Page 27 of Nothing to You
“Miss Radley.”
A server slid into her path, halting her dead.“Come to throw me out?”
Someone probably flagged her presence.She didn’t exactly fit in with the champagne and caviar crowd.
“Mr.Rourke requests your company.”
She scooped her hair over one shoulder.“Well, he can suck it,” she said.Shock hit the guy right between the eyes.“But I… I can tell him that.”She put the flute on the counter.“Where is he?”
“Follow me, I’ll show you.”
They crossed past the island of food and the giant refrigerator and went through into a darker hallway.No people there.No fancy guests.Maybe the hall led back to the front of the house.
Rather than go out anywhere, he took a sharp turn into another hall and then they were ascending stairs.To… where?She’d been kidding about the orgy thing… Was he playing chicken with her?
Light rose from the head of the enclosed stairway.At the top, she turned to look back.The whole wall beyond was glass.The light came from outside.From the party beneath.
“This way,” the guy said, going to a set of double doors to knock.
“Yeah,” came a call from inside.
The guy took both door handles and leaned into them, rolling them apart.Just a couple of feet later, he let go and nodded into the darkness.
She was to…
Passing him, she went inside, unable to deny her curiosity.The vast room had to be thirty feet wide.More maybe.Split level, the right was down a few stairs.He had a thing for split levels.At that same end, an array of screens covering the wall provided the only light.So many images.Too much to take in.Video footage?Various news channels.Business and stocks.No voices.No volume.Security footage.Code.Server data.What the hell was all that?Numbers.Letters.Symbols scrolling constantly.
“Take it to twenty-four, but no more.That’s it.”
His voice startled her.A door next to the screens closed at the same time the pair shut behind her.
“Radley.”
Ignoring the vast desk opposite the double doors, she went toward the screens and stayed at the top of the stairs looking down at him tossing something between his hands.
It was impossible.She wanted to absorb and deflect.But as her eyes traveled up his body and back down again, she couldn’t suppress her amused disbelief.
Bare feet, gray sweats, a tee-shirt that had seen better days.The guy hadn’t shaved.Hadn’t even combed his hair.
“This is your dinner party?”
“You hungry?”he asked, heading away from the screens.Recessed lights flickered on in the corner, revealing a bar for him to slink behind.“Figured you’d get wasted faster if I didn’t feed you.”
“You know there are people in your house.”
“A lot of ‘em,” he said, opening a fridge.“I made you something.”
She couldn’t see what he was doing but was intrigued and incredulous.“You made me something?”
“Yeah, come over here.”
“I’m on tenterhooks,” she said insincerely, descending the stairs.
“Got you something too.”
“A present?”
“Yeah, there in that box,” he said, nodding backwards as he turned around to put a tall glass on the bar next to a box with a bow on it.
