The Fifth Favor (10 page)

A dark, male hand flattened against the box next to her head. With a startled screech, Billie whirled around.

Adrian’s face looked lethal. It was her only thought before he hauled her by the arm into the hall, tried the knob on a nearby janitor’s closet door and finding it unlocked, yanked it open and shoved her inside.

“I’m certain you have a reason for invading my privacy,” he gritted as he pulled the door closed behind them and pinned her against it. “Make me understand, Ms. Cort.

Quickly.”

52

The Fifth Favor

It was pitch black inside the tiny space. Billie had stopped breathing somewhere between the mailboxes and the janitor’s closet. Now she gulped oxygen like a marathon runner, her heart stumbling to keep up with her thoughts. The acrid scent of Pine-Sol filled her nostrils. Where was the doorknob?

Her hand brushed it before his fingers dug into the tender flesh of her upper arms.

With an indignant grunt, she tried to jerk free of his steely grasp and found it futile. His face was close to hers. His breath rushed against her lips, his hard chest pressed to her breasts.

“I’m waiting. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“What do you want me to say?” she shot back.

“Someone at Avalon gave you my address. A complete breach of privacy. Who was it?”

“No one. I—”

One hand left her arm and groped by her head. They both blinked in the sudden, naked glare of the overhead bulb. “Are you a cop, Ms. Cort?”

“No.” She squirmed against the grip he kept on one arm and avoided his probing stare.

“A private investigator?”

“I’m a reporter, you know that. I followed you home from the grocery store.”

His dark brows drew down. “You followed me? On foot?”

Too flustered to give further voice to the humiliating truth, Billie nodded.

“Why?”

Heat seeped into her cheeks. “Curiosity.”

He squinted at her. “I think you’re a cop.”

“If I were a cop, Adrian, I’d have you in a self-defense chokehold by now. Would you please let go of me?”

He released her so abruptly, her heels slid against the glossy linoleum. “This is inexcusable. Did Nora Richmond put you up to this?”

“Nora has nothing to do with it,” Billie said, trembling with a wild mix of adrenaline and misplaced excitement. “She told me to stay away from you, to forget about the article.”

“You should have listened.”

“I did listen. But then I saw you at Nirvana Market.”

His eyes narrowed. “How did you get into this building? The doorman let you in?”

“No. I got by him while he was on the phone.” She shouldered her purse and drew a shaky breath to regain her composure. “Look, Adrian, or whoever you are… I started a story. Your story. It had the potential to pull
Illicit
up by the bootstraps, but when I called to arrange another interview with you, Azure said…” She peered at his stony 53

Shelby Reed

expression and chose tact. “Circumstances threw a wrench in my research, and I’m tenacious. I can’t help it. I’m sorry for invading your privacy. I won’t bother you again.”

He didn’t reply right away, but gradually the silky mask of composure dropped over his features again. Cool, collected, in control of his passions.

“You want to finish the interview?” he said skeptically. “That’s why you followed me?”

She nodded, watching his face for a sign of surrender. After a moment, he sighed and opened the door.

“Come on.” He recaptured her elbow, gently this time.

“Where are we going?” Visions of him tossing her out on the street darted through her mind.

“Upstairs, to my place. You’ll get your damned interview.”

They rode the elevator in terse silence, separated by a striking Asian couple dressed in haute couture. When the couple stepped off at the tenth floor and the doors slid closed, Adrian punched the “fourteen” button again and turned to Billie. His mouth was a firm, furious slash. But his eyes, like black opals, glittered, and slowly, unexpectedly, slid down to the opening of her beige silk blouse. Lingered. Then lower.

She couldn’t read his expression anymore. His ungodly lashes were in the way.

Uneasy, she said, “What kind of an interview will this be if you’re angry with me?”

“Maybe one you’ll never forget.” A humorless smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“You should’ve thought about that before you followed me home.”

Heart hammering, Billie eyed the control panel. She could dive for the emergency button, but he stood too close to it.

A sigh escaped her, shaky and uncertain. Although he was obviously angry, he didn’t look as if he harbored violent intentions anymore. And if she thought hard about it, she didn’t want to miss this chance. She wanted, as he’d so delicately put it, her damned interview.

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open.

“After you.” Adrian gestured toward the dimly lit hall.

Squaring her shoulders, Billie moved ahead of him and paused while he drew a set of keys from the pocket of his jeans. His apartment was the first door on the left, across from a Chippendale console that showcased an opulent floral arrangement. Fresh flowers. Signs of affluence in every corner.

Inside, he laid his keys on a glass console beneath a gilt framed mirror and switched on a lamp. His groceries, still bagged, sat beside it. “I went back downstairs to get my mail,” he said in wry explanation, “and somehow got distracted.”

Billie hovered by the door. “Tell me you don’t want to give me this interview and I’ll go. My conscience is catching up with me.”

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The Fifth Favor

“Why listen to it now?” He motioned toward a wide, warmly lit living room, but she hesitated when her gaze fell on a dog’s purple chew toy, half-hidden behind a floor lamp.

“Where’s your dog?” He’d said it was a Labrador, a friendly breed, but nothing would surprise her at this point.

Adrian seemed to weigh his response before he said, “I’m having new carpet installed. Rudy’s staying at my sister’s.”

Billie nodded, rubbing her arms against a sudden chill. “Your sister lives nearby?”

“In Bethesda.”

So he had a sibling, and a mother. And Frosted Flakes in his grocery bag. Details she suddenly felt guilty for knowing.

He directed her into the living room, where she gingerly seated herself on a tan leather sofa.

“Your home is beautiful,” she said, her gaze skimming the surprisingly traditional furnishings. She’d pegged him for a chrome and contemporary type, but warmth and comfort pervaded every inch of the room, down to the new, creamy Berber carpet beneath her feet. Most of the furniture, an eclectic collection, appeared antique. An impressive compilation of books lined the shelves that swallowed an entire wall to her right. Dostoyevsky, Ayn Rand, Leon Uris. He liked mysteries. History. Art.

“You didn’t bring your tape recorder or notebook,” he said, watching her from the entry.

“I didn’t count on trailing you home.”

He crossed to a walnut credenza and opened the cabinet to display a fully stocked bar. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Thank you.”

He withdrew a bottle of Jim Beam, splashed a finger of whiskey in the bottom of a glass and turned to rest his backside against the cabinet’s edge. It took him three swallows to drain the amber liquid. He replaced the bottle, slammed the cabinet doors a little too firmly and moved to sit beside her. “Let’s go, then.”

Billie was unprepared for the effect of his nearness. The scent of whiskey, faded aftershave and warm exertion floated to her senses, sped her pulse. Even angry, he was astonishing.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I’m drawing a blank.” Up close, his features weren’t just beautiful. They had character. Laugh lines etched the corners of his eyes, hinted at a quick sense of humor.

A tiny scar marked the bow of his upper lip. She hadn’t expected to find vulnerability in his face, but there it was. Just a glimpse, before he looked down at her hands clutched in her lap.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’ve made a mistake by coming here.” She started to rise, but he caught her wrist.

55

Shelby Reed

“This isn’t just about the interview, is it? You want something more.” The realization dawning on his face stripped her, left her feeling exposed.

Billie hesitated, her heart stampeding in her chest. “I couldn’t stand the thought of losing this article. But the way I ended up here, sitting in your apartment…it feels wrong. I’m sorry for following you, for invading your privacy.” She glanced at his fingers, strong, tanned, curled around her pale wrist. “I’m leaving now.”

He released her. She reached the door and opened it just in time for him to say,

“Wait, Billie.”

Her palm went damp on the doorknob, her gaze fixed on the floral arrangement across the hall. It filled the air with the sweet scent of roses, cloying,
eau de funeral home
.

Maybe fresh flowers in stuffy apartment hallways weren’t such a luxury.

“Don’t go.” His voice grew closer, his tennis shoes thudding softly on the teak entry behind her.

“Why not?” A sudden, irrational urge to cry choked her. “My job is on the line here.

Maybe I’ll just anger you more and you’ll call Nora. She’d have my head if she knew about this, believe me. So why risk it?”

The heat from his body soaked her back. “I can’t think of a single reason,” he said against her hair. “Just…stay.” One hand crept around her waist, fingers splayed across her stomach, a needful, plaintive gesture. “One of the companions at Avalon died.”

“I know.” She found herself leaning back against his hard body as heat coiled tightly in her middle. “Your friend.”

“Azure called him Lucien, so that’s how the world knew him. But his real name was Luke.” He paused, his fingers flexing against her stomach. “He killed himself.”

“It’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

His body tensed behind her. “The police thought I had something to do with it.”

Billie turned to look at him. “Did you?”

“No.” His troubled gaze wandered over her face. Then he dipped his head and caught her lips in a soft, clinging kiss. One of the sweetest Billie had ever been offered.

One of the most erotic.

When he withdrew, she swallowed and said, “Why did you do that?”

“Because you looked like you believed me when I told you I had nothing to do with Lucien’s death.” He stepped back. “Will you stay for a while? I’d like your company.”

An odd and earnest request, one she couldn’t deny. Wordlessly she stepped into the foyer and waited while he closed the door again. He retrieved the grocery bags from the console, handed her one and led the way to a galley kitchen with granite countertops and sleek, brushed-steel appliances.

“There’s a wine rack in the pantry,” he said, unpacking groceries as she withdrew the bottle of Chardonnay from the bag.

Billie opened the folding door he’d indicated and slid the bottle into the iron rack, her heart trip-hammering in her chest. She hadn’t stood in a man’s kitchen and helped 56

The Fifth Favor

put away groceries in a long, long time. There was something excruciatingly intimate about it.

They worked in silence. Billie opened a few cabinets before she found where he kept the canned goods, put away the rest of the items in the bag, and then turned to watch him. He looked different than the sleek, seductive figure she’d met at Avalon.

Maybe it was his casual attire; maybe it was the unhappiness that lined his face. But he seemed younger. Less formidable.

He closed the pantry and gazed at her. “Thanks for your help.” Then he motioned toward the living room and she followed him to the sofa, where they sat as before. The tension between them stretched taut and painful, having nothing to do with anger anymore.

“Tell me about Lucien,” she said.

57

Shelby Reed

“We were college roommates,” Adrian said, his dark head resting against the back of the beige leather sofa. “He was a physics major, brilliant but lawless. He could sniff out excitement, pursued it like a full-time job. When he started working at Avalon and dropped out of school, I thought he was crazy. Then things went wrong for me. I ran into financial trouble. He introduced me to Azure, and she wasn’t what I’d envisioned.

You know what she’s like.”

“Very beautiful,” Billie said, taking in the subtle darkening of his frown. “Exotic and sexy.”

“Persuasive. Like Luke, I fell into the business, head first.” His hand rubbed restless circles on the soft expanse between them. “He and I both changed after that.”

“How?” she asked.

He sighed, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond her shoulder. “Avalon’s one of the finest pleasure clubs in existence. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re working on the street or under a crystal chandelier. The business—prostitution—opens the doors to heaven…and hell. Drugs, money, iniquity. It’s all there if you want it. I never knew pleasure could be twisted in a million different ways until I found Avalon.”

He glanced at her, his dark eyes troubled. “Imagine the wildest possible sexual experience, Billie, and then intensify it fifty times. That’s what it was like for us those first couple of years. Every night. Days, too. After a while your enthusiasm starts to wear. You settle down, work your hours, go home to live your life the best you can. But not Luke. He tried it all and went back for seconds.”

“Adrian,” Billie said carefully, “There’s rumors about you and Lucien. That you were more than friends.”

“We
were
more than friends. We were like brothers. And they think I’d hurt him.

It’s insane.”

“But doesn’t it make sense the police would want to question you first? He chose your balcony to jump from.”

Pain creased the space between his brows. “Yes, he chose my balcony. I don’t know his reason, but I do know why people talked about Luke and me. They talk about things they can’t put a name to…in this case, a friendship between men that seemed to surpass normal boundaries. But what’s normal? Certainly not a life at Avalon. We forged a friendship within a lifestyle most people condemn.”