She shrugged. “You know, research, maybe even peek at the shipment before it comes to Goodwin Enterprises. Security stuff.”
“Like in the movies?” He gave her a dry look.
Marianna pressed her lips together. “I know, the plan needs some work. I need help with that. But you were right about Miami. William has friends everywhere in Florida, thanks to my father.” She grimaced at the memory of the black SUV that swiped the side of her car.
Simon leaned in closer, resting his forearms on the little table. Intricately muscled, covered with a dusting of hair. She had to stop staring at him. But Simon didn’t seem to notice this time.
“Blackmore Inc. isn’t a private investigation firm. And breaking in somewhere and ‘peeking’ at a shipment isn’t really our specialty,” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of security. And you’re here to avoid anything illegal, right?”
Simon was silent for a long time. Finally, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked at her again. “Did you talk to your lawyer?”
She nodded.
“What did he say?”
“Shesaid that everything depends on what else is in these shipments. It could be nothing, it could be a tax-evasion scam, it could be smuggling—lots of things. But if Ruiz Imports is smuggling something like weapons or drugs, everything I own could be seized. The business, my father’s house, everything. Worst-case scenario is that I could go to jail. Unlikely but possible, especially if I’ve signed off on some of this stuff.”
“You trust your lawyer?”
Marianna shrugged. “As much as anyone else in Miami.”
She stared down at the table in front of her.
“And you’re not ready for the possibility of losing everything?”
“Of course I don’t want to lose everything. Who the hell would?” Marianna took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m a little scared. But even when I tried to start a more official investigation into Ruiz Imports back in Miami, I had no basis for it.” She rested her chin on her hand. “Then there’s my father. If he wasn’t involved, I... I owe it to him to try to save the company he spent his life building.”
She braced herself for the accusation that she was still just a spoiled rich girl who didn’t know the first thing about real life. There was a time when that was true. But now, could he understand how much this last connection to her father meant? When she looked up at him, the accusation wasn’t there. His gaze was filled with understanding and worry, the way it had been the week before on her Miami driveway. Marianna’s heart gave a painful squeeze. His eyes had told her he would protect her. That he would be there for her.
Except she knew better than to read too far into that. He already had left her. Twice.
He unfolded his arms and rested a big hand around her elbow. Gently, he stroked her arm with his thumb. She fought to harden herself against the waves of warmth that washed over her when he touched her like this. She could handle sitting across from this man and lusting after him. She could even handle satisfying that lust with him the way they had in her kitchen. But not this. Not the way the pad of his thumb tenderly brushed over her skin. These were the kinds of gestures she could mistake for something they weren’t.
She pulled her arm away.
“Mari?”
“Yes?”
“I promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said softly.
It wasn’t the words that got her. She had heard those words before from her father, and he wasn’t around to follow through on them. It was the reason her father had matched her up with William. But Simon’s husky voice, full of the longing of so many years apart, hit her hard. Her heart pounded and she gritted her teeth against the surge of reckless hope.
Slowly, she raised her gaze to his, ignoring every flare that ran through her.
“Don’t say that, Simon.”
No one could keep the kind of promise he was making. In the end, she was on her own.
