The Fifth Favor (16 page)

“Should it?”

Her spine stiffened. “In my opinion, yes. I’m not some lonely, dissatisfied politician’s wife. I don’t need or want casual sex from you. I wasn’t looking for anything from you except your story. And now see what’s happening.”

His brows lowered. “What exactly is happening, Billie?”

More games.
She opened her mouth, then clicked it shut and started to climb out.

“Thanks for the concert. I’m going now.”

“Billie.”

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“No,” she said, even as she swung her legs back into the car and swiveled to stare at him. “You’re a real bastard, Adrian.”

The confusion in his expression turned her angry resolve to putty. “And you’re not like the women I know. You’re insecure and loving and honest with your emotions.

What you want from me makes me uncomfortable.”

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat and failed. “May I go now?”

“It makes me think I want it, too.”

Billie closed her eyes, counted to five in tandem with her thundering heart; opened them. “Damn you…” She lunged over the console to meet his waiting lips.

They kissed, long and ravenous and angry. Catching her hand, he folded it against his chest, where his own heart beat a quickened, steady rhythm. Instantly the kiss softened, became languid, a little contrite, laced with lingering desire.

“If you write about us,” he said breathlessly, resting his forehead against hers,

“you’ll owe me.”

“A favor for a favor?” She kissed him again, her lips clinging to his. No one had ever tasted as good as this man. “What will I give you this time, Adrian? My soul? My first-born child?”

“Something,” he said softly. “I’ll call you when I know what it is.”

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Adrian shoved open the curtains in his Avalon bedroom and blinked at the explosion of morning sun. He’d overslept, ignored the soft, jangling call Azure’s secretary, Maria, had placed to gently rouse him and help nudge his client out the door.

Overnight guests were a rarity at Avalon. The only reason Adrian had agreed to a last-minute slumber party with renowned criminal defense attorney Magda Himmelman was a self-serving one. He needed a good lawyer; the certainty of it had washed over him with dread and dismay yesterday when Detective Hales showed up at his door with the news.

Senator Gwendolyn Campbell had denied ever having been to Avalon even once in her pristine, upstanding life, much less the night Lucien soared from Adrian’s balcony.

There was nothing in the club’s records, either, to corroborate his insistence that he’d entertained the senator that evening. Someone had erased it.

Once again the surreal urgency of his situation shuddered through him. His alibi was shattered, dissolved in a swirl of deceit and betrayal.

He startled when Magda slid languid arms around his waist from behind.

“What are you thinking?” Her tone was too lazy, her touch too proprietary as she pressed her cheek to his naked back.

“We overslept,” he said.

It was time for her to go.

Sensing his aloofness, she released him and went to gather her clothes. While she showered and dressed, he pulled on a pair of drawstring bottoms and made her a cup of coffee. None of the other companions offered their overnight clients coffee upon rising. But for Adrian, it gave the morning’s inevitable sense of ignominy a touch of civility for the client…and this time, for him, too.

He’d performed like a well-oiled automaton last night, blocking out the reality of the woman taking her pleasure beneath him, banishing images of Billie that rushed time and again through his thoughts and threatened the steely control he maintained over his own orgasm. When at last he’d let himself go, one fevered word had pounded through his brain.

Billie.

Thirty-six hours had passed since he’d been with her, and he hadn’t yet regained his equilibrium.

He had nothing left to give the customers rotating in and out his bedroom door. In that dreamlike, vacuous time since Billie knelt before him in the woods, ejaculation had 87

Shelby Reed

become, inexplicably, an intensely private thing, a moment of weakness he wanted to share with no one.

But he had shared it, with Billie.
She
was a weakness, a chink in his carefully constructed armor. He’d given all.

He wanted more.

“I’m leaving my card,” Magda said after she’d drained her coffee cup. She retrieved her purse and set a business card on the bedside table, then captured his gaze across the room, once again the cool, self-possessed, ball-busting criminal lawyer known far and wide by district attorneys everywhere. “I’d be happy to talk with you off the clock, Adrian. We could meet for drinks.”

He shook his head and offered her a polite smile that said he had no interest in personal interaction outside Avalon. “Thank you, Magda, but I insist on paying for your services. After all, you pay for mine.”

She nodded, a gesture of concession, and paused at the door. “They don’t have a case against you. You do know that.”

“I didn’t kill Lucien,” he said, his façade slipping just a little. “But they don’t seem to want to hear that.”

She swept a lock of her frosted blond bob behind one ear and offered him a rueful smile. “Never a dull moment in this business, is there? Have you thought about leaving Avalon?”

“No,” he said flatly.

One graceful eyebrow lifted. “Well, be careful who you run with. Be on your best behavior. For now, all the detectives can do is harass you…unless they find something.

If this goes any further, call me immediately.”

“Wait.” Propelled by a sudden surge of gratitude, he approached her and leaned to brush his lips against hers.

Never kiss your clients goodbye
, Azure always said, but Adrian was finished listening to her.

Deceitful, cold-hearted bitch. She had erased Gwendolyn Campbell from the schedule to protect the senator, and Adrian knew it. She had sacrificed him to the wolves, but he wouldn’t take the fall without her. If it were the last thing he ever did, he’d hang tight to Azure Elan and drag her down with him until the darkness closed over both their heads.

* * * * *

Billie met Nora for lunch on Sunday and waited a safe, discreet hour before broaching the subject of Lucien DeChambeau’s death. The two women sat at a 88

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shadowed corner table of Old Ebbitt Grill, hunched over plates of Salad Nicoise, when Billie finally said, “So give me the update on the Avalon investigation.”

Nora wiped her mouth on a linen napkin and sat back. “I only know a few details.

Rich would tell me everything if I’d sleep with him.”

“Don’t,” Billie said sharply. “He has the integrity of a barn rat.”

“Worry not. The thought has barely crossed my mind.” She picked at the salad with her fork. “All I know is that Avalon could be headed for a massive scandal, and I want you to write an exposé article on what you know about the club.”

Billie’s heart plummeted. Dabbing her lips with her napkin, she glanced up and caught Nora’s gaze. It was now or never. “I won’t write the article if a scandal breaks.”

Nora’s penciled brows drew down. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m not the right reporter for the job.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re easily the most tenacious and determined writer on staff, Billie. Why wouldn’t you—?”

“A conflict of interest. Don’t ask me to elaborate.”

Nora watched her for a moment, suspicion and confusion dancing across her sharp features. Then she sighed and sat back again. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but tread carefully, Billie. The woman Adrian claimed to be with on the night of Lucien DeChambeau’s death denies everything. Azure Elan asserts she has no record of the woman’s membership, either. No one saw her there, it seems, except Adrian.”

“But they take guests all the time,” Billie exclaimed. “She might have held a one-time pass.”

“And I hear she’s a politician of some kind, which wouldn’t look good at all if her identity got out.”

“So she’s lying.”

“Or Adrian’s lying.”

Billie shook her head, recalling the pain that tightened Adrian’s features as he spoke of his friend only yards from where Lucien had jumped to his death. “He wouldn’t lie.

He cared deeply about Lucien. He’d never—” She cut herself off when she realized Nora was regarding her with narrowed eyes.

“Adrian spoke to you about Lucien?”

“Just briefly.” She shrugged and lightened her tone. “I asked him about the other companions at Avalon. He mentioned Lucien was his closest friend at the club. He had no reason to kill the guy.”

“That you know of,” Nora said. “Don’t be naïve, Billie. And for God’s sake, don’t let a useless fascination with the man get in the way of your common sense. For all you know, Adrian’s a terrific actor who specifically fed you that information so he could have a character witness in his corner.”

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A sick sensation gripped Billie’s stomach. She was more than a mere character witness. She wanted to believe Adrian was far, far away the night Lucien flew from that balcony, even if it meant him being tangled up in some client’s arms like he’d claimed.

But if he couldn’t prove to the authorities that he’d been with the politician during those key hours…God help him. God help her, because her heart would suffer the brunt of the trauma.

* * * * *

Adrian called close to midnight. Billie had barely nodded off with a Michael Crichton novel propped against her breasts when the phone trilled and jolted every nerve in her body.

“I woke you,” he said.

“Just barely.” She shivered as his voice, husky-warm, wrapped around her senses.

“But while we’re on the subject, why are you calling so late?”

She held her breath, wondering if he’d mention the collapse of his alibi. She didn’t want to know the truth. She wanted to continue traipsing along, blinded by lust and infatuation, entangled in Adrian’s shadows. Just for a little while longer. The pleasure he’d brought to her existence was too potent to abandon just yet.

“Did you write about us today?” he asked.

She hesitated. “I danced around the details, but yes, I did express a certain…semi-biblical knowledge…of an unnamed companion at an unnamed club.”

“Read it to me.”

As a rule, Billie never allowed anyone to see her rough drafts before she submitted them to Nora. But lately, every tenet in her stockpile seemed so easily undone by Adrian Antoli.

This was no different. She found herself padding across the carpet to her computer, where a first, unfinished draft of the article about him still protruded from the printer.

“It’s very rough,” she told him, perching on the swivel chair. “I write first, then polish later.”

“I’m listening.”

Clearing her throat, she skimmed the first page, deemed it presentable and began to recite what she’d written.

Adrian listened in silence. When she was done, he said, “It’s very provocative.”

“You’re a provocative subject.”

“And you’re a talented writer. You’re truthful.”

“Yes,” she said wryly. “It’s not always a good thing.”

“You wrote about what happened in the woods last week.”

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“Indirectly.”

“Directly enough to turn me on all over again.”

She drew a shaky breath. “Readers will want to know what it’s like to be with you, and I think I answered that question in a tactful way. Don’t you?”

“Tactful, yes. And I’m glad to know you enjoyed it as much as I did.”

She took another deep breath to steady her racing pulse. “So now I guess I owe you.”

“Mmm. I’ve been lying here, thinking about what I want in exchange.”

A current of excitement shivered through her. “And?”

“First I want you to tell me something. A secret.”

“Fine,” Billie said, her voice firm. “And then you tell me one. Play fair, Adrian.”

He paused. “What if I don’t like what you ask me?”

“That could go either way.”

“You don’t have to answer, then. You can just hang up.”

Now that she had him, his low voice caressing her ear, she wouldn’t dream of hanging up on him. Unless, of course, he made her angry, which was certainly in his power. “I’ll just tell you no. Something I’m sure you never hear.”

“Hmm,” was all he said, and the humor in his tone told her he appreciated her acid response. “What happened in your life that makes you so wounded and skittish?”

She frowned, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You had a lengthy relationship. I want to know about him.”

Ted. The last person Billie wanted to remember in her state of hazy pleasure. She sighed and bid farewell to the slow, sexual burn Adrian had stirred in her core. “Now?”

“Now. First get comfortable. Are you lying down?”

“Yes, Dr. Freud.” She climbed beneath her covers and propped an extra pillow behind her head. “There’s nothing to tell. I had a relationship that lasted five years, and then it ended.” Bitterness crept into her tone. “It ended somewhat abruptly when Ted Chadwick, chief bastard of the universe, married someone else.”

“I see.” The even tone of his voice revealed nothing. “Did you want to marry him?”

“I don’t know. Every time the subject came up, we’d agree to put it off. We were both so busy with our lives. He had his law professorship and I had my writing. I thought we were happy, but I guess I was the only one. I opened the newspaper one morning when he was away on a business trip and read about his engagement to

‘Vickie St. Claire of Potomac’.”

Adrian’s silence prompted her to continue. “When I confronted him, he immediately came clean. He’d been seeing her behind my back for months, trying to decide whom he wanted more. Wholesome Billie, or affluent, old-money Vickie St.

Claire.”

“Did she know about you?”

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“No. I was tempted to be the shrew, look her up and share the information, but it wouldn’t have made him love me again.”