Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [93]
No, Ghostbusters. That and Galaxy Quest were surefire cures for what ailed her. She pushed the buttons, grabbed the rest of her Chunky Monkey and settled in to watch.
She must have fallen asleep again. When she woke the screen was blank, the little bit of ice cream she hadn’t devoured was melted in the bottom of the cardboard container, and the doorbell was ringing.
That didn’t make sense—no one could get through the security gates to the main door without being buzzed in, and she hadn’t been so knocked out that she could have sleepwalked.
She almost dumped the melted ice cream in her lap when she sat up. She set it on the floor, then headed into the main part of the house, turning on lights as she went, trying to brighten the awful smoky gloom that hovered outside.
She wasn’t stupid enough to open the front door without checking—she pushed the intercom button, and for a moment panicked. The neatly dressed young man in the video cam looked like Reno.
“Yes?” She couldn’t help it—her voice wobbled.
“Miss Lovitz? I’m Lee Hop Sing from the Los Angeles Times. Your mother said you’d be willing to talk to me about your recent trip to Japan and your father’s foundation.”
Shit. Of course he wasn’t Reno. He looked younger, his face was broader, and of course his hair was all wrong. Double shit. Her mother hadn’t canceled the interview—typical Lianne.
“How did you get in? The front gates are kept locked.” She sounded rude and suspicious, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with the press, particularly if they reminded her of someone she didn’t want to be thinking about.
“The gardener was leaving as I arrived. He let me through. Is this a bad time, Miss Lovitz?”
Someone was going to have to speak to the new gardener—she certainly didn’t want strangers just wandering up to the house.
But the reporter looked perfectly normal. He was neatly dressed, with his black hair slicked back from his broad face, a far cry from a leather-clad bad boy. And knowing the press, he’d keep coming back.
“All right,” she said, pushing the code to unlock the door. “But just fifteen minutes.” She opened the door.
He was shorter than she was, but then, a lot of men were. He was carrying a laptop case, and he looked as harmless as Jenkins.
“We can talk in the living room,” she said, leading the way. “Though I don’t know that I have anything interesting to say. The foundation is my father’s work—he’s always had a lifelong interest in the environment. I don’t have much to do with it.” In fact, Ralph Lovitz didn’t give a rat’s ass about the environment, but he had enough sense to find a worthy tax dodge that would offset some of his less environmentally friendly investments.
“And your recent trip to Tokyo?”
She stopped and looked at him. “Just a visit to my sister,” she said. “Nothing to do with anything. Would you like something to drink? Some coffee?”
“Tea would be lovely,” the man said. His voice was lighter than Reno’s, faintly accented. She kept thinking there was something familiar, something she was missing. But she had no doubt she’d never seen this particular young man before in her life. It must just be part of the emotional hangover that she couldn’t seem to get rid of.
“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll get us some tea.”
It took her for freaking ever. She didn’t know where Consuela kept the tea, or the teapots, and she wasn’t going to touch the Japanese pottery her sister used when she was here. She was moving slowly; she felt as if she’d been tossed in a blender. She finally made do with some Lipton tea bags and a couple of mugs, even as she could hear Summer mentally chastise her. The water took forever to boil, and by the time she rounded up milk, sugar and a tray, she’d probably left the poor man alone for half an hour. He was sitting on the sofa, small feet neatly together, a small digital recorder on the table. He’d put his briefcase down somewhere, but it probably didn’t matter. She just had to remind him to take it with him when she managed to get rid of him.
“Sorry it