Chapter 48

48

L uke was at her door two hours later, wearing Greg Knight's most unstylish attire to date and a mischievous smile that absolutely compensated for the lack of wardrobe smartness.

"I'm sorry I look like this," he told her, acknowledging his ill-fitting white polo shirt tucked into maroon-colored chino pants. "But I come bearing gifts." He handed her a bottle of Aglianico del Vulture.

"I don't care about the clothes." She urged him to come inside and got rid of the bottle, putting it on the storage bench in her home's narrow entrance hall.

"I don't believe you," he said almost defiantly while Sol rushed to close the door.

"Could you please just shut up?" She balanced on her tiptoes, bringing her hand to his mercifully bearded jaw, and chasing his lips with hers.

"Better?" he asked after a few minutes of urgent reacquaintance.

"Better," she admitted, scarcely annoyed. The words had been spare, but they were interfering with the making out. "But still not great."

She grabbed his unfortunate shirt, untucking it while pulling him toward her, letting her lips find the last place they'd been feeling on Luke's mouth and then making her way through the contour of his neck and collarbone.

"Are you super hungry?" she asked, managing to sever her mouth from his body—briefly.

"For food?" he asked with a smile that could only be described as roguish.

"Mare meva! You and the wordplay!"

"You know I do love a bit of wordplay, yes." Right then, he was all magnetic sex appeal and beauty. " If you were talking about food, I can wait."

"Good."

Eventually, they made their way upstairs. Sol had always abhorred the steep narrowness of those stairs, but they apparently hid so many nooks conducive to letting him toy with the sensitive skin behind her earlobes. They also appeared almost designed for her to meticulously remove every single odious garment he'd been wearing.

Their bodies had recognized one another when Sol first kissed him downstairs, but once undressed, they found each other in a different, more profound way.

Sol was more relaxed this time, more confident—not only in herself but also in him. She knew she could trust him. Completely.

She shut all the voices inside her head that told her she should be worrying about her career, her public image, her future, and even her heart, and that this wasn't a good moment for a relationship, for flirtation, for commitment, or even for just sex. She was present, her only aim to take and give pleasure.

···

They sat in Sol's kitchen. The red Aglianico del Vulture bottle was open and generously poured into two wine glasses, the leftovers of the Ottolenghi take-home selection of salads and char-grilled salmon still on the table.

"Divya discovered the identity of the mystery man," Luke told her. He was devouring the stash of double chocolate cookies she'd gotten that afternoon at the Spitalfields location of the same popular restaurant and deli where she'd bought dinner. "She's been in touch with Sara Daniels's creative liaison, and they recognize the person who had coffee with Oliver Green the day you followed him."

"Who is it?" Sol nibbled on a cookie herself, even if she had a strict no-baked-goods-or-other-sugary-foods-on-weekdays policy.

"Some senior vice president of scripted TV content at Meshflixx called… Let me check my notes." He got up to leave the room, tracing the naked outline of Sol's shoulders with his fingers on his way. An electric charge shook her whole body.

"Eduardo Callaghan," Luke yelled not a minute later from what sounded like the entryway. "Eduardo Callaghan," he repeated at a more measured volume while making his way back into the kitchen. He sat at his now officially usual spot at one of the ends of the table. A spot she was sure he'd chosen because it gave him direct access to her ear, in case something needed to be murmured.

"Why would Oliver meet with a higher-up at Meshflixx? Especially from the scripted TV division? He's always been happy to proclaim he only works in long feature documentaries." Luke's semi-disrobed state made it almost impossible for her to think clearly. He was wearing boxer briefs and a long silk robe of hers that looked kind of small on him.

"Maybe his father made the introduction?" Luke asked.

"You're right." Luke was wearing the black-and-pale-pink robe completely open. No wonder Sol had missed something so obvious.

To make things worse, he wasn't only showing chest, abs, and muscled legs, he was also showing shoulder as the robe slipped from his left arm. And since he'd stolen her favorite getting-out-of-bed-and-feeling-sexy garment, she'd been forced to don a suggestive vintage sleep gown herself.

"Mark is great and all, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't arrange a meeting for his son, even if he probably knows better than I do that Oliver lacks any kind of talent," she said. "Could this have anything to do with the article I saw about Mark possibly working on Meshflixx's projects? Maybe the reporter got the facts wrong, and it's going to be Oliver and not Mark doing work for the streamer."

"Divya is checking into the reasons for the meeting. Oliver's undisclosed presence at Josie's the night of the theft is kind of suspicious," Luke said. "Then again, it could also be that he didn't feel like having his arse kicked that day."

"It could, I guess. Would you thank Divya for me for everything she's doing? It was reassuring, talking to her today."

"More reassuring than talking to me?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Only because she wasn't flirting with me the whole time. And I didn't feel like I needed to measure every single word coming out of my mouth," Sol said. "You have to admit that this investigation has interfered with our relationship from the beginning, and the other way around. We don't seem able to do either one right."

"I think we're really applying ourselves on both fronts," he said, an insinuating smirk on his face. "And we're making some palpable progress when it comes to…" He pointed to her and then to himself, repeating the movement in a rapid gesture that imitated the one she'd used two days before.

"This wine is delicious, but I'm drunk," she said then. "Should we move to tea?"

"If you were trying to brush off my comment on sex and relationship progress, I think you made a mistake in your choice of a subject change." He looked intently at her while savoring some more wine. "Tea is a charged word for us, remember, cara?"

"Oh, I do. Who said I was trying to brush off your comment?" She straddled his bare thighs, shifting the placement of the robe on his body so that suggestive shoulder would be completely naked.