Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) Read Online Free PDF Page A

millions didn’t make him appealing enough, Damien Wallace had been blessed in the looks department as well. With his dark hair, darker eyes, and bronze complexion, he took “tall, dark, and handsome” to a whole other level. Tack on his easy smile and air of confidence, and Damien Wallace was female catnip.
    “You from around here?” he asked when the band left the stage for a short intermission.
    My eardrums and sanity prayed a silent thanks. I stared at the stage, not having been hit on with the “you from around here?”line since my college days. “In a broad sense of speaking.”
    “You’re one of those mysterious types, aren’t you?” From the look in his eyes, he’d already arrived at his answer.
    “Men labeling women as mysterious is just an excuse for not taking a little more time to get to know us.” I capped my side-handed response with a small smile as I turned toward him. He was already facing me.
    “Busted,” he said, raising his hands. “That’s what my—” His mouth clamped shut, but he didn’t need to have spoken the words for me to know what they were.
    That’s what his wife had told him. It struck me as odd that he’d come so close to slipping. Most of my Targets were so practiced at going behind their significant other’s backs that lying and living a double life had become second nature. Either Mr. Wallace was new at the two-timing game or off his game tonight.
    I didn’t want too much uncomfortable silence to pass. I didn’t want him to think about his wife for too long because the only result from that was a heap of guilt, and guilt was a guaranteed way to ruin a Greet.
    “I bet a lot of people told you you should play basketball when you were growing up,” I said with a flat expression. “What did they think when you grew up to be an engineer?”
    His forehead creased. “An engineer? What makes you think I’m an engineer?” He didn’t look affronted, but I’d definitely thrown him for a loop.
    “Because of the way you dress, that you keep a pen in your pocket”—I eyed the pen sticking out of his pants pocket. No doubt it was for signing autographs, but I was playing ignorant to that—“and because you’ve got the look of someone who’s spent lots of time in school.”
    Mr. Wallace looked like he was choking on a laugh. After swallowing it, he gave me a purposeful look. “And from your clothing and preference toward music, I’d peg you as an elementary school teacher.”
    That got a laugh out of me, which made him laugh. His laugh was nice in that it was warm and didn’t feel forced. “Point made. So why don’t we stop guesstimating what each other does for a living and talk about something else?” I leaned in a bit closer—not so close that we were touching, but close enough that we could have touched if either of us moved a hair closer.
    “What else is there to talk about?”
    I arched a brow. “Absolutely nothing.”
    At first, his expression ironed out in what appeared to be surprise, but a moment later, it shifted into an expression I was supremely familiar with. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”
    I held his stare as I answered, “Time is a luxury I don’t like to be wasteful with, so no, when I see something I like or want or have to do, I don’t waste any time.” I knew I was moving borderline too quickly for Mr. Wallace’s profile, and I also knew the reason why—the sooner I was done with him, the sooner I could get back to the man I really wanted to be around.
    Mr. Wallace leaned that final inch closer so that our bodies were touching. “I like a mysterious woman who knows what she wants and goes after it.”
    I slipped my hand around his waist. “You mean you like a woman who doesn’t make you work hard to get her into bed.”
    He swallowed and put on a smile. “Precisely.”

 
     
    IF THERE’D BEEN an exception to the rule, Damien Wallace might have been it, but just like all pro athletes, he’d taken the bait without