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“Did you bring the Rose Kylix?” he asked.
“I did.”
“And you are interested in selling it to me?”
“For the right price,” she said.
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Does it matter?”
“Guess not,” he said, though his searching eyes said otherwise. “Let’s go up to my office.”
He led her down the front hallway and past a reception room. Crisp white-painted walls and pale gray tile floors. He led her to the front room, and she found the furniture all the same shade of elegant blue gray. Clean lines. Square tables. Many right angles.
“I hope you approve,” he said on the stairs going up.
“Very nice,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to go so modern, though. Antiques collectors usually have museums for houses.”
“You know what they called the Pantheon when it was first built?” August asked.
“What?”
“Modern architecture.”
Lia harrumphed. “We are amused.”
They walked down a short hallway. August paused outside an open door and ushered her inside. She started to enter but stopped on the threshold.
Lia looked at him. “You said your office.”
“This bedroom is my office.”
They stood inches apart from each other. He wore a too-innocent look on his too-handsome face.
She pointed her finger at that face. “We arenotamused.”
Lia entered his bedroom, keeping one eye on him the entire time.
Luckily, she wouldn’t have to sit on the bed. Not that it wasn’t a nice bed. It was a very nice bed. Not a king-size like she’d expected. A double only. An elegant low platform bed with a deep mattress and a thick gray suede comforter. A black metal frame surrounded it, like a canopy bed without the canopy. Very modern, almost space-age. And at each side sat two perfect black cubes for nightstands, bearing identical silver lamps. In front of the bed sat two tufted leather club chairs in front of a long gas fireplace. The whole setup put her in mind of a hotel room, a high-priced five-star modernist hotel room, tailor-made for deviant yet impersonal sex.
“You like it?” August asked.
“It’s quite...symmetrical.”
“Thank you,” he said. “This is where I have a lot of serious private conversations. The walls are soundproof.”
“Because of all the private conversations?”
“And the screaming orgasms.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Lia knew he hadn’t made a joke. Well, she admired a man who was good at his work.
Lia sat down in one of the two club chairs. He sat, too, but on the opposite chair arm, not in the seat. Trying to take the high ground in negotiations? She appreciated the tactic.
“Is that a real fireplace?” She eyed the long black rectangle that seemed built into the wall. “Or a fish tank...full of fire?”
“It’s an electric landscape fireplace. Marvelous invention. It’s blue fire. I love blue fire.” He sounded positively delighted.
