Page 8 of Devil's Due

“No. It will be a stylist, and there will be a manicure, and, if you’re not polite, skin treatments.”

He sighed and said, “Pull over. I’m getting out.”

“I don’t think so. We’ve made a deal. Believe me, this works better if you just let it happen.”

“Great,” McCarthy said grimly. “Just like prison, with product.”

His reaction to being marched into Lenora Ellen’s Day Spa was, she thought, gratifyingly furious, but she’d left them with strict instructions, and him with enough promises and threats to ensure his cooperation. Besides, she could see that he secretly craved a little relaxation and pampering. So long as he never had to admit it to, say, Jazz.

Ben’s fate sealed, Lucia turned to practicalities. Her overreaction with the valet was out of character for her, to say the least, but it told her something of what her subconscious was doing: worrying excessively.

It was time to set up some insurance. As she pulled her car into a parking spot outside one of the most exclusive men’s stores in the city, she hit a speed-dial number on her cell phone that she’d once promised never to dial again.

She’d never been good at keeping promises when it came to Omar.

He picked up on the second ring. “Tell me you’re not in trouble,” he said, and she laughed, because it was just like Omar. “Okay, then tell me you hit the wrong number in your speed dial.”

“No,querido, I’m calling you. And maybe I’m not in trouble—have you ever thought of that?”

“No,” he said. “I heard you’d moved. Kansas City, right?”

“Right.”

“Would it surprise you to know that I’m in the neighborhood?”

“Tremendously.” It didn’t. Stranger things had happened, every day before breakfast.

“Just finished up a job in Saint Louis. So. I’m Sure you didn’t call just to hear my voice, lovely as it may be …” And it was lovely, low and full of warmth. Just now, he was using his native accent, which was cultured and British, but he was equally at home with French, Spanish, American, German and a wide variety of Arab inflections. She’d even once—hilariously—heard him do a fabulously broad Scots.

“I adore your voice, which you very well know,” she said, “but no. I was checking to see if you were available.”

“Well, I’m not currently seeing anyone—”

“Professionally.”

He became quickly serious. “Long term or short?”

“I don’t know. We’d best say at minimum a month.”

“Huh. Usual rates?”

“Have they gone up?”

“Cost of living, my love, cost of living. Or, at least, the cost of not getting killed.”

She sighed. Omar did not, of course, come cheap. “Fine. Your usual rates, plus expenses.”

“Starting when?”

“How soon can you get here?”

He was silent for a few seconds. “Lucia, this sounds a bit more serious than your usual tangle. It’s not—”

“Our mutual uncle?” Meaning Uncle Sam, of course. “No. Strictly private. And it’s not serious … exactly. Just—uncertain.”

“I’m peace of mind, then.”

“I can think of no one better.”

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