Lovegame(11)

“Especially those ones. They’re very often the nosiest.” This time the smile she gives me is as enigmatic as it is enticing. “Now, do you want that coffee or not?”

I almost say yes because I’m dying for some caffeine to help clear my head. But she expects it of me, and every instinct I have is screaming at me that doing what she expects is not the way to get anywhere with this woman. So at the last second, I change my affirmation to, “How about a tour instead?”

Her eyebrows shoot up nearly to her hairline. “A tour?” Mission accomplished as she looks like she doesn’t even know what the word means.

“Of the house?” I clarify. When she still doesn’t respond right away, I’m more than a little mystified. Surely I can’t be the first one to ask it of her. This house, built for her legendary mother by her even more legendary father, is almost as famous as she is. “We nosy true crime writers know that a person’s house says a lot about them. Especially when it’s a house the person in question has spent most of her life living in.”

“Does it really?” She relaxes incrementally. “Well, then, I can hardly say no, can I?”

“You can always say no to me.” I’m not sure what spurs me to say it, but once the words are out I don’t regret them. My instincts assure me they need to be said. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

She freezes and for the first time today I see something in those violet eyes that isn’t manufactured. I just wish I could figure out what it is.

She recovers nicely, though, with a Madonna-like smile and the slide of a palm down my back. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

This time, she doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she turns on her heel and starts the long trek across the rapidly emptying ballroom.

For long seconds I stay where I am, held in place by the sensual sway of her hips with each step she takes. From behind, she’s all long hair and longer legs and curves that make a man want. And I am very definitely a man. What I wouldn’t do for a chance to—

I cut the thought off abruptly, before it can fully form. Partly because it feels wrong to be fantasizing about a woman I’m working with, even if she is one of the biggest sex symbols in the world. And, more important, because there’s no way I’m going to screw up the opportunity I’ve got just because I want to f*ck one of the only people still alive who has spent more than a cursory amount of time with Vargas.

Veronica stops at the ballroom doors and waits a few seconds, though she never glances back at me. I do a quick jog across the room to catch up, saying the pat, “Sorry, I was checking my messages—”

“Save it,” she answers, cutting me off. “I know exactly what you were checking out.” She sends an arch look over her shoulder as she moves out of the room.

Deciding that in this case silence really is the better part of valor, I follow her without another word. Part of me wants to explain, to tell her that I’m really not that guy. But since she’s caught me ogling her twice in two days, I’m not sure she’ll buy it. Besides, I can’t guarantee that prolonged exposure to Veronica Romero isn’t turning me into exactly that guy.

Just the thought makes me feel like a total dick.

The ballroom takes up the entire fourth floor of the house, so we take the wide circular staircase down to the third floor. As we do, I can’t help wondering what must it be like to be so used to men ogling you that you can sense it even with your back turned, even in men who should know better?

The question—not to mention her obvious experience in dealing with situations such as these—shames me and I vow to keep my mind on the case and off her very delectable ass for the rest of the time I spend with her. I’m not an animal, after all. How hard can it be?

“This floor is made up almost completely of guest rooms,” she tells me, her voice as perfectly modulated as a tour guide’s as she leads me from the landing and down a long, winding hallway. “There are twelve.”

“Twelve guest rooms?” I ask, surprised despite myself. The house is huge, but still, twelve is a pretty big number. Especially for someone as insular as Veronica obviously is.

“My mother likes to entertain.”

“And your father?”

“He liked to keep my mother happy, so…Twelve guest rooms and a ballroom the size of a small country.” She stops in front of the first room we come to, gestures inside of it. “So, this is the Picasso room.”

I angle my body so I can get a glimpse of the room. “Because there’s a Picasso in there?”

“Because there are three.”

“Paintings?”

“Sketches. The one painting my father owns still hangs in his office downstairs.”

I notice that she refers to the room as her father’s office, though he’s been dead for nearly three years.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask even as I dart into the room to look at the sketches. Picasso is a particular favorite of mine and when else am I going to get to see his sketches this up close and personal? And without a line on a museum floor that I’m not supposed to cross?

The sketches are everything Picasso drawings are known for. Cubist. Sexualized. Brilliant. I could stare at them for another hour—maybe even the rest of the day—but it’s obvious that Veronica is antsy. She wants to move on.