a glass of white wine. "I prefer red," I said as we moved back into the throng. "But I don't usually get this dressed up, and I'm currently suffering from the rather overwhelming fear that I'd get red wine all over my gown."

"Then I'd just have to strip it off you," he said, with a cocky, sexy grin.

I rolled my eyes. "Down boy. Fancy dress function, remember? Best behavior."

We were continuing the circuit around the coral reef tank, and arrived at a series of tables topped with a variety of baskets, each with a clipboard and paper. "So what exactly is the purpose of this function?"