“Which point?”

“The beautiful spider isn’t the client.”

“Look, it just makes perfect sense she’s—”

“Then who did she call?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Who did she call when she left the murderous thug alone with Vinnie? She took the time, had a conversation. Who would she call in the middle of trying to beat information out of a defenseless man?”

“Oh. I forgot that part.”

She lifted her hair off her neck, her shoulders, as she considered. Not a deliberate move, he thought—he recognized deliberate moves. But lifted it, let it fall again because she’d freed it from the knot she’d twisted it into, and it just felt good.

Lack of purpose aside, the gesture winged straight to his loins.

“She’d call . . . her boyfriend,” Lila suggested. “Her mother, the woman who feeds her cat while she’s out of town. No, shit! Her boss.”

“There you go.”

“She’s not the client.” Illuminated by the idea, she gestured with the beer she’d barely touched. “She works for the client. Somebody who could afford to buy that egg—even if she intended to steal it from Oliver—had to have some serious backing to convince him she was viable. If you can afford that, you don’t go hiking around New York, breaking into apartments, beating people up. You hire someone to do it. Damn, I missed that. But together we have a very good theory.”

“It’s pretty clear the boss doesn’t mind paying for murder. You could be right about Sage being the link between this client—or his spider—and Oliver. The thing to figure out is how and who.”

“Ash.” She set the beer down—he calculated she’d taken three girlie sips.

“Do you want something besides beer? You want some wine?”

“No, it’s fine. Ash, three people—that we know of—are dead because of that egg. You have the egg.”

“That’s right.”

“You could give it to the police, or the FBI—whatever. Make it known. Do interviews, make a splash. You turned this rare and almost priceless treasure over to the authorities for safekeeping.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because then they’d have no reason to try to kill you, and I really don’t want them to try to kill you.”

“They didn’t have any reason to kill Vinnie.”

“He’d seen them.”

“Lila, bring back the logic. They—or at least she—knew their faces were on the shop security. She didn’t care. They killed Sage, Oliver and Vinnie because it’s what they do. Once I don’t have the egg, I’m expendable. With it, or if they’re not sure I have it or not, I might be useful.”

She took another girlie sip of beer. “I hate that I think you’re right. Why didn’t you say that to the police?”

“Because they’d be pretty lousy detectives if they hadn’t figured that out before I did. No point in telling lousy detectives anything.”

“I don’t think they’re lousy.”

“So, no point in telling good detectives either.” He opened a wine cooler, selected a bottle of Shiraz.

“Don’t open that for just me.”

“I need you to sit for me for about an hour. You’ll be more relaxed with a glass of wine in you. So it’s for me, too.”

“Ash, I don’t think it’s a really good time for that.”

“You shouldn’t have taken your hair down.”

“What? Why?”

“Pay more attention to yourself the next time you do,” he suggested. “And like you talking to Waterstone about his family”—Ash drew the cork from the bottle—“it’ll take my mind off things. We’ll let that breathe while you change,” he said as he got down a glass. “The outfit’s in the dressing room in my studio. I’m going to make those calls.”

“I’m not sure, given everything, sitting for this painting’s going to work. Plus I’m going to be staying on the other side of the city for the next several days, so—”

“You’re not going to let my father intimidate you, are you?” He cocked his head when he saw he’d surprised her into silence. “We’ll talk about that, but I need to make these calls. Go change.”

She breathed in, breathed out. “Try this. ‘I need to make these calls. Lila, would you change and sit for me for an hour? I’d really appreciate it.’”

“Okay, that.” He smiled a little at her cool and steady stare, then tipped up her face with a hand under her chin. And kissed her, going slow, going deep—just deep enough to bring a purr of pleasure to her throat.

“I would really appreciate it.”

“All right, and I’ll take that wine after all, when you come up.”

So he knew why she’d left the compound. Probably just as well, she thought as she took the stairs to the third-floor studio. And maybe she had decided not to sit for him after all—but not because she’d been intimidated.

Because she’d been pissed. And really, what was the point in getting tangled up sexually—because this was certainly going there—when his father pissed you off, and you pissed off his father?

“The sex,” she muttered, answering her own question. The sex was the point—or part of it. The main part was Ashton himself. She liked him, liked talking to him, being with him, looking at him, liked thinking about sleeping with him. The situation very likely intensified all of that, and the ultimate resolution of the situation would very likely diffuse it.

But so what? she thought as she stepped into the dressing room. Nothing lasted forever. It made it all the more important to squeeze all the juice out of the right now.

She took the dress off the rack, studied it, and the colorful hem of the underskirt. They’d altered it lightning fast, but she supposed people did things lightning fast for Ash. Fortunately for him—or her—she was wearing one of the new bras.

She stripped down, hung up her all-purpose black dress, slipped out of her black shoes. And into the gypsy.

It fit now, dipping low where the new bra pushed her br**sts high. An illusion, she thought, but a flattering one. And it skimmed down her torso to sweep out with that fiery skirt. One twirl and the boldly colored flounces of the underskirt flashed.