The hushed activity of Meyer Enterprises had stilled. It was very late, and she was alone with a stranger. If she had any sense at all she’d be scared to death.
She was a sensible woman. “Are you going to hover there?” she asked in a tart voice, forcing herself to take her time in getting off the sofa, resisting the impulse to pull her short skirt down over her long thighs. It would only draw his attention to it.
He flicked on the light, and she blinked, momentarily disoriented after the shadowy dimness of the room. “I’m sorry you were kept waiting so long. Mrs. Afton left a note on my desk that you were here to see me, but I didn’t see it until I was ready to leave.”
“I wasn’t waiting to see you. I don’t even know who you are. I was waiting to see Jackson.”
He stepped into the room, and his half smile was deprecating, charming and completely false. “Your father asked me to handle it, Jillian. I’m—”
“Coltrane,” she supplied flatly. “I should have guessed.”
“Why?”
“My brother told me all about you.”
“Nothing flattering, I’m sure,” he said lightly. His voice lacked the California softness—she couldn’t quite place his accent, which meant he was probably from the Midwest. It was the only clue that he didn’t belong in the sharklike environment where Jackson Meyer thrived.
“Depends how you define flattering,” Jilly said, wishing there was a way she could slip into her shoes without him noticing. He was already too tall as it was—she didn’t need the added disadvantage of being barefoot.
What had Dean called him? A pretty boy with the soul of a snake? It seemed accurate. He was pretty, indeed, though he lacked the feminine softness that usually went with such extraordinary good looks. She couldn’t tell whether he was gay or not, and she didn’t particularly want to know. Either way, he was strictly off-limits. Anyone connected with her father was.
Still, he was astonishingly easy on the eyes. Everything about him was perfect: the slightly shaggy, sun-bleached hair, the Armani suit, the Egyptian cotton shirt unbuttoned at the collar, exposing his tanned neck. He had a long, strong-looking body, like a runner. His eyes were hooded, watching her, so she couldn’t see either their color or their expression, but she had little doubt they were bright blue and frankly acquisitive.
She bent down and shoved her feet into her shoes, no longer caring that he was watching her, no longer caring that her silk shell probably showed too much cleavage. He wouldn’t be the type to be excited by cleavage. “I appreciate that you finally got around to me,” she said, “but it’s my father I wanted to see, not one of his minions.”
“I haven’t been called a minion in years,” he said with a drawl.
She straightened to her full height. Still a lot shorter than he was, but her high-heeled shoes made her feel less vulnerable. “Where is he?”
“Gone, I’m afraid.”
“Then I’ll just have to go over to the Bel Air house….”
“Out of the country. He and Melba left for a short vacation in Mexico. I’m sorry but I have no way of getting in touch with him.”
“I can see you’re devastated,” Jilly muttered, not caring if she sounded rude.
He didn’t seem to care, either. His smile was cool, unnerving. “Look, I’m here to help. If you’ve got some sort of legal problem I’ll be happy to look into it. A traffic ticket? Some problem with your ex-husband? The legal department can take care of things….”
“Can the legal department get rid of an interloper who stole my brother’s job?”
His eyes opened at that, and she got a shock. They weren’t blue at all, they were a dazzling emerald green. So green she figured he was probably wearing tinted contact lenses. And they weren’t acquisitive. They were calmly assessing.
“Is that what your brother told you? That I stole his job?” The idea seemed to amuse him, and Jilly’s anger burned even brighter.
“Not just his job. His father,” she said in a voice as cool as his.
“His father? Not yours? Jackson Meyer isn’t a sentimental man. I don’t think he gives a good goddamn about me or your brother. He just wants the job done well. I do it for him.”
“Do you?” she said in a silken voice. “And what else do you do for him?”
“Cold-blooded murder, hiding the bodies, anything he asks,” Coltrane responded offhandedly. “What are you doing for dinner?”
“I believe it,” Jilly muttered, and then his question sank in. “What did you say?”
“I said, what are you doing for dinner? It’s after seven and I’m hungry, and you look like you have at least another hour left in you of berating me for ruining your baby brother’s life. Let me take you to dinner and you can rip me apart in comfort.”
She was speechless at the sheer gall of the man. “I don’t want to go out to dinner with you,” she said, flustered.
“We can order something in, then. Your father keeps a caterer on call twenty-four hours a day.”
“And he’s not my baby brother. He’s only two years younger than I am,” she added inconsequentially.
“Trust me,” Coltrane said, “he’s definitely your baby brother.” There was no missing the faintly mocking admiration in his voice, but it only made Jilly angrier. She’d failed, her father was out of reach. As usual.
“I’ll talk to my father when he gets back,” she said coolly, reaching for her purse. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Coltrane.”
“Coltrane will do,” he said. “And you haven’t finished with my help. You can’t get out of here without me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The place has a top-of-the-line security system. No one can get in or out without the code once it’s past seven. It’s seven-fifteen, and I don’t think you have the code, do you?”
“No.”
“And where did you park your car? In the garage in the building, right? There’s no other place to park around here. You won’t be able to get in there without a different code. If you want to get home tonight you’re going to need my help.”
She would have said this was all some evil plan on the part of fate, but she didn’t tend to think fate had that much interest in one Jilly Meyer. She stared at Coltrane, her eyes narrowed as she considered her alternatives. She could call Dean, but he often ignored the telephone. Besides, he might be too drunk to answer, and she certainly didn’t want him driving to pick her up. God knew where Rachel-Ann was. And it had been so long since Jilly had been to the Meyer building that she no longer knew anyone who worked there who might be able to help her, with the exception of the draconian Mrs. Afton, and even Coltrane was preferable to the gorgon.
“I’d like to leave,” she said in a steady voice. “Now.”
“And you’d like my help? Pretty please?”
“Yes,” she said, hoping there was a special place in hell for men like him.
“My pleasure.” He flicked off the lights, plunging them into unexpected darkness just as she started toward him, and she almost slammed into him in her hurry to get out of there. Some blessed radar stopped her seconds before she did, but she was close enough to brush against his jacket, to feel his body heat in the enclosed area. It was unnerving.
But she had learned years ago not to let her unease show, and she stopped, following him at a more reasonable