Charles had class.
If that was what Peabody was after, he was sunk before he floated.
“We had some good times, you know? Not just good naked times, I mean. I was sort of getting into that stuff you suggested before. You know, taking her out places, coming up with flowers and shit some times. But when we busted up . . . It was bad.” He gulped beer. “Really bad. I figured the hell with her. But we work together a lot so you’ve got to have some level, right? Maybe I should just leave it like that, before it gets messed up again.”
“That’s an option.” Roarke took out a cigarette, lighted it, blew out smoke thoughtfully. “From what I’ve seen, you’re a good detective, Ian. And an interesting man of interesting tastes. If you didn’t have a good brain neither Feeney nor Eve would be working with you. However, despite being a good detective with a good brain, and an interesting man of interesting tastes, you’re leaving one vital factor out of this current equation.”
“What?”
Roarke leaned forward, gently patted McNab’s knee. “You’re in love with her.”
His jaw dropped. The beer in the pilsner slid dangerously toward the edge as it tipped. Roarke righted it.
“I am?”
“I’m afraid so.”
McNab s
tared at Roarke with the expression of a man who’d just been told he had a fatal disease. “Well, hell.”
Fifty minutes, two stops, and a long subway ride later, McNab knocked on Peabody’s door. Dressed in her rattiest sweatpants, an NYPSD T-shirt, and a new seaweed face pack guaranteed to give the skin a clear, youthful glow, she opened to see him holding a pizza box and a bottle of cheap Chianti.
“Thought you might be hungry.”
She looked at him—the pretty face, the silly clothes—and caught the siren’s whiff of spicy sauce. “I guess I am.”
It seemed to be the night for dating. In the posh and fragrant Royal Bar of the Roarke Palace, where a trio in evening dress played Bach, Charles lifted a shimmering flute of champagne.
“To the moment,” he said.
Louise clinked her glass musically to his. “And to the next.”
“Dr. Dimatto.” He skimmed a finger lightly over her hand as he drank. “Isn’t it a happy coincidence we both had the evening off?”
“Isn’t it? And an interesting one that we’d meet this morning at Dallas’s. You said you’d known her more than a year.”
“Yes. We brushed together on another of her cases.”
“That must be why she lets you get away with calling her Lieutenant Sugar.”
He laughed, topped a small blini with caviar, and offered it. “She intrigued me right from the start, I admit. I’m attracted to strong-willed, intelligent, and dedicated women. What are you attracted to, Louise?”
“Men who know who they are and don’t pretend otherwise. I grew up with pretense, with role-playing. And I shook it off as soon as I could manage. I stuck with medicine, because it’s my passion, but I practice it my way. My way didn’t please my family.”
“Tell me more about your clinic.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. You’re too good at drawing out personal information without giving any in return. I’ll tell you I became a doctor because I have a need, and a talent, to heal. Why did you become an LC?”
“I have a need, and a talent, for giving pleasure. Not just sexually,” he added. “That’s often the simplest and most elemental part of the job. Spending time with someone, discovering what it is they need or want, even if they don’t know themselves. Then providing it. If you do, the satisfaction’s more than physical for both parties.”
“And sometimes it’s just about fun.”
She made him laugh. She’d been making him laugh, he realized, since he first met her. “Sometimes. If you were a client—”
“But I’m not.” She didn’t say it with a sting, but with a slow, very warm smile.
“If you were, I might have suggested drinks just like this. Giving us time to relax, to flirt, to get to know each other.”