Shadows At Sunset. Anne Stuart
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not driving my car or me. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” he drawled. A week, he figured. A week before she’d lie down for him, two weeks for the car. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a ride home.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the shop. I was supposed to take one of the company cars but I got distracted up there and forgot to get the keys.”
“You can go back up and get them.”
He shook his head. “The door has a time lock. Once the last person leaves no one can get in until morning.”
“What the hell does my father keep up there, the Fort Knox gold?” she said irritably.
“Just private files. Your father’s involved in some highly complex, sensitive business arrangements. It wouldn’t do for just anyone to walk in and have access to them.”
“Just anyone like his daughter? Who’s obviously far too simpleminded to understand the great big complexity of his sensitive business affairs,” she mocked him.
He ignored that. “I live near Brentwood. It’s not that far out of your way.”
“How do you know where I’m going?”
“You said you were going home. You live in that old mausoleum on Sunset with your brother and sister. I’m right on your way.”
“Call a taxi.”
“My cell phone’s dead.”
“Use mine.” She was rummaging in her purse now, obviously determined to get rid of him. A moment later she pulled out a phone, holding it out to him.
“Why do I make you so uncomfortable?” he said, making no effort to take it.
“You don’t,” she said. “I have a date.”
Two lies, he thought, and she wasn’t very good at lying. Unlike the rest of her family. Dean Meyer seemed almost oblivious to the truth, whereas his father used it as he saw fit, mostly to manipulate people.
But Jilly Meyer couldn’t lie with a straight face, and that was oddly, stupidly endearing. Coltrane wasn’t about to let that weaken his resolve.
“Then you’ll probably want to go home and change before your big night out, and my apartment’s on your way,” he said in his most reasonable voice.
“Get in the damned car.” She shoved her phone back into her purse and headed around toward the driver’s side. He wondered whether she’d chicken out, try to drive off without unlocking the passenger door to let him in. She wouldn’t get far—the garage doors wouldn’t open without the right code.
But she slid behind the wheel, leaned over and unlocked the door, pulling back when he climbed in beside her. The Corvette was beautifully restored, perfectly maintained, and he had a sudden moment of sheer acquisitiveness. He wanted this car.
He didn’t want a car exactly like this. He could afford to buy what he wanted on the exorbitant salary Jackson Meyer was currently paying him, and in L.A. you could find anything for a price. He didn’t want a 1966 Corvette. He wanted the one that belonged to Jilly Meyer.
She was strapping the metal-buckled seat belt across her lap, and she threw him a pointed look, but he made no effort to find his. “I like to live dangerously,” he said. Her short skirt had hiked up even higher in the low-slung cockpit of the car, but he’d decided the time for ogling was past. She’d gotten the initial message, he could back off now. At least for the time being.
He didn’t even waste a glance at his Range Rover. Sooner or later she’d see it, but he didn’t know whether she’d figure out it was his. Probably not—he was doing far too good a job at rattling her. She wouldn’t notice any details.
She drove like a bat out of hell, another surprise, though he expected the squealing tires and tight corners were a protest against his unwanted presence. The moment the garage doors opened she was off like Mario Andretti, racing into the busy streets of L.A. with a complete disregard for life and limb. He gripped the soft leather seat beneath him surreptitiously, keeping a bland expression on his face.
She knew how to drive the ’Vette, he had to grant her that. She wove in and out of traffic, zip-ping around corners, accelerating when he least expected it, avoiding fender benders and pedestrians and cops with equal élan. It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching for the steering wheel, from voicing a feeble protest. She was out to scare him with her driving, and she was doing a good job of it.
She’d grown up in L.A., learned to drive on the freeways and the boulevards; she knew what she was doing. She was getting back at him for intimidating her.
She didn’t even waste her time glancing at him during her wild ride through the city streets. She didn’t need to. She was focused, concentrating on her driving with an almost gleeful energy, and he simply gripped the seat tighter and said nothing, wishing to hell he’d put on the seat belt.
She pulled up in front of his apartment building with a screech of tires, going from fifty to zero in a matter of seconds, and he had no choice but to put his hand on the dashboard to stop his certain journey through the windshield. She turned and gave him a demure smile, all sweet innocence, the triumph gleaming in her brown eyes. “You’re home.”
He kept his expression bland. “If that was supposed to scare me you’ve made your first mistake. I like living dangerously.”
“Hardly my first mistake,” she muttered. “You’re home,” she said again, pointedly. “Goodbye.”
“And what about your brother?”
“What about him?” she said warily.
“Don’t you want to know what your father has planned for him? Isn’t that why you came to see him?”
“What does my father have planned for him?”
“Tomorrow night. Dinner. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“I’m busy.”
“Cancel it. You know perfectly well your brother comes first. You have that codependent look to you.” He was pushing just a little too far, but he sensed she could take it. He needed to keep her angry, interested, willing to fight.
“I’ll meet you.”
“And miss my chance to see the legendary La Casa de Sombras? I’ll pick you up.”
“If you’re interested in famous Hollywood houses you can always take one of those bus tours. La Casa de Sombras used to be on most of them.”
“Including the one that takes you to all the famous scandal sites? I think I’d rather see it with a guided tour from its owner.”
“Dean’s one of the owners. Treat him well and maybe he’ll invite you over.”
“I’m not exactly Dean’s type,” he said.
“You’re not mine, either.”
“And what is your type? I wouldn’t have thought Alan Dunbar would have been the kind of man you’d marry.”
She’d obviously forgotten he’d have access to all of Meyer’s legal affairs, including her divorce settlement. “I think I’ve had enough of you for now,” she said in a deceptively even tone.
“For now,” he agreed, opening the door and sliding his long legs out. “I’ll be there at seven.”
She gunned the motor, speeding away into the oncoming traffic without looking, the passenger door slamming shut of its own volition. He stood beneath the towering palm tree, watching her go.
Unable to decide whether it was the car or the woman he wanted more. And which one he intended to keep.
He shrugged. Probably neither. After almost a year things were finally moving into high gear, and