“You kissed him!”
“Mia, please, shh!” Sophie hissed across the table of the booth she shared with her friend Mia Hughes. “Besides, it was only supposed to be a short peck, a good-night and thank-you, not...not what it turned into, that’s for sure.”
Her nerve endings still buzzed with excitement even now, fourteen hours since Zach had seen her to her door. Fourteen hours since she’d been introduced to the most searing, blistering ardor she’d ever experienced in her entire twenty-eight years.
Mia moved in closer. “So, tell me. Did he make your toes curl?”
“Oh, Lord, yes. And everything in between.”
“I knew it!” Mia laughed, leaning back against the back of the banquette. “Beneath that GQ look, he definitely has that smoldering-hot thing going on. Plus, he’s so dark and mysterious.”
Sophie squirmed in her seat and almost immediately wished she hadn’t. Her body still hummed from the aftereffects of their kiss and the action just seemed to increase her discomfort.
“I still don’t know what possessed me to do it,” she confided in her friend.
“I know,” Mia said confidently. “You’ve been attracted to him for the longest time. It was the next natural step.”
“Well, natural or not, it isn’t happening again. I kind of put him off.”
“You what?”
Mia’s voice rose again, attracting the attention of the other patrons of the Royal Diner. Sophie felt her cheeks flame.
“Do you think you could maybe keep it down a bit?” she pleaded with her friend.
Mia looked like she was all control—her long dark-brown hair wound into a tight knot at the back of her head, her complexion flawless, the makeup around her bright-blue eyes subtle yet still managing to emphasize her natural beauty. She was usually quiet and no-nonsense, so her outburst surprised them both.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said, contrite. “It’s just you surprised me. You’ve been hungering for this guy for the longest time and you’re telling me you were the one to back off?”
“It was too much.”
“What, exactly, was too much?”
“Don’t you put your counselor face on with me,” Sophie laughed.
“Hey, I haven’t finished my degree yet,” Mia reminded her. “And don’t try to distract me.”
Sophie sighed. “Everything. Being with him for a meal out, kissing him good night.” She rubbed her eyes with the fingers of her right hand. “Even when he arrived and I had to get him to help me do up my dress.”
Mia’s face said everything her mouth didn’t.
“Yeah, I got my zipper stuck just before he arrived. I couldn’t get it loose and I had to ask Zach for help. He...he touched me. It was totally accidental and it was only with the backs of his fingers, but all evening I couldn’t help but wonder—if I felt like that at a slight touch, what would it be like to have him really touch me?”
“You got it bad, girl,” her friend teased.
“I know. If I’m not careful I’ll ruin everything. We have to work together, for goodness’ sake.”
Mia smiled. “No reason why you can’t have work and a bit of play.”
“I dunno.” Sophie shook her head. “I keep feeling like there’s something going on with him. Something that he’s trying to keep quiet. What if it’s to do with Alex’s disappearance?”
Mia was employed as Alex’s housekeeper at his mansion in Pine Valley—it was a personal arrangement that Alex handled himself and fell outside of Sophie’s responsibilities in the office. The hours were perfect for her while she finished up her counseling degree, and Sophie knew for herself what a generous boss Alex was. The work had never been terribly demanding, but with Alex missing Mia had become more of a well-paid house sitter than housekeeper. Sophie’s words brought a frown to Mia’s brow.
“You really think he might be involved?”
Sophie shrugged. “I don’t want to think he is, but he’s working strange hours lately and he’s kind of secretive, y’know? Like putting people on hold if I come into his office while he’s on the phone, or closing his laptop so I can’t see the screen. It’s not like him. I mean, sure, he’s not exactly an open book on any day of the week, but he’s even more closed than usual. And even last night he kept turning the conversation to me every time I tried to learn a bit more about him. He said he wanted us to be friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah, and in my book, friendship is a two-way street.”
“Hmm,” Mia answered, looking thoughtful.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Well, of anyone, you’re probably in the best position to figure out what he’s up to, wouldn’t you say?”
“Except I don’t know what he’s up to, that’s the problem. It’s not as if I haven’t tried, but he’s always a step ahead of me.”
“Maybe you need to investigate a bit more. Check his computer? Check his phone log? Alex has to be somewhere. No one just disappears into thin air. He could even have planned this all along and Zach could have helped him. We can’t automatically assume that Zach could be a bad guy in this.”
“You’re right,” Sophie agreed slowly. “He might be helping Alex. I sure hope if he is involved, it’s for that reason and not for anything sinister.”
“I don’t think he’s involved in anything bad. If anyone is, it’d be that rat-bag David Firestone. Before Alex went missing, he asked me to make sure he had some champagne on ice. When I asked him what he was celebrating, he told me he’d beaten Firestone on an investment property deal. Apparently Firestone wasn’t very happy when Alex beat him to the punch.”
“Do you think Firestone could have done something to Alex? Was he really that angry?” Sophie asked.
“From what I understand, he was pretty steamed up. And I dunno, but he looks to me like the kind of guy who’d exact revenge if he thought it was due.” Mia lifted her coffee cup and took a sip, then shuddered. “Cold, yuck!”
“I wonder where Alex is,” Sophie mused.
“Yeah. I still can’t help thinking that something bad has happened to him. He took nothing from the house. Not a change of clothes, nothing.”
Sophie pushed away her plate, half her lunch still uneaten. “What can we do?”
“Information. We can gather information. It’s the only thing we can do. You need to find out whatever you can from Zach if he knows more than he’s letting on and I’ll do what I can from Alex’s side of things, especially about what he might have known about David Firestone. There has to be something at the house that can point us in the right direction.” Mia leaned forward and reached for Sophie’s hand. “By the way, speaking of information. How is it going with the investigator you hired to find your sister? Any luck?”
Sophie shook her head. “No. We thought he had a lead earlier in the week but it turned out to be another dead end.” She met her friend’s compassionate gaze. “What if it’s all a waste of time, Mia? What if she’s dead?”
“Wouldn’t you rather know?” her friend said softly, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
“I guess so, and something tells me she’s still out there.”
“Then trust that feeling to bring her home.” Mia cast a glance at her watch. “Speaking of home, I’d better head back to Pine Valley.”
“How are things there? Are the media still camping out at the gates?”
Mia pulled a face. “They are. It’s getting so bad I almost pulled out of coming today. I’m worried sick someone will break into the property and start poking around.”
“But the police already went through the house, didn’t they? If they couldn’t find anything to explain where Alex might have gone, then I doubt any journalists could, either.”
“Try telling them that,” Mia answered with a wry grin. “Anyway, I’d better get going, I still have some studying to do. My turn to treat for lunch, okay?”
“That makes it my turn to tip,” Sophie answered, leaving a few bills on the table.
The two women took turns to pay for lunch, even though Sophie would have been more than happy to have treated Mia more often. She knew her friend had tuition due soon, and while Alex was a generous boss, Sophie doubted that Mia could afford to splurge too frequently.
But at the cash register, both women were surprised when Mia’s card was declined.
“Don’t worry, I’ll cover it.” Sophie rapidly stepped up and unfolded the necessary bills.
“I don’t understand it,” Mia said, her face a little paler than usual and a worried frown creasing her brow.
“It’ll just be some glitch at the bank. Give them a call and I’m sure you’ll have it sorted out in no time. Look, can I loan you some money to tide you over the weekend? At least until you can sort things out with the bank?”
“No, no. I’ll be fine. I’m sure.”
Mia unlocked her car and threw her friend a quick smile, but Sophie could tell she wasn’t mollified. She didn’t want to push. Mia was nothing if not proud and guarded her independence carefully.
“Well, don’t hesitate to ask if I can do anything for you, okay? I mean it, Mia.”
It was all she could do under the circumstances.
“Sure,” Mia answered although Sophie knew her friend would rather walk through a field filled with ornery rodeo bulls than ask for help.
“Oh, and be careful about that guy, Firestone.”
“I will, don’t you worry,” Mia said with a smile and a cheeky wink. “And don’t do anything with your Mr. Lassiter that I wouldn’t do.”
Sophie couldn’t help it. She blushed red hot again. She opened her car and settled inside, accompanied by the ring of Mia’s laughter at her reaction. As she drove back home, she wondered just how far she’d be prepared to go to elicit information from Zach.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she growled at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “You’re no Mata Hari.”
No, she definitely wasn’t, but it didn’t stop a ripple of anticipation from undulating from her core to her extremities. Could she do it? Could she try to seduce the information out of him? It went against everything she had inside of her and even if he did prove willing, there was nothing to say that he was the kind of guy who’d divulge his secrets during a bit of pillow talk.
Her inner muscles clenched tight at the thought of what it would take to actually lead to said pillow talk. She weighed it in her head during the journey home and all through her afternoon tidying around her home and getting her laundry done—her work outfits all pressed and ready for the week ahead. By the time she donned her nightgown and tucked herself into fresh, clean sheets, together with the latest novel she’d picked up, she was still a bundle of nervous energy and sick to death of the inner battle she’d waged with herself.
“Toss a coin,” she said out loud when she couldn’t settle into reading her book.
Sophie pushed back her covers and rose from the bed to cross the room and take her coin purse from her handbag. She grabbed a nickel and studied it carefully for a full minute before placing it on her thumbnail, ready to flick it into the air.
“Heads, I do it. Tails, I don’t,” she muttered grimly.
She flicked. The coin executed a graceful arc before she grabbed it with one hand, laying it flat on the back of the other with her fingers still covering what decision it had made. Slowly, she lifted her fingers.
Heads.