Page 7 of Her Bad Boy

Perry's frown deepened. "But he'll get away with it—you weren't just manhandled, you were injured. I know you were. How can you let him get off scot free?"

"Was there anything else you called me in here to talk about?" Allie asked, rising and tilting her head at him expectantly.

"Well, I did want to make sure that you were okay."

"But not enough to call me Saturday night, or Sunday morning, or Sunday night," she pointed out.

He blushed full on at that, making his complexion even ruddier than it was usually. "Grace wanted me to, but I didn't want to disturb you, and I knew that Harker would make sure you were taken care of."

Her best friend, Laura Harker, had been at the event, too, and had driven her to the hospital. Allie had declined an ambulance ride, but Chief Daughtry—who was out cold and looked like he'd been worked over by an angry bulldozer—was whisked there instead, after Lucas had been literally ripped off him by about five big, strong men before he was taken into custody.

"She did, and I'm good. I'm going to go back to work now."

"Think about it, will you? Please?"

Allie stopped, her hand on the door, and nodded, saying, "Yes, Dad, I will."

Chapter 3

If she had worried that he was going to become obnoxious because of what had happened between them Sunday night—calling, texting, or emailing her incessantly—she was pleasantly surprised. But then he hadn't done that last time, either, although she hadn't known then that he had been planning to reconnect with her, even though she'd given him the cold shoulder.

She managed—usually—to tuck the more pleasant, personable part of him into that little compartment she had for him in the back of her mind palace. And he stayed there most of the time, which was surprising, considering that she spent all day every day working a case—along with people from other agencies—that was meant to bring him down. He'd pegged it perfectly when he'd said that she was going to go to work to try to land him in jail.

But that was her job. And neither of their jobs—nor any sense of self-preservation on their part—nor common sense, even, seemed to be enough to get them to stay away from each other for very long. It had been like that from the first time they'd met, in a court room, of course.

He was one of those rare men nowadays whose mama had raised him right—in some ways, as she'd said.

Allie had been there early, as was her habit, and, if she admitted it to herself, she was just the slightest bit nervous about meeting him, although she was, of course, going to do her damndest to hide it. It didn't pay to show weakness to the enemy.

But that wasn't a part he relished playing, and his outgoing personality and scrupulously proper behavior destroyed the carefully constructed box labeled "very bad man" that she'd automatically lumped him into at first.

He arrived quietly, with a minimum of fanfare and only one bodyguard who was actually smaller than he was. His suit was understated elegance, certainly a designer name, but definitely not black. He shook hands with his lawyer and a young guy who had to be a junior partner, then, to her great surprise, he crossed the aisle and offered his hand to Matt Bloomer, with whom she was working, smiling broadly and saying, "Good to see you again, Mr. Bloomer—I see you lost the cast—able to play the violin again now?"

Matt grinned back at him like an idiot, saying something like, "Better than ever!" when everyone knew he'd never so much as seen a violin up close. He acted as if he was shaking hands with Mick Jagger rather than a man who was responsible for—directly or indirectly—bringing a shit ton of misery to an enormous number of people via his penchant for murder. Earlier on in his career and never proven, of course. He had an ability to bring an almost corporate structure to the drugs and prostitution that filled his family's coffers at first, although he had largely steered them away from those things to more electronic theft and hacking—the byproduct of having gone to Wharton Business School, one would think. And, if he wasn't doing any of that personally now, it was only because he was the undisputed boss of the organization and had risen above the need to get his hands dirty. But he was still the one pulling the strings, no matter how clean he tried to appear, how legitimate his investments looked at first glance, or how damnably charming he was.

Which, unfortunately for her, was terribly, terribly charming.

"Ah, Miss Barstow. I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting you. I am Lucas Bove."

He offered her his hand, too, and just for a moment, she considered refusing it in the name of all the people she knew he had hurt, but he simply left it out there, as if he couldn't possibly imagine why she might not shake it while he smiled angelically down at her.

So, she ended up taking it, wishing she felt like more of a hypocrite than she did in doing so.

And he didn't just shake it, but, before he let go, he turned her hand over and kissed the back of it, murmuring, "At your service."

Before she could snatch it back, though, he'd already released it and turned his back to return to his side of the aisle.

He held doors open—not just for her, though, but for everyone, and one morning, when she arrived before everyone else, as usual, she heard him translating Italian for a little old lady who didn't speak English and who was having a hard time getting through the metal detectors, for some reason.

From that first morning on, when he arrived, he had everyone's coffee order in hand as well as what looked like scrumptious little pastries that were passed around—and he even went so far as to bring the box over to them personally.

Allie declined both things, politely, having brought her own coffee and not feeling she needed to indulge or placate him by eating what he offered, not that Matt was plagued by his own conscience in the least about it, until she spoke up loudly while glaring at him. "Thank you, Mr. Bove, but Mr. Bloomer and I are perfectly capable of obtaining our own coffee and sweets if we would like to have them."

Matt's hand was knee deep in powdered sugar by that time, but he dutifully retracted it, handing Lucas back his coffee, too.

"As you wish," Lucas murmured, executing a small bow.

Allie did the best she could to ignore him, his gentlemanly gestures, and his offhand reference to one of her favorite movies—if he even knew that was what he was doing—even down to not really wanting to go through a door he held, but she didn't usually get a choice about that. There was something about this man that disturbed her—and not in a "he's a horrible creep" way she was hoping for, considering what she knew about him.

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