He nodded. “You’re right. And I certainly don’t intend to break into a bank. Even I have lines.”
“What if they are in a bank?”
“Then I give Andrew that information. He hired me to conduct some recon and drum up intel. If I can nab the diamonds, I certainly will. But if they’re guarded in a bank, my job will be of the information-recovery rather than item-recovery nature.” He quickly added, “Our job.”
“Our?” She quirked up the corner of her lips. “So you’ve already decided we’re partners? What if I don’t trust you?”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be partners. But I also think you probably trust me more than you think. Because you like me,” he said with a lopsided grin as he waited patiently for her answer.
She laughed as she shook her head, bemused. Then she roamed her eyes over his face, his chest, his arms. Her gaze wasn’t sexual. She seemed to be considering his offer. His plan might be grade-A insane, and Lord only knew that the last time he’d worked with a woman, he’d been burned. But he had no plans of letting her into his heart. Nope. This was only work. Nothing more.
“It seems you have talents that might come in handy,” she admitted.
“See? I knew you could be convinced of my talents,” he said, wiggling an eyebrow.
She rolled her eyes. “In this case, I was actually thinking of the other talent you mentioned. The one where you could wander around town, ask questions here and there, act like a tourist, and no one thinks anything of it. There are a few things I have in mind. But they require both of us.”
He held out his arms wide. “That’s what I’m talking about. So does this mean we’re working together, Ariel?”
She nodded, then lowered her voice to a whispered warning. “But just work. No funny stuff.”
“No funny stuff,” he said, agreeing to the necessary rule. Though shucking off the desire he felt for her was no easy task. Hell, it was maddening lust that had raged inside of him when he spotted her on the beach. But that had to end. “I’m not suggesting we fuck. I’m suggesting we track down ten million dollars in stolen diamonds and return them to their rightful owners—the Eli Fund and its middle-America customers. And if we can’t do that, we get as much intel on the diamonds as we can. If we work together, we can get the job done faster, cleaner, and be done with each other sooner.”
She pointed at him. “Let’s start planning now. But nothing else. Got it?”
“You mean, no more rubbing up against my stuffed socks?” he asked drily.
“And no more ripping my clothes off on the beach.”
He set down his fork and held out a hand to shake. “Partners.”
“Platonic partners,” she added.
“Platonic partners,” he repeated as they shook across the cake. He could do this. He could absolutely keep his hands off her, no problem. “Let’s have some cake and work on our plan. To prove we can just eat cake and work together.”
“Instead of trying to gobble each other up?”
“Gobbling? We were gobbling?”
“That’s what Marie said it looked like at the Pink Pelican.”
He took a forkful of the cake. Soft and spongy and delicious. “Funny. I wouldn’t have called it gobbling when I kissed you so hard you melted in my arms.”
She rolled her eyes. “What would you have called it?”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Devouring. Kissing you was like a sweet devouring.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She’d planned for this contingency.
While Steph was not a clubber, she’d anticipated needing to walk through the doors of Sapphire on this trip. She’d packed accordingly, and the slinky black dress hugged her hips and boosted her breasts, leaving little to the imagination. That was the point of the Little Black Dress in a woman’s wardrobe, even though 99 percent of Steph’s closet consisted of shorts, bikinis, and tank tops. But the dress helped her to blend in once inside the glittery, sparkling blue club that pulsed with music, liquor, and dark lights.
The beefy security guard lifted the velvet rope for her, ushering her inside.
“Welcome to Sapphire, Ms. Anderson,” the guard said.
“Thank you so much.”
She’d opted to enter as a VIP. If Eli was offering special treatment, there was no reason not to take it. Jake had made a great point that she couldn’t entirely slip through town unknown, so it was better to use her access to her advantage.
Their advantage now.
So weird that last night she’d kissed the man like there was no tomorrow, and tonight they were hands-off partners. After lunch, she’d called Andrew, and he’d confirmed that Jake was his man, so that made her feel better about partnering up with him. Besides, she was pretty sure she needed him, and he’d made a good pitch that they could crack this “case” much faster together. Though she was entering the club solo, she wasn’t alone. Jake had arrived earlier, texting her that he was here.
A chestnut-haired beauty with a curvy figure joined Steph at the back door. “I’m Clarissa. I’m the assistant manager. Ferdinand is tied up, but I would love to show you around,” the woman said, and she shot a bright, white-toothed smile at Steph. The woman had the skin tone of a local, and Steph briefly rewound to Devon’s comments about Eli bringing many jobs to the island. Maybe Clarissa had benefitted from his supposed largesse? A bead of frustration wormed through her. It was irksome that Eli could still manage to do some good, even if he was doing it with someone else’s money.