Silence, as if she were considering this. Ryan knew the most elite designers routinely opened their showrooms on evenings, weekends, and the middle of the night for their most coveted customers. When movie stars, politicians, socialites, and their stylists and personal assistants had your home phone or mobile number, the understanding was that wearing clothes to red carpet events got the star or celebrity special access.
The buzzer to open the street-level door went off. He took the stairs two at a time to the showroom’s door. Bells tinkled as Ryan shouldered it open and walked in. She waited for him beside the counter, wearing a pair of faded jeans, her feet bare, a simple blue Oxford unbuttoned to just between her breasts, the sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms. “How can I help you, Mr. Hamilton?” she asked, her hand occupied with massaging the thumb of her left hand into the palm of her right.
The air conditioning wasn’t running, and the room was just a little warmer than comfortable. Just a little closer than comfortable. His hands in his pockets, he strolled through the showroom, stopping to examine the enormous four-poster bed that was her primary display space, then a body suit of sheer lace displayed on a mannequin. He looked at her, thought about smiling, but couldn’t muster it.
“What are you doing here on a Sunday afternoon?”
Her head tilted just a little bit, as if his question or his expression bemused her. If pressed, he’d claim to have been in the neighborhood, and rung the doorbell on a whim. Surely she was accustomed to clients’ whims. She gestured behind her to the door at the back of the workroom. “I live on-site. It was one of the advantages to this particular space.”
He filed away that detail, hoarding it like a dragon-hoarded gold, her lilting French accent almost musical in the silence he couldn’t bear to break. He flipped through a rack of panties. Felt like a creeper. Stopped, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let himself do what he’d wanted to do since he left with Jade: look at her. Breathe with her. Absorb her through all his senses, the scent of her skin and perfume, the slight sound of her breathing, the impenitent glory of her hair. Not tasting or touching. Yet. But this was good, if he could ignore the sand in his shoe of using her without her knowledge or consent.
“I’m glad you came by while I was closed,” she said finally. She walked over to the cash register, unlocked one of the drawers with the key hanging from the stretchy band around her wrist, and withdrew a thick envelope. She held it out to him. “This is far too much.”
He made no move to take it. “I looked at your bill. It was reasonable and appropriate. That’s an outrageous, inappropriate tip. We both held up our ends of the bargain.”
She gave the envelope an impatient little shake, half entreating, half demanding that he take it. “Mr. Hamilton, there’s twenty thousand dollars in this envelope. I simply cannot take that sum of money from you. Why on earth would you even think I could?”
“Of course you can,” he said. “You did.”
Her voice raised, she said, “A bike messenger showed up to collect the items. He gave me this envelope, and took off before I could even respond! If I’d had any idea, even the slightest idea, I never would’ve taken it.”
The bike messenger was Seth Malone. A former marine Ryan put on personal retainer when he started his second career as an FBI informant, Seth was fast, discreet, utterly trustworthy, and followed directions to the letter. Ryan had told Seth to give her the envelope and not let her give it back.
“I’m not taking the money back.” When the news about MacCarren investments broke, it was entirely possible that all of his assets would be frozen for an indeterminate length of time. Until that happened, he was going to spend money like it was his last day on earth. That included tipping Simone until it made him smile.
She stood in front of him, in her weekend clothes, her hair up in a messy knot. Even holding his money out like it was contaminated, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“What strings come with this money, sir?”
Implied in that statement was the reality that a man like him threw money around because it bought favors of all sizes and stripes. “I don’t pay for sex.”
Arm still extended, she lifted one burnished red eyebrow, calling him on his bullshit with that single movement. He remembered Jade and all the ways men paid for sex flashed through his mind. He switched gears. “It pleased me to give it to you, for the quality of your craftsmanship,” he said. “That’s all. No strings.”
She looked at him, suspicion crackling in every line of her body. “That’s all?”