“Whichever one’s most comfortable,” she said, barely glancing at them. “It’s all the same to me.”
I barely held in a groan. These were like my children, and she’d just given them all a terrible insult. “The same?” I asked, running my hand over the back bumper of my vintage Maserati.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Are you one of those car people?” She glanced at my watch. Today I wore one of my Vacheron Constantins. “I thought you were a watch person.”
“Why not both?” I asked.
“I guess I’m just not that concerned with things like that,” she said airily, clearly thinking she had some lofty high ground.
We got into the Maserati, since she didn’t care, and headed out toward the taco place, about a half an hour away. The sun was inching up above the other mansions that dotted the hillside, giving everything a purple glow.
“So, what if someone discovered one of Shakespeare’s original works, written in his own hand?” I asked.
She sighed dreamily. “The closest thing to that is a folio of his works that was printed in the 1600s.”
“And if you could own it?”
She turned to stare at me. “Fine. I guess I care about things like that. But certainly an important work of literature that’s hundreds of years old is more important than a mass-produced watch.”
I coughed as if I’d been punched in the gut. “Mass produced?”
“Sorry, is that a grave offense?”
“Deadly,” I answered, going on to explain exactly how my watches were all carefully handcrafted by masters in the field. Some were antiques. “And one day they’ll be hundreds of years old, just like your little Shakespeare folio.”
“I think one of them went for about ten million,” she said, giving me a smirk.
I laughed, enjoying this argument as much as I had enjoyed sparring with her last night. “Point taken. None of my watches cost that much.”
We were as different as night and day, and yet I wanted to hear more of her outlandish opinions. As animated as she tried to be, keeping up with defending her nonsense, she kept yawning, barely able to hide how tired she was. How did I know? I’d also spent a sleepless night.
Was it possible that Lilia was tossing and turning while thinking about me?
I couldn’t hold back a grin. I had been in a foul temper when I got off the phone with Luigi, but she had swept away the bad mood as easily as if it were cobwebs. Not a simple feat since so many of my men made me want to hit a wall. With their skulls.
We were heading down a nearly deserted road, the LA traffic not yet in full swing, the sun only glowing orange over the tops of the surrounding buildings. We had fallen into a comfortable silence, with Lilia’s yawns the only sound other than the low hum of the waking city.
At a red light, she flicked her eyes at me, then tried the door handle. I wasn’t stupid; her door was locked from my side, and would remain that way. Instead of freaking out to find her escape attempt was for naught, she only looked sheepish and tugged at her long trenchcoat.
“The hem is stuck in the door,” she said, tugging again and frowning. “It’s so nice, I hope it doesn’t have a stain on it now.”
I watched her from the corner of my eye after that, but she was completely calm, barely even yawning anymore. Maybe her coat really was stuck in the door, and she was trying to free it. At the next light, I unlocked it and leaned across her, opening her door a bit so she could pull the hem out.
Like the wind itself, she whisked out from under my arm and hoofed it down the side street. So much for my misplaced chivalry. Not to mention trust.
“That girl is faster than a damn gazelle,” I muttered, watching her disappear around the corner of a building.
With a low string of curses, I put the car in gear and turned to go after her. I really did not need this, and my feelings were strangely stung. Unless she wanted to pound on the doors of the still quiet houses and seek refuge, she wouldn’t get too far. Most of them had bars on the windows since her favorite breakfast place wasn’t in a high-end part of town, and no one would open the door to a hysterical stranger, out of breath and spouting nonsense about being kidnapped by the mob.
I easily spotted her, huddling behind a big dumpster in a parking lot beside a bar. I had to laugh, because one of Luigi’s top men owned the place. She didn’t know how lucky she was that it was well before opening hours, and someone even worse than me didn’t spot her.
I pulled in and watched her scramble away from my car, ending up at a high chain fence that she was trying to scale when I grabbed her around her hips and yanked her back down.
“Not cute,” I said, though she certainly felt good in my hands.
Until she tried to kick me. “I’m not trying to be cute,” she sputtered.
“Good, because you’re not close to succeeding.”
