Jaded Read Online Free PDF

shaving.”
    Jase grinned. “Honey, a girl like you doesn’t shave. I bet you’ve had every annoying strand of hair on that lovely body of yours plucked, waxed, or lasered.”
    Jade stepped back. “Sergeant, I’m afraid if you would like any further information you’ll need a search warrant. Now, please excuse me.”
    “One moment, Miss Devereaux.”
    Jade turned those mesmerizing green eyes on him. Her long black lashes hovered over them like the wings of a raven. Her full lips pursed. Another day and another time and he’d pursue those lips until they were his. But business first.
    “We can do this the easy way. You tell me: one, if Townsend was a member here; two, if he was here last night; and three, allow me to question everyone who had contact with him, or we can do this the hard way. I get a warrant and go public.”
    He watched the play of her expressions. While to the average Joe she managed to appear disinterested, Jase was an expert at reading body language. And once he got past the lushness of her he could read her as easily as the Sunday paper. She knew Townsend, all right, and she was lying about her finger, and she was weighing the pros and cons of his proposal.
    “One moment please,” she softly said before disappearing through the door from which she had entered. Jase glanced over to catch the wooden soldier eyeing him with what could only be described as contempt.
    Jase shrugged it off. He’d been dissed by worse than that guy. The soft click of the door behind him sent a jolt of desire straight to his dick. Damn.
    He turned expecting Miss Devereaux, but instead a rather portly older gent in a fine gray suit opened the door wider. “Sergeant Vaughn, my name is Thomas Proctor, Miss Devereaux’s majordomo. She has instructed me to show you to her office.”
    Jase nodded and followed the man. “Were you here last night, Mr. Proctor?” Jase asked to the retreating back. As if he hadn’t heard the question, Proctor didn’t respond. Jase knew better. “If you were, don’t go anywhere. When I’m done with Miss Devereaux, I want to talk to you about a member, Andrew Townsend.”
     
     
    Jade sat rigidly behind her desk, the force of her strained muscles starting an ache at the base of her spine. Andrew was dead! And, god help her, she’d killed him! Swallowing hard, she flinched when the discerning detective spoke.
    “I’d like to see the tape from the camera out back.”
    “It was disconnected last month.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m not at liberty to say.”
    “Did you see Andrew Townsend last night?”
    A myriad of thoughts flashed through Jade’s mind. If she went to jail, what would happen to Tina? If she told the truth, that she was defending herself against a man who would have raped her, would it matter?
    No, she decided, nothing would matter if the cops found out the truth about her. She shivered despite the warmth of her office. Andrew Townsend might be dead, but she felt justified in her defense of herself. She raised her chin, her gaze clashing with the handsome detective’s.
    She smiled, her confidence restored. “Naïve” was a word she knew how to disrespect. Long ago she made the decision to never again be the whim of any man, and she wasn’t going to break her cardinal rule, not even for this righteous cop standing so arrogantly before her. Let him come at her. She had money, she had the connections, and she had the righteous belief that she’d acted in self-defense. But more than that, she believed in her innocence. This time.
    “If I did, I’m not at liberty to say.”
    Jase’s aquamarine-colored eyes squinted beneath long black lashes. Their intensity managed to keep Jade more off balance than aligned. He was, she decided, probably one of the most handsome men she had the good fortune, or in this case misfortune, to meet. The planes and angles of his face met in fluid symmetry, even the small scar on his chin just below his full bottom lip did nothing to mar his