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The officer handed her a business card as he stood. “And you may want to get those locks checked. Burglars sometimes come back a second time.”
    Ellie showed the policeman to the door, then closed it behind him, making sure to lock the dead bolt. Then she grabbed up the knife and sat on the sofa. She was afraid to go to bed now, afraid that whoever had broken in would come back. She scrambled off the sofa and picked up a chair from the dining alcove, then jammed it under the doorknob. But, given the choice, she didn’t want to depend upon locks and chairs and butcher knives to protect herself.
    A lot of good her white knight was doing her now, locked up in a jail cell. “I should have left him tied up on the floor,” Ellie said. But somehow she suspected that he wouldn’t have stayed tied up for long. Liam Quinn would have convinced her to untie him—and then who knows what might have happened?

2
    L IAM LAY on the cold steel bench in the holding cell. Until a few moments ago, the cell had been filled with an assortment of petty criminals—two pimps, a handful of drunk and disorderlies, and four Harvard boys who’d been caught trying to climb the steeple of the Old South Meeting House. But they’d all been hustled out to central booking and then to night court, leaving Liam to the rather Spartan and smelly accommodations.
    This was all his fault. He’d spent too much time listening to those stupid Mighty Quinn stories when he was a kid and the first chance he had, he decided to ride to the rescue. He could have waited for the police or alerted a neighbor or even caused enough commotion on the street to send the guy running. But instead he’d felt compelled to burst into Eleanor Thorpe’s apartment to snatch her from the jaws of certain danger.
    His mind flashed an image of her dressed in the nearly transparent nightgown. Once she’d turned on the light in the living room, he could see right through the thin cotton.
    Liam groaned and put his arm over his eyes, trying to banish the image from his head. But it lingered in his mind, and rather than fight it, Liam decided to enjoy it. She had incredibly long legs, slender and perfectly shaped, and hips that curved in a way that made her seem instantly seductive. And her breasts—her breasts were just… Liam swallowed hard, his fingers clenching into fists.
    Hell, it wasn’t as if she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. Not even close. In truth, her features just weren’t that remarkable. Though she did have very nice eyes, her mouth was just a little too wide, her lips too lush. And her dark hair fell around her face in a way that made her look as if she’d just gotten out of bed—which she had.
    As he thought about their encounter, he realized it was more than her looks that attracted him. But what was it? Was it the breathless way she spoke when she was nervous? Or the way she moved, almost amusing in her awkwardness?
    Maybe it was the fact that she’d never once responded to him the way other women had. She hadn’t cozied up to him and found any excuse she could to touch him. She hadn’t sent him teasing looks or seductive smiles. No, Ellie Thorpe had hit him over the head with a lamp then tied him up like some S & M fantasy man. And even after he was certain he’d convinced her of his innocence, she still hadn’t fallen prey to his charms.
    “I just wasn’t trying hard enough,” Liam murmured.
    A cell door slammed nearby and Liam glanced up to find a uniformed officer watching him from behind steel bars. He quickly stood and crossed the cell. “Can I have my phone call?”
    “You had your phone call,” the officer said.
    Liam had decided Conor was his only option when it came to straightening out this mess. But the late-night call had been answered not by Conor or Olivia, but by their voice mail, and Liam had hung up without leaving a message. “I couldn’t get hold of my brother. It doesn’t count if I didn’t talk to