Enchanting the Beast Read online

  “I thank you for your honesty, Holly.” His feigned earnestness made her laugh. “Are there any other secrets you’d care to divulge before we get started?”

  Yes, I’m trying to get close to you for nefarious reasons. She kept her mouth shut and shook her head.

  “Very well, then.” He gestured for her to lead the way. “Let’s get this party started.”

  “Um…okay.” She edged toward the kitchen, for a second she feared he wouldn’t be able to get through the old apartment’s narrow doorways but his wheelchair was one of those sleek motorized deals and he maneuvered just fine. For a second she thought about asking him how he’d ended up in a wheelchair but thought better of it. She was supposed to be ingratiating herself with this guy, not asking rude questions.

  But when they reached her kitchen and he started opening her nearly bare bottom shelves looking for a cookie sheet and asking where she kept flour and baking soda, she got the distinct impression that she was no longer in charge here. He was making himself at home in her apartment while she stood there watching in shock.

  Who was this man? What was happening here?

  But then he glanced in her direction expectantly and she realized he was still waiting on the basic ingredients. “Flour,” she repeated stupidly. “Right. Coming up.”

  She was rewarded with a small smile that softened his features. “Do you have the recipe? That would probably be helpful.”

  Her laugh was self-deprecating but she found herself starting to relax around him. “Yeah, it might help. Hang on, I have it on my laptop, let me call it up.”

  Before she could he was at her side looking at her screen over her shoulder. “Were you working?” he asked. “I can come back at another time.”

  She shook her head. “It’s fine, I was ready for a break.” Calling up the recipe, she turned the screen to face him.

  “So what do you do for a living?” he asked as he leaned forward and scanned the recipe.

  Con people. Namely, you. She bit her tongue to keep that bit of truth to herself. “I’m an accountant. I work for a firm in midtown but they let me work from home most of the time.” She talked as she rounded up flour, sugar, eggs, and butter.

  Her arms were full by the time she returned to the table where Spencer sat. When she set them down they sort of tumbled out of her arms in a super graceful manner. The flour outright fell from the crook of her arm where she’d been cradling it and it landed in Spencer’s lap with a thud and then a poof as a cloud of powder puffed out of the open top and settled over Spencer’s face.

  Holly stared in horror, her hands over her open mouth. His nice, neat, formerly blue buttoned down shirt was now white. His face was ghostly pale. And his glasses… She choked on a wholly inappropriate laugh as he slowly lifted a hand to wipe off his powdered glasses and peer at her.

  His glare was filled with rueful amusement and that was all it took to set her off. Relief that he wasn’t truly angry made it that much harder to stop laughing as he leaned back and crossed his arms, watching her with that little smile.

  “I’m sorry,” she said when she caught her breath. “You just look so ridiculous.”

  “Oh, do I?” He sounded calm, bored even. “Let’s see how well you wear white.”

  Before she could move, he’d picked up the bag of flour and slammed it down in front of her making it puff up in her face.

  She gasped and choked on the fine powder, but laughter won out again, especially once she caught sight of his smile.

  She stopped breathing, but not because of the powder this time. There it was. The smile she’d seen the day before when he’d been laughing with his friend, or rather, at his friend.

  That smile was hot.

  He slapped his hands together, giving her a smug look. “Now that that’s settled, shall we get to work?”

  Well, that was enlightening. Spencer entered his own apartment, thoroughly worn out from making a year’s worth of small talk over the course of a couple hours.

  It had been fascinating, really. Not so much the chatter, though she was a witty and lively conversationalist once she’d warmed up and forgotten to be nervous. No, what had been truly fascinating was how badly she lied.

  Holly was really, truly an atrocious liar. So why was she even trying? That was still a question, but it wouldn’t be for long. He fished his phone out of his pocket as he made his way back to his office.

  He’d asked to use her bathroom and taken a detour into her bedroom on the way. Her wallet had just been lying there, begging to be opened. Who was he to say no?

  There was a driver’s license with what must have been her old address in Brooklyn, which he’d snapped a shot of. He also took pictures of her business card, debit card, and even her library card. They would give him more than enough information to find out everything he needed to know about this woman.

  He’d barely begun his online search for Holly Hallister—he’d only managed to affirm that she’d been telling the truth about being a CPA—when his phone rang.

  “A little birdie told me you’re going to be alone for the holidays.” Hunter’s gruff voice on the other end of the line sounded more amused than concerned.

  Spencer sighed. He loved Andie more than anything but sometimes her concern could be a bit over the top. “I’ll be fine. You know me, the less the merrier.”

  Hunter gave a huff of a laugh on the other end but he didn’t ease up. “Yeah, well, now Jenna’s gonna be pissed if you don’t spend Christmas with us.”

  Spencer groaned and started to protest but Hunter wouldn’t give him the chance. “We both know you do not want to see an angry Jenna.”

  He couldn’t argue that. A first-class divorce attorney, Hunter’s girlfriend, who also happened to be Andie’s half-sister, was intimidating on her best day. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what she was like when she was angry.

  “No promises,” Spencer said. “I need to keep myself open to all the other offers that are rolling in.”

  Hunter laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Think it over, at least. We’d love to see you.”

  Spencer changed the topic before the conversation could get too sappy. Neither he nor Hunter did touchy-feely. “Hey, if you have a sec do you think you could check into someone for me?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Just a woman in my building. I can’t tell if she’s up to something or in too deep. But either way…”

  “She’s in trouble,” Hunter finished for him.

  “Yeah.” And that was the truth of it. After a couple hours of grilling her under the guise of making friendly conversation, that was the best he could figure. He couldn’t imagine that she had truly terrible intentions. The woman was incapable of telling a lie without fluttering her eyelashes. She couldn’t have much experience at duplicity if she was basically a feminine version of Pinocchio. But she had been lying and he couldn’t figure out why.

  He’d find out though, sooner or later.

  He gave Hunter her name and asked if he’d discreetly check in with his sources in law enforcement. Hunter’s pause was telling. “Do you recognize the name?”

  “Maybe,” he said slowly. “Hallister, you said?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at the picture of the brunette beauty with the naturally rosy red lips and high cheekbones. She even looked good on her driver’s license, which just seemed like overkill.

  “I recognize the last name. Are you sure her first name is Holly?”

  “I’m sure.” His attention sharpened as he took in his friend’s slow, thoughtful speech patterns. “How do you recognize the name?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve got the right woman,” Hunter hedged. “The person I’m thinking of is named Eve Hallister. Let me ask around and see. Maybe they’re related or something.”

  “How do you know Eve Hallister?” Spencer’s gut was telling him that this wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe Eve was an alias or something.

  “I don’t know her,” Hunter said. “I just recognize the n
ame. My buddy Eddie had a bit of a thing with her—”

  “A thing?” His voice was too sharp and the spike of adrenaline. “What do you mean ‘a thing?’”

  “Not like that,” Hunter said, his tone too amused for Spencer’s liking. “I mean, he had a bit of an obsession. Guess you could say she was his white whale.”

  White whale. What did that mean?

  “Look, I’ve got to run, I’m on duty. I’ll get back to you if I learn anything. It could just be a coincidence.” He hung up quickly, leaving Spencer to replay their conversation far too many times.

  He didn’t believe in coincidence. If there was a woman named Hallister on the cops’ radar, he would bet his fortune that there was a connection to his woman named Hallister.

  Well, not his woman.

  Not yet.

  It had clearly been too long since he’d been with a woman if his lizard brain was harboring hopes for a fling with the shifty new neighbor.

  Shifty hot new neighbor, his Id corrected.

  Hot or not, she was trouble. Which meant off-limits. He didn’t do relationships, in general, but he wasn’t a monk either. The women he consorted with were of the no-strings variety, but he still preferred women who were honest. Even in the short term, he preferred to avoid the kind of games he’d watched his parents play with one another when his mother was still alive.

  He was attracted to Holly, there was no denying that. He’d have to have been blind not to be. She was a bombshell, as Andie so accurately and rudely pointed out. She had the kind of hourglass figure that would never go out of style and the classic, perfectly proportioned features to go with it.

  Add to that a sweet, sunny disposition and a sense of humor and she was pretty much the perfect woman. He might have even made a play for her if he got the sense that she was interested in something light and temporary.

  With all his skills in reading people, the most he could tell was that she was interested in…something.

  Well played, detective. You’ve narrowed it down to everything under the sun.

  He thought he’d seen a flicker of awareness in those big brown eyes of hers but the reaction had been fast and fleeting. There and gone before he could clock it. But even if she felt an attraction too, it made no difference. Whatever she wanted from him, she was lying to get it. Which meant she was not the simple, no-strings woman for him. Not even for a fling. For the sake of self-preservation his best bet would be to steer clear.

  Except that the only way to figure out what she was up to was to stay close.

  But then he didn’t need to know what she was up to. He could always avoid her all together, something he rather excelled at. But even as he thought it, he knew he could never do that. The mystery was there, right in front of him. Besides, she’d sought him out and was actively lying to him. Either his paranoia was kicking in again or he was right to believe that whatever she was hiding had to do with him.

  For the moment he opted to err on the side of caution. The mystery had something to do with him. She wanted something from him.

  This left him in a bit of a pickle, torn between keeping his distance or figuring out the riddle that was Holly. He stared sightlessly at the computer screen in front of him as he waded through his options.

  Maybe it didn’t have to be one or the other. He could get close while keeping his distance. He was a professional, after all. He might not have been a detective or a cop, but he did investigate for a living. Cracking businesses’ online security in order to find its faults. And he helped Hunter and his police friends with their work when they needed him. This was just another kind of investigation. One that happened to involve a beautiful woman instead of encryptions and firewalls.

  He tapped his fingers against his desk as he thought through his next steps. He’d find out what he could online, but it was becoming increasingly clear that if he wanted to discover what she was up to, he’d need to interact with her. In person. Something that typically made his stomach turn but, in this case, he found he could tolerate the idea. After all, she wasn’t bad company.

  Okay, so maybe she was nice to be around. He felt his lips tugging up in a smile as he remembered the way she’d unselfconsciously laughed at herself when she’d misread the recipe and nearly ruined the entire batch. There was something refreshingly genuine about her, even when she was lying. What did that say about the majority of people he interacted with? Nothing good. In his experience, most people were disingenuous whether they were lying or not.

  Hours later he’d been through every aspect of her online presence, from her Facebook page to her banking account. The only thing he could confirm was that she really liked to play “Words with Friends” and she was far from rich. That was as scandalous as it got, from what he could tell. She was still paying off her college loans, but she paid her bills on time. She either didn’t shop online very often or wasn’t a big spender. She had a debit card but no credit cards, which was either suspicious or smart, depending on how one looked at it. Her apartment was rented under her name alone and her rental agreement was on a month-to-month basis, which wasn’t unusual for his building.

  When he started to realize that Holly was as clean as they came, he sought out Eve Hallister. It was possible he was delving into paranoid conspiracy theories, but he was beginning to believe that Holly must have used Eve as her alias for some sort of secret life. He’d been investigating people online for years and no one was as clean and dirt-free as Holly appeared to be. She had to be hiding behind her Eve alias.

  But try as he might, he found no Eve Hallister online, nor did he find a mention of Eve on any of Holly’s accounts. Maybe Hunter had been mistaken on the name because as far as he could tell, no Eve Hallister existed. At least, not in NYC or the surrounding area.

  After several hours of digging online he had to admit to himself that he was no closer to figuring out Holly’s secrets than when he’d first started.

  Right. Well, at least he knew where to find the woman in question. Picking up his phone, he dialed in the phone number she’d given him when they’d taken a coffee break to wait for the first batch to bake.

  “Holly, it’s Spencer,” he said when she answered. “How would you feel about joining me for dinner tomorrow night?”

  Chapter Three

  Spencer came back from the kitchen and paused to watch Holly in the doorway to his living room. The sight before him was intoxicating, seductive…it was a freakin’ turn on.

  Watching a woman read comics should not be this erotic.

  Yet, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Her head was bent over the open comic in her hand, a stack of them strewn around her on the couch like she’d been trying to delve into them all at once. He’d been surprised at her excitement when she’d walked in earlier and spotted his collection, but when he’d told her she could help herself she’d transformed form a gorgeous grown woman into a kid at Christmas.

  He must have made a noise because her head popped up and her eyes focused on him. She held up the issue of Batgirl she’d been reading. “I can’t believe you have this.”

  He shrugged, heading into the room for a closer look. “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “Most guys don’t read the girl superheros.”

  “And you know all guys who read comics?” he asked. Her answering grin made his insides do something odd. Something they’d been doing a lot since he’d met her. They got all warm and fuzzy.

  Oh man, get it together. He was supposed to be investigating this woman, not crushing on her. Easier said than done when the more he got to know her the more apparent it was that she was not only hot but interesting, funny, and now, it turned out, a comics fan.

  If she wasn’t a liar who’d come into his life for suspicious reasons, he’d say she was his dream girl.

  She tilted her head to the side. “I guess maybe that was a generalization about guys, huh?”

  He shook his head and made a tsking sound. “I never took you to be so sexist.”


  She dropped the comic and pressed her hands together beseechingly. “Can you forgive me?”

  He pretended to think it over. “I’ll let it go this time.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Her over the top gratitude had him laughing along with her. Her gaze met his and the moment seemed to stretch into something else. One second they were laughing and the next they were gazing.

  She looked away first, a hint of a blush tinting her cheeks. “But seriously, good taste, Spencer. I’ve always been a big fan of Batgirl.”

  “Me too,” he said. When she glanced up in surprise, he looked to his wheelchair and then back to her. “Young me rather fancied himself the male version of Oracle.”

  She laughed, clearly getting the reference to Batgirl’s later role as a wheelchair-bound tech genius. Her gaze automatically moved to his wheelchair and away, as if embarrassed to be caught looking.

  He bit back a sigh. It was a typical reaction but one he’d never quite understood. Her discomfort passed quickly though and she looked back at him with a glint in her eyes. “Be honest, did you want to be Batgirl or did you just have a crush on her?”

  He tipped his head back and let out a wistful sigh that made her laugh. “I’d like to meet the comics geek who doesn’t have a thing for Barbara.”

  Her laugh was fading when he looked in her direction and he found himself wanting to make her laugh again. The sound was enchanting. Her smile was like a drug. Her eyes had this way of…oh man, he had a serious problem on his hands. He didn’t even recognize this voice in his head that was getting all mushy over a woman who was in his life for who knew what purpose.

  How did he keep forgetting the task at hand? She was only here so he could get to know her. Figure her out. Instead, he was the one opening up about his first crush. Awesome.

  Right on cue, she spoke up. “Wow, first I find out you’re a first-class chili chef and now I know the true secrets of your Batgirl love. This has been an extremely enlightening dinner.”