"Yeah."
"Brandy?"
"Nah, thanks." Jim paced around, looking at the leather-bound books on the shelves, and the paintings and drawings and framed U.S. stamps. "So you build things up in Canada, too?"
"I'm all over the country, actually."
Vin picked up a fat glass and poured himself a couple of inches, then sat down behind the desk. While he swirled the brandy sniffer, he swept a wireless mouse around and the planes of his face lit up as the screen saver on his computer flickered off.
Jim stopped in front of the drawing Vin had fixated on when he'd been thinking of Devina. The depiction was of a horse...sort of. "This artist do a lot of acid?"
"It's a Chagall."
"No offense, but it's weird."
Vin laughed and regarded the piece of art...or shit, depending on your taste...with grave appreciation. "It's relatively new. I got it the night I met Devina. God, I haven't looked at it for a while. Reminds me of a dreamscape."
Jim thought about the life the guy must live. Work, work, work...come home...not see all the expensive stuff he owned.
"Do you see your girlfriend?" Jim said abruptly.
Vin frowned and took a sip of his brandy.
Well, wasn't that the answer.
"It's none of my business," Jim murmured. "But she really sees you. You're a lucky man."
Vin's brows drew together, and as the silence expanded, Jim knew he was running out of time for tonight. Chances were good he was going to be shown the door in another fifteen or twenty minutes, and although he had a feeling he'd ID'd Vin's problem, he wasn't even close to the goal line, so to speak.
He thought of the little television hanging from the ceiling in that hospital room and of the two chefs who had gotten him into this dinner-from-Hell situation. "So...you got a TV around here?" he asked.
Vin blinked and seemed to come back into focus. "Yeah, check this out."
Getting to his feet, he picked up a remote and came around the desk while punching buttons. All at once, the shelving split across the way and a flat-screen the size of a twin bed came forward. "Man, you love your toys, huh," Jim said with a laugh. "I so do - I'm not going to lie."
The two of them parked it in the chairs in front of the desk as Vin played with more buttons. While the channels switched, Jim felt like a schizoid as he prayed for a clue from what was shown - looking for guidance from the television? Next thing he knew he was going to think satellites were tracking his every move.
Oh, wait...been there, done that.
As the screen flashed, he took note of the various shows: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Vin had and he now was. Lost? Well, duh, that made two of them - though Jim was the only one who knew it. Home Improvement? Plenty of that to go around on both sides - but it was hardly a newsflash.
The channel changing stopped on Leonardo DiCaprio in some kind of movie.
"There's actually a better model coming out this year," Vin said, putting the remote to the side. "It's going in the new house."
Jim tried to read into what was going on in the movie, but it was just Leo dressed like something out of a renaissance fair emoting to a chick in a similar wardrobe.
Shit, no help.
"Jim, I got to be honest." Vin's cool gray eyes were clear. "I don't know what the hell you're playing at here, but I like you, for some reason."
"Ditto."
"So where does this leave us?" Just what Jim was wondering.
Up on the screen, things were abruptly not going well for Leo. Medieval-esque "bad guys" were doing a snatch-and-drag of the poor bastard. "What the hell movie is this?"
Vin fired up the remote and an info strip popped up at the bottom of the screen: The Man in the Iron Mask. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons (1998). Only got two stars, evidently -
Oh, f**k him. The Iron Mask? Damn it, the last place he wanted to be was back in that club. Especially with -
Devina appeared in the doorway of the study. "I don't suppose you two would like to go out?" Well, if that wasn't an opening.
Jim cursed to himself as he tried to imagine being there with her again - only this time under the watchful, suspicious eyes of her boyfriend. And he'd thought this whole dinner thing had been awkward?
Except the movie had to be a sign, right? The four lads said he'd have help. "Yeah, let's head downtown," he muttered. "To the...How about the Iron Mask." Devina's eyes flared as if she were shocked by his choice of club. Schmega dittos there.
There was some conversation at that point and Vin got to his feet. "Okay, if that's what you two want, I'm game." He went over to his woman, and like he was trying to make an effort, leaned in and kissed her. "I'll get your coat."
Devina turned away with him and followed her man down the hall. Jim, left behind in the study, dragged a hand through his hair while wishing he could rip the stuff out of his head.
Maybe he had to stop thinking TVs were sending him messages. Because this was a dumb f**king idea.
Chapter 11
Marie-Terese saw the man first.
As she stood by the bar closest to the Iron Mask's front door, she was inspecting the crowd when he walked into the club. It was, as they say, right out of the movies: Everyone else disappeared the instant he came in, the other people fading into dim, blurry shadows while she focused on him and him alone.
Six-three-ish in height. Dark hair and pale eyes. Suit like something out of a Fifth Avenue window display.
On his arm was a woman in a red dress and a white fur coat, and beside him was a taller guy with a brush cut and a military manner. None of them fit in among the crowd of leathered and laced and chained, but that wasn't why she stared.
No, the staring thing was all about the man himself. He was eye-catching in the same sharp, hard way her ex had been: a wealthy man with a shot of gangster in him, a guy who was used to being in charge of whatever was going on around him...and someone who was probably about as warm and caring as a meat locker.
Fortunately, shutting down her instant attraction was easy: She'd already made the mistake of assuming wealth and power made guys like that some kind of modern-day dragon slayer.
Very bad assumption. Sometimes dragon slayers...were just slayers.
Gina, another one of the working girls, came up to the bar. "Who is that by the door?"
"A customer."
"Of mine, I hope."
Marie-Terese wasn't so sure of that. Going by the looks of that brunette with him, he had no reason to buy sexual companionship - wait...that woman...she'd been here the night before, hadn't she, and so had the other guy. Marie-Terese remembered them for the same reason they stood out tonight - they didn't belong here.
As the trio sat down in a dark corner, Gina adjusted her wing-and-a-prayer bustier and pushed at her now-red hair. Last month it had been white and pink. Month before that jet-black. She kept this up and she was going to be sporting a Telly Savalas, thanks to all the chemical warfare on her roots.
"I think I'll just go over and introduce myself. Laters."
Gina sauntered off, her black latex skirt and stiletto boots the kind of thing she wore with pride. Unlike Marie-Terese, she got off on what she did for a living and even had ambitions to become what she referred to as a "major multimedia erotica star" along the lines of Janine Lindemulder or Jenna Jameson. Whoever they were. Marie-Terese knew their names only because Gina talked about them like they were the Bill Gates of p**n .
Marie-Terese hung back and watched the drive-by. As Gina sauntered up, the woman in the white fur took one look at what was so obviously for sale and her stare went blade sharp. Which was unnecessary. Her businessman boyfriend didn't give Gina a glance - he was too busy talking to his buddy. And all the back-off-that's-my-man did was encourage the come-on: Gina positively preened in front of that territorial hatred, lingering until the man finally looked up.
He didn't focus on what was in front of him, though. He gaze shifted past Gina's latex buffet and trained on Marie-Terese.
Instant. Cosmic. Attraction. The kind you couldn't hide from other people and you couldn't bottle up and you couldn't turn off if you ever got the chance to act on it. With their stares locked, they were both naked and in each other's arms, not for hours, but for days.
Which meant she wasn't going anywhere near him and not because he had a possessive girlfriend. If what she'd felt at first around her ex had been trouble, this moment between her and that stranger had the potential for catastrophe.