Page 19 of Mile High Baby

"What are you afraid I'll see? Nude selfies?" The words made me just as repulsed as having slept with Henry's daughter. But her hating me was the best way to keep our dirty little secret, and more importantly, to make sure it never happened again.

"Dirty old man."

I flinched, hating the description even as I knew that in her eyes, I was dirty and old.

There was a knock on the door, and it popped open. Ian poked his head in. "We got some of that information you wanted on the current investigation into George Pitney. I thought you might want to take a look."

I nodded. "I do. Can you take Ms. Banion's phone? She just got a text from George or one of his goons. See if you can figure out where it originated from."

Ian entered the room, and Victoria met him halfway, extending the phone out to him. "How long do you need to keep it? I run my own business and this phone is everything to me."

My jaw tightened at how easily she moved toward Ian and handed over her phone. Fucking hell, she even smiled at him.

"It shouldn't be that long. Are you hungry? We can order food. There's a great deli on the corner," Ian said affably.

He was behaving how I would have normally if the situation were different. Victoria had called me a misogynist, and while I absolutely was being one, that wasn't my normal type of behavior. I respected women. In my career, some of the smartest and bravest people I had worked with were women. In some ways, Victoria reminded me of them.

"I am a little hungry,” she admitted.

"What kind of sandwich would you like? Turkey?”

Ian must've believed what I think most men thought, which was that women gravitated toward turkey because it was lean. But my sense of Victoria was that she liked food. I didn’t think that because of her ample curves. Victoria was a woman who was trying to savor life, and while a turkey sandwich could be good, there were so many other sandwiches one could eat in life.

"Do they happen to have cheesesteaks? I've been craving a good cheesesteak. But if not, then roast beef."

Ian grinned. "They have a great cheesesteak." He turned to me. "What about you? Can I get you something?"

"Pastrami. But first, I want to see the information you’ve got."

Ian nodded and headed to the door. I followed him, looking over my shoulder at Victoria as I crossed the threshold. "We'll check your phone, and I'm going to look over this information, and then we'll head out."

An uninvited thrill ran through me at the idea of taking her to her apartment. It was just the type of sensation that I needed to avoid. I'd come so precariously close to kissing her in the middle of our battle of wits. I was at my job, for fuck’s sake. If I was so tempted here, the possibilities of what could happen while alone in her apartment were too numerous to list. For a start, it included kissing and touching and fucking on any flat surface in her place.

I'd always seen myself as strong. I was a man who could resist temptation and endure physical challenges. But there was no doubt in my mind that when it came to Victoria, my power to resist was nonexistent.

I followed Ian out of the room and over to his desk. Saint Security has a few individual offices, but for the most part, everyone worked in a large open room. It made it easier to directly share information or work collaboratively, as Ian and I were doing as I grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to his in front of his computer.

"This is what I've been able to access on Pitney over the last five years. I wasn't able to pull up anything on the current investigation. Open cases are usually closed to anyone without permission."

I glanced at him. "Can you get permission?"

Ian shrugged and opened another file. "We’re working on it. These are the notes I took talking with Eliasson. He's one of the investigators we've worked with quite a bit. And then these notes here." Ian opened another document. "I got these from the District Attorney's office."

I let out a low whistle, impressed at how much Ian was able to get from his contacts. "They're talking to you?"

"Your friend, Henry, told them to give anything and everything to Saint Security. I will add that they were reluctant, so we do need to be careful with this information. We don’t want to do anything that might mess up their case."

I nodded in understanding. The best thing for Henry and Victoria's protection was if George Pitney dropped dead, but short of that was putting him in prison for a very long time.

I studied the notes and frowned. "Most of this looks like fraud. What about all the people who have gone missing from Pitney's orbit?"

"In those cases, they need a witness, and all of them seem to have disappeared."

This wasn't good.

"And I will point out that some of them disappeared while George was incarcerated, and since they couldn’t testify, he went free. Nobody's been able to pin the disappearances, or more likely murders, on him."

My gut felt like I had drunk battery acid. "Mother fucker."