“Oh yes, he did. Your father was a real rebel back then, which is why I think he’s so against you dating Max. I think he’s terrified of Max doing the exact same thing to him that he did to my father.”
“That is so whack it almost makes sense,” Lana said.
She tried to wrap her head around the idea that her father, the deputy chief of the DPD Tactical Division, had been a bad boy in his youth, but she couldn’t imagine it, even after she and her mother spent the rest of the meal talking about all the crazy things he’d done before Lana was born. Lana was almost looking forward to him trying to cause trouble between her and Max just so she could throw some of it in his face.
“You ready to do some more shopping?” her mother asked as they waited for their server to bring their check, which might take a while since the guy was currently at a table full of college girls, plying them with his charm.
“I never turn my nose up at shopping,” Lana said.
She left her mom to deal with the waiter and made a quick run for the restroom, glad she’d let her mom talk her into coming to the Galleria. Nothing was going to make her forget that Denise was gone, but being with her mother made the sorrow a little easier to bear.
Lana was still thinking about that when she walked out of the ladies’ room into the long hallway that led toward the main part of the restaurant, and she almost ran smack into some poor guy heading toward the men’s restroom. The man put his hands on her shoulders to steady her as she stumbled back. She opened her mouth to apologize, only to stop as the most bizarre sensation she’d ever felt ran all the way up from the base of her spine to the back of her neck, making her shudder. All at once, her teeth and gums began to tingle like crazy. If that wasn’t odd enough, her fingers began to throb. Crap, it felt like someone was trying to yank her fingernails out.
She quickly took a step back. “Sorry.”
“It was my fault completely,” the man said in a deep voice.
She looked up at him. Damn, he was tall. And big. Almost as big as Max. No wonder she’d walked into him. There was no way to get past him in the narrow hallway without running into him. He had a face to match his body—intense and kind of scary.
She nodded, thinking she should acknowledge his apology. But then she had this sudden unexplainable urge to be anywhere but that narrow hallway. She didn’t understand why she was feeling so weird. It was like a snake or something else equally slithery had appeared right in front of her.
“Lana Mason?” he said, making her stop her attempt to squeeze around him and look up at him again.
She almost told him he was mistaken and pushed past him, but then her manners—and her curiosity—won out.
“Do I know you?” she asked even though there was no possible way she did.
“I doubt it. But I think I know you,” he said. “Weren’t you at the DPD awards ceremony the other day? I swear I saw you with Deputy Chief Mason.”
Lana’s jaw almost hit the floor. Today was definitely full of surprises. “You’re on the DPD?”
How could she have missed him at the ceremony? He had the kind of face a person would tend to remember. Then again, she’d only had eyes for Max that day.
“Yeah, Central Division.” A smile cracked his face, making him look a little less intimidating. “I’ve worked with your father’s tactical divisions a few times.”
Lana was tempted to ask the man if he’d ever worked with Max, but the impulse to get the hell away from him overwhelmed any desire for polite conversation.
She said to hell with politeness and moved to step around the walking roadblock. “Nice to meet you.”
He moved to block her, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling something. She backpedaled quickly, sure he had a gun. It wasn’t a weapon but a perfume bottle.
“I hate to be a bother,” he said, apparently not aware he’d already surpassed that point some way back. “But I just bought this perfume for my girlfriend and have no idea if it’s any good. The woman at the counter swore up and down it was the scent of the season, but I could really use an unbiased opinion.”
Lana shook her head, suddenly lightheaded.
“Please,” the guy pleaded. “My girlfriend is really difficult to please. If I give her a perfume that smells bad, she’ll probably break the bottle over my head.”
Lana couldn’t blame the woman—she wanted to do the same thing. She resisted the urge and forced herself to nod. Anything to get out of this hallway faster.
It took everything in her to extend her wrist so he could spritz her with the perfume. Part of her wanted to push past him and run, but another part begged her to stay and…do something, though she didn’t know what.
She lifted her wrist to her nose to take a sniff and almost gagged as an awful stench hit her. The part of her skin where he’d sprayed the perfume began to sting even as her nose started to burn from inhaling the stuff. What the hell?
She wrinkled her nose and made a face. “Ugh! What kind of crap did they sell you?”
“It isn’t any good?” he asked in a tone that almost sounded amused.
“Hell no, it’s not any good. It stinks. Plus, it burns. If I were you, I’d return it and get my money back.”
