Bubblegum Blonde (20 page)

"In that case, have a seat." I motioned to the chairs situated before my desk then to the girls. "This is Kelly and Mandy, my associates. Ladies, this is Silas…"

"Thorne." He smiled. "Silas Thorne."

Mandy and Kelly sat still in their chairs, their mouths gaping open, and if I wasn't mistaken, a little drool came from the corners of their lips.

"Can we get you anything, Mr. Thorne?" I asked as I retook my seat.

He grinned that devastating grin of his. "I think after what we shared back at the cabin we can dispense with the formalities, don't you? You can call me Silas."

I felt a hot blush stain my cheeks at his words. Kelly and Mandy moved their gawking expressions to me. They didn't help matters any, and I felt my cheeks growing redder. Sometimes I wondered how on Earth I even pretended to be professional.

"What exactly happened between the two of you at the cabin?"

I jerked my gaze to the doorway and to my horror found Tyler staring at me with a look so demanding I felt myself shiver under its scrutiny.

"Didn't I teach either of you two to lock the freaking door?" I snapped, but the girls just shrugged and grinned at my distress. I pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead, careful to avoid the knot and bruise still residing there.

"What happened at the cabin?" Tyler asked again, the growl more evident in his voice this time around.

If I hadn't known any better, I would have mistaken his reaction as one born of jealousy. But that couldn't be what I was hearing. Tyler and I hadn't even shared, well, anything even remotely intimate in my estimation. We barely knew each other.

"Nothing happened between us at the cabin, not that it's any of anyone's business." I reached into my top desk drawer, pulled out a piece of gum, and popped it into my mouth.

Nervous habit. Had I been close to the coffeepot I'd have been drinking straight from the carafe.

"Just a kiss," Silas said with a smile. "Her lips are so full, the kind that always seem to be begging for a kiss. Wouldn't you agree?"

Silas was a charming, flirtatious man, but I guessed one would have to be in his line of work. Nothing seemed to bother him, as evidenced by the way he continued to grin at me even though Tyler looked fit to kill.

"A kiss?" Tyler growled and strode to the edge of my desk. He balled up his fists and leaned onto his knuckles against the desktop. He glared at me.

Kelly and Mandy were obviously still enjoying the show. They wore matching grins as they glanced between the two men and me. I was surprised they hadn't made popcorn and settled in for the show.

Tickets to watch Barb's distress: $5.99.

I couldn't figure out why Tyler was getting all fired up over me having been kissed by another man? It wasn't like he'd called dibs on me or anything.

I shook my head and closed my eyes.

"It was a misunderstanding." I defended myself. Even though there was absolutely zero reason for me to do so, I still felt the need to explain.

"Is there something you wanted, Tyler? I'm with a client."

"I can wait," he grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest.

His alpha-male attitude just wasn't doing it for me at the moment. I'd had a long night, and the morning wasn't shaping up to be much better, so I pointed toward the door. "Then wait outside."

His glare intensified, but after a moment he relented and took a step away from the desk. He snarled down at Silas, where the moron sat still grinning like an idiot, then turned toward my office door.

Mandy and Kelly stood up with much less vigor than usual and escorted Tyler from the room. Apparently they didn't like the idea of missing the show but had a job to do.

Once the girls and Tyler had left the room and closed the door firmly behind them, I addressed Silas.

"Thank you for returning my purse."

"You're most welcome." He frowned and leaned forward. "What happened to you? Where'd you get that bruise?" he motioned to the purple knot on my forehead.

When I'd touched my forehead earlier, I must've moved my hair enough to expose the bruise.

"I had a little car accident on my way home from your place last night." I watched his expression for any change in his reaction to my revelation. Anything that might convey that he wasn't shocked by the news. He appeared genuinely surprised and a bit concerned.

Call me crazy, but I had a feeling that Silas wasn't the person who'd run me off the road.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Just a little headache. Thanks for asking."

He leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers together. "I don't like to see women hurt. I'm glad you're all right."

"Thank you. Really." I smiled at his kindness.

"Other than my returning your purse, I bet you're wondering exactly why I'm here," he said.

"I am," I admitted and leaned back in my chair. "You said you wanted to help. What exactly do you think it is that I need help with?"

"You're looking for Lydia's killer."

I wasn't surprised that he knew why I'd stopped by the cabin. He worked for Lydia, knew she'd been murdered, so it made sense that when a private investigator paid a visit, it would have to do with Lydia's demise.

I nodded. "Go on."

He rubbed his fingertip across his chin. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," I said honestly. "How about you start with how you came to be a gigolo under Lydia's management?" I wasn't about to tell the cheeky man that I'd dubbed them studs. I could only imagine the fun he'd have at my expense over that one.

 "It just kind of happened, really." He shrugged. "I filled in for a friend as a waiter at one of Lydia's charity events one night. She slipped her number into my jacket pocket and told me to call her, that she had a job opportunity I might be interested in. Of course I called her. I'm in art school, and waiting tables and working parties doesn't pay the bills or tuition."

"And she just offered you the position of gigolo, and you went along with it? Just like that?
Hey, how'd you like to sell your body for money?
"

I had a hard time believing she just popped the offer out there right off the bat, but what did I know? This was my first run-in with the sex trade.

"No." He laughed. "She sat me down and eased me into it. She explained the offer to me in detail. Basically, I run the show and get paid for it. She explained what the job entailed, that I could choose clients, what my hard limits were, what I could charge, that I could choose the hours I wanted to work and so on, and I'd be making more money in a week than in an entire month as a waiter."

Not that I would ever consider becoming a hooker, but the perks Silas listed would be hard for anyone to turn down.

"And sex with random women. No strings attached, all fun, all the time," I added. "That had to be a major deciding factor, didn't it? A young, virile man such as yourself had to see that as a perk."

He shook his head. "It isn't all about the sex." He leaned forward and met my gaze. "Yes, we have sex with women, but it's more than that. It's about making them feel like queens. Women don't just come to us for a ride and then prance back off to their home and normal everyday lives like nothing happened. They come to us looking for an experience. To be treated like the only woman in the world. To be cherished if only for that hour or for that night. Sex is simply the end result and where they wish to be cherished the most in that moment. "

I understood. Really, I did. How many women out there felt stuck in a rut? How many felt ordinary? Lydia had tapped into a market that would make her a fortune.

"I understand." And really, I did. "Was your relationship with Lydia strictly professional?"

He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "If you're asking if we had sex, then the answer is yes but only once. When she hired me. She said she needed to see how well I performed before putting me to work. Apparently I passed her audition because I was put in the book and had appointments the very next day and every day since."

"So, Lydia had sex with every man she hired?"

 "As far as I know, yes." He nodded. "But per her rules, there was to never be a repeat performance. After the audition we were to keep our relationship strictly professional, and that suited me just fine. I liked Lydia. She gave me a job that more than pays my bills and a place to live, but I wasn't interested in or attracted to her romantically."

"How many of you are there? Gigolos living in the house, I mean."

"Four." He shrugged. "I was the second man she hired. Max was the first. We worked out of the motel for a few months until we'd made Lydia enough money to buy the cabin. You see," he said, "she used small amounts of her husband's money to rent the motel. A couple of hundred here and there wouldn't raise eyebrows, but a large sum, say, enough to purchase a cabin, would have. Then she'd have questions to answer, and everything she'd built would fall apart."

"I see. So what happens now that she's dead?"

"After she passed, the cabin went to us, and now we four own it."

"I'm lost." I held up a hand. "How did the cabin go to you? When her will was read, everything went to her husband."

Of course, there was no mention of the cabin or Lydia's little side business in said will either.

"She had a second will and attorney in Trinity Grove. Everything pertaining to the business was dealt with in that separate will. She kept the entire business based in the Grove so that there was no chance of it colliding with anything she and her husband had going on in the city," he explained. "The cabin was willed over to the four of us, Max, Chase, Billy, and me, to do with as we saw fit, and the money she'd made off us was divided and given back to us. We decided to keep the business going with our regular clients. We'll add a few more clients here and there as our regulars sometimes tell their friends about us if we give them permission to do so."

"Did you know of anyone who wanted to harm Lydia?"

He shook his head. "Lydia was a wonderful person. Always happy, always wanting to help someone. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill her. But they did, didn't they?" He shook his head, and for a moment I was mesmerized by his perfectly blond hair and sharp profile. What did he have to do to achieve that perfect color? Sell his soul? He had to have made some kind of deal with the devil to look as tasty as he did. I shook myself away from my wayward thoughts.

"What about someone who liked Lydia? Maybe someone who liked her a little too much?"

I thought that perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction. Maybe I should've been concentrating on someone Lydia was having an affair with other than Jason, rather than someone who hated her.

"She was having an affair with her accountant Jason King. We all knew about it. She trusted us, and we trusted her, but I don't think he killed her." He frowned. "There was no one else that I'm aware of."

I didn't think so either. So where did that leave me? Disgruntled husbands maybe?

"How many regulars do each of you have?"

He chuckled and blew out a breath. "Ten. Fifteen. Some of us have more. Some have less."

If each man had fifteen regulars that meant there were sixty possibly disgruntled husbands out there who could've wanted Lydia dead because she'd set their wives up with other men. I already knew there was no way on earth that Silas and the others would give up the names of their regulars, so I didn't even bother asking.

That was it. I was at a dead end.

"I'm sorry to cut this short, but I have to be going. I do hope you find Lydia's killer. She was a good woman."

"I'll do my best," I promised.

Silas and I stood. I rounded the desk and came to a stop before him. I offered my hand for a handshake.

"I appreciate all of your help. If you remember anything that might help me with this case, please don't hesitate to call. I'm going to be honest with you." I looked him in the eyes. "I need all of the help I can get at this point."

He glanced down at my outstretched hand, then back at my face. His glittering blue eyes flashed mischievously, and before I knew what he was about, he pulled me into his arms and once again kissed me senseless.

It was a quick but still lava-hot kiss.

After he broke the kiss, he raised his head and grinned down at me. "Your boyfriend isn't going to be too happy about that." He tilted his head toward the office door. "But I really couldn't care less. It was worth it."

Before I could correct Silas that Tyler wasn't my boyfriend, he set me away from him then made his way to the door. With a perfect swagger in his step, he strode out of my office all the while wearing a grin the size of the Grand Canyon.

Before I could fully compose myself, Tyler came stomping into my office and slammed the door behind him, cutting off Kelly's fast approach.

"What in the living hell was that all about? You let him kiss you? You don't even know that guy. What were you thinking?
Were
you even thinking?"

I calmly leaned my bum against my desk, crossed my arms over my chest, and tried to ignore my still-throbbing lips. I'm not going to lie, that kiss had been
good
.

"My, my, my, Detective Black, if I didn't know any better I'd say that you're more upset by that fact that an extremely attractive man kissed me than you are by the fact that I was nearly killed last night."

He stepped closer to me and completely invaded my personal space, but honestly, it kind of felt good.

"I'm not jealous, especially not over that cover-model wannabe."

"He looked like a little more than a wannabe to me." I tilted my head and grinned.

He clenched his jaw. I saw the vein in his neck pulsate, and I instantly stood a little straighter. Not because I feared him, but because I secretly wished
he'd
kiss me. I don't know why, but in that moment I wanted to feel those lips that were frowning at me on mine.

"He might be attractive, might make your heart beat a little quicker." He snaked one big, strong arm around my waist and pulled me tight against his body, then slid his other hand behind my head where he pulled the elastic tie from my hair and threaded his fingers through its now-loose tresses. "But he's not what you need."