Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(80)
Only one guy got the joke. He’d bought me a vodka tonic in appreciation.
“Poor baby,” Paul said as he handed me my bag and slid onto the stool, giving my new friend the evil eye. “I feel sorry for any guy who tried to hit on you. Did you knee him in the balls?”
“That’s an extra special move that I reserve for extra special guys like you. Where were you? Buying the Vatican so you can knock it down to put in a strip mall?”
“I’m glad you got your sense of humor back. I was worried you were going to be pissy about all this.” He made eye contact with the busy bartender. “What she’s having.” Then he eyed my drink. “That better not be something nonalcoholic, like club soda. I want your defenses down tonight for when I take full and total advantage of you.”
“Wow, you really are still just as in love with yourself as you were in high school, aren’t you?” I made a slashing motion beneath my chin to the bartender. “He won’t be having anything, sorry. We have to go.”
“What do you mean?” Paul’s face fell. “I just got here. Look, I apologize for being late, I had a conference call about the properties—you can’t believe how nasty people are being about my tearing down that house of yours. I thought you were a bitch about it, but that damned historical society, shit. And I’m sorry I made the crack about your glasses. I thought I left instructions to dress sexy, but with your hair like that, and the glasses, you look more like a schoolmarm than a sex kitten.”
“Schoolmarm?” I laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment. You don’t know what that means to me, truly.” I took him by the arm, then almost dropped it in surprise. He’d been working out, maybe even more than I had. I could feel his bicep through the expensive Italian wool of his suit. It wasn’t as big as Jesse’s, but it was rock solid, which was a little daunting, considering what I had planned. “But we have an appointment elsewhere.”
“Appointment? What kind of appointment? Oooh, is it here in the hotel, for a couples’ massage? I hear they have outstanding sea-salt scrubs, really rough, the way I like it.” His dark eyebrows furrowed. “Suze, I like the initiative, but you’re making this too easy. It’s way more fun when you play hard to get.”
“Then you’re in for the time of your life tonight.” I dropped the keys to the BMW in his hand. “Here, you’re driving.”
He stared down at the keys. “Where are we going?”
“Not far. A photography studio over on Ocean.”
A slow grin spread over face. “Wait. Are we picking up naughty portraits you had made of yourself for me?”
I couldn’t believe it. Then again, I could. Maybe he was the child in Aunt Pru’s prediction after all—so lost, all he could think of were ways to hurt me for not loving him.
Well, tonight he was going to get what he wanted: my full and uninterrupted attention.
“Yeah, Paul. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Picking up naughty portraits I had made of myself for you. Now come on, we have to hurry, since you were so late. He closes up shop at six.”
Paul was so excited he practically skipped through the bar. I couldn’t help noticing how much female attention he attracted (and not because he was practically skipping). He was even taller than I remembered, his neatly trimmed dark hair curling crisply against the back of his tanned neck. Either the shoulders of the suit jacket were padded, or he’d bulked up there, too, in the muscle department.
Well, I suppose being a multimillionaire, he could afford a couple of personal trainers, along with a chef and a nutritionist. He certainly seemed to have found a good stylist. His pale blue tie perfectly matched his pale blue pocket square, which in turn matched his pale blue eyes.
“Your attitude toward all this has certainly improved,” he remarked as we headed out the revolving lobby doors to stand beneath the porte cochere, waiting with the other guests for the valets to bring their cars. “What happened to change your mind from the other day? I mean, aside from the obvious—that I hold your boyfriend’s life . . . or rather, afterlife—in my hands.”
“Well.” I affected the bored demeanor of Mrs. Baracus, tired of her jet-set life. “We did have some good times, I suppose, you and I.”
He grinned. “We did, didn’t we? Remember when we shifted back to the Old West and that lady kicked you out of your own house because she thought you were a whore? That was the best.”
I kept a smile plastered on my face, even though I noticed an older couple standing near us, also waiting for their car, the wife pretending to be concentrating on reapplying her lipstick, but clearly eavesdropping.
“I do remember that. Then you stuck a gag in my mouth and left me tied up in a barn while you tried to kill Jesse. Even then, you had a one-track mind.”
The wife smeared her lipstick, then elbowed her husband, hard, in the ribs.
Fortunately the valet roared up in Jake’s car, which I’d convinced Jesse I should use for the weekend, as he didn’t need to be parking a BMW with a trunk full of weapons in the hospital parking lot.
“What if it gets broken into?” I’d asked him. “Some lunatic could find Brad’s rifle and next thing you know, he’ll come running into the ER, shooting up the place. Do you want that on your conscience?”