A Business Engagement

She swallowed. Hard. “Dollars?”

“Pounds.”

“Oh, God.”

She’d rescued Gina from more scrapes than she could count. But this... She almost yanked out one of the chairs and collapsed in a boneless heap. The iron will she’d inherited from Grandmama kept her spine straight and her chin up.

“There’s obviously a logical explanation for this, Mr. Hunter.”

“I very much hope so, Ms. St. Sebastian.”

She wanted to smack him. Calm, refined, always polite Sarah had to curl her hands into fists to keep from slapping that sneer off his too-handsome face.

He must have guessed her savagely suppressed urge. His jaw squared and his blue eyes took on a challenging glint, as if daring her to give it her best shot. When she didn’t, he picked up where they’d left off.

“I’m very interested in hearing that explanation before I refer the matter to the police.”

The police! Sarah felt a chill wash through her. Whatever predicament Gina had landed herself in suddenly assumed a very ominous tone. She struggled to keep the shock and worry out of her voice.

“Let me get in touch with my sister, Mr. Hunter. It may...it may take a while. She’s not always prompt about returning calls or answering emails right away.”

“Yeah, I found that out. I’ve been trying to reach her for several days.”

He shot back a cuff and glanced at his watch.

“I’ve got meetings scheduled that will keep me tied up for the rest of this afternoon and well into the night. I’ll make dinner reservations for tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock. Avery’s, Upper West Side.” He turned that hard blue gaze on her. “I assume you know the address. It’s only a few blocks from the Dakota.”

Still stunned by what she’d seen in the surveillance clip, Sarah almost missed his last comment. When it penetrated, her eyes widened in shock. “You know where I live?”

“Yes, Lady Sarah, I do.” He tipped two fingers to his brow in a mock salute and strode for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

Lady Sarah.

Coming on top of everything else, the use of her empty title shouldn’t have bothered her. Her boss trotted it out frequently at cocktail parties and business meetings. Sarah had stopped being embarrassed by Alexis’s shameless peddling of a royal title that had long since ceased to have any relevance.

Unfortunately, Alexis wanted to do more than peddle the heritage associated with the St. Sebastian name. Sarah had threatened to quit—twice!—if her boss went ahead with the feature she wanted to on Beguile’s own Lady Sarah Elizabeth Marie-Adele St. Sebastian, granddaughter to Charlotte, the Destitute Duchess.

God! Sarah shuddered every time she remembered the slant Alexis had wanted to give the story. That destitute tag, as accurate as it was, would have shattered Grandmama’s pride.

Having her younger granddaughter arrested for grand larceny wouldn’t do a whole lot for it, either.

Jolted back to the issue at hand, Sarah rushed out of the conference room. She had to get hold of Gina. Find out if she’d really lifted that medallion. She was making a dash for her workstation when she saw her boss striding toward her.

“What’s this I just heard?”

Alexis’s deep, guttural smoker’s rasp was always a shock to people meeting her for the first time. Beguile’s executive editor was paper-clip thin and always gorgeously dressed. But she would rather take her chances with cancer than quit smoking and risk ballooning up to a size four.

“Is it true?” she growled. “Devon Hunter was here?”

“Yes, he...”

“Why didn’t you buzz me?”

“I didn’t have time.”

“What did he want? He’s not going to sue us, is he? Dammit, I told you to crop that locker-room shot above the waist.”

“No, Alexis. You told me to make sure it showed his butt crack. And I told you I didn’t think we should pay some smarmy gym employee to sneak pictures of the man without his knowledge or consent.”

The executive editor waved that minor difference of editorial opinion aside. “So what did he want?”

“He’s, uh, a friend of Gina’s.”

Or was, Sarah thought grimly, until the small matter of a twelfth-century medallion had come between them. She had to get to a phone. Had to call Gina.

“Another one of your sister’s trophies?” Alexis asked sarcastically.

“I didn’t have time to get all the details. Just that he’s in town for some business meetings and wants to get together for dinner tomorrow.”

The executive editor cocked her head. An all-too-familiar gleam entered her eyes, one that made Sarah swallow a groan. Pit bulls had nothing on Alexis when she locked her jaws on a story.

“We could do a follow-up,” she said. “How making Beguile’s Top Ten list has impacted our sexy single’s life. Hunter’s pretty much a workaholic, isn’t he?”

Frantic to get to the phone, Sarah gave a distracted nod. “That’s how we portrayed him.”

“I’m guessing he can’t take a step now without tripping over a half-dozen panting females. Gina certainly smoked him out fast enough. I want details, Sarah. Details!”

She did her best to hide her agitation behind her usual calm facade. “Let me talk to my sister first. See what’s going on.”

“Do that. And get me details!”

Alexis strode off and Sarah barely reached the chair at her worktable before her knees gave out. She snatched up her iPhone and hit the speed-dial number for her sister. Of course, the call went to voice mail.

“Gina! I need to talk to you! Call me.”

She also tapped out a text message and zinged off an email. None of which would do any good if her sister had forgotten to turn on her phone. Again. Knowing the odds of that were better than fifty-fifty, she tried Gina’s current place of employment. She was put through to her sister’s distinctly irate boss, who informed her that Gina hadn’t shown up for work. Again.

“She called in yesterday morning. We’d catered a business dinner at the home of one our most important clients the night before. She said she was tired and was taking the day off. I haven’t heard from her since.”

Sarah had to ask. “Was that client Devon Hunter, by any chance?”

“Yes, it was. Look, Ms. St. Sebastian, your sister has a flair for presentation but she’s completely unreliable. If you speak to her before I do, tell her not to bother coming in at all.”

Despite the other, far more pressing problem that needed to be dealt with, Sarah hated that Gina had lost yet another job. She’d really seemed to enjoy this one.

“I’ll tell her,” she promised the irate supervisor. “And if she contacts you first, please tell her to call me.”