Authors: Shelby Reed
No debt bound them. No emotion. No trust.
119
Shelby Reed
He’d sounded as if he never wanted to see her again, and that was fine with her.
But she cried anyway.
120
The Fifth Favor
Azure stared at the handsome blond employee slouched so nonchalantly on the chair across from her desk and released a deep sigh.
“I hope this is important, Joe.” She spared a glance at the gold Rolex on her wrist.
“I’ve had a long day.”
“This’ll just take a minute.” His blue eyes twinkled with glee. He was up to something, and she wasn’t in the mood to play games.
“Make it short, please.”
“Short and sweet, yes ma’am.” He sobered, uncrossed his long legs. “When Catherine Barkley showed up for her appointment yesterday, she told me something I knew you’d want to hear.”
“Oh?”
“Regarding one of your bright, shining stars and some woman he’s been seeing outside of Avalon.”
Azure’s hands stilled in the midst of stroking the silken pearls around her throat, the only sign that his lackadaisical announcement had piqued her interest. Instant irritation snapped at the edge of her weariness. “Who?”
“Adrian.”
Laughter bubbled in her throat. “What could Catherine Barkley possibly know about Adrian except that his schedule somehow stays too full to accommodate her?”
Joe’s smile didn’t quite reach his long-lashed gaze. “I reckon a little bitterness goes a long way with some women. She says she saw him with a girlfriend at a concert in Rock Creek Park the other night. ‘All wound up in each other,’ I believe was how she worded it.” He paused and cocked a brow at his employer. “Far be it from me to interfere in anyone’s love life ‘round here, or even to give a damn what folks do in their free time, but I thought we were under strict instruction not to live our personal lives within a thirty-mile radius of Avalon.”
Azure steepled her fingers beneath her chin and swiveled her chair away from Joe’s probing regard. “Catherine Barkley must have been mistaken. Maybe she needs her eyes checked.”
“Maybe she’s tellin’ a truth you don’t want to hear.”
“Adrian would never defy me,” Azure snapped.
That earned a soft huff of laughter from the big blond cowboy, and she turned her head to meet his gaze with stony displeasure. “Joe, dear, are you tattling on Adrian?
Getting him back for so ignobly pointing out your part in Lucien’s moral undoing?
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Shelby Reed
Because if that’s why you’re here, you can run along and keep your dissatisfaction to yourself. I don’t mediate snits and bickering between my boys. Nor do I tolerate cattiness. If you have a problem with Adrian, confront him like the man I know you are.
He’s a big boy too. I’m sure he’d be open to working out your differences.”
His blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I like him just fine, Azure. I’m here out of loyalty to you. I don’t set out to stir trouble, but I also don’t turn my head when I see it coming.
Know what I mean?” Then the tension in his ruddy features was gone like quicksilver, replaced by his customary, devil-may-care grin.
Azure blinked and let her gaze drift from his face. He was too cocky, too self-assured. How had she missed this objectionable element in him before?
She knew the men of Avalon as though they were her own children, and in many ways, they were. Each one hired for his magical combination of beauty, intelligence, amiability, malleability. They were rare individuals, jewels among the norm, and she rendered them priceless possessions by the time she was done with them, molded into seraphic creatures from every woman’s fantasy. They could, in no way, be unyielding or singular-minded.
So how had Joe slipped beneath the wire? His skill with tongue and fingers and other impressive assets had certainly kept him in good stead before now, and he’d built an enthusiastic following in the two years he’d been a companion. But sexual prowess meant nothing if he couldn’t be sculpted into a true Avalon entity down to his big, Kentucky-bred bones.
He’d never be an entity like Adrian. No one could be. But if what Joe said was true… She pressed her forefingers against her temples as a picture of Adrian’s rare smile flashed across her mind’s eye. He was, in every way, the quintessential prince of Avalon. Her finest hour. No one could supplant the dark, sultry swathe he carved through Avalon’s halls.
As far as she knew, Adrian lived in complete devotion to her, with nearly no personal life to speak of. But she’d battled a constant, niggling suspicion that eventually he’d be taken by some purebred poodle who could afford to buy a semblance of his affection, because Adrian gave nothing of his true self to anyone. Azure herself only caught glimpses of the person he had been before Avalon, tiny tastes to incite and inflame, hints that the most human creature dwelled beneath that polished shell. No one had broken through to his core except perhaps Lucien, and even then, Adrian’s penchant for keeping his friends at arm’s length had helped drive the other man to destruction.
Azure had the suicide letter, scrawled in Lucien’s pre-mortem handwriting, to prove it.
While Joe drawled on about what he understood to be Avalon’s creed of propriety, she slid open a desk drawer and regarded the envelope that had arrived at the club two days after Lucien’s death.
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The Fifth Favor
Azure hadn’t opened it right away. She’d held it hostage in her desk for a solid week, opening and closing the drawer to stare at it, while the hair stood at attention on the back of her neck and everything human within her clamored at her to release its truth.
Why Lucien had chosen her as the recipient of his swansong escaped her every imagining, but she felt gratified nonetheless. Nearly a month after her employee’s death, it was the one fragile thread that bound Adrian to her. It was the key to Adrian’s peace of mind, all she could have of him, because he so staunchly and foolishly refused to give her more.
Although she’d contacted Detective Rich Hales to clear Adrian’s name last week—
claiming the letter had, by a twist of fate, been lost in the paper shuffle between Maria’s desk and her own—she’d paid the detective no small amount of hush money in order to keep the evidence of Adrian’s innocence in her possession a little longer.
She silently closed the drawer and gave a distracted nod as Joe prattled on. She wasn’t ready to relinquish the suicide note to the authorities just yet and put Adrian’s mind at ease over the true nature of his friend’s death.
When she did, she would lose him. And after such a faultless track record. A yearly private investigation assured her of her prized companions’ decorum outside the club, preserved her peace of mind for a few thousand dollars annually.
According to the reports, Adrian had never broken the rules…and yet something deep and chary within her, a businessman’s sense for smelling the potential for danger, now prodded her to engage Joe for more information on the unseemly rumor.
Tilting her head, she finally offered him a brief, chilled smile. “I’m thinking, darling. Trying to decide if I want to know more.”
He raised his brows and stretched back against the seat, his self-satisfaction despicable. “You can always call Catherine and ask her about what she saw, but I doubt she’ll repeat what she told me. We’re real close,” he added with a wink.
Azure closed her eyes to gather patience. “So she says she saw Adrian at a concert with a woman. Could it have been, perhaps, a client?”
“If it was, he must’ve really been pullin’ out all the stops for her. Catherine said they were totally absorbed in each other.”
Azure straightened and pinned Joe with a searching glance. “Did she describe this woman to you?”
“Yeah, let me see.” He stroked his chin, his baby-blues rolling skyward. “She was dark-haired, pretty, not flashy. Thirty-ish. Catherine wasn’t impressed.”
“I see.” Her brows drew down. “Not flashy, not a client…” A ridiculous notion teased her thoughts, and she pushed it aside as quickly as it had come. Adrian was much too bright and discriminating to settle for less than the most pristine mate. And why would he want a lover at all when he had everything a man could desire here?
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Shelby Reed
She prided herself on knowing the warning signs of a companion’s restlessness, and she’d seen no signs in him. Just grief over Lucien’s death. And grief did funny things to a man. Maybe what Catherine had witnessed was a simple dalliance for Adrian, a rebellious and badly timed step off the path.
Azure would rein him back in. And if she couldn’t, she’d throw down the trump card, Lucien’s suicide letter. A pathetic missive, tribute to his devotion for a man who’d refused to accept love at every turn—from women, from Lucien, and from Azure herself.
A sickened smile twisted her lips. The guilt alone would melt Adrian’s icy veneer, render him vulnerable, needful. Tear him down to size. But even that small satisfaction wouldn’t be worth the loss.
The letter had to wait.
Offering Joe a cool smile, she stood to indicate his dismissal. “Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention, Joe. I do count on your discretion regarding this issue, of course.”
“Of course.” He stood, wide-shouldered and all healthy, hearty male. A beautiful specimen, Azure thought. Maybe she’d keep him a little longer. Work on his integrity.
“And Joe,” she said, voice laced with sugary warning, “You’re keeping your nose clean, aren’t you, darling?”
His satisfaction dissolved. “If you’re referring to that comment Adrian made about me doing drugs with Lucien, that was a damn lie. I don’t mess with that stuff. Check the results from my last physical, Azure.”
“Maybe it’s time for a new physical, with a new doctor,” she said thoughtfully.
“Maybe it’s time to start drug-testing at random. After all, we don’t want another Lucien on our hands, do we?”
Joe’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing except, “Thanks for hearin’ me out, Azure.”
“But of course, my darling.”
When he was gone, she seated herself and buzzed Maria into her office. “Is Adrian here tonight?”
“Yes,” the secretary said from the threshold, watching her employer with wide, dark eyes. “He’s with that restaurateur who traveled from London to see him.”
“Of course.” Azure sat back and tapped her lip with one cadmium fingernail. “An overnight client?”
“I don’t think so. I can check.”
“Find out,” Azure said tightly. “And the moment he comes up for air, send him to see me.”
* * * * *
124
The Fifth Favor
Adrian sat in a wingback chair and stared at the aimless patterns swirled in the Turkish rug underfoot, counting the minutes while his client readied herself in the bathroom for an ecstasy he wasn’t certain he could give.
Everything was wrong, but he hadn’t been able to still himself long enough to examine the simple, searing fact that he’d hurt Billie, and regret was turning him inside out.
She’d struck back with claws bared, aiming at vulnerable places without hesitation.
And ultimately she’d done what he couldn’t bring himself to do—she’d cut the ties between them, by using the one weapon that would slice him to shreds: questioning his part in Lucien’s suicide.
More than likely he had hung up the phone in a worse state of pain and confusion than Billie. But now that the sting from her accusations had subsided, and he saw that she’d acted out of sheer insult, his remorse dug at his insides like an ulcer.
He’d inadvertently bruised feelings before. It was inevitable that clients would fall in love with their Avalon companions, and sensing danger, he’d blocked a few from his appointment book over the years. Feelings got stepped on. It was part of the job.
But innately he knew he hadn’t cut a woman this deeply before. So deeply that he felt it in his own heart, as though he himself had been rent by the careless words and actions and rejection.
Of course there was Noel, his one attempt at a relationship after he’d gone to work for Azure. Noel, with her almond-shaped eyes, high-wattage smile and hunger for culture and travel. He hadn’t intended to hurt her, either. She’d wanted to see the world with him at her side, accessing her father’s endless coffers of money to keep Adrian well turned-out and more finely presented than a pricey accessory. He’d often felt more like a prostitute at her side than he ever did at Avalon.
He’d loved Noel in a wild, foolish way, but not enough to endure the discreditable status she assigned him. When she found out about Avalon, he’d callously gone with the highest bidder, and his only regret was making her cry at the end. A note of strain had echoed in her goodbye, the sound of clotted emotion, of tears barely withheld—the same as Billie’s voice last night before they’d hung up the phone.
It haunted him.
Hissing in a breath, Adrian shoved a hand through his hair and closed his eyes.
Christ, what had he been thinking, taking Billie to his sister’s house? What kind of sick, subconscious motive had driven him to drag her into his private, sacred world, only to shut the door in her face when she got too close?
Too close to what?
Behind him, Nina Weston emerged from the bathroom, her footsteps silent on the plush carpet, approach announced only by the drifting, floral scent of her perfume. She stopped beside his chair, unashamedly naked. Her mauve fingernails trailed across his chest, massaged him through his white cotton shirt, then dipped down into his lap.
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Shelby Reed
When he caught her hand and gently urged it back to a safer place, she knelt beside his chair and squinted at him. “What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.” He squelched a restless sigh. “We lost a lot of time at the restaurant, I’m afraid.”
“I was enjoying our conversation,” she said with a shrug.
He attempted to pull a smile from his repertoire of meaningless sentiments and failed. “You still have another hour,” he told her, using the low, polished tone that preceded seduction. Then he leaned toward her and kissed her with a gently probing tongue, the most sterile and disingenuous kiss he’d offered anyone in a long time.