The Fifth Favor (8 page)

“You should know for yourself, Nora.” It came out more bitter than she’d intended, but suddenly the thought of her editor—her friend—paying Adrian for sex twisted her stomach in funny little knots.

41

Shelby Reed

Nora had once said his lofty fee was a small price to pay for heaven. Billie hadn’t exactly asked how Nora knew heaven could be found with Adrian. She didn’t need to.

The forty-year-old senior editor of
Illicit
magazine was a true hedonist, joyful and unashamed in her pursuit of ecstasy. And Adrian was certainly the man to provide it.

Nora swiveled back and gave her a hard look. “Why are we even having this conversation? Azure’s shut the door in our faces. You’re done with Adrian and Avalon, Billie. There are other escort services to pinpoint. Plenty of hungry boy-toys waiting to spill their stories for print. You’re not desperate.”

But desperation was a good description for the tightness that constricted Billie’s chest. The half-written story throbbed for more. More Adrian, more of his darkness, his sensuality, his raw, carnal effect on her. It would bleed through the paper and into the reader’s senses if she could only finish the article. It was Adrian’s story, and she was in over her head, too deep to pull out now.

She mentally waved aside the additional realization that she actually liked him.

“Billie?” Nora’s voice held a warning edge. “The idea was to write a titillating piece about a man all women would desire—not a suicide, not a murder mystery. Don’t you leave this office until you agree to stay away from Avalon.”

“I promise to do the right thing,” she said, willing her expression to remain blank.

“The right thing for
Illicit
and for myself. Same as always.”

Nora got to her feet and came around the desk. “Listen to me. I know you’re hungry for a good story, and yes, Adrian’s is certainly fascinating. But for all you know he could be some kind of nut, and you’re no Lois Lane, honey. I’m your boss, damn it.

You have to follow orders.”

With a half-hearted salute, Billie smiled at Nora and backed out of the office. She wasn’t about to give up on Adrian. Every time she thought about the article and the publicity it would bring the women’s magazine, a spark of excitement flared within her.

Some of it was lingering desire from her tumultuous few hours with the escort. But mostly it was her intuitive taste for sure-fire success, and this article, with its provocative premise, would turn heads all over the country.

One more hour of Adrian’s time would be all she’d need. If he didn’t end up charged with murder.

* * * * *

The low hum of male voices rose and fell in the dining room, flatware clinking against china, the haunted strains of Debussy floating over all. No one laughed. Just hushed conversation. The scene was a somber shadow of the usual camaraderie that infused Avalon’s monthly employee luncheon.

Like a high-priced funeral parlor, Adrian thought dully. How appropriate, days after Lucien’s swan dive into oblivion. His family had buried him somewhere in upstate 42

The Fifth Favor

New York, and Adrian hadn’t driven up for the interment. The thought of lying to Lucien’s parents, who stubbornly clung to the belief that their youngest son had been a college teacher, threatened to destroy the last bit of restraint Adrian held over his roiling emotions.

It was unbearable to picture himself standing at his friend’s graveside, scrambling for words of apology that wouldn’t form because he was sorry about so many things. So many brush-offs and moments of insensitivity…and what had he offered Lucien in the last desperate minutes of his life?

He hadn’t even looked his friend in the eye at the very end. He should have known what Lucien was thinking; should have read the shattered pieces of the man’s spirit in the wild look about him. In the way Lucien laughed and cried at the same time. In the slump of his shoulders, the pallor of his skin.

Hell, Lucien had shown up at Adrian’s door already dead.

“Coffee, Mr. Adrian?” A young, accented voice permeated his dark musings and he stirred to find an aproned server waiting to pour him a cup.

“Please.” He offered the Hispanic boy a distracted smile. The teenager obliged him, then continued around the table of twenty. When the server reached Azure at the head, she touched his cheek. “
Gracias
, Jorge. That will be all.”

Watching her with wide, star-struck eyes, Jorge nodded and backed into the kitchen. No doubt Azure had tested the waters with the kid for future employment. She had a penchant for dark-haired men of all ages.

When the door swung shut, Azure stood and tapped a knife against her crystal water goblet. Instantly the room fell silent.

“I’m so pleased to see everyone here.” Her silky voice was just loud enough to reach her audience’s ears. She glanced at Adrian, then at the empty seat beside him.

Lucien’s chair. A place setting had been laid out in macabre tribute to the missing companion, china and crystal sparkling in the chandelier’s diffused glow.

“There is little I can say to ease the heavy sense of grief and shock over what happened last week. We’ve lost a member of our family, and no one can ever take Lucien’s place.” She paused, her blue gaze sweeping the handsome faces of the nineteen men surrounding the long table. “The detectives say it appears Lucien chose to end his own life, but as you know, they’re conducting a thorough investigation and will leave no stone unturned.”

Adrian stared at his plate, all too aware of the instant attention focused on him. The authorities had done more than interrogate and humiliate him in the last few days, more than break valuables in his condominium during a brief, careless search “for the suicide note.” When they found none, they’d dragged Adrian through the mud, concurrently inserting suspicion into the minds of his fellow companions.

A spear of indignation lodged in his center, shoved aside his grief, twisted. He was innocent, and yet he was not.

43

Shelby Reed

“As a result,” Azure went on at last, “I trust that each and every one of you will be as helpful and forthcoming as the detectives demand.”

Her fingers fluttered down on Adrian’s shoulder as she spoke, more accusation than comfort, and his fists clenched against the urge to shove aside her condescending touch. Burning under the rapier stares of his coworkers, he reached instead for his cup.

The tremble in his hand sloshed the coffee in umber splotches on the pristine table linen.

Joe, the tall, blond companion sitting across from Adrian, and one of Lucien’s drug buddies, stood and held up his wine goblet. “I propose that from now on, we leave Lucien’s place at our table empty, so we can be reminded of what we’ve lost, what
Lucien
lost, every time we gather here.” His pale blue eyes were despicably mournful, full mouth turned down at the corners.

What we lost…what Lucien lost…

It was all Adrian could stand. Something inside him snapped, like bones splintering in his soul, and he shot to his feet, the chair legs screeching on the marble floor behind him.

“You self-righteous bastard! Stand here and own up to shame, to regret, to your guilt. But don’t you dare add to his disgrace with your so-called anguish.”

“How would you know the level of my grief?” Joe said calmly. “Or anyone’s here?

You make no effort to know any of us, Adrian. How do you know I’m not torn up over Lucien’s death?”

Adrian’s fists clenched at his sides, a mirror of the frustration and outrage knotted in his throat. “You have no idea what anguish is, you son of a bitch! All you had to do was ask Lucien. He knew it forward and backward, no thanks to you.”

“That sounds like an accusation.” A chilled smile twisted Joe’s lips. “Exactly what are you getting at?”

Azure caught Adrian’s sleeve to restrain his rebuttal, but he jerked free from her grasp. “You know what I’m talking about. You—all of you who shot up and coked up and partied him right into his grave—this is on your heads, too. You helped push him off my balcony. Hell, you gave him the wings to fly. Pat yourself on the back, Joe. He wouldn’t have jumped without you.”

The feigned humor fled the blond companion’s features and he lunged at Adrian over the table’s expanse. His fist caught Adrian’s collar, shaking the dishes hard enough to overturn a goblet of wine. “Fighting words, Ad. You have proof to back that up?

Seems to me you’re the only one around here the cops are looking at.”

Rage swept through Adrian anew, sizzling through his veins and blocking out everyone around them as he dislodged the other man’s grip and grabbed at Joe’s shirt to close fingers like a vise around his throat.

“Gentlemen—please!” Azure said, and for a moment no one moved. Then Adrian relaxed his hold, stepped back. With a snarl, Joe seated himself, brushing off placations from the men on either side of him.

44

The Fifth Favor

“Take a look at yourself, Adrian,” he spat, smoothing his hair back from his reddened face. “It wasn’t
my
balcony Lucien jumped from.”

“Be quiet, Joe,” Azure said tightly. “Adrian, please. Go upstairs and gather yourself.

Take this no further. There’s no sense to it.”

No sense to any of it. Her words arrowed through Adrian. She was right. There was no power, no effect in an outburst of aimless fury.

Still he shook, tears of rage scalding his eyes. No words would come from his throat that weren’t choked with agony and vehemence and bewilderment. Wiping a hand across his face, he backed away from the table and left the dining room.

Behind him, Joe resumed his toast as though there’d never been an interruption.

“…And I propose a toast to honor Lucien’s memory. May he rest in peace.”

“Here, here,” someone murmured, followed by the soft clink of crystal.

In the end, everyone drank to the dead man’s peace, except the one Luke DeChambeau had called his best friend.

* * * * *

A soft tap at the door of his private quarters brought Adrian out of the bathroom, clad in boxers and wiping foam from his half-shaven jaw with a hand towel. The tepid shower had helped cool his anger and provided a modicum of control over his grief. To show anything except his usual poise was to relinquish power, and he’d left the luncheon downstairs vowing it would be the first—and last—time any of the stones crumbled from his fortitude.

Azure stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind her, her ice-chip eyes trained on his face. “You don’t have to work tonight, you know.”

Oh, but he did. Anything to escape the haunted confines of his condominium, the stillness of the sheer curtains covering his balcony doors, through which he saw Lucien’s final departure with every morbid glance in their direction.

“I know,” he said, his voice carefully emotionless. “Are you sending me home?”

She studied him in thoughtful silence. “No. I think perhaps you need the distraction. But after tonight, I want you to take a few days off.”

He folded the towel into a neat square to give his hands an occupation, aware of her discerning gaze moving over his half-naked body.

What did she want? Surely not to offer comfort. Azure’s brand of succor would have them sweaty and writhing between the sheets in a matter of minutes, not exactly his idea of mollification tonight.

He’d only slept with her a handful of times in the eight years he’d known her. It had happened early in his employment, a rite of passage for new companions, and at 45

Shelby Reed

the time he’d been more than happy to oblige tradition, shell-shocked with pleasure and compliant under her throaty instruction.

Eventually, though, his passion for her became the distant fascination of a child with a high-maintenance toy, and when he’d tried to withdraw, she’d clung and gone insecure and possessive of him. Not so very mysterious after all. The proprietor of the most prestigious brothel in the world was, at the core, just a woman.

Maybe Azure had never forgiven him for not falling under her spell. Their relationship remained remote, full of unspoken sentiments. Azure’s, not Adrian’s. He liked her well enough, but she was a feline, one with a luxurious pelt and rapier claws concealed beneath all that silk.

Now she stood in his room, clad in a glossy white robe, black hair hanging like a sheath behind her shoulders, eyes as clear as Baccarat crystal. Waiting.

Adrian, who could read the average woman’s thoughts just by examining the tension in her facial muscles, couldn’t decipher the intent that lurked behind Azure’s smooth façade.

She finally spoke. “You look tired, Ad.”

“I am tired.” He sighed and ran a hand through his shower-damp hair. “I haven’t slept much these past few days.”

“The police have nothing on you, you know.”

A grim smile crossed his lips. “I hope not, considering I didn’t kill Lucien.”

She stepped away from the door and moved toward him, willowy and wraithlike.

“If I ask why he chose your balcony to leap from, would you have an answer?”

He’d thought scar tissue had formed over the wounds accusation and indignation had inflicted within him. Now her implication ripped through him, and he bled anew.

“We’ve already been through this, Azure. He was staying at my place, drying out. I wasn’t there when it happened. You know where I was. In this room. With Gwendolyn Campbell. You
know
what I was doing. You saw the comments Senator Campbell left for my file. Or did you erase that lightly penciled evidence to preserve her esteem?”

Ire licked at his temper, tightened the muscles in his neck and jaw. A relentless throbbing began behind his eyes, and he sensed his control slipping, slipping. “Tell me you know I didn’t push Lucien off that balcony, Azure.”

“I know you didn’t push Lucien off that balcony,” she recited, with little conviction and just a hint of a smile on her beautiful lips, as though she recognized his anguish and fed from it. “And while I never saw hide nor hair of you here the night Lucien died, I did see the card Senator Campbell left regarding your attributes. A stellar performance, my love. Bravo. She’s absolutely enamored of you. And oh, such a powerful woman.”