Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [8]
“Get in the damned car.” She shoved her phone back into her purse and headed around toward the driver’s side. He wondered whether she’d chicken out, try to drive off without unlocking the passenger door to let him in. She wouldn’t get far—the garage doors wouldn’t open without the right code.
But she slid behind the wheel, leaned over and unlocked the door, pulling back when he climbed in beside her. The Corvette was beautifully restored, perfectly maintained, and he had a sudden moment of sheer acquisitiveness. He wanted this car.
He didn’t want a car exactly like this. He could afford to buy what he wanted on the exorbitant salary Jackson Meyer was currently paying him, and in L.A. you could find anything for a price. He didn’t want a 1966 Corvette. He wanted the one that belonged to Jilly Meyer.
She was strapping the metal-buckled seat belt across her lap, and she threw him a pointed look, but he made no effort to find his. “I like to live dangerously,” he said. Her short skirt had hiked up even higher in the low-slung cockpit of the car, but he’d decided the time for ogling was past. She’d gotten the initial message, he could back off now. At least for the time being.
He didn’t even waste a glance at his Range Rover. Sooner or later she’d see it, but he didn’t know whether she’d figure out it was his. Probably not—he was doing far too good a job at rattling her. She wouldn’t notice any details.
She drove like a bat out of hell, another surprise, though he expected the squealing tires and tight corners were a protest against his unwanted presence. The moment the garage doors opened she was off like Mario Andretti, racing into the busy streets of L.A. with a complete disregard for life and limb. He gripped the soft leather seat beneath him surreptitiously, keeping a bland expression on his face.
She knew how to drive the ’Vette, he had to grant her that. She wove in and out of traffic, zip-ping around corners, accelerating when he least expected it, avoiding fender benders and pedestrians and cops with equal élan. It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching for the steering wheel, from voicing a feeble protest. She was out to scare him with her driving, and she was doing a good job of it.
She’d grown up in L.A., learned to drive on the freeways and the boulevards; she knew what she was doing. She was getting back at him for intimidating her.
She didn’t even waste her time glancing at him during her wild ride through the city streets. She didn’t need to. She was focused, concentrating on her driving with an almost gleeful energy, and he simply gripped the seat tighter and said nothing, wishing to hell he’d put on the seat belt.
She pulled up in front of his apartment building with a screech of tires, going from fifty to zero in a matter of seconds, and he had no choice but to put his hand on the dashboard to stop his certain journey through the windshield. She turned and gave him a demure smile, all sweet innocence, the triumph gleaming in her brown eyes. “You’re home.”
He kept his expression bland. “If that was supposed to scare me you’ve made your first mistake. I like living dangerously.”
“Hardly my first mistake,” she muttered. “You’re home,” she said again, pointedly. “Goodbye.”
“And what about your brother?”
“What about him?” she said warily.
“Don’t you want to know what your father has planned for him? Isn’t that why you came to see him?”
“What does my father have planned for him?”
“Tomorrow night. Dinner. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“I’m busy.”
“Cancel it. You know perfectly well your brother comes first. You have that codependent look to you.” He was pushing just a little too far, but he sensed she could take it. He needed to keep her angry, interested, willing to fight.
“I’ll meet you.”
“And miss my chance to see the legendary La Casa de Sombras? I’ll pick you up.”
“If you’re interested in famous Hollywood houses you can always take one of those bus tours.