Love By Association

Most people knew of, or had heard rumor of, a liaison gone bad between the two of them. But word among “friends” was that their sexual relations the night of the party had been consensual.

“Friends” including Santa Raquel’s esteemed police commissioner.

When it had become clear that Julie wasn’t going to get justice—due in large part to a law enforcement system that was willing to look away if the right money was involved—she’d begged Colin to keep the incident a secret. To preserve as much of the life she’d led as she could. He’d wanted to move, leave the country, even. Start over in Italy or someplace else beautiful enough to distract his little sister from the horror she wasn’t ever going to completely escape.

Julie was the one who’d convinced him they needed to stay home. Pointing out, rightly so, that a lot of people depended on Fairbanks and Fairbanks, trusted them, in a world where having an attorney in business was an absolute must. Pointing out, as well, that if he closed the firm, they’d not only put a couple dozen attorneys and more than a hundred support staff out of jobs, but they’d lose the income necessary to keep their family home on the California coast—a home their grandfather had built from scratch.

Why Leslie Morrison kept the secret, Colin didn’t know. Nor did he know, for sure, how she’d known what had happened. He’d just come home from law school one day, shortly after that horrible night, a twenty-one-year-old kid trying to raise his sister after their father’s heart attack the year before and their mother’s death from hepatitis the year before that, and found Leslie and Julie sitting on the couch.

Not all that unusual, seeing that Leslie chaired the county’s Pet Adoption and Rescue Fund, a charitable fund that raised much of the money that helped support more than twenty shelters and neutering programs in a thirty-mile radius along the coast. Julie had run for and won election to junior chair of the fund her sophomore year in high school.

She’d been sitting on the committee’s board ever since. Now with a college degree in finance, Julie was also part of the Sunshine Children’s League—which raised funds for children without families, providing funding for basic necessities but also some scholarships to California state universities.

She attended luncheons and organized fundraisers. She shopped at the stores she loved and occasionally went to dinner with a girlfriend or two.

But she didn’t date. She never frequented dinner establishments where she might run into a Smyth. She hadn’t been back to Santa Barbara—home to the Smyth mansion where the rape had taken place—in ten years.

And she almost never attended evening social functions.

Colin gave up trying to change her mind that night.

* * *

FROM THE MINUTE she walked into the glitzy ballroom Thursday night, Chantel changed. As though she’d been born to wealth, her persona slid over her, oozing a confidence that surprised her as she entered the elegant party in the five-star resort on the Pacific coastline.

For that night she was a woman of privilege. And she was a woman on the prowl. Not unlike most of the unattached—and probably some of the attached, as well—women there. But unlike the rest of her unlikely peers, Chantel, while prowling for a man, wasn’t there for personal gain. She wanted to pick up a man as badly as any of them. Maybe worse.

But she wasn’t hoping he’d take her home. To the contrary. She wanted him locked up in an eight-by-eight cell, where she knew he’d never be able to hurt his wife again. Picturing the key to the cell flying through the air and landing in the ocean beyond the wall of windows at one end of the elegantly appointed room, Chantel sent a silent promise to Ryder Morrison that he wasn’t going to spend the next several years watching his father beat up his mother. Or living in fear that his father would someday come after him with a baseball bat as he had his own little brother so many years before.

Not that arresting the man would guarantee that. They needed to build a case against him, find ample enough proof that no matter who came to the powerful man’s rescue, the prosecutor could still win a conviction.

It wouldn’t be easy. James Morrison was a respected and very rich man who’d funded many of the seated politicians in California’s congress. He probably had blackmail goods on others.

And that was where she came in. With her blond hair curling over her breasts, the ample cleavage that was visible in the V of the black, figure-hugging and glittering gown she’d worn for her debut evening as the daughter of an East Coast millionaire newly settling in California, Chantel remembered the mantra that Wayne had been repeating almost hourly the week since they’d won approval for this sting.

Patience.

“Undercover work isn’t about going in and getting it done,” he’d told her. “It’s about taking the time to become intimate with the life you’re infiltrating.”

Used to being the one who bulldozed ahead and made things happen, Chantel paused just inside the door of the richly decorated room. She’d passed her first test—handing off her invitation at the door.

Gleaned from the police commissioner himself. A man she’d never met, a man who wouldn’t be acknowledging her presence that night—though he would surely be there, even if just to put in an appearance.

He’d agreed to the sting, wanted her to get Morrison if he turned out to be guilty of beating up his wife.

But he was expecting Chantel to clear the textile magnate’s name. Morrison and Commissioner Paul Reynolds were golf buddies. They went way back.

Or so she’d been told.

Still, she couldn’t know the commissioner. Not newly arrived from upstate New York as she was.

And she wasn’t about to get cozy with James Morrison, either. No, her job was to infiltrate the community. Become friendly with those who knew Morrison. People who could let things drop that a police officer might be able to use to find the dirt on him. The truth about him.

Her job was to find out the man’s deepest secrets, and if those secrets involved raising even a little finger to his wife or son, to expose him for the criminal that he was. She was there to get the proof...

* * *

COLIN WORKED THE room as his father had taught him, making time for each and every one of the firm’s clients. Shaking hands. Being available to anyone who might need advice on the spot.

And making certain that Fairbanks and Fairbanks’s top-grade lawyers, all in their tuxes and sipping on nothing more lethal than club soda, were ready to step into any situation that required more complicated legal machinations.

Though Colin was certainly as skilled and capable as the best of them, his job as the rainmaker, and CEO, of Fairbanks and Fairbanks required that he know about every single deal his firm handled. Which meant that he couldn’t possibly give his wealthy clients the time and attention they required for drawing up complicated contracts with all t’s crossed and i’s dotted.

Colin handled the beginning and the end. The handshakes. Occasionally, on cases that took unexpected turns, he’d be in the middle, too.

His self-appointed job—his purpose in life—was to make certain that integrity was at the root of everything touched by a Fairbanks. He owed that to Julie.

And to the parents who’d died young and counted on him to protect her. He was a lawyer—educated at Stanford, graduated from the top of his class—and he’d been unable to bring his sister justice.

He’d learned young—and the hard way—that integrity was rare, and he couldn’t count on it from anyone but Julie. Ever.

He hadn’t seen Jaime yet—she was busy behind the scenes getting ready for the opening of the curtain that would highlight all of the night’s top auction pieces on the revolving stage that had been set up in the middle of the room—but he hoped to be able to say hello. To invite Julie’s friend to dine with them one night before she left town, to hear what Jaime thought of the Julie she’d seen that week.

Not that he’d gossip about his sister. But Jaime had known Julie before the incident. She’d gotten into trouble with her a time or two. Like the time they’d climbed to the top of the water tower to hold up a sign, a piece of artwork, really, made by Jaime, protesting the fact that they’d been told they couldn’t pray in school.

Catching sight of the police commissioner, he made a sharp turn and a beeline for the bar, where he ordered a Scotch and water. The water in deference to the fact that he was driving. He kept his back to the room. Commissioner Reynolds didn’t stay long at these things—usually leaving his deputy commissioner to the public relations duties required by the office he held—but with the Smyths in attendance, it was no surprise the commissioner had shown, as well. And if Colin turned around to look, he was sure he’d see Smyth, too. They were always together.

He hadn’t seen either of the David Smyths that evening. But it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. He’d faced them down many times, with polite indifference. Each and every time they were the first to look away.

He took some small measure of satisfaction in that. Not nearly enough to even hope to heal his sister’s wounds, the damage they’d done to his family, but it allowed him to walk among them.

Julie was determined that people like the Smyths—people who bought police commissioners off rather than being accountable to their actions—would not chase out of town the people with integrity, namely the Fairbankses.

And that was the strongest reason Colin hung around. Because it was what Julie needed.

He could be a good lawyer anywhere and might even be better suited at finding a woman who didn’t bore him if he weren’t still living in the same small society in which he’d grown up. Or at least find one that he trusted to like him for the man he was inside, not for the man who happened to have a few million in his bank account.

One thing was for certain. While there were ample numbers of women here who would be eager to wear his ring, not one of them was willing to sign a prenuptial agreement.

He knew. He’d made quite a reputation for himself a few years back when he’d been on the brink of proposing and had brought up the prenuptial subject as a way of leading into the proposal. He’d actually thought love drove the liaison that time. That the woman in question understood that unless Julie married, Colin’s inheritance would one day go to her.

He supposed it was lucky that he’d never made it to the proposal stage. He’d been saved from being married for his money. “A glass of Chateau Ste. Michelle Pinot, please?”

The voice, coming from just behind him on the left, seemed to pour over Colin’s shoulder and down his body. Smooth and cultured, like she’d attended one of those finishing schools that always seemed to take anything natural and real out of women. And yet...with a hint of husky, too. A hint that maybe this particular woman hadn’t been a complete success at that school.

He turned, expecting to see someone older, perhaps his mother’s age. An art lover up from LA. Or one who’d flown in from the East Coast, like Jaime had...

Blond hair came into his vision, flowing over the most perfect breasts... The glass in his hand dropped to the bar with such force he was embarrassed. His mouth would have dropped, too, if he hadn’t been so cultured himself.

She was most definitely not his mother’s age.

“Hello,” he said, making way for her to step up to the bar beside him.

“Hello.” Her East Coast accent wasn’t strong, but it was there. Another part of her the school couldn’t quite ameliorate?

“I’m Colin Fairbanks,” he said, holding out a hand to her.

He was a handshaker. It came with his job.

Her nails, conservatively longish and a sedate red, glistened as she returned his gesture. Her skin was surprisingly...not as soft as he’d expected, like she did her own gardening or, like Julie, had her hands in turpentine. Still, he wanted to hold on.

“I’m Chantel Johnson,” she said, pulling her hand back after a brief touch. And then, “Thank you,” with what had to be a heart-stopping smile to the bartender as he slid her wine toward her.

She took a sip, those glossy red lips managing to caress the edge of the glass without leaving any residual red paint behind.

“You in town for the auction?” He asked the obvious because for once in his life he didn’t have an interesting conversational tidbit to offer.

She turned that smile on him, and it was more potent than he’d imagined. The small shake of her head drew his gaze to where the blond curls were caressing her breasts.

Embarrassed, he immediately raised his gaze. She tilted her head. “Not much of a gentleman, are you, Colin Fairbanks?”

“I’m sorry.” He was mortified. “I don’t usually... Truth is, I haven’t... You aren’t in town for the auction, then?”

Some rainmaker he was.

More like opportunity-blower.

She shook her head again. His gaze stayed glued on hers.

“I’m here, tonight, for the auction, but I’m in town to stay. I’ve recently relocated.”

Hot damn. Chances were, since she clearly had an invitation to the night’s shindig, he’d be seeing more of her.

“Where are you staying?”

“In a hotel at the moment. Until I can find a place that suits me.”

He asked her what kind of place suited her and found out that she wanted something with beachfront—and property—but didn’t need anything overly large as she lived by herself.

Colin was grinning by that point.

“So what brings you to California?”

“I’m writing a book,” she told him. “My family is in publishing, and I want the book to be published, or not, based on its merits. I plan to submit it like anyone else would have to do and, knowing me, it’ll be easier if I’m not right there with everyone, having to make up stories about what I’m doing.

“Besides, until last week I had an office on the top floor—VP of marketing. If nothing else, that felt like a conflict of interest, though I can’t really say why. Marketing and editorial are separate entities...”

Publishing. Julie’s children’s books.

This was getting better and better.

“You’re from New York?” he asked, then said, “Publishing, and that little bit of an accent...”

“I was raised in upstate New York,” she told him. Her wineglass was still full.

“So, since you’re new here, I suppose you don’t know many people.”

“None, actually. A big black-tie charity event...if it’s anything like home, I figured this was the way to get to know them.”

He stood, almost full glass of Scotch in hand. “Will you allow me to introduce you around?”

He’d probably wake up in the morning and find out that he’d had one hell of a great dream.

“I don’t know, Colin Fairbanks,” she said, taking a step back and giving him a saucy grin. Yeah, that dream was getting better by the second. “If I’m seen with you, will it damage my reputation? For all I know, you could be Southern California society’s bad boy.”

For a brief moment, he wished he was. Because he had a feeling she’d like him that way.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Johnson. I’m the guy others don’t like because I tend to see the world in black-and-white—and aim for the white every time.”

“No shades of gray for you?” She ran her finger along the edge of her wineglass and then licked it.

He fought a very strong temptation to bring that finger to his lips but managed to simply shake his head.

“Disappointed?” he asked.

She sipped wine and studied him. “I’m not sure,” she told him. “Can I get back to you on that?”

So she expected to see him again. “Anytime,” he told her, one hand in his pocket.

His clients were probably watching him by now. Any other night, he’d have been out there with them—mingling, being seen, listening.

Appearing to enjoy himself.

Did it show that that night was the first time in a very long time that he actually was enjoying himself?

“What is it that you do?” she asked, still not moving on into the room.

“I’m an attorney. Owner of Fairbanks and Fairbanks.”

“Hotshot corporate lawyer,” she said. Her eyes might have darkened. He couldn’t be sure.

“You’ve heard of us.”

“Who travels in this circle and hasn’t?”

She had him there.

She was welcome to him anywhere.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE WAS OVERDOING IT. She’d never be able to pull off the femme fatale flirtatiousness on a longer-term basis. Chantel took the sexy steps she’d practiced across the room at Colin Fairbanks’s side, reminding herself that she had to be patient. To slow down. She was in this for the long haul.

As long as it took to build a strong enough case against James Morrison. Or to convince herself that, while the man had admitted to beating his little brother to death with a baseball bat, he really wasn’t a wife and family beater.

She smiled, said hello and shook hands as Colin introduced her around. She’d seen pictures of the Morrisons but had yet to see either of them that night. She hoped Leslie’s absence didn’t mean she had new bruises that she couldn’t bring out in public.

Always the cop, Chantel couldn’t ever lose her awareness of the darker side of life. Not even in the midst of a life as beautiful as that glitzy ballroom with its linen chair covers and tablecloths, real crystal glasses and more diamonds than she’d ever seen in one place. The flower arrangements were real. She could smell the roses as she passed.

And felt the heat as Colin’s tuxedoed arm brushed against the skin left bare by her halter-top gown.

“How long have you been in town?” he asked as they left a group of investors in conversation with a lawyer Colin had just discreetly motioned over.

“A week,” she told him. Wayne had gone over her story with her umpteen times. She’d delivered it without a hitch. He’d come up with the idea of her living in a hotel. It was easy enough for her to get picked up and dropped off from a hotel lobby. To take the hotel’s limousine service to functions and then to drive home in her older model Mustang to her small one-bedroom apartment across from the beach.

An added benefit to the plan was that Wayne had done a favor for the night manager at the hotel. If anyone asked about her using the hotel’s car service, or asked about her hanging around, she’d have an alibi.

The writing...that had been her stroke of genius. A job she could “do” without anyone ever seeing her. She had a maternal aunt by marriage whose family was in the publishing business. And their name was Johnson.

She saw Commissioner Reynolds tipping glasses with another man almost straight ahead of them, close enough that she heard their laughter. Colin was going to lead her right to them.

An awkward moment she’d prefer to avoid...

“I’m getting a little warm. Do you mind if we step outside?” she asked, raising her glass to her lips at the same time to hide any telltale twinge at the side of her mouth.

“Of course.” Colin sounded as pleased as she felt relieved; he took a right and led her to a pair of glass double doors that led to a balcony.

Thankfully, there were heaters out there. She’d freeze her tail off in this gown on what had turned out to be a forty-degree January night. Wishing she hadn’t left the shawl she’d bought on her bed at home, she allowed herself to be led outdoors.

Colin went for the balcony rail. She could hear the ocean in the distance but got as close to the nearest heater as she could manage.

“I can tell you’re from New York,” he said, smiling down at her in a way that she found more than a little distracting.

While she’d had more than her share of admirers in her more than three decades of living, Chantel didn’t usually find herself being viewed with tenderness.

She was a decorated cop. The men she worked with knew that. They respected her abilities to protect them as well as they’d protect one another.

She felt naked against the tiny white glittering lights strung around a couple of potted trees on either side of them.

“My accent gives me away every time,” she said, trying to tighten her mouth a little bit more around the words—instilling as much of her accented native tongue as she could. A sound she’d worked years to lose when, with her best friend, she’d migrated from upstate New York to LA right out of high school.

Neither of them had ever looked back.

“It’s not just your accent,” he told her. “Look around you.”

She did. There were three older men, all in matching monkey suits, to her right, seeming to be hiding out from the activities going on around them. Another two, farther away, to their left, were smoking.

“I don’t get it,” she told her companion. What about these guys gave her away as being from New York?

“There are no women out here. Even with the heaters, it’s far too cold. You’re obviously acclimated to colder weather.”

Nope. But she had tough skin.

She’d missed seeing herself as the “only woman.” Probably because she was used to being the only female among men.

She was perfectly comfortable that way, but felt like she was quickly losing control of her cover.

Like maybe, just maybe, she couldn’t do this.

“Well, perhaps I’m just counting on you to keep me warm,” she said. She would do this. A memory of the picture she’d seen of Ryder Morrison, of the collage he’d made and she’d studied, had her straightening her backbone. The medical records she’d been privy to as part of a law-mandated notice sent from the hospital to the police department sprang to mind.

She pictured her friend Meri, thought of the scars she still wore so long after the brutal beating that had almost left her dead, of the way she’d been near death’s door, mostly incoherent, and had still managed to get herself out to the street...

“You okay?” Colin leaned in toward her. She breathed in his musky scent.

“Of course I’m okay,” she sputtered, covering another lapse with a small sip of wine that took a long time to swallow.

So she wasn’t quite as good at this undercover thing as she wanted to be. It was her first night out. On her first gig.

And she cared more than she probably should about the ultimate outcome. But truthfully, what cop didn’t?

She forced a chuckle. “Makes me wonder about you, though, that you’d think there’s something wrong with me for counting on you to keep me warm.”

He moved closer, put an arm around her and pulled her in close, shocking Chantel with just how good that felt. “It was your eyes, not your words, that made me wonder,” he said softly, leaning his head down toward her ear. “You looked kind of lost for a second there.”

She had a poker face. Almost always. But she took note to work on it in front of the mirror in “rich heiress” mode.

“It’s all so new,” she said now, speaking the complete truth. “All of this...it’s nothing like my life in New York.”

“You didn’t live by the ocean, then?”

“No.” Her family, the broken fragments of it, had mostly lived in a brick house that looked like every other brick house in the row of brick houses. “And I always had friends close by,” she said, resuming character. One friend. Jill...

“I didn’t realize it was going to be so hard...not knowing anyone. Truth be told, I was kind of looking forward to meeting a whole new group of people.”

“Society life can be a little cloying, can’t it?” Colin surprised her by saying. “You grow up with the same people, go through school with them, attend charity events with them...”

“Oh, the life of the rich and famous.” She chuckled again but wondered at the very serious tone in his voice.

Initially she’d had him pegged as a privileged playboy, and then as an uptight, closed-minded, filled-with-his-own-importance type of guy.

She’d been profiling.

And he was proving her wrong.