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“It’s okay if you are. I’d be down if I was being sued for libel,” she said casually, mirroring my body language.
John turned his head and looked at her scoldingly. She wasn’t paying attention to him, however. She was paying attention to me. “You have some very valuable pieces here. Your own collection?” she asked, nodding towards the chalice she had been looking at. “Is that a huge Royal Demantoid on there?”
I almost forgot about her last question and began to lean forward. “You have an excellent eye.”
“My first employer dealt in rare gems,” she divulged. “And he had a lot of those.”
“Oh really? I should check him out. I’m a fan of rare gems.” I stood up and she did along with me, leaving John—who was looking considerably annoyed—behind. She followed me towards the rest of my collection. “What’s his name?”
“Murtagh Rails.” She said this very casually, but then her body went stiff. Mine went stiff, too. I hadn’t expected her to say that name. “Actually, I wouldn’t bother looking him up. I don’t think he’s in business anymore…” she added, waving her hand dismissively.
My face was breaking out in a grin, although my brain was racing. There was no way in hell that Murtagh would have let her go if he’d worked with her and realized she smelled like that. So, did she only smell that way to me? What was going on? “Murtagh and I go way back, actually.”
Her smile faltered for a moment, but then her expression went unreadable. “Oh, really?”
“Are you a New Orleans local, then?” I asked, curious now. “You don’t have an accent.”
She blinked up at me and shrugged. “I lived here in New Orleans for years, but I live in Baton Rouge now, actually. But yeah, I don’t have an accent. I’m from the East Coast, originally.” Her eyes skittered to another case, where I had a necklace and a few other pieces inside, including three rings and a bracelet. “Can I see those? They look like they’re Byzantine. It’s rare to see one outside of a museum.”
I was happy to. I even opened the case and let her touch things, let her hold the bracelet in her hands.
“Amazing,” she told me, looking at it adoringly, like other girls might look at a puppy. “It’s so heavy!”
“I know. Different when you can touch them, isn’t it?” I asked her, wondering if this was what flirting was like? I rarely did it. And right now, I wasn’t at my best—I was over-eager and distracted. When she passed me back the pieces, I put them in the case and boasted, “You know, I have many pieces a girl with your eye might like. Why don’t you come back here soon? Maybe we’ll have some dinner together beforehand?” I decided that didn’t sound too pathetic.
Her mouth opened as she looked up at me, and for a moment, we had (what I felt was) an intense sexual connection. Her body seemed to respond to mine even without us moving much.
“Um, no,” she finally said, catching me off-guard. “I don’t think so…” She shook her head and looked over at John. “Ready to go?”
My heart did something it did not like—it was like a hop, only a hop that was filled to the brim with desperation. “Wait, wait?—”
John looked pretty pissed, but he was getting up to go. Journalists normally talk until I show them the door, so this was probably not what he wanted.
“Wait, did I say something to offend you?” I asked her, dogging her heels.
“Uh, no,” she told me innocently. “Not at all. I liked looking at your collection, and now I’m done, and it’s time to go.” She looked over at John and crooked her arm, waving him out. “Thanks so much for the interview. Good luck with your lawsuit. Have a great, rainy day.” She gave me a thumbs up and walked out the door right to the journalist’ car.
John sighed and shook my hand. “Sorry, she’s always been super awkward. Bullet dodged on that one,” he apologized to me, and then thanked me for the interview, and left me flummoxed and speechless.
Emasculated, I just watched through the window as the two got into his car. I probably had an expression on my face like a puppy in a pet shop. My face was so close to the windowpane that I could hear John tell Zarah peevishly, “You are so fucking unbelievable. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut until I was done with my interview, but no…”
“It was much harder than I’d thought,” she admitted without much apology. “Sorry. He made me feel… weird.”
“I make you feel weird,” John replied, almost hopefully.
She gave a sudden, singular laugh. “No, you don’t make me feel weird.”
“Tingly in the right places?” he asked as he got into his front seat.
“Not even a little bit,” she replied flatly, getting into her side of the car.
As I watched the car pull out of the driveway, Miles sidled up beside me, watching through the window as well. “What in the living hell was that about?” he demanded.
“I need to be inside her,” I answered in a growl, snapping out of my daze and pointing at the disappearing car. “She’s fucking mine.”
Miles straightened and cocked his head to the side, looking at me and then turning to the window to watch the car pull out onto the street. “The one that’s been eyeing your collection since she walked in? I didn’t think she was your type.” He shrugged. “Her breasts seemed too real.”
“She’s special,” I stated firmly. “How, I don’t fucking know. But there’s something to her. And I’m going to figure out what the fuck that is!” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and hoped like fuck that I still had Murtagh’s number. If he’d even figured out how phones worked yet; he was always a century behind technology.
