Chapter 9

Cierra

He didn't seem too surprised by my answer. Cocky bastard! He just smiled at me and took another sip of his drink. I snagged another olive from the platter more for something to do with my hands than anything else while he watched me over the lip of his snifter. No wonder he had such a reputation with women if he treated them all to his brand of potency. Even knowing what I knew of him or what was suspected in any case, I still find myself inexplicably drawn to his magnetism. He was without a doubt the most gorgeous human being I'd ever met and there was no doubt that had I been that girl in another time I might have indulged my stupid girl heart but there was no way. I had a job to do and if I did it well the man sitting across from me will be sitting in a jail cell for a long long time.

"That's big of you Cierra, so tell me something nonthreatening about yourself since my questions seem to bother you so much."

"There's not much to tell. I'm new here from a small town in Georgia."

"Where in Georgia?"

"Why? I'm sure you've never heard of it." And for a man of your resources I'm sure it wouldn't take you long to unravel the truth if you went looking.

"You'd be surprised at what I know, try me."

Shit, we'd come up with a fictitious place of course but somehow I didn't trust this, somehow I just knew he'd go looking.

"It's a little place called Blythe."

"You're right, never heard of it."

We talked for the next few hours about inconsequential things and I began to relax a little. Once he stopped with the panty dropping innuendos, Hank Mancini was a very intelligent and quite enigmatic man; a very dangerous combination given the circumstances.