Behind The Red Doors (Santori Stories #1)(25)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

She walked in, feeling flushed and foolish. If she was going to have a successful sales period over the next couple of weeks, she was going to have to regain her focus. And the best way to remain focused would be to keep telling herself that the man simply wasn’t available. Period. End of story.

The door closed behind them, as if sealing her resolve. Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Carter studied the metal ceiling plates, the button panel, and checked for a dial tone on the emergency phone. Satisfied, he pushed the ground-level button and assumed a wide stance, pelvis thrust forward, arms crossed. The man expanded to fit the space he occupied. They faced the closed door, his sleeve touching hers. His imposing proximity sent her nerves dancing as they descended to the lower floor.

“Um, Carter…about your gun. Maybe Ben is right.”

He turned and lifted one black eyebrow. “Ben?”

Her cheeks warmed. “He has a point about not making the public uncomfortable.”

“I’m only interested in making would-be thieves uncomfortable.”

“And I appreciate your suggestion to add an armed guard at the main entrance. But after further consideration, I’d rather you not wear your sidearm in the showroom.”

His mouth tightened, then he shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

Her chest rose at his offhand tone. Yes, she was the boss. Carter was obviously accustomed to having a woman around with an accommodating nature. She frowned. The more she thought about his live-in lover, the more she questioned the woman’s good sense. In fact, she’d bet that the more she found out about the woman, the better she’d feel about dumping him. Faith fingered a lock of hair behind her ear and affected an equally casual tone. “So, Carter, tell me about your girlfriend.”

Carter heard her words, but his brain took its sweet time to assimilate them. Oh, yeah—Faith thought he had a girlfriend. A live-in girlfriend. His tongue froze in his mouth as he cast about for credible details. “Um, she’s…great.” The elevator door slid open and he prayed she’d drop the subject.

“What’s her name?” she asked as she stepped out.

He winced and followed her. “Um, Trudy.” Hadn’t he said his loyal Labrador was the only woman he needed in his life?

“How did you and Trudy meet?”

His mind raced. “She…came to the station.”

“You work together?”

“No. She…was visiting.”

“Oh.”

Great—now Faith probably thought his girlfriend was a criminal. “I mean, she was lost.”

“Oh.”

Great—now Faith probably thought his girlfriend was dim. “I mean, she was new in town.” He held open the interior door and stole a glance at her rear view as she walked through. She wore a short, flowered skirt with a flirty ruffle that stopped just above her knee. The woman had mouthwatering legs. Carter wet his lips and reminded himself he was supposed to behave like a man committed to another woman. The trouble was, his sex-deprived body didn’t seem to want to play along.

“What does Trudy do for a living?”

He followed her across the polished checkerboard floor of the foyer. “She…works from my—our—place…fetching and…running around and…doing things.”

“She runs errands for people?”

“Yes. She runs errands. For people.”

“That’s a very up-and-coming service industry.”

It was? “Uh-huh.”

Thank goodness they were at the coffee bar. He nodded to Mr. Willis, the token male in the establishment, and ordered a large black coffee. “None of that flavored stuff,” Carter said, then added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” the man assured him, then handed over one of the best cups of coffee Carter had ever tasted. Damn, going back to the sewer water at the station would be hell.

Faith ordered something exotic for herself, and an extra cup that he presumed she was taking back to the girl who worked in the jewelry store. As inconspicuously as possible, he observed Faith over the rim of his mug and watched her expression change as she interacted with Mr. Willis, a man she appeared to hold in high esteem. With a jerk of conscience, he wondered if she’d ever looked at him that way. When they’d dated a year ago, he’d been so wrapped up in curbing his desire for her, frankly he’d been afraid to watch her face too closely, afraid he might see something that would compel him to tell her what she wanted to hear to take her to bed. Now he had a sinking feeling that in his clumsy attempt to be a gentleman, he’d unintentionally neglected her.

They took the stairs back to the mezzanine where the three stores were located. He called upon his discipline training to keep from staring at her skirt as she ascended one step in front of him, but he simply couldn’t resist the urge to devour her sway. Swish, swish, back and forth. His body hardened to the innocent rhythm, and he had to remind himself they were in a public place.

But it was a public place designed to pique the senses, he noted dryly as they walked past the perfume shop and inhaled some kind of citrusy scent that made him think of Faith and eating at the same time—a dangerous combination. On the other side of the jewelry store was a lingerie shop full of all kinds of temptations for a single man. While in there, he’d focused all his attention on the cash drop box to overlook the racks of sparkly, sheer, minuscule creations, and how they would look on tall, leggy Faith Sherman.

When they entered The Diamond Mine, he experienced a totally immature stab of disappointment that he would once again have to share her company. The disappointment was quickly followed by irritation when she handed the extra cup of coffee not to her young female employee, but to Sills—the guy who wanted him unarmed and emasculated, the guy who, instead of analyzing potential breaches in security, spent most of his time analyzing Faith’s cl**vage. The guy who was flirting with her right now.

Carter strode over, determined to think of a good excuse to interrupt. When he stopped in front of them, she was on the verge of sopping up a circle of coffee on the front of Sills’s jacket.

“Faith,” he said abruptly.

“Yes?”

“If you don’t want me to wear my firearm, we should put it in the vault.”

She handed the napkin to Sills with an innocent smile, but the smile had disappeared by the time she turned and nodded. “Good idea. Follow me, Carter.”

He narrowed his eyes at Sills, who frowned back, then trailed her and her swishy skirt to the short hallway that housed the vault. From her jacket pocket she removed a ring of keys and used two to unlock the outer door. The vault door itself had a keypad into which she punched a long series of numbers. When a tiny green light came on, she swung the door open and stepped inside.

Carter followed and was immediately assailed by the realization that being with Faith in a small space could become habit forming. The vault itself was moderately sized, about twelve feet square, but the walls were lined with deep metal shelves to hold the trays of jewelry removed from the display cases at night, leaving a pathway of about five feet down the center of the vault for maneuverability. Faith walked to a tall, black file cabinet—one of four—and used a key to open one of the drawers. “I think your gun will be safe in here.”

Funny, but he wasn’t feeling too safe in here. When she looked up at him, he was struck anew by the sheer openness of her expression—her bright eyes, dark eyebrows, clear skin, wide mouth. Hers was a morning face, glowing with the kind of fresh, natural beauty that a man wouldn’t mind waking up to. Knowing he’d never see her in that sleep-tousled state made his gut clench. With a start, he realized that everything about Faith was understated—her gloriously simple straight hair, her elegant clothes, her scant jewelry.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, wide-eyed and irresistible.

He removed his weapon from its holster and settled it into the drawer. “I was just thinking it was interesting that you work around fancy jewels all the time, but you don’t wear any.”

Her gaze immediately dropped to her bare hands, and a little laugh escaped her. “I prefer jewelry that has sentimental value.” She pulled back her left sleeve. “This watch was my mother’s.” She touched the pearl drops in her ears. “And my father gave me these when I graduated from college.”

As if his hand had a mind of its own, it raised and fingered the silver initial pin on her lapel. “And this? You wear it every day, so the person who gave it to you must be special.”

She swallowed. “He is.”

Carter’s heart quickened. “‘He’?”

“My brother, Dev.”

“Oh.” Relief flooded him, and he dropped his hand reluctantly.

Faith studied her clasped hands, then looked up with a tentative expression in her eyes. “Carter, I’ve been waiting for the right time to bring this up, and I guess now is as good a time as any.”

At the heightened color in her cheeks, hope bled into his chest. She was sorry for the way she had ended things between them.

“I’m sorry for the way I ended things between us.”

In hindsight, she had misjudged him.

“In hindsight, I made a rather hasty judgment.”