Page 17 of Her Forbidden Shifters
“Liam,” a deep feminine voice said from behind me seconds before my source stepped in front of me.
I kept my attention ahead of me and nodded. “You’re late.”
“You’re lucky I showed up at all,” she said. “Especially with no notice.”
“I’ll try to give you more time in the future,” I said and settled my gaze on her. Michaela wasn’t one to be trifled with, but she was also more bark than bite. Literally.
Her brown eyes took in mine. “I would appreciate that. My time is valuable, and I don’t appreciate you demanding I break my prior commitments to be at your beck and call. You don’t pay me enough for that, honey.”
“You’re lucky you get paid at all,” I said.
“Do you want the information or not?” she asked, adding a bit more snap to her words.
I nodded. “You’re here with what I asked for?”
“Not necessarily,” she said holding out her hand.
I stared down at it and frowned. With a sigh, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my billfold, adding a couple of hundred-dollar bills to her waiting hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “Next time, it will be double.”
I snorted. “It had better be good news then.”
“Honey, information is hard to get, and great information is rare, so if you want us to continue this little arrangement of ours, I suggest you find a way to meet my fees.”
Michaela was also a gold-digging streetwalker. The fact that she wasn’t in jail right now was due to the simple point of her being more useful on the outside. But if she kept giving me shit over making her break her prior commitments to meet with me, I was going to have to second guess our arrangement.
She was popular with a handful of the richest people living in the Denver area. That wasn’t to say that she was ugly. Far from it. She was beautiful. If she didn’t have the career she had, she would have made a good detective. Damn good.
Regardless, I was starting to believe I had bitten off more than I could chew with this one. This wasn’t the first time she upped the fee. But I was going to make sure it was the last.
“Three fifty is the max I will pay, and it will be less than that if the information you provide isn’t useful. So, consider this the last time I’m paying upfront.”
“We’ll see,” she said and crossed her smooth, dark legs at the knees. “Your information regarding the individual of interest was solid, however, I’m not sure how useful it will be to you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said.
She chuckled. “He’s clean. Squeaky clean.”
I glared at her. “I won’t pay for lies.”
She shrugged. “I risked my neck getting this information. No refunds. And nothing I’ve found was hardly a lie.”
I growled.
She giggled harder. “Oh please, that macho act doesn’t intimidate me. It riles me up and gets me hot and bothered.”
She traced a finger along my arm from the shoulder to the elbow. I almost threw up.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I muttered.
She snorted. “Suit yourself. Good luck finding dirt on the guy. I overturned every rock I could think of looking for anything to throw him under the bus with. Our most eligible bachelor has been turning over a new leaf for some time now.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, honey, but if you ask me, it’s because of a woman.”
Anger boiled through my blood. I wanted to rip his throat out. My hands clenched into fists, and I took deep breaths to force back the red color filling my vision.
