As Nadia chatted on, he listened with one ear, absorbing all the information she revealed, what she did and didn’t say. Reading another’s mind had its advantages, both in business and war. Lucky for Lucifer, he had mastered both.
He smiled.
Life was about to become a helluva lot more interesting. And having been dreadfully bored of late, he was down for it.
3
The phone rang the next morning, startling Nadia from sleep. With one bleary eye, she checked her cell phone for the time. She groaned long and loud.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Ms. Cummings. This is your requested call. Do you need us to follow up with another this morning?”
Had she really asked for an eight o’clock wake-up call after such a late night? What had she been thinking?
“No. I’m up. Thanks,” she mumbled.
“My pleasure, Ms. Cummings.”
My pleasure.
Luc.
Those were his exact words when she thanked him last night after dropping her off at her hotel room door.
Nadia smiled and stretched like a well-fed cat.
Never had she met a man with whom she shared so many interests. He seemed to enjoy toying with her fingers as they sat and sipped their coffees. Oddly, he’d seemed as taken with her as she was with him, going so far as to hold her hand as they walked the streets of the sleeping city.
Surprisingly, she couldn’t find it in her to object. His smallest touch had been electric, charging her batteries and thrilling her in a way she’d never experienced. All her earlier fears had disappeared, and she hadn’t worried about being mugged because, with him, she’d felt safe. His overall vibe screamed don’t-fuck-with-me. Others immediately recognized and respected his dominant energy.
The two of them talked well into the early hours of the morning. And as he’d escorted her to the hotel, he informed her of an acquaintance who managed the city library. Apparently, they had an opening in their rare-books division, as she’d hoped when moving here. She’d yet to get an interview, though not for lack of trying. Queue last night’s fiasco. However, Luc had promised to put in a good word for her and insisted on introducing her to his realtor this morning over brunch.
“You should get a jump on vacant flats in this city. They disappear quickly,” he’d told her.
She agreed with little prompting. Primarily because she required a place to live, but mostly she wanted to spend more time with him. It thrilled her to think they might reside in the same complex. The idea of running into him with regularity made her positively giddy.
His black hair and smiling blue eyes made Luc simply delicious. Of course, she couldn’t forget those incredible shoulders straining his shirt seams. They’d been the only thing on her mind after he’d taken off his suit jacket and placed it around her during their walk.
On her eighteenth birthday, Nadia had received a small inheritance. And thank goodness for it! Rent or a mortgage in a good neighborhood was hardly affordable on a librarian’s salary. Where the bequest had come from, she’d yet to discover, but she would. Research was her chosen field, and she was damned good at it.
Perhaps Luc knew an investigator she could hire. He seemed the type to have unlimited resources. If he could point her in the right direction, she could take it from there.
His image rose up in her mind’s eye, and she sighed.
“Nadia Heylel,” she whispered as if she were a teenager experiencing her first crush all over again.
Last night’s terrifying event had turned into a wonderful and serendipitous meeting. Luc might not think of their shared coffeehouse experience as a date, but she had no trouble doing so.
She snuggled down into the bedding, but the annoying sound of her phone’s alarm shot her upright. She didn’t bother to muffle a jaw-cracking yawn. Yep, first and foremost this morning—coffee. Without the nectar of the gods, she’d be useless.
A small cart sat inside the entry with all the makings for a pint-sized pot of her favorite brew. She hesitated as she recalled all the disgusting stories about what people got up to with these coffeemakers. Seriously, who washed their underwear in the carafe?! Yet she required caffeine. STAT!
With a sigh, she scrubbed and prepped the machine, then sailed into the marbled bathroom to shower. The piping-hot water did the trick, chasing the tenderness from her sore body. Her contact with the sidewalk last night had hurt like a sonofabitch. When she exited the stall and shifted to look at the bruises, she was surprised to find none. But then again, she’d always healed quickly.
Nadia took extra care with her eyeliner and shadow, emphasizing the almond shape with a dark amethyst. After creating a little smudge here and there to soften the sharp line, she layered her lashes with a few coats of tubing mascara.
She wrinkled her nose at her reflection.
