Page 9 of Courting Gossip (Courting)
The heel of Brody’s shoe knocked against the wall, and her gaze suddenly lifted to lock with his. Her smile faded. She stopped talking and pulled the robe up tighter against her throat. His eyes narrowed. And there it was, the reactionhetypically got from her…
The senator finally came out of the bathroom in trousers and a wrinkled dress shirt. Genieve rose from her chair, and people stumbled over themselves helping her find her dress. The muscle in Brody’s jaw ticked when the detective was the one who found it. People parted like the Red Sea as she made her way back to the bathroom she’d been locked inside not so long ago. Brody watched her go, her red toenails peeking out from under the long hem of her robe.
His head whipped around, though, when he heard the detective ask his client, ‘How can I contact you if I have more questions?’
Oh, no. They weren’t going to drag this out with more questioning. ‘Call his office,’ Brody said coolly.
‘I’ll get you my card,’ Gunderson said.
That wasn’t what he’d meant. Brody pushed away from the wall, but the senator was already pulling his wallet out of his jacket.
‘They can get the number,’ he repeated.
‘I’ve got it, Brody.’
Brody’s air hissed out of his lungs. And now he’d been outed. He mentally counted to ten. He’d been trying to fly under the radar, but none of this was being handled the way he liked.
The corners of Detective Morgan’s mouth twitched, and Brody felt a pinch between his shoulder blades. The guy was good.
The senator opened his wallet, and the detective watched closely. Probably looking to see if cash had exchanged hands yet. The senator pulled out a business card but, as he passed it to Morgan, something else fell to the floor. Brody couldn’t see what it was, but when Genieve stopped on a dime he knew it was something bad.
‘You dropped something,’ the detective said. His voice had gone to gravel.
Genieve’s grip tightened on the dress in her hands. She pivoted on the ball of one of her bare feet and swished back towards the action. Brody reached for her, but with a smooth swivel of her hips she evaded him.
‘May I have my purse?’ she asked, her voice silky smooth.
His warning radar went off. He knew that voice. It was the one she used when she was wheedling to get her way. He’d yet to see a man who could fight the call of the siren, but he was at least onto her. He looked for her purse as he tried to figure out what she was up to.
An officer handed her the leather bag, and Brody’s forehead furrowed when she carried it directly to the detective. Morgan opened it to check it. The police couldn’t let people go off on their own when a scene wasn’t secured, but, instead of letting the detective paw through her things, she deliberately spilled the contents onto the bed.
‘Here, allow me.’
‘Jenny,’ Brody choked out.
She didn’t even hesitate in opening her pocketbook.
He let out a long breath when understanding dawned. Brilliant. The woman was freaking brilliant. She didn’t have any cash on her. Even with a video recording of her and the senator’s actions, nobody could prove that money had exchanged hands. He’d worried about how to squash that part of the story, but she’d just effectively made it a moot point for Metro PD. All they had evidence for was the break-in. Anything more was conjecture.
From the looks of Detective Morgan, he didn’t go for that.
‘Oh, there it is,’ she said sweetly as she picked up a tube of lipstick. ‘This is all I needed.’
She swished by everyone in her over-large robe and knelt to pick up the black bra that Brody hadn’t been able to ignore. He stared at the floor and shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. After everything that had gone down tonight, she’d found a way to effectively squash what could have been the worst of it.
That was supposed to be his job.
He rubbed the back of his neck. If the senator had had to pick an escort, at least he’d chosen one who was smarter than all of them – although he doubted the senator had chosen her for her brain.
Not saying a word, he went to the bed and began shoving her things back into the purse.
When she came back into the room, Brody stared at her like all the rest of the men in the place. The little black dress covered her in all the right spots. It was short and simple, but with her curves it turned into something else. She actually looked sexier fully dressed than she had in that skin-flaunting robe.
His lips tightened. There was no way he was going to fly her out of here under the radar. Men three floors down were stirring in their sleep, sensing a redheaded bombshell in the vicinity.
The senator passed along her shoes. ‘Here, darling.’
Brody simmered. Every time the man called her that, it scraped against his last nerve.
