earrings. Never saw anything like ‘em before.”
She’d touched one of the little clusters of silver bells hanging from her lobes and then she’d frowned.
“Thank you. But—”
“Listen, Ms. Adams. I know what you’re thinking.”
Crista’s violet eyes had been cool. “I doubt it.”
“You’re thinking,” he’d said pleasantly, “this guy moves in here, he’s gonna hit on me.”
Crista hadn’t flinched. “And won’t you?”
“Tell me the truth, Ms. Adams. Am I your type?”
He wasn’t. Oh, he was handsome, but the fact was that Crista had yet to meet a man who was her typebut that was nobody’s business but her own.
“No,” she’d said bluntly, “you’re not.”
“And you’re not mine, Ms. Adams. You’re certainly a looker, but the vibes are all wrong—if you know what I mean.”
Crista had hesitated. Every loony in New York seemed to have answered her ad. This guy, at least, wasn’t mumbling about trips back home to Mars. He’d already shown her his references—and, she’d suddenly realized, sharing an apartment with a man who looked like Mr. Muscle might turn out to be an unexpected bonus.
To her surprise and his, Crista had agreed to a week’s trial—and she’d never regretted it, she thought as she filled a pot with water and set it on to boil. If Danny had one failing, it was that he was sometimes behind on his half of the rent payments, but struggling actors were not known for their wealth.
Anyway, there were more important things than money. Crista’s smile dimmed. She knew that better than anyone. She’d spent her teen years in the lap of luxury, the ward of a coldhearted uncle she’d never known existed until her parents’ deaths. Simon had wasted no time in telling her how her mother had lured her father from the bosom of his family.
“And you,” he’d snapped, “are her very image, in looks and in temperament.”
He had spent the next years determinedly trying to remake that image through private schooling and cultural tours of Europe. Shortly before Crista’s twentieth birthday, the situation had become intolerable. She’d moved out, and Simon had washed his hands of her.
That had been months ago. Still, when she’d read of his death in the paper a few weeks before, she’d gone to his funeral. Simon would have laughed; he’d have called her sentimental, a vulgar emotion he’d abhorred. But he was all the family she had, and sometimes, in the darkest moments of the night, she thought about how alone she was…
“Hey.” She looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, his hair damp from the shower. “Why the long face?”
Crista cleared her throat. “What long face?” she said briskly.
“Did you hear the one about the camel and the goat?”
She groaned. “Only a thousand times.”
“I’ve got a new version, guaranteed to make you smile.”
He was right; the joke did make her smile. In fact, she almost forgot the brief sense of despair that had engulfed her moments ago…
Almost. But not quite.
Grant stood on the terrace of his Fifth Avenue penthouse, sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon from a Baccarat flute, waiting for Kimberly to reappear.
“Such a glum expression,” she’d said in a little-girl voice, just before she’d traipsed off to the powder room. “Don’t worry, darling. When I come back, I’ll make you smile.”
He doubted that, Grant thought grimly. He was bored, he was tired of watching Kimberly watch herself in every reflective surface, and he was hungry. What had his housekeeper left in the kitchen? Canard a l’Orange? Whatever it was, it had to wait until Kimberly put in an appearance.
He shot another look through the open terrace doors into the elegant white-on-white living room. Where the devil was she? She’d said she needed to fix her face—although what you could fix on that face was beyond him. It was so perfect it was almost expressionless, something he’d never noticed before tonight.
“Hell,” Grant muttered, and put the champagne flute down none too gently on a glass-topped table.
What was wrong with him? The feeling of disquiet that had begun late this afternoon had grown so that now he felt edgy and irritable. A premonition, his sister, Kyra, would have said.
He frowned. Kyra? What did she have to do with anything? Why was he thinking of her when—
The telephone on the table beside him shrilled. He picked it up.
“Yes?” he said brusquely. It was Jane, his secretary.
A shape materialized at the far end of the living room. Kimberly was sauntering toward him, her hips swinging as if she were on a modeling runway. She was wearing a scarlet teddy, a sultry pout, and nothing else.
Grant’s breath caught, but not because of Kimberly. He turned away and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
“I see. Thank you, Jane. You did the right thing. I can make it. Would you phone my sister and tell her I’m on my way? And my brothers. You have Zach’s Boston number. Cade is in the Middle East. Ask Zach if—Fine. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone, cleared his throat, and turned to face Kimberly, who was breathing moistly against his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but something’s come up.”
She giggled and put her hand on him. The scent of her perfume, sweet and cloying, filled his nostrils.
“Not yet it hasn’t,” she purred. “But it will.”
Grant’s hand clamped hard around her wrist. “I have a plane to catch,” he said. “Take your time dressing. The doorman will put you in a taxi when you come down.”
“A plane?” Kimberly said, her voice filled with bewilderment. “But I thought we…” Her voice rose as he brushed past her. “Grant, what’s so important that…?”
He wondered what she would say if he told her what was so important, if he said, well, Kimberly, if you must know, my father—a man I feel less for than I would for a stranger—my father, Charles Landon, is dead.
But he only turned and strode through the perfect living room, up the curved staircase to his bedroom. By the time he came down again, carrying a leather weekend bag, he had forgotten Kimberly existed.
In the taxi to the airport he puzzled, briefly, over the sense of disquiet that had plagued him all day. He wasn’t about to give any credence to the idea of premonitions. Still…
Grant sighed wearily, sat back and closed his eyes.
