Page 6 of Blood Stone

Chapter Two

“I like a girl that is on time,” Adrian murmured.

Kate slid onto the seat and moved further around the semi-circle so they were sitting a little closer together than a politically correct ten and two, but not quite snuggled together. It wasn’t that sort of relationship.

Yet.

“I’m three minutes late,” Kate observed. “How was New York?”

“Cold and wet. But you’re not ten minutes late or fifteen or twenty-five. Three is barely noticeable, in this town.” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin, his blue eyes twinkling.

Garrett had blue eyes, but not like Adrian`s. Garrett`s blue was softer, milder, offsetting the dramatic colouring of his hair. Adrian`s was almost an electric blue, which was odd for a man of clear Greek descent, but it made him stand out in any crowd.

He looked damned good for someone who had just caught the early flight from New York. The stubble was an almost permanent part of him that she only ever saw disappear for high formal occasions. He was wearing his usual designer jeans and dark sleeveless tee-shirt and a leather jacket lay over the back of the buffet, which must have been in concession to the cold rainy weather in New York. He did things to jeans and sleeveless tee-shirts that would turn an entire apparel industry on its skinny behind if they saw him coming, especially with the black leather belts and plain, square silver buckles he preferred, that sat down low on his hips...and drew the eye.

Kate quite often found her current train of thought utterly derailed whenever Adrian was walking toward her.

He gave her a small smile. “I appreciate the honour of you turning up on time for me, though. I know what it means around here.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. “It means, I’m hungry,” she teased, reaching for the menu.

The restaurant was already getting busy, but it was a Tuesday, so it was unlikely to be too jammed, today. No one was sitting right behind them, where they could listen to every word they said — another reason Kate didn’t like The Standard.

“I’ve been thinking about you.” Adrian’s deep rumble was enhanced by the back seat cushion they shared. It ran through her body and brought it awake and alert in a way that Greg Evershot, bless his adorable A-List ass, just hadn’t managed last night. Kate stared at the first page of the menu without really seeing it.

This was new, for Adrian. This wasromantic, almost. To this point, he’d been great company, undemanding, even distant, except that she knew from the look in his eyes and his body language that he wanted her.

And she wanted him. No question. Her body quivered at the idea of Adrian Xerus. But she had always figured she would get to set the pace because so far, she had.

Now this.

“You’ve been thinking about me?” Kate repeated inanely, still unable to focus on the menu. And the stupid thing was, she was girlishly pleased he had spared her a single thought at all, while she apparently couldn’t string a single coherent, adult sentence together in response. Damn it.

“I think you need the next page,” Adrian said, and flipped the page of her menu for her. “That’s just the intro crap.”

She looked at him and rolled her eyes. He was grinning as he leaned back, enjoying her discomposure.

“Asshole,” she muttered. “You did that deliberately.”

He reached out and tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear. “Yep,” he agreed. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. Pick your lunch, Kate.”

She went back to studying the menu.

Adrian Xerus was a dark mystery to her. She had met him at one of the Golden Globe parties about two weeks ago. Unlike all the stars and industry people at the party, he had been dressed in jeans and a sleeveless tee-shirt that had been displaying every well-rounded muscle in his arms, and the rippling tattoo over each thick shoulder. He bristled with two days’ growth and his short, glossy black hair looked like he’d merely pushed his fingers through it upon rising. There was a heavy silver-coloured ring in one ear that glinted in a way that Kate recognised as polished white gold and titanium.

But it was his blue, blue eyes that had caught her attention, and the way he had of looking straight into her and seeing things that no one else did.

For two weeks he had continued to show up at the same events that Kate did. By the second week, he had been arriving at those events because Kate had contrived to let him know where she would be. But she held back from calling it ‘dating,’ even though he had coaxed her private cellphone number from her by the time the Oscars rolled around.

Three days ago he had disappeared.

Vanished.

Until last night, very late, he had phoned from New York and asked her to meet him here today for lunch. A date. He hadn’t said the word “date” at all, but that was what it amounted to. In the two weeks they had been accidentally-on-purpose running into each other it had always been at public Hollywood events, surrounded by peers.

This wouldn’t be anything like that. It would be a lunchdate.

But the off-hand, casual way Adrian had suggested the meeting had made it so easy for Kate to agree that it hadn’t been until after the call that she had realized the implications.