The suggestion sent enough warmth through Isabella to be fully distracting, and okay, maybe that example had been a bad idea.
She took a breath. “I don’t date, period, and Carmen knows it. Anyway, you’re bound to infuriate me while I’m talking to her, and I’ll probably be as likely to cover it up as I am to bench press a baby grand. In this case, it’s just better to tell her the truth.”
“That makes sense,” Kellan said, waiting a couple of well-shadowed city blocks before adding, “What do you mean, you don’t date, period?”
Finally, an easy question. “It’s pretty straightforward. The job doesn’t leave me much free time, and anyway, dating’s too much of a hassle. So I just don’t.”
“Not to get too personal, but don’t you get…”
His tone led her on an easy trip of connect-the-dots. “Horny? Sure. But I didn’t say I don’t have sex. Only that I don’t date.”
Isabella shivered. As far as she was concerned, ‘relationship’ was just a four-syllable word for ‘please put all my emotions through a wood chipper and expect me to smile while you’re at it.’ At least sex was easy enough most of the time, although lately she’d been all work, no play. Jesus, her vibrator was working as much overtime as she was. Her no-nonsense, just-sex approach wasn’t the norm, she knew, especially for a woman. In fact, it usually either made men shy away from the topic entirely or propelled them to proposition her.
But Walker didn’t do either. “That’s pretty jaded,” he said, and Isabella pulled her gaze from the road for just a second to arch a brow in reply.
“Don’t tell me you’re looking for happily ever after over there.”
He lifted a dark brow right back at her through the shadows. “Looking for it? Maybe not. I’m hardly Prince Charming material. But I don’t want to be alone forever, either. Do you?”
Danger, Will Robinson! Back away from the question. “Being alone has its benefits,” she pointed out. Namely that not letting anyone in meant not having to worry you’d lose them. Been there. Done that. Not ever doing it again, thanks.
Walker, it seemed, didn’t agree. “And that’s why all you do is have no-strings-attached sex? Because you like being alone?”
Isabella opened her mouth, fully prepared to argue. But the last thing she needed right now (or, okay. Ever) was yet another version of the don’t-you-want-to-find-someone-and-settle-down speech her mother launched in her direction at regular intervals from her retirement condo in Miami.
And the first thing she needed to do—the only thing—was work.
“Yes, actually. That’s exactly why I do it. Now did you want to talk about your sex life too, or should we use these last few minutes to finish prepping for this little fishing expedition with Carmen?”
Walker’s stare was a palpable thing through the flashing glow of the overhead streetlights, and for a second, she thought he would push. But instead, after a minute he simply shrugged, turning to look out his window at the inky water beyond the pier that had just come into view in the distance.
“I think we’re good on both counts, Moreno. Now let’s go see what we can find out about the girls in those pictures.”
7
Julian looked into the mirror in front of him with a hard, assessing stare. He was as meticulous with his grooming as he was with all things, so he moved his gaze slowly from the top of his white-blond head over his cleanly shaved face before coasting lower to the expanse of his bare, smooth chest. His rigid exercise regimen required no less than two hours a day, carefully cultivating the lean muscles covering his frame. No clumsy bulk for him, nothing ostentatious that couldn’t be tastefully covered. Everything about Julian was precise, purposeful.
Clean. Filth could not be tolerated. Under any circumstances.
Filth needed to be purged. Punished.
A knock sounded on the door, the hard, boorish echo filtering through the suite to capture Julian’s attention all the way in his dressing room. His pulse quickened at his state of nakedness, but he knew no one in the house would dare even touch the knob to his suite without his consent.
After all, he’d made sure to train his staff properly. Mistakes such as the violation of his privacy were disciplined before the entire group to ensure they never happened twice.
Only one person had ever entered his private rooms without permission. And that one example had been enough.
“You’ll wait,” Julian said with just enough volume to be heard and obeyed. Turning away from his reflection, he began to dress, following his routine to the letter until his body was covered, his skin and his scars perfectly hidden, just as they should be. He settled into the large Italian leather chair in his mahogany-paneled sitting room, the one that faced the door in planned strategy for meetings such as this, arranging his features just so before shifting his gaze to the entryway.