Make Her Pay Read Online Free Page B

by Satan or his stepson, and even if he believed her and wanted to help, he’d think she was nuts. But if she didn’t tell him the truth-or at least part of it-he was going to rack up Brownie points with the boss by turning her in.
    Then she’d be off the dive before her work was done.
    “I’m trying to preserve history before Judd Paxton sells it on the open market, and uses the money to build another monument with his name on it.”
    He didn’t react, but stared her down, considering that.
    “I was trying to get some shots of the treasure before it disappears to a private collector,” she explained.
    “So you’re just breaking the terms of your contract, not robbing our boss blind.” He speared her with a smoky look that sent heat coiling through her, doused when his words hit her.
    “Our boss?” One ding for the hot diver. “So you have been bought and brainwashed by Judd Paxton already.”
    “I’ve never even met the guy. I just take the paycheck-which, as you know, is better than most.”
    She surveyed his face, trying to read his indecipherable expression. Impossible.
    “Come on,” she finally said. “We’re de-acidified. I want to get dressed. I’m freezing.”
    “You can’t put those clothes back on,” he said. “They still have traces of nitric acid on them. I’ll get you something to wear.”
    “Fine.” She tried to get by him but he grasped her elbow.
    “After you tell me why you want to take pictures, Lizzie.”
    “In case we get caught out here. This dive is illegal. I don’t know if you know anything about Paxton, but he’s made his millions selling most of what his dives recover to private collectors. He gets to pocket a lot more if it’s not reported. Not to mention that, without a claim or lease, we’re a ghost ship out here. No one knows we’re here. That’s dangerous. Pirates-real ones-could board us at any time.”
    “So you’re going to fight them off with pictures?”
    “If that chain happens to disappear somewhere between this boat and the processing lab in Sebastian, then so does a little piece of history. Do you care about that, or are you just in this for the money, like Paxton?”
    His gas flame eyes sent a blood rush from her toes to her ears. “So if you hate the company owner, resent his rules, and already have credentials, why did you take the job?”
    For reasons he’d never get her to admit. “I needed the money,” she said easily. “There’s not a lot of salvage action in the winter, this beats cleaning heads on a ship in dry dock, and… it seemed like an intriguing opportunity.”
    He took another long, slow look at her body. “We better go get your camera, then, before someone finds it.”
    Hope surged. “Does that mean you’re not going to turn me in?”
    “That means I’m going to keep my eye on you.” He stepped to the side, opened the door, and nudged her out. “And I like the rear view very much.”
    She was lying. Lizzie Dare had an agenda as sure as she had a blistering hot body, and he intended to find out a lot more about both.
    “I’m afraid I don’t have much you can wear,” he said, glad he’d stashed his bag under the bunk, so all that she could see was a backpack and the clothes he’d shed when he arrived.
    He grabbed them, pulling on khaki shorts and a shirt. He had a plan, and she needed to be undressed for it to work.
    Taking a towel from a rack next to the head, he held it out. “Small, but it’ll cover the essentials until I get back.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Your cabin to get you clothes. Is it unlocked?”
    “No. The key’s in my sweatshirt in the lab.”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    He didn’t think she’d run down the hall in that tiny towel, giving him enough time to do a quick search of her room.
    In the lab he carefully gathered the clothes-which did include a camera in the pocket, as well as two keys-and dropped them into a plastic bag he found next to the sink where they’d washed.