Red Rio Blue

Excerpt

Aubrey Hunnisett could walk in heels. High heels, low heels, wide or stiletto, it didn't matter; she could glide with perfect grace across any surface short of ice. She made an excellent show of it now as she spiked her way around the half-empty dance floor, following one of Club Lunar's beefy bouncers in perfect time to the throbbing techno. The hungry heat of male eyes burned into her back as she passed, and even more of those mixed hate/envy glares from the women, neither of which were unusual in this environment. Which was why she employed her own massive bouncers at the Rio Blue.

Still, being watched by strangers had taken on a whole new meaning after the dead girl was found in Club Lunar's back rooms.

The techno bass pulsed through her like a massive beating heart. Flickering lights swept the dance floor, turning the movement of the dancers into jerky frame-by-frame animation. The sharp scents of sweat and alcohol called to her as they always did, and for a moment she wanted nothing more than to be out there, lost in a sinuous rhythm of her own.

But she hadn't come to Club Lunar to dance. She'd come to pick a fight with Lunar's owner, the reclusive but reputedly oh-so-urbane Michael Lennox.

She followed the bouncer, but even in four-inch heels, she still couldn't see over the broad back wrapped up tight in Lunar's requisite silver lamé. A person could land a 747 between those shoulder blades. She'd never really gone for the bodybuilder type. Steroids wreaked havoc with the parts she liked a lot more. This guy had a nice ass, though, and she wondered briefly if there was hope for whatever else was going on in those tight, dark pants. But idle fornication wasn't on her agenda either. If she played her cards right, Mr. Beefy might end up working for her. And how awkward would that be?

The bouncer led her to a corner table on a dais, barely illuminated with an indirect silvery light. He leaned his pretty face in close enough that his warm breath tickled her neck when he spoke. “Mr. Lennox will be just a moment.”

Aubrey gave him a smile and took a seat. The bouncer's glance strayed to her cleavage as she crossed her legs and smoothed down her silk halter dress. That was fine. She'd dressed this way for a reason—a very Machiavellian reason—skirting the line between sexy and trashy. Now that she was here, she thought she may have strayed just a tad too far into trashy. But it was damn expensive trashy.

Mr. Beefy melted back into the crowd, and a moment later a cocktail waitress cruised over, gliding in and out of the tables and slipping past patrons like liquid mercury in her lamé dress. Tall, gorgeous, graceful…a real professional. Aubrey ordered a Black Russian, and the girl smiled and drifted away. She'd have to make a point of keeping her on if… Well, just if. No use jinxing what was sure to be the most difficult negotiation of her life.

So Lennox was going to make her wait. That was okay; she would've done the same to him had their situations been reversed. Her drink came, and the surface of her Black Russian rippled with every bass thump. She lifted the glass and sipped it, looking out over Club Lunar with interest. Her spies had told her all about it, of course, but this was the first time she'd been past the front door since Lennox had outbid her on the defunct strip club two years ago.

He'd done good; she'd give him that. A domed ceiling arched high over the dance floor. The bastard had installed a damn planetarium projector, and a million pinpricks of light flooded the ceiling and spilled down the walls, slowly turning, galaxies of stars mimicking the beauty of the night sky. The moon appeared huge, brilliantly detailed, slowly climbing overhead. She smiled to herself as she sipped her drink. Maybe Lennox was some kind of werewolf or something.

Above her rose a second level with another dance floor and light show, braced by narrow steel girders and railings so that it appeared to float on its own. On the wall across the open space ran a wide, floor-to-ceiling window, tinted dark and inscrutable, but if memory served, it was right where the back offices had been. Lennox's office? She gazed up at the dark glass and wondered if he was behind it now, watching her—if he'd seated her on this dais just to observe her like a fish in a bowl.

Probably. It's what she would've done.

She raised her glass in salute to him, to let him know she wasn't blind, and then turned her gaze to the main bar lining the far wall. The word Lunar sat above the bar in raised black letters, backlit with purple neon. Below it stretched an impressive collection of top-shelf liquors arranged in front of a mock silhouette of the Providence skyline: the Superman Building, the Biltmore, 50 Kennedy Plaza…even the three smokestacks from the electric company. Clever. Two bartenders worked efficiently in the purple neon glow. Then one of them turned around.

Gary Nelson. What the hell? He'd quit the Rio Blue a while back and had told her he was moving away. Apparently he hadn't moved far, the bastard. She stared at him while her anger did a slow burn in her stomach. It seemed Mr. Lennox had done some headhunting of his own.

Gary seemed to feel her gaze and glanced at her. She ignored him, focusing again on the dance floor embedded with a huge LED screen, flashing Hubble Telescope images and shots of nighttime lightning storms and wolves running through moonlight. But the dance floor was less than half filled, and that pleased her more than just a little. The Rio Blue had been packed when she'd left.

A young woman in lamé approached her, distracting Aubrey from her view of the floor and the writhing, almost hypnotic motion of sweat-glistened limbs.

“Mr. Lennox will see you now,” the woman practically yelled.

And so it begins…

Aubrey took a deep breath and followed her past the dancers and through a jet-black door into the back of the club. A stairwell with mahogany railings cut back on itself, all stainless steel wall panels and recessed lighting, leading to the second floor. They climbed the stairs past a strange surrealist painting of two large disembodied eyes smeared with bright color, above the blurred silhouettes of female dancers with too many arms. That would be the first thing to go if…

Just if.

The woman gestured her toward an open door and stepped aside.

Inside, a huge floor-to-ceiling window looked down onto the flashing activity of the club. From here, Aubrey could see everything, including the dais in the corner where she'd been sitting a few moments before.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Hunnisett?”

Aubrey spun toward the deep, cool voice that had wrapped around her like a lover's embrace.

He leaned against the edge of his glass-and-chrome desk, his arms crossed over his chest in a classically defensive posture, which on him looked defiant instead. It was his eyes, though, that made her feel as if she'd guzzled the whole bottle of vodka instead of just one glass. Beneath his closely cropped dark hair and sharp slash of brow, his eyes shone an odd shade of blue, two shades closer to purple than she'd ever seen. A swirl of unreality washed through her, a kind of momentary disconnect from her body, as if her mind were sending signals that her muscles would get around to obeying…eventually.

His face was classically handsome, model cut, with bold lines and a strong, clean-shaven jaw. Hard, though, not pretty, as if he belonged on a sailboat or a polo pony instead of just posing with one in a magazine. She couldn't fault him for his pale skin, since hers would've been the same if she didn't go tanning. By definition nightclub life existed in the nocturnal. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar open, but he'd draped his suit jacket over the arm of the white leather sofa on the far wall. His shoulders didn't spread as far as Mr. Beefy's, but he still appeared in very good, very alluring, very perfect shape.

Her gaze strayed down to the front of his dark dress slacks.

“Ms. Hunnisett?”

She snapped back to his face. “Uh, yes. Mr. Lennox. Thank you for seeing me.”

He came toward her, and she had a moment to admire how gracefully he moved. There was something powerful yet precise—controlled—in his walk, making her think of the wolves she had so recently seen hunting on his dance floor. Her heart did a little jig in her chest. He exuded raw sexuality, like the energy generated by the writhing dancing bodies downstairs. It seemed to grow more intense as he approached, overpowering her in this confined space. Aubrey struggled to keep her poker face on, but her body started shooting off sparks of arousal.

Not good. Not a good way to start a business meeting, wanting to push your competitor down and fuck him on his huge glass desk.