Bittersweet Darkness by Nina Croft

inkling he was far from impressed with her neighborhood and that ratcheted her anger another notch. “Hey, we can’t all afford swanky pads in the middle of town, you know.”
    “You could if you came to work with us,” he replied.
    “And what would I have to do for it? No, thank you.”
    He fell into step beside her. And she didn’t say anything else. Her apartment was on the ground floor and opened into the street. She halted by the front door.
    “Thanks for the lift,” she said.
    He stared down at her, and took a step closer so he was almost touching. A shiver ran through her, but pride stopped her from stepping back. She wouldn’t let him see she was intimidated.
    Though she was kidding herself. She didn’t feel any fear of him, which was strange in itself, because he was one of the scariest-looking people she had ever come across.
    She stood motionless as he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
    “To answer your earlier question,” he murmured against her skin. “Yes, I would like to find out more about you. A lot more.”
    Then he was gone.

Chapter Five
    Faith woke the following morning to a sense of anticipation.
    She lay in bed and stretched. Physically, she felt good. Since the blackout, the first few moments after waking, she always lay still, waiting for the headache. She had to force her lids open, in case the world was blurred. But today she seemed to be functioning perfectly. Perhaps the doctors were wrong and there was no blood vessel slowly swelling in her brain, waiting to burst and this time, finish her off.
    As she sat on the train, heading into to work, she tried to tell herself the anticipation was all down to feeling well and nothing to do with the image of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous that kept popping into her mind.
    There were so many excellent reasons why she should never see Ash again. For one thing, he wasn’t her type. Not that she had a type. She hadn’t dated since she’d been promoted to detective and that was…Jesus, she hadn’t dated in over two years. No wonder she was feeling horny. But if she did have a type, he wouldn’t be it. She liked nice men who wore smart suits and worked in offices. She was a sucker for a man in a tie and she was betting Ash had never worn one in his life.
    No, black leather was more his thing. Tight black leather that molded his thighs and clung to his lean hips.
    Crap, he’d been hot. She wouldn’t have been a woman if she hadn’t noticed that. Add with a voice like velvet and barbed wire, he was bound to have an effect on her hormones.
    He’d said he wanted to get to know her better.
    But that wasn’t going to happen. Because no way was she taking a job with CR International. And Ryan had sort of made it clear that if she didn’t take the job, he would effectively cut her out of his life. He’d actually already done that. If she hadn’t arrived on his doorstep and pretty much demanded to see him, she doubted he would have come in search of her.
    He had a new partner now.
    But while the perks of the job appeared great—she’d kill for an apartment like that—she didn’t want to work for some big corporation. In fact, she’d never wanted to work for anyone but the police force. Since her mother’s murder case had gone unsolved, it was all Faith had ever wanted to do. Maybe deep down she thought that she might succeed where they’d failed twenty years ago, but in fact, she’d never gone over the evidence. She’d thought about it once or twice but something had always held her back.
    She was determined that Julie’s murder would not go unsolved.
    And while she believed Ryan would never take a job working for the bad guys, maybe he didn’t know. She could do some background research, find out exactly who they were and try and find a stronger link.
    Right now, she’d take any lead she could get, because otherwise the investigation had ground to a halt. Apart from the weirdo brigade, she had no one left to talk to. At