“What about that friend of yours?”
She stopped up short. “You remember Erica? You never met her.”
“No, but you talked about her all the time. As I recall, she’s like a sister and I bet you don’t check in with her every time you go somewhere.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Did she know you were going to New Orleans?”
“Yes,” she replied haughtily.
“Did she know why?”
She frowned and punched the arrow pointing up. “Not exactly.”
He smirked, and then held back the doors after they slid open.
“Why the secrecy?”
Abby scowled. She’d meant for tonight to be about her eking out painful answers from Daniel—not the other way around.
“I never told her about you.”
She hurried inside, slid her resident key in the slot and programmed the elevator to go to the twenty-first floor. It was late and she was tired. Her mouth felt dry and cottony, a result of two glasses of wine, a high altitude and a lot of talking. She didn’t want to confess to him how she’d hidden her worst mistake from her best friend, even after all these years. They had more important things to discuss—things that weren’t so much about her.
As the elevator shot upward, she grappled with the fact that after researching her thoroughly before he’d gone after the painting, Daniel had obviously not picked up a single newspaper or searched her name through Google since he’d left. He’d had no idea that Marshall had died. He’d had no clue that she’d taken a job as a curator for several private art collections and spent the rest of her time leading tours of Chicago’s great museums for kids from working-class and struggling neighborhoods who might not otherwise have a chance to experience the city’s many artistic and architectural treasures. She led a simple, unexciting life, but one with purpose and meaning.
At least, that’s what he’d said when she told him.
And she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about his reaction. In a way, she was disappointed that he hadn’t been more…disappointed.
They arrived on her floor and she quietly padded down the carpeted hallway and unlocked her door. The minute she stepped inside, she felt the warm softness of fur curling around her ankles. Lady, her short-haired, dark tortoiseshell cat, had immediately come to greet her while Black Jack, her long-haired male, stared at her from atop her antique china cabinet with his assessing amber eyes.
“Jack! Get down from there.”
The cat, predictably, ignored her.
She tossed her purse aside and scooped Lady into her arms. The loud purring made her smile. When she turned, Daniel stood rooted in the doorway, eyeing her as if she were some sort of alien.
She glanced down at her pet. “Are you allergic?”
“To cats specifically? No. To pets in general? Yeah.”
“But you’re a cat burglar,” she said, snuggling Lady’s furry head beneath her chin. “I assumed you’d love my sweet babies.”
“Nobody says cat burglar anymore.”
“I just did,” she corrected him.
The cat’s soft vibrations of contentedness soothed Abby’s frazzled nerves. She was glad to be home, even if she’d had to bring Daniel with her—even if her life could fall apart in a thousand different ways if her crazy plan to save her family from humiliation failed.
She slipped into the kitchen and checked the food and water bowls, which were full. She grabbed a pouch of cat treats out of the pantry and endured Lady’s impatient mewls on her way back into the living area, where she intended to coax Black Jack down from his perch. She was a little surprised to see Daniel still standing in the hallway warily eyeing her and her cat.
She smirked as she approached him, Lady cradled in her arms. “I can bring you a pillow and blankets if you prefer to sleep in the hall.”
With a grimace, he entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. Lady instantly struggled out of her arms, bounced to the ground and made a beeline for the new guy. Her internal motor turned up to its highest setting, Lady coiled around his legs, basting his pants with her soft, dark fur. He sidestepped with an amazing amount of grace, but he’d met his match. The cat anticipated his moves, and no matter how much dancing he did in the foyer, Lady wouldn’t let him get away.
“What is she, in heat or something?”
“You do have that effect on women,” Abby quipped, shaking the bag of treats up at Black Jack, who seemed much more interested in his companion’s obsession with the new guy than he did in the tuna-flavored crunchies.
“It’s a curse,” Daniel said, balancing on one foot to avoid stepping on Lady’s serpentine tale. “Know how to break it?”
She snorted. If she knew how to fight the allure that was Daniel Burnett, she wouldn’t be in this situation at all, would she?
“Just pet her,” she advised. “If cats think you don’t like them, they never leave you alone.”
“So if you like them, they ignore you?”
“Pretty much.” She slid a footstool to the cabinet and climbed up to collect Black Jack, but he had no interest in coming down. He lifted his big furry body and backed into a corner with a hiss.
“Oh, really?” she challenged, annoyed. Her pets weren’t accustomed to guests of the male persuasion, but she didn’t expect open hostility. “No treats for you, you nasty traitor.”
“Talking to me or the cat?”
Daniel was directly behind her. She gasped, surprised he’d come so near without her hearing him—without her feeling him. He had Lady curled up in his arms, her eyes at half-mast while he scratched her chin. Abby couldn’t remember her cat ever looking quite so hypnotized.
She remembered the sensation very well.
“Give me a second and I’ll get you set up in the guest room,” she said, turning so she could back her way down the stool—but not before he took a bold look at her ass, which was right at his eye level.
“Is that my only option?”
His voice was silk and sensuality, not unlike the sound emanating from the back of her cat’s throat. She allowed herself a split second to fantasize about him caressing her as he did her pet, but then skewered him with an exasperated look that was more for herself than for him.
Daniel exuded sex to strangers. To a woman who’d experienced the skill of his sly hands, wicked tongue and generous mouth, his allure was doubly powerful.
With their shared past, her attraction to him wasn’t rational. It was chemical.
“Unless you want to sleep out here on the couch with the cats, yes, Daniel, that’s your only option.”
“If we skip the sleeping part, do my choices expand?”
His shamelessness was both infuriating and exhilarating. He had no boundaries, no limits. She couldn’t help but laugh. She’d never met anyone like him and she doubted that once he left, she’d ever meet anyone like him again.
At least, not if she could help it.
“Sorry, but that’s the best I can offer.”
He eyed her couch and then the cat, who was now stretching up and burrowing her head beneath his chin. “The guest room will be fine.”
“Good choice. Make yourself at home and I’ll show you around in a few minutes.”
Abby went into her bedroom,