Page 2 of Smoke Screen
“Of course,” Blakely said.
The weasel nodded. “Blackwell, good to see you.”
Not in this lifetime.
“Kayla,” Phin said, “maybe you can talk him into reviving that domestic violence bill.”
Kayla drilled him with a look that should have blown him clear through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Tomorrow, she’d call and ream him. Today? He’d gotten his jab in. After all, she couldn’t expect Phin to stand there and listen while the man insulted his family.
“Later,” she told Phin. “Now, I want to bend his ear about the appointment of our next Secretary of State.”
Oh, boy.Kayla ushered the senator away, leaving Phin thinking he’d like to be a fly on the wall forthatconversation.
“Hello.”
The brunette.
He banished thoughts of Blakely-the-weasel and flashedthesmile again, offering his hand. “I’m Phin Blackwell.”
She accepted his hand. “I know.”
Interesting. This chick with her soulful blue eyes didn’t seem the panty-dropping type. But, dang, that mane of curly hair combined with the black dress that managed to hug her body while revealing absolutely nothing made for a fascinating sexy-librarian package.
He made quick work of the handshake, making sure not to grip too hard or linger too long. He didn’t need those slimeball tactics. His mother had taught him better.
Inside though? His brain filled with visions of lowering that little side zipper on her dress and peeling it off.
With his teeth.
He let the fantasy play out while his body hummed. Things might be looking up after the Blakely incident. “And you are?”
“Madison—Maddy—Carmichael.”
Phin ran through his mental contact list. Carmichael. If he knew Kayla at all, chances were she’d brought this woman to him for a reason. A reason that probably included a job.
And wasn’t that why Blackwell Asset Recovery Services, aka BARS, paid up to ten grand a plate to send him to these political shindigs?
“A pleasure, Maddy Carmichael,” Phin said. “Why do I feel like Kayla engineered this meeting?”
“Because she did. I need your help.”
Interesting indeed.
A woman about his mom’s age—Congressman Jenkins’s wife—squeezed beside Phin, eyeing him with the hunger of a Bengal tiger.
The things he put up with for his job.
Ignoring the tiger, he focused on Maddy. “Always happy to oblige a woman in distress.”
At that, she rolled her eyes. Definitely not the panty-dropping type.
“Easy, Charlie Charm.”
Charlie Charm?
Phin laughed. An honest-to-God ripple that flew right up his throat. How he loved a woman capable of verbal swordplay. “Is that why my friends call me CC for short?”
