His lips brushed the top of my head. “Yup.”
I laughed again, slapping his chest and taking a step back. “Jerk! You didn’t have to agree with me.”He just grinned. I let the humor bleed out of me and retreated back to the bed, grabbing my coffee once more. Brian joined me, sitting close enough that I could feel the heat of his body beside me as I quietly sipped my coffee. He didn’t say anything, choosing instead to sit beside me in supportive, companionable silence. It felt surprisingly good. Domestic, even. And then Brian had to go and ruin it.
“You know,” he said softly. “If we were living together, we could have quiet mornings like this every day.”
My hand clenched on my mug, and I ground my teeth. It had been quite a while since he’d trotted that one out. I’d turned him down enough times in the past that I would have thought he’d have learned his lesson. I shook my head and refused to look at him.
“I’m really grateful to you for staying with me last night,” I said, “but we still have. . issues. You know that.”
“You mean you have issues,” he countered, but he didn’t sound particularly upset.
I should have bristled, but somehow I couldn’t find the energy. “If one of us has an issue, then we both have an issue.” I put the coffee mug down and turned to face him. He was wearing his lawyer face, the one he wore when he didn’t want me to know what he was feeling. I hated that face, but I couldn’t blame him at the moment.
“Even if I totally forget about how you and Lugh have teamed up against me, I can’t forget that there are a lot of people out there who want to kill me, and they’re not the sort to worry if an innocent bystander gets hurt in the process.”
“We’ve been through all that before. I’ll be in the line of fire no matter what.” He smiled, but it was a half-hearted expression. “But don’t worry. I didn’t expect you to fall into my arms and give me everything I want. I just wanted to remind you that I still want it.”
What can I say? The man is just too good for me, but I can’t seem to convince him of the fact.
“So now that we have that out of the way,” he said, “let’s talk about what you should do with the Adam and Dominic situation.”
Neither one of us actually believed that it was “out of the way,” but I decided I could pretend as well as Brian. “If you have any brilliant ideas, I’d love to hear them.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if this counts as a ‘brilliant idea,’ but I do have a suggestion. You think that if Lugh gets to introduce the idea to Adam, Adam’s going to agree, right?”
I nodded. “He won’t like it, but when Lugh says to jump, Adam’s one of those idiots who asks ‘how high?’”
“And you think Dominic will agree because he wants to be a hero.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“So maybe you should try to convince Dominic to be a different kind of hero.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“Adam will agree because he thinks he has no choice but to obey his king, but it’s going to tear him up inside. So make sure Dominic understands what putting Saul back in his body will do to Adam. Maybe then he won’t be willing to host Saul.”
I bit my lip, thinking about it. It made a certain amount of sense. But timing could be very important. If Adam mentioned his extracurricular activities and Dom didn’t take it well, then he might not be in the right frame of mind. I suddenly wished I hadn’t badgered Adam into agreeing to tell the truth.
“That sounds like as good a plan as any,” I told Brian, “but I’m still going to wait before I say anything. I’d rather have something more foolproof.”
Brian gave me a grave look. “I don’t think foolproof is going to be an option.”
He was probably right. But as they say, hope springs eternal.
CHAPTER 14
Brian left shortly after lunch—actually, breakfast for me, if you want to be technical about it. He said he need to catch a few Zs, and I figured he was more than entitled.
I was still feeling pretty groggy after my long night’s sleep. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself today. I could try to harass Tommy in hopes that he’d let something slip, but aside from the fact that I didn’t think it would work, I was also pretty sure it wouldn’t be good for my health. Probably Tommy wouldn’t stoop to any kind of violence against me, not when he would be the immediate prime suspect and a conviction could get him killed. But this was one of those instances where I’d really hate to be proven wrong.
With my brain feeling so fuzzy, I decided to set myself to the patently uncerebral task of doing laundry. I spent most of my afternoon sitting in my building’s creepy basement laundry room watching my clothes spin in the dryer. I’d have gotten through it much faster, but apparently Wednesday was Little Old Lady Laundry Day, because there was a steady procession of them hogging the machines. I had to hang around like a vulture waiting for its prey to die.
I was in a decidedly grumpy mood and still had one more load to do when I gave up for the day. That damn laundry room was super-heated from all the hot air of the dryers, I was soaked with sweat, and my throat was parched from the dry heat. I couldn’t take any more, so I dragged my current clean load upstairs and told myself I’d finish up later.
My cell phone rang while I was putting the laundry away, and I debated whether I wanted to answer or not. When the caller ID told me it was Claudia, I decided I should take it.
Turned out it wasn’t Claudia, it was her secretary. Claudia was stuck in important meetings all afternoon, but she wanted to meet with me. Her secretary asked me if seven o’clock at Bookbinder’s would fit into my schedule.
I was momentarily speechless. I wasn’t officially working for Claudia, so could this actually be considered a business meeting? It seemed not, and yet surely she wouldn’t have tasked her secretary to make her social arrangements. And surely she wouldn’t have assumed I could afford to eat at places like Bookbinder’s at the drop of a hat. I really wanted to ask the secretary who’d be paying for this meal, but I figured that would be kind of tacky.
In the end, I agreed to the meeting. If I ended up having to pay, at least I’d be getting a first-class meal out of it. And if I didn’t have to pay, it would be a free first-class meal. Yeah, yeah, typical me, thinking with my stomach.
I gathered from Claudia’s secretary that she would be coming straight to dinner from work. I figured I should try to dress a little businesslike to put her at her ease, but I didn’t own anything appropriate for a boardroom. I decided on a pair of white pinstriped pants that might have looked like business wear if they hadn’t ridden so low on my hips, paired with a metallic silver tank top that dipped low enough to show some pretty serious cleavage. I looked more like I was going clubbing than going out to eat at a fancy restaurant for business, but it was the best I could do. I hadn’t even come close to replacing the extensive wardrobe I’d lost in the fire.
The Old Original Bookbinder’s is located near the Delaware River and is either a first-class seafood restaurant, or a tourist trap, depending on whom you ask. When I was a kid, every time we had someone come visit from out of town, there’d be a requisite trip to Bookbinder’s for a lobster dinner. It used to be there was another restaurant called Bookbinder’s on Fifteenth Street. They both billed themselves as being the “original” Bookbinder’s, and my dad would regale visitors with stories—possibly more urban legend than history—about the bitter battles between the two for the right to use the name. The one on Fifteenth Street—which was “original” because it was owned and operated by the original Bookbinder’s family—is gone now, but the one by the riverfront—which is “original” because it’s the location of the original Bookbinder’s restaurant—is alive and well.
I arrived before Claudia and tried to keep myself from staring at the huge lobster tank. When I was a kid, I’d always been fascinated by the lobster tanks, where customers could handpick which lobster was going to die to feed them that night. At the time, I didn’t really make the connection that those bright red crustaceans that appeared on our plates were the same dark, drab creatures that crawled around in those tanks. Now that I knew better, I felt sorry for the poor, doomed things. Yeah, I’m a tough broad all right—with a bleeding heart.