| To Meet Your Match

𝐉𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒

JAMES

Now, I had to admit, I was slightly disappointed at how cool and calm she looked. She hadn't even broken a sweat during the fifteen minutes she was cramped inside that stinking room without a clue as to what she was doing there.

Slanting my head, I continued to look at her. This was the first time I'd seen her in person. All the other two thousand, one hundred and thirteen times I'd seen that face was when I stared at a picture of her in a non-weird, non-perverted kind of way.

I'd been keeping a very close eye on the Bologna, studying them-her parents, her two brothers, and her. For the last sixteen months, I'd been glued to every move that my family made. And by now I sure as hell knew a lot about Vanessa Bologna.

For instance, I knew she was twenty-four years old, her birthday was February fourteen, fucking Valentine's Day, and she was in her third year at Columbia University Law School. Currently, she was home for summer vacation, one of the three times a year she visited-the others being Thanksgiving and Christmas. I also knew her family owned the Italian restaurant where I just had my lunch, the restaurant where I'd been having my lunch quite regularly lately.

The Bologna pretended the restaurant was a gold mine and judging by their pizza, it probably was-and that Dante's impeccable knowledge of everything Wall Street was where they got all their wealth. But everyone knew Dante Bologna was so much more than that.

Children had been disappearing like crayons at a daycare center, bodies piling up, and drugs spreading like a fucking disease on the streets. I was convinced this woman's dad was behind it all.

She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder, holding her phone in the other hand. She was texting or probably updating her F******k status for the hundredth time today.

I decided to finally grace her with my presence and walked into the room.

"Miss Bologna, thank you for coming. I'm Detective Gunner."

"Detective Gunner." She looked up at me, and the moment her eyes met mine, I was captivated. I'd seen them so many times in pictures, but it was obvious the camera didn't do them justice. Her big, round eyes were like melted chocolate swirls-dark, rich, and alluring, making me wish I could jump in and get lost inside them.

"Do you mind telling me what all this is about, Detective?"

My gaze fell to her full, luscious, tempting red lips, and all I saw at that moment, all I thought about were eyes and lips, and about a dozen acts of sin.

Fuck!

This was going to be one hell of an interrogation.

*****

𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀

VANESSA

I stared at the detective in front of me. I didn't trust him. I also knew the whole story of a receipt with my credit card number found on an armed robber last night was bullshit. My credit card wasn't stolen. Plus, I checked my bank account, and no funds were missing.

What I did know was this probably had everything to do with my last name being Bologna. I might not be anything more than a rich princess, the daughter of a powerful and wealthy family, to most of the people here in Boston, but I wasn't stupid.

And the way this detective was staring at me with his dark brown eyes all smoldering and confident-maybe a little too confident-I was about ninety-nine percent sure he was hoping to get some information out of me.

He placed his arms on the table. "Miss Bologna, we found a credit card receipt-"

"No, you didn't." I didn't have time for bullshit.

He narrowed his dark eyes, and a smirk started at the corners of his mouth, dimples appearing just above it. If I wasn't so annoyed that he lied to get me here, I would have taken at least ten minutes to admire him.

With a sturdy, square jawline that could easily chisel granite, a five o'clock shadow, and a pair of full, appealing lips, Detective Gunner was easy on the eyes. And judging by the way he filled out his shirt and jeans, I was willing to bet he had the physique and muscle to back up all that confidence oozing out of him.

I hadn't even been in the same room as this man for two minutes and I already knew his ego was bigger than fucking China's.

"Miss Bologna -"

"That's it, isn't it? It's my last name that has me here at two o'clock on a Friday afternoon, instead of drinking cocktails by the pool with my friends." I might as well act like the rich princess everyone thinks I am.

That smirk was still plastered on his face as he leisurely leaned back in his chair. "I see you're a no-bullshit kind of woman."

"I'm Italian, what do you expect?" I crossed my legs under the table and noticed him glance down at my lap while biting his lower lip as he slowly moved his gaze up my body.

"Tell me about yourself, Miss-"

"Something tells me you already know everything there is to know." I cocked my head, letting my dark curls slip over my shoulder.

He frowned, then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

I watched as he slid his finger across the screen.

"According to F******k-"

"You have F******k?"

He glanced up at me. "Stop interrupting me."

"Stop antagonizing me." I lifted a brow.

He snorted and turned his attention back to his phone. "So, according to F******k," he glanced at me for a split second like he was expecting me to interrupt again, but I didn't, "Vanessa Bologna checked in at the Skin Spa in New York," he turned the screen toward me, "and she checked in five minutes ago to get some 'well-deserved pampering with my girlfriends,'" he mocked, reading my status update.

Well, shit. I did not see that one coming. Well, this would teach me not to use the fifteen minutes stuck in an interrogation room to update my fake F******k page. I had a PR company doing it for me up until a few months ago.

They kept messing up by posting a load of crap that clashed with some of my public appearances. Like "Vanessa is out fishing with her friends today," when in fact, I was at the new local library opening ceremony getting my picture taken with my dad and the fucking mayor-shit like that. And since when did I start going fishing? I have over a million and one persons that would love to know. And apparently, Detective Gunner was one of them.