Squinting, I said, “You’re teasing me.”
“Just a little, Margot,” he said gently. “I’m just telling you that everything you think is a problem has a solution. Everything.”
“Everything?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. Now where do you want to go?”
Oh, dancing while Rome burns, I thought bitterly. That is just so me.
“How about the Getty?” he persisted. “That’s got to be like church for you arty types, right?”
I nodded uncertainly, not sure if that would make me feel better or worse.
“Great,” he answered. “Can I order the helicopter then?”
I scowled thoughtfully. “A car would be better I think. I didn’t bring my ladder shoes.”
“Good point, good point,” he agreed, finally releasing me from his arms. I let my fingers trail along his knit silk sleeve as he retreated, wishing already to be back in his strong embrace.
“All right then,” he declared formally. “I’ll be here to pick you up in thirty-eight seconds.”
I chuckled in spite of myself. “OK,” I sighed. “I will be right here.”
He pushed his hair back from his forehead and it all settled right back into place. Then he gave me a curt nod and dashed from the foyer without another word. True to his promise, in about thirty seconds I heard the low purr of a motor on the other side of the door and the muffled sound of a car door.
The doorbell gonged. Man, I was seriously sad I was not going to get a gong of my own.
I looked around uncertainly, not sure if Raul was about to appear or something. Then I opened the door and grinned in spite of myself. He stood there politely with his hands clasped in front of his waist.
“Oh, good, you’re ready,” he said with a quirky grin.
“You rang the bell?” I asked, slightly dazzled and a little overwhelmed by his rambunctious charm.
“Well I wasn’t going to honk at you like some teenage punk, now was I?”
I didn’t know what to say and just shrug-nodded as though that was some kind of appropriate answer. He stood aside to let me pass and I walked down the bricked path to the tawny Mercedes that idled in the drive. Smoothly, he touched my waist as he passed behind me, maneuvering me to the left so he could open the car door just before I got there.
I slid inside the leather interior and looked around, appreciating the luxurious gleam of the dash, the elegant styling of the controls, and the gorgeous male who I could see through the windshield, heading for the door. Despite everything, some part of me thrilled at the sensation of imminence, knowing he was about to be right next to me again in a closed metal box.
My heart beat fast as he opened his door and slid in beside me, confidently placing his hands on the wheel and gear shift and offering me a simple, heartfelt smile.
If only it were this easy, I thought ruefully, reminding my galloping pulse that no date in the world was going to divert the brushfire that had already begun to smolder, and would turn everything to cinders in three days.
CHAPTER 3
JACKSON PUT THE TOP DOWN for me and I laid my head back for most of the drive to the Getty Museum, loving the way the California sunshine sank through my flesh, warming my bones.
As we climbed the curving, drastic drive to the white, mammoth building high above, I felt like I was really getting closer to something. In the tram that would get us the final few hundred feet to the summit, he held onto the overhead rail and I stepped easily into the space under his arm as though I belonged there.
“So, if you live with Edna, how have I never run into you before?” I asked, trying to sound casual while I huddled close to his ribs as the tram climbed the steep hill.
“We don’t exactly live there. We just stay there when we’re in LA.”
“So then… where do you live?”
He shrugged. “Oh, we have places here and there. San Francisco, of course. Portland, Butte…”
“Montana?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, Declan had a thing for bison for a couple years. And skiing. There’s Tahoe, Vail, Chicago, Manhattan… And then Mexico City, Panama City, Rome, Tuscany…”
“Geez.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t stay anywhere too long, and there’s family or friends living there when we’re not most of the time. We just go, you know, wherever.”
“Sort of a network,” I offered.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Every day’s an adventure.”
“It sounds like fun,” I said, but I wasn’t really sure it sounded like fun at all. It sounded like a pain in the ass.
“It can be.”
“OK, excuse this totally idiotic question,” I blurted, palms out, “but do you… you know… like, actually work?”