Mike and I hadn’t been on a sugar sand beach last night, just the king-size mattress of his Alphabet City bedroom. There was no rhythmic pounding of Pacific surf, either, just smooth FM jazz and the occasional whine of an ambulance siren. None of it mattered, because the man made love like a dream.

I stirred, and he groaned, his arm pulling me closer in what felt like an autonomic response. Now my naked flesh was flush against his warm skin.

“Mike?” I called, glancing at the clock in the weak yellow splash of rising sun. “We should get up.”

“Mmmmmm…”

“Mike?”

The man’s hand moved as if it were independent of his heavy, sacked-out body. His fingers lightly brushed my curves, his hand seeking and finding.

“Mike!”

The strong hand began to play, determined fingers teasing, caressing.

“Oh, God. Don’t do that. We have to-”

“Sweetheart, we don’t have to do anything yet,” Mike murmured on the pillow, his eyes still closed. “But there are a few things we might want to do…”

The rest of Mike finally stirred; his head came up off the pillow, his mouth moved where his hand had been. After that, I made sounds that resembled speech, but my brain was already scrambled. For at least an hour more, nothing that came out of my mouth made anything close to sense.

TWENTY-ONE

HOURS later, my body was still humming, but my patience was getting thin. I was more than ready to interrogate Monica Purcell, but Quinn had an early meeting at the Sixth then another one crosstown with a DEA agent, so he dropped me off at the Blend.

I changed into another skirt and blouse (pretty enough, although nowhere near as high-end as Fen). I checked in with the Blend staff and found out I’d just missed Matt, who’d opened that morning but was now off to meet Koa Waipuna for breakfast, along with a small group of coffee guys who hadn’t been able to make Monday’s bachelor party.

Then I headed uptown to meet Quinn at the Time Warner Center. He said he’d be there at ten, but it was nearly ten twenty, and there was still no sign of him. Rather than loiter in the main lobby, I left a voice mail message for him to meet me in Trend’s offices on the twenty-second floor.

After exiting the elevator, I found the reception area crowded with half a dozen male and female models, each accompanied by an agent with an oversize portfolio in a lap or under an arm. Young, buffed, and beautiful, they all seemed interchangeable. I moved through the gaggle, found a seat on a leather couch near the receptionist’s desk, and picked up Trend’s latest issue off the coffee table.

The blond receptionist had been on a call when I’d arrived. Now she hung up the phone and lifted a shallow cardboard box with the words 4 Your Health printed on its side. She checked the slip taped to it.

“Yuck,” she muttered. “I can’t believe she eats this same thing every morning.”

I lowered the magazine and cocked my head. The receptionist held the box aloft. “Anyone here have any interest in a wheat grass shake and a soy-protein muffin?”

The models and agents shook their heads, and I privately shuddered, longing for another Clover-brewed cup of my Rwandan Butambamo Blend (and one of Thomas Keller’s buttery Bouchon Bakery croissants wouldn’t have hurt, either).

The receptionist punched a button on her phone. “Terri, Ms. Summour hasn’t picked up her breakfast yet. Is there a reason for that?… Oh. Okay. You should have let me know she was working from her apartment this morning. Will you send an intern to get her breakfast off my counter? Frankly, it’s disgusting. I don’t know. Put it in the break room. Maybe someone else will want it.”

I stifled a laugh, listening to that exchange, but I was happy to overhear that Breanne was working at home. Maybe Matt’s finally convinced her to keep a low profile. I certainly hope so.

A minute later, a young intern with shaggy brown hair walked down the hall and up to the reception desk. He looked like he weighed ninety-five pounds, wore earrings on both ears and black lipstick. Without a word, the terminally hip dude snapped the breakfast box off the counter, then his polished crocodile cowboy boots moseyed away.

The glass front doors opened, and I looked up, expecting Quinn. But it was another man who snagged my attention. Tall and heavyset like an athlete gone to seed, he crossed the crowded reception area. His steps were cautious, as if he feared breaking one of the living, breathing Barbie and Ken dolls that surrounded him.

I know this guy, I thought as he approached. He was the same man who’d been loitering outside of Fen’s Fifth Avenue boutique the day before-at the very time Breanne was having her final fitting.

Now, as then, his appearance seemed wrong. Today he wore a too-tight wool suit of chocolate brown, black shoes with thick rubber soles, a white shirt so tight his neck bulged around the collar, and a tie the color of overcooked oatmeal. When he addressed the receptionist, his fingers tapped the counter impatiently.

“Ms. Summour, please.”

“I’m sorry. Ms. Summour isn’t in this morning. Perhaps you’d care to leave a message, or your card, and we’ll call you to set up an appointment for a later date?”

“I’ll come back.”

When the man turned around, his worn rubber heels squeaked. He strode past me, and I stood up, caught the receptionist’s eye. “Who is that man?”

She shrugged. “Never saw him before.”

“Thanks,” I said, bolting for the elevator. I made it just as the doors were closing. The car was crowded, but I squeezed inside. I used the close quarters as an excuse to get nearer to the big man. I smiled up at him once, but he looked away.

Damn. I waited until we reached the lobby before I tried again. As he stepped out of the elevator, I blocked his path. “You wanted to see Ms. Summour, right? I heard you talk to the receptionist. Maybe I can help. I know Breanne very well.”

His surprise turned to recognition, and I knew he remembered seeing me at the House of Fen, right before Monica Purcell showed up. Monica’s phone conversation came back to me in a rush. She’d said something about the rings, of course, but she’d also made another comment: “I’m sorry I missed you,” she’d told the person on the other end of the cell call. “I would have arrived earlier, but I’m running behind today…”

This must have been the man that Monica missed. He certainly looked alarmed to see me. Suspicious now, he easily moved around my much smaller form and hurried away.

“Wait a minute!” I demanded.

But the man wasn’t waiting, and a tide of office workers was already pushing me back inside the elevator car. I gripped the door and searched for the big man, but he was gone.

“In or out, miss!” the man beside me barked as another figure stepped into the crowded elevator. His broad shoulders, sandy hair, and square jaw attracted an openly admiring glance from a leggy young thing in a micro-miniskirt.

“In,” I said, tugging Quinn’s arm.

“Sorry I’m late, sweetheart,” he whispered as we rode up. “There’s been a development. I’ll tell you about it later.”

I didn’t want to spill my racing thoughts in a crowded elevator, so I held my tongue, too. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any privacy in the reception area, either. So we approached the receptionist together, ready to ask for Monica, when the young man with the black lipstick hurried up to the front desk.

“Call 911!”

The receptionist’s eyes bugged. “What! Why?”

“It’s Monica. Petra just found her on the floor in the ladies’ room. She’s not moving, and we can’t tell if she’s breathing-”

“Where is she?” Mike demanded.

The young man pointed down a carpeted hallway, and Mike took off.

“You can’t go back there!” the receptionist called.