The Man She Thought She Knew - Softcover

Shattuck, Shari

3.5

44 ratings by Goodreads

9781416516682: The Man She Thought She Knew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416516689 ISBN 13: 9781416516682

Publisher: Gallery Books, 2006

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He's her hottest accessory...

She may be super-rich and drop-dead gorgeous, but Los Angeles socialite Callaway Wilde can be as insecure as any girl about her man's love. Saying yes to a marriage proposal from sexy detective Evan Paley was a leap of faith for Cally, who has been pursued by many -- and almost killed on occasion -- for her money. When her fianc� disappears, Cally fears he's left her high and dry. Turns out she's right, but for the wrong reasons: he's been kidnapped.

Is he an accessory to a crime?

It started with a mysterious phone call that pulls Evan away from a little one-on-one time with Cally. Evan refuses to identify the caller -- a woman in distress -- which brings Cally down to earth fast. What secrets could he be keeping? Big ones, apparently: a dead body soon turns up in Evan's house, and Evan has vanished. On a heart-pounding race to find him, Cally follows a trail of clues to cold-blooded murder and deadly corruption -- and may uncover more than she bargained for about the man she thought she knew.

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About the Author:

Shari Shattuck debuted her socialite-sleuth Callaway Wilde in her critically acclaimed suspense novel Loaded, published by Pocket Books. Her second Cally Wilde novel, Lethal, was featured in the Naughty Girls of Downtown Press launch and also received rave reviews. Shattuck is a successful actress with many film, television, and stage credits, including starring in the feature film On Dangerous Ground and a three-year run on The Young and the Restless. She lives in Los Angeles.

Chapter

His weight was crushing my body. Deep inside me a guttural scream was building, desperate for release, but each time he thrust, the breath was forced out of me. His fingers gripped my wrists so tightly that I feared the skin would break. His eyes burned into mine as his breathing quickened to short, hard bursts. I struggled to break away, to move, to shift his weight off mine and get control again. But as his movements quickened, his weight and his strength held me down. I strained for dominance, lost the battle, and succumbed to the inevitable. He lowered his face to mine and covered my mouth with his.

Panting and shaking, I met his kiss and returned it. Laughing lightly, I said, "Okay, you win." Smiling, and without breaking the full contact of our bodies, we both rolled onto our sides, and I nestled my head into his shoulder.

Running a finger down his chest, I admired the strength and shape of my man, especially pleasant after enjoying what that strength and shape could do to me.

I'd only known him a year; we'd met as suspect and detective, moved quickly to tentative lovers, to my accepting his proposal. It had been quite a ride.

"Evan?" I asked, looking up into his deep-water-blue eyes and sinking a hand into his thick, black hair to pull his head back.

"Yes?" he answered lazily, pulling his gaze with pleasing reluctance away from scanning the length of my legs.

"Do you want a big wedding?"

The edges of his mouth twitched just enough for me to see the joke coming. "Well, you know," he began, and I started to laugh, "that all little boys dream of a big wedding and wearing a fancy white dress. Queen for a day, that's me," he finished in a fake lisp; it didn't come off on my ultimate man's man.

I smacked him on his firm butt and he grabbed my arms, pinning me down again. "I'm serious, honey," I pleaded. "I've got to get started planning this." I was exaggerating a little. I had already hired the most expensive event team in town, given them a budget that would have bought a three-bedroom house in Beverly Hills, and all I would have to do was tell them what kind of cake I wanted. They'd pretty much take it from there.

"Yes," Evan said after considering seriously for a moment. "I want a big wedding," he said, then started kissing my neck, mumbling the next words as he moved down. "I want a gigantic wedding. I want everyone to know that little ol' Detective Evan Paley is marrying the most beautiful woman in the world, Callaway Francine Wilde." He came up for air, then said, "And I don't care if they can see the ring through my nose," before diving back onto the skin where my neck curved into my shoulder.

The roughness of his morning beard touched off a skirmish in that ticklish spot, and the heat of his mouth was turning my after-sex glow into a flashing green light. If he went on this way, we'd never get out of bed.

I fought for control. "If you want everybody to know, then are we going to be able to announce the engagement?" I asked. "I think, uh," I moaned, distracted. "Stop that. You usually let other people know you're getting married before you send out the invitations."

"Soon. I don't think it'll be real helpful to the undercover drug bust I'm working on right now to have my picture published in the social section of the L.A. Times." His words were muffled as he nuzzled my neck, biting softly.

"You think the crack dealers read the social section of the L.A. Times?" I asked.

"Read? No, but they can look at the pictures."

"Let me go," I said, struggling to release my arms.

"If you promise to be good," he told me with the low, throaty vibrato that worked on two of my most sensitive areas -- only one of which was my inner ear -- and kissed me long and hard.

Looking up at him mischievously, I said, "Oh, I'll be very good."

He let go, and I smacked him on the butt again. Then, laughing, I rolled out of his reach onto the floor, and he came after me, trying his best to land a retaliatory smack on my backside. Laughing, I slipped away and he chased me across the bedroom, but I made it to his walk-in closet and slammed the door behind me, turning the lock just as his fingers reached the knob on the other side.

"Fine," he called through the door. "You can just stay in there."

"I'm not coming out until you call a caterer!" I yelled back.

"Leave it to me!" came the muffled response. "I'm sure our guests will love having Tito's tacos at the reception. Don't worry about a thing. I can picture it now. The grand ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton on Maui, the tables decked with nothing but the finest in purple plasticware, our classy guests expressing their gastronomic delight as they sip Cook's champagne and enjoy their taquitos and menudo."

His voice was growing fainter, as though he were leaving the bedroom, or at least pretending to.

I spoke loudly so that my voice would carry through the thick door. "This is exactly why straight men aren't allowed to plan their own weddings!"

"You're only saying that because you think I'll forget to order the pi�ata."

Stifling a laugh, I put my ear to the cherrywood door and listened intently. We were at Evan's house, and his master bedroom was a spacious affair. There was a good twenty feet of sisal flooring between the bed and the closet, and I could just picture him sneaking across it. I closed my eyes to try to pick up a soft footfall or a crackle in the matting, but all I got was eerie silence.

Most likely he was watching the door from the other side.

I could play the waiting game. I sat down on the thick wool carpet.

Through the door I heard the muffled ringing of a phone. I hoped he'd answer it and give himself away, but it rang a couple more times and then stopped. Still no activity, and I bore easily.

"Honey?" I called out, cracking the door open an inch or two.

The bed was empty; so was the room. I came out cautiously in case he was waiting to ambush me. But the room was absolutely still. I walked to the foot of the bed and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back garden and the pool. "Evan?" I tried again, softly, so as not to seem a fool if he was right there somewhere.

No answer.

Then I heard a slight murmuring coming from the bathroom. I tiptoed to the door and got ready to spring on him when he came out. He was whispering, but the marble room magnified the sound, bouncing it out at me.

"I can't come right now. I told you, you need to stay calm and it'll be all right." He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "That's not fair. You know I care about you, and you should know by now what I'll do for you."

I leaned my head around the doorjamb until I was at an angle where I could see Evan's reflection in the long mirror. He had the phone up to one ear, and as he listened he backed up a step and looked out the half-opened door to check the closet.

Glancing back, I realized I'd left the door open, and I heard him say quickly, "I'll have to call you back."

With a chill in my heart I moved to face the open door. He appeared in it and saw me standing there looking at him.

It seemed as if my inner ear had given up on my sense of equilibrium. The room was rocking, and Evan's face looked guilty and pained.

Trying to keep my voice from freezing up, I asked, "Who was that?"

He sighed and dropped his head, caught. I suppose I should have been grateful that he didn't just lie to me. On the other hand, I was so afraid that I was ready to buy even a weak excuse.

"It's...something I can't talk about." Not surprisingly, he wouldn't meet my eye.

"Why not?" I asked, feeling the closeness between us fall away, as though he were being reeled backward away from me at incredible speed, growing more and more distant, until he was nothing more than an unrecognizable speck.

"Cally, listen." He reached out for me, but I backed away, so he let his hands drop and said, "We've talked about this. There are things it's better you don't know about."

I wasn't going to be put off by that. "Who was on the phone?"

Now his arms came up across his chest; the defensive stance served to alienate me even further by arousing my anger. "You need to let this go," he said in a voice that was half beseeching and half radioactive.

I knew that Evan was such a good detective that he would recognize even the slightest signs of fear or panic. So, I turned my back on him and walked to the bed. When I felt that my indignant anger was shielding the rest of my physical responses, I sat down and faced him. "Listen," I began, "we're engaged. We're picking a date for our wedding. I'm supposed to be the woman you love and trust. How can we ever expect to share each other's lives if there's a huge part of you that's off limits to me?"

Having a tense conflict with someone you're vulnerable to when you are both stark naked is like double exposure. I knew he was affected when he reached for a robe and put it on before he came into the room. "Callaway, this isn't something new."

"Yes," I corrected him, "it is. Because from what I just heard, that wasn't police work, that was something personal." I watched his face carefully and saw a struggle pass across it: an urge to soften and open up versus a trained response to harden and hide.

The training won. "I can't tell you about it, you have to trust me." He moved to the bed and sat down next to me. He touched my leg, then put his hand on my face, turning it gently to look at his. "Please, trust me."

Never in my life had I wanted anything so much; it was right there, trust it, let it go, let him have his life, let him have mine, and know that I was safe anyway. But nothing in my past had taught me how to do that. Starting with a mother I couldn't trust, I'd moved on to a stepbrother who hated me, a father who died when he was the only one I had, and men who loved me for my money.

Trust wasn't something I could bank on.

I looked at Evan, handsome, strong, ...

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