Page 7 of Blood Stone

The waiter arrived to take their orders, and Kate got the Cobb Salad, suddenly starving, while Adrian settled for coffee.

“I ate on the plane,” he told her, handing the waiter the menus. “And I’m still on Eastern Time.”

“So why the sudden trip to New York?” she asked. She was on the verge of adding “You left without a word,” but realized that he didn’t owe her that much, anyway. “Business?” she asked, keeping her tone as light and uninterested as she could manage.

“Something like that.” Adrian’s tone matched hers. He put his elbow on the table and rested his head on his hand, so that he could turn and look at her properly. “I hope you didn’t stay lonely while I’ve been gone?” His voice had shifted and become deeper. Sexier.

Kate couldn’t help her tiny little in-drawn breath. But it was infinitesimal, and Adrian shouldn’t have been able to hear it. She couldn’t help the little snapshot images of Greg Evershot, in and out of his tuxedo, that zinged through her mind.

“Youdidn’t,” he breathed, a smile starting to form. Kate could hear approval and arousal in those two words, and her body tingled in response. He sat up, studying her.

Kate pursed her lips and stared levelly back at him.

“Who was the lucky guy?” Adrian asked.

“None of your business,” she shot back.

His smile broadened. “He can’t have been very good if you were still awake at three a.m. talking to me. Ask for your money back, Kate.”

Kate laughed a little. “You’re being figurative, I hope. Or should I just lay hundred dollar bills on the mattress when I want to have sex with you?”

“You’d need more money than you could raise to pay for a night with me, Kate Lindenstream.” There was genuine anger in his voice, mixed up with the sexy provocation and even though Adrian’s expression didn’t change by a fraction of an inch, Kate could see something in his eyes shift.

Her breath, her heart, even her pulse seemed to stand still. She wasn’t imagining it, she knew that. She was a director — it was her job to differentiate between nuances of an actor’s line delivery to get the perfect inflection, the perfect line. Plus, she had perfect pitch. And alarm bells were ringing.

Fear.

Kate managed to get her voice to work again. “Are you...you’re not...?”A prostitute?

The deathly silence that followed could only have lasted a mere second or two in real time, but it seemed to stretch forever while her pulse thudded in her temples and her throat.

“No one buys or sells me, Kate.” His voice was even. Controlled.

She let out a breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding. “It’s hard to imagine anyone daring to try it. Harder still, you letting them getting away with it,” she tossed back at him as lightly as she could.

“Then you’ve read that much of me right.” Adrian hadn’t moved from that perfectly still position. It occurred to Kate that he was perhaps full of tension that he was not letting her see.

“The little bit you’ve shown, yeah,” she agreed carefully, trying to make it sound light, and absolutely free of any resentment, because there really wasn’t any. They’d both mutually chosen this hands-off, distant circling of each other. They both understood the industry and the games people played because of it, and this wary, slow approach had been just fine.

Had been?

Kate hastily pushed the little voice aside for later consideration.

Adrian drew in a breath. Let it out. Then he lifted his chin to draw her attention to their waiter, hurrying toward them with her salad.

“Lunch,” he announced. “Great.” He sounded relieved.

Kate wanted to shove the door back open on the subject he was clearly trying to shut down, but instinct told her to hold back on the need to dig deeper.

Kate knew Adrian was bad news. She could tell from his appearance. More, she could tell from her response to him. She knew too little about him, and no one she knew seemed to know anything about him, either. Everyone knew someone who knew him, but no one knew him directly. He was a cypher. He hugged the dark in a land where everyone wanted the spotlight. It wasn’t natural.

It made him irresistible to her. Adrian Xerus lay in her future. How badly was he going to screw up her life? How strong a damage shield could she maintain?

Physically, probably none. His voice, his eyes, his big hands and strong arms, those thickly muscled shoulders — the combination preyed upon her weaknesses in the most devastatingly effective way.

Mentally, well, she had been playing power games with the big boys for nearly a decade now. Longer, actually.

Adrian would have to be really good to get around her mentally, so if he had an agenda, she knew she could spot it and neutralize it before he got to play it on her.