“You’re Matt Russo,” Lorelei whispers.

I smack her leg again and this time, she retaliates by kicking me in the shin. I smack my hand over my mouth to keep the yelp of pain from escaping.

“Um, yeah. How do you know my name?” Matt asks from the other side of the desk.

Oh, my God. This is not happening right now! Shit, shit, shit!

“I’m . . . we just . . . I know . . .” Lorelei flounders and quickly glances under her desk at me. I shrug my shoulders at her in an “I don’t know what the fuck is happening right now” gesture. She scoots her chair closer to the desk and I pull my knees up to my chest, making myself as small as possible while holding my breath at the same time.

“I, uh . . . saw a write-up about you in Graphic Design USA a while back. Great article,” Lorelei states.

This is why she’s a big-time attorney and I’m an ex-model, cowering under a desk. She can think on her feet in a crisis.

“Wow! I didn’t think anyone even read that magazine,” Matt says with a good-natured laugh.

“Oh, yes. I like to keep up-to-date on all the current events in . . . design . . . and graphics. And stuff.”

Oh, my God.

“So what can I help you with, Mr. Russo?” Lorelei asks while I listen closely.

“This is so weird. I can’t believe I’m even here asking you this, but I need to hire you guys to investigate someone. I’ve never done anything like this,” he explains.

“It was so nice of you to consider Fool Me Once for your investigating needs,” Lorelei says quickly. “We’re really busy right now, but if you would just leave me your name and number, I’ll have someone contact you as soon as possible to let you know if we’ll be able to squeeze you into our schedule.”

I hear Lorelei slide a piece of paper across the desk and the sounds of Matt scribbling his information and then setting the pen down. “Thanks, I really appreciate it. This is kind of an emergency situation, so I’d like to talk to someone as soon as possible.”

Lorelei thanks him again and a few seconds later I hear the ding of the bell as he exits the office. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and scramble out from under the desk. Lorelei bends over and grabs my arm, hauling me up to my feet.

“What the hell is going on? I thought you said you got the pictures you needed. Why is the man you’ve been following coming in here to hire us?” Lorelei grills me.

“Are those Jimmy Choos? Are they from the spring collection?” I ask, pointing down to her shoes to try to distract her.

“Oh, these?” she asks, looking down at her feet, taking the bait. “Yes, I just got them yesterday at—PAIGE! Stop it! We can’t take him on as a client when we’re currently in the middle of trying to catch him cheating. This is the biggest conflict of interest ever! I don’t even know why I took down his name and number. I completely panicked. Tell me what’s going on, right now!”

Lorelei stomps her foot and I know she means business. I’ve never seen her lose her temper before. She’s as cool and calm as they come, but right now, she looks like she’s ready to throttle me.

“So, um, when I trailed him the other night, he recognized me from O’Casey’s. We got to talking and, well . . .”

I trail off, trying to come up with a way to make this NOT sound as bad as it is. I’ve got nothing. The only thing I can do is just blurt it out and hope she doesn’t punch me. “I don’t think he’s cheating on his wife. She’s cheating on him and trying to take his family’s company because she’s a gold-digging whore and I’ve decided I’m switching teams and I’m going to help him catch her because he seems like a really nice guy and I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

There. It’s done. I take a deep breath after my word vomit and wait for the explosion.

Lorelei is quiet. Too quiet. She just stands here staring at me with her mouth open.

“Say something,” I beg her.

Maybe Lorelei will feel my pain. She’ll see that this is a matter of importance. She’s got a heart buried somewhere in there under all that resentment of her ex-husband.

I look at her imploringly, seeing her face lose its shocked expression.

I knew it! I knew she’d understand.

After a few seconds, Lorelei whispers. “Kennedy is going to kill you.”

Well, so much for that idea.

CHAPTER 6

Lorelei was called back into court because a verdict for the case she’s working on came in earlier than expected. Thank God for that. If I had to listen to one more minute of her explaining to me all the ways Kennedy would remove the limbs from my body, I was going to scream.

I convinced her not to tell Kennedy by promising I wouldn’t do anything stupid until she got back so she could finish raking me over the coals. I wonder if Googling Matt’s ex constitutes stupid? It’s not like I ran out the door as soon as Lorelei left and went straight to Matt. I’m being smart. I’m doing research. Research doesn’t compromise anything.

According to her Facebook page, Melanie Gates-Russo is single. I guess they don’t have “whore” as a relationship status. I look through her photo albums and don’t see any pictures of her with the mystery man from the other night. She also doesn’t have any pictures from her time with Matt. Not that I was looking specifically for pictures of Matt. Like ones of him shirtless. Or sunning himself on a beach. Or lifting weights with sweat dripping down his toned chest.

Research. It’s just research.

Melanie certainly has quite a few Internet pictures of kittens in various poses, however. Twenty-two pictures of kittens in sweaters and eighteen of kittens in hats. Seriously? What is she, five?

Clicking out of her photo albums, I notice a status update that wasn’t there a few minutes ago: Hangin’ with my grls 2nite at Blu Nightclub. Hit me up!


Are you kidding me with this? He not only married a chick who likes to post kitten pictures, he married one with poor grammar skills. Good God.

Closing out of her Facebook profile, I quickly look up where this Blu Lounge is.

Crap. It’s in Indianapolis. That’s almost three hours from here.

I glance at the time on my computer. There’s no way I can make it there and back before Lorelei gets out of court. She specifically told me to stay put. Taking another few minutes to contemplate what I’m thinking, I shut down my computer and head for the door.

I haven’t taken orders from anyone since I left Andy. Why should I start now?

* * *

According to its website, Blu is a trendy nightclub in the heart of Indianapolis. Since I had a long drive ahead of me, I ran home, grabbed an appropriate dress, shoved it into my backseat, and changed at a McDonald’s right before I got here. As I show my ID to the bouncer, he doesn’t even glance at it as he takes in my red, backless halter dress and matching four-inch red peep-toe Steve Madden stilettos before looking at my face. His eyes widen in recognition when he sees who I am, and I smile flirtatiously at him, flustering him a bit so he’ll let me in without drawing unwanted attention to myself. I’m immediately assaulted by the thumping beats of Top 40 dance music courtesy of the DJ on the other side of the club. I stick close to the wall as I take in my surroundings. The dance floor is packed with sweaty, writhing bodies, and all of the VIP lounges around the outer edge of the floor are filled with partiers. I have no idea how I’m ever going to find Melanie in this place, but I have to try.

The VIP areas are all roped off, and you can’t even go up the three steps to get to them without an invitation, so I decide to head right through the middle of the dance floor in the hopes that I might spot Melanie.

Five minutes of shoving my way through all of the people, I’m thankful that I pulled my long blonde hair up into a high ponytail. I’m already working up a sweat and I’m not even dancing. With one last surge of my body, I finally make it to the other side and squeeze myself in between a crowd of people standing around the bar.

The bartender hands a drink to the person next to me and then nods his head in my direction. “What can I get you?”

“Just an ice water, please,” I shout above the music and loud conversations on either side of me.

While he turns away to grab my drink, I take the time to scan the crowd. This was the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. There is no way I’m going to find her in this place. There’s got to be at least five hundred people here.

“Okay, this is starting to get weird. Are you stalking me?”

My head whips around when I hear the voice close to my ear and I come face-to-face with Matt. I swallow nervously until I see his face light up with a teasing smile. He’s not wearing his glasses tonight. Or a sweater vest. Sweet Jesus, does he look good. He’s wearing a fitted black button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows tucked into a pair of charcoal-gray dress pants. Gone is nerdy-chic Matt. In his place is hot-as-balls Matt. The temperature in this place suddenly went up a thousand degrees.

“I was just kidding about the stalking thing—don’t look so shocked,” Matt says with a laugh, right by my ear.

I’m suddenly okay with the noise level in this place if it means he has to be this close to me to talk.

“But seriously, how do we keep showing up at the same places?” he asks again, placing his hand on my hip and pulling me closer to him to make room for a few people trying to get up to the bar.

I’m pressed up against him and staring at his throat while he reaches over to take my glass of ice water from the bartender. I’ve been around plenty of hot guys before. I’ve done photo shoots with half-naked male models. None of them has caused this kind of reaction from me. I’m never at a loss for words. Is it because, once again, he caught me doing something that I’m going to lie to him about or because I find myself attracted to him?